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Seanad Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 23 Jul 1958

Vol. 49 No. 11

Appropriation Bill, 1958 ( Certified Money Bill )— Second Stage.

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

The Appropriation Bill is a recurrent annual measure and follows stereotyped lines. The present Bill does four things: (a) it authorises the issue from the Central Fund of a balance for 1957-58 which was granted too late to enable it to be covered by the Central Fund Act, 1958; (b) it authorises the issue from the Central Fund of the balance of the amount granted for supply services for 1958-59 (i.e., the full amount less that already authorised by the Central Fund Act, 1958); (c) it empowers the Minister for Finance to borrow up to the limit of the issues provided for in (a) and (b); and (d) it appropriates to the several supply services the sums granted by the Dáil since the Appropriation Act of 1957.

The explanation of the individual sections and schedules of the Bill is as follows:—

Section 1 authorises the issue of £271,860 from the Central Fund to cover seven Supplementary Estimates for 1957-58 which were taken too late to enable them to be covered by the Central Fund Act, 1958. The Supplementary Estimates in question were:—

£

Miscellaneous Expenses (3rd)

200

Valuation and Boundary Survey

10

Office of the Minister for Justice

2,350

Garda Síochána

26,300

Circuit Court

8,250

Industry and Commerce (2nd)

230,000

International Co-operation

4,750

£271,860

Section 2 authorises the issue of £73,502,220 from the Central Fund thus supplementing the issue of £36,500,000 already authorised by the Central Fund Act, 1958, and bringing the total of authorised issues to £110,002,220 which is the amount shown in the Estimates Volume as required to meet the cost of the supply services in the current financial year.

Section 3 empowers the Minister for Finance to borrow up to £73,774,080 being the total of the amounts authorised by Sections 1 and 2 to be issued out of the Central Fund. The Minister is already authorised by the Central Fund Act, 1958, to borrow up to the limit of the sum authorised by that Act to be issued from the Central Fund for 1958-59 (£36,500,000).

The object of the provision about the Bank of Ireland is not to confer any special privilege upon that bank but to place it in the same position in the matter of lending to the Government as other banks. Under Section XI of the Statute of the Irish Parliament (21 and 22 Geo. 3, C. 16, A.D. 1781-82), under which the Bank of Ireland was established, the bank is liable to forfeit any moneys advanced or loaned by it to the Government unless the advance or loan is specifically authorised by Parliament. Section 4 appropriates to the specific services set out in Schedule B the sum of £118,329,717 which is the aggregate of the amount required for the supply services for 1958-59 (£110,002,220) and the Supplementary and Additional Estimates of 1957-58 (£8,327,497) which have not yet been appropriated because they were introduced after the passage of the Appropriation Act, 1957. The section also authorises the use of certain departmental receipts as appropriations in aid of the specific services mentioned in Schedule B.

Schedule A gives particulars of the issues out of the Central Fund authorised by the Central Fund Act, 1958, and the present Bill.

Schedule B sets out in detail the specific services to which the sums granted are to be appropriated and so forms the basis of the audit of the Appropriation Accounts carried out by the Comptroller and Auditor General.

We have so accustomed ourselves over the years to watch the growth of the Appropriation Bill that we have come to the point that we cannot pretend to be surprised, no matter how large the demand made by the Minister for Finance. However, when we come to the question of how that money is to be spent, there is an obligation on the Members of the House to express their views on the value the country is getting for the money. We had the practice in this House some years ago whereby Members were enabled to give notification of the particular aspects of Government policy they desired to discuss, and Ministers were made available to the House to give replies. As we all know, it is a very difficult matter to discuss Government policy on the Appropriation Bill. Every Department of State has money provided for it in this Bill, and we are entitled to examine what is being done in each Department. It is not a simple matter for any Member to jump across from one to another, from agriculture to health, to local government, to external affairs, and so on.

In that sense, the debate on Government policy here is definitely restricted and, perhaps, to a certain extent, to the detriment of the House and the country. I am saying that by way of comment because many Members of the House have wide experience in many fields. There are members of the agricultural and industrial communities here and many Members have experience of health and local government. What they have to say and what they think about the situation in the country at the moment ought to be of interest to any Minister for Finance.

In the first place, I want to make a few remarks in regard to our agricultural industry. This is an opportunity for the Seanad to review what we have done in the past and to look to the future. I have no desire to be unduly critical. After all, perhaps the only people who ever succeed in bringing about reformation in any field are the people who are critical of what is being done or what is not being done. The comment I have to make is that I do not know quite what we are after. I just do not know what the policy is. I get the feeling it is rather a policy of standstill and hesitation, not knowing whether we are to march straight along the road or go to the right or the left.

The country cannot afford that. The Minister cannot permit such an attitude of mind to be cultivated here. We can cultivate that attitude of mind by a policy of just doing nothing or remaining as we were. We know the difficulties in the dairying industry to-day. Those of us engaged in it are bound to be hesitant about what we will do in the future. There is no clear vision and no leadership. There is no pointing out what we are to do. There is no feeling of confidence amongst our farmers and governmentally we are not getting a lead.

That is a great defect. If people are in a difficulty in an industry, if they cannot see the light themselves and if their own leaders cannot see the light, in so far as the Government can aid them, it is their responsibility to do so. Milk prices were reduced because of the world situation in regard to butter. That has created an attitude of mind on the part of the dairy farming community where there is hesitancy, doubt and fear about the future. That is not good for progress. This country cannot afford to rest on its oars or sit still. We must go ahead all the time and get more out of our factories, our fields and our cows.

I have said in the past, and I repeat here to-day, that I do not think we have anything like enough cows in the country. We do not know the view of the Department of Agriculture on that point. If they have a view, we do not know it; it has not been expressed. My judgment is that we ought to set our faces towards increasing the number of cattle in the country—cows and dairy cattle. Whether or not we will process the milk into human food products, whether we will produce more live stock or eventually beef and dead stock, that is the aim we ought to have.

That ought to be tackled immediately because, concurrently with that, there must be a development in regard to grassland farming in the country. We are glad to see that development taking place all over the country, not to the extent we would like, but to the extent that we grow more and better grasses. It is much more popular to grow good grass now than it was 20 years ago. It was not the thing we wanted to cultivate at all then. We can only turn that grass into good money when we have beasts to eat it. All that must go hand in hand. Unless the Minister for Agriculture gives a lead in this matter—a stronger and more direct lead than has been given—the farmers are disposed to be hesitant. Many of them rest on their oars because they do not know whether to turn to the right or the left.

The country is in a sort of doldrums about wheat. This is not a problem about which I propose to talk a great deal to-day. In years gone by, I expressed my view. I think the Minister present was Minister for Agriculture at the time and I am sure he will recall what I said. I am not going back to the records and I do not want to weary the House with that sort of story.

The point I always tried to emphasise, in the early years, in regard to wheat-growing was that at best it meant 300,000 or 400,000 acres of land and that, as there were 10,000,000 or 11,000,000 arable acres, it was not what mattered with the wheat that was the most important point but obviously what mattered with the rest. The propagandists were too effective from the point of view of their own wellbeing—from the point of view of Party policy—but were too effective, also, from the country's point of view. We now have a sort of crisis about wheat which is affecting the people's capacity to concentrate on the remainder of the arable acres in the country.

As I see things, there is a lack of balance of thought, action and direction in regard to agricultural policy. That has to be put right. There ought not to be muddled and confused thinking. This is something which ought to be above Government. Farming policy should not change with changes of Government. In that sense, I think the country is growing up and that some of the political leaders have grown up and are appreciating that errors of thought and errors of policy in the past are now something we need not talk about or analyse unduly. We can accept that there were errors of thought in regard to Government policy and in regard to what was said about live stock in years gone by. We have learned our lesson but let us learn it all round. That is my plea.

I say to the Government as I say to the members of my own Party and to everybody in the country that what you do with 400,000 acres of land, highly productive and well-cultivated, does matter in the country's economy. It may matter a very great deal in certain circumstances, in times of emergency, and so on. Nevertheless, it matters much more what you do with the other 10,000,000 acres. There is too little thought about that. My plea is that there should be more thought and concentration on the policy we should pursue with regard to these acres.

I want to point to this fact. I have said we ought to increase the number of cows in the country and at least bring them up to 2,000,000. There are many reasons which I could advance for that doctrine. The price of store cattle to-day is extraordinarily high. We in this country are benefiting from the fact that the British are paying an enormous subsidy on beef and on the production of live stock generally. The small farmers of this country are benefiting by the £7 and £8 subsidy which is paid across the Border or in Britain for sucking calves. It is fabulous. When you examine it rationally, it does not seem that the economics of it can be sound. However, it is being done and pursued as part of a national policy.

It must also be remembered that, in Britain, they have developed their agriculture and, indeed, have gone far beyond us in their development. A big industrial community has subsidised the agriculturists to the extent of hundreds of millions in the year. Probably two-thirds of the farming income in Britain to-day comes from Government sources. That figure may not be correct but the fact is that it is an enormous amount. Therefore, their output has developed to something like 60 per cent. above the pre-war level. That is influencing our economy and it ought to influence our desire for development. It is definitely having an influence on cattle prices in this country.

To the extent that grassland farming has developed across the water and to the extent that they are not able to supply from their own herds the young animals to eat that grass, the demand must come from across the sea to us. We must be ready to meet it. It may prove to be a tremendous factor in our economy if we face up to it.

At the last sitting of this House, I referred briefly to one of the disabilities under which our farming community—and the nation as a whole— labour at the moment and will labour under in the year immediately ahead unless the problem of the eradication of bovine tuberculosis from our herds now is tackled. I addressed myself briefly to this point on the last sitting day inasmuch as it seemed to me that it could create a difficult problem in regard to our balance of payments in the future. It could, if we have not the animals available for export, and by "available", I mean available from the point of view of health.

Quite frankly, I do not want to make a difficult situation more difficult than it is. However, I have no use at all for the situation in which we find ourselves to-day with the Minister for Agriculture and, indeed, other Ministers, and all of us, if you like, talking about the eradication of T.B. from the herds of Ireland which at the moment, altogether, would be 4,500,000 when we have no veterinary staff dealing with the problem in the country. Whatever the difficulties may be, I urge the Minister for Finance to give every assistance. He can give one a knock but he can also—I will say it for him—be a mollifying influence. I urge him to take this problem in hands at once. Whatever the difficulties may be, whatever difficulties are turning veterinary officers out of the service of the Department into private practice to-day, and leaving me and my likes without a service and without veterinary officers in the county if we want to have our herds put under test by the Department, they must be surmounted for all our sakes and for the sake of the nation.

This is 1958. Next comes 1959 and then 1960. If our herds are not then clear, will somebody tell me what will happen to our small farmers if only half the cattle that should be available are available for export because of health conditions? It is a matter of the gravest importance for us all to-day. It is grave because we have not in our employment a sufficient number of veterinary officers to tackle this task with the energy and knowledge requisite, if we are to do the job in the time left to us.

It seems clear to me that the Minister will not have to pay out by way of subsidy anything like the amount which he has budgeted for towards maintaining the price of our bacon exports to Britain. It looks at the moment as if, bacon prices having risen there, he will have a surplus in hands. I would urge on the Minister that, rather than take back that amount by way of Appropriations-in-Aid, or whatever you like to call it, into the Exchequer, it ought to be utilised to assist in sustaining life in other branches of the agricultural industry which are to-day in dire straits.

I refer especially to the poultry industry. There, we have a branch of our agriculture which in days gone by was worth millions to our country. It is just barely living now. Nobody knows what its future will be. If there is to be a future for it, it must be kept alive in the interregnum. If the Minister is not prepared to help directly, I would urge him that, if savings accrue as a result of the price at present secured in Britain for our bacon, the funds ought to be made available for sustaining the poultry industry.

With regard to our cattle, I was present at a gathering at the Spring Show when a representative of one of the dairy breeds from England was speaking to one of the herds societies here. He said, in effect: "We are up against two problems in Britain. If we import from the Argentine we run the risk of importing foot and mouth disease. If we import from Ireland, will we import T.B.?" He asked: "Which will we choose?" Let us ponder on those words. That is the choice they will have to make for the future. If we get our cattle herds clear and free, it could very well be that the attitude of the British farmer, if his raw materials are to be available to him from this country, would be to close down on foreign imports of meat to a very considerable extent.

I should like now to go on to another topic which is somewhat removed from what I have been speaking about but is yet linked up with it. We will all have noticed that a considerable number of views have been expressed with vigour, emphasis and understanding on the importance of having more trade representatives in British cities. We all know that there are many who criticise the moneys we spend on our representatives abroad and there are some who would have us contract or close down our embassies and consulates abroad. I do not know quite what is in their minds, but I do not belong to that group. I am all for this little island making its presence felt in the world. Heaven knows, we had a paper wall in front of us for too many centuries, and if we spend a little bit more than we can wisely spend, that is understandable and is something for which we do not have to apologise.

It is our responsibility to the past, and our obligation to the future, to be represented among the people abroad, who know of Ireland and respect the opinions of the people of Ireland, who have a great admiration for many of our achievements and perhaps value our worth and place a higher estimate on our competence than sometimes we are prepared to do ourselves.

We are spending a fair amount of money on our representatives abroad and I think they do us credit, on the whole. I think they are worthy of the nation and it is only fitting that that should be said. In Britain, and I say this from my own experience and judgment, there is room for improvement in regard to the number of representatives in the larger cities. There are possibilities of trade development there which we must tackle and which we ought to tackle, and there are other possibilities as well. Hundreds of thousands of people have left this country over the years and recently we heard a figure mentioned of something over 57,000 Irish men and women who procured national health insurance cards in Britain last year.

These people are still a portion of the capital assets of the Irish nation and they ought not be neglected. Unfortunately, we know that many of them, far too many, are unequipped for the life into which they are catapulted in English cities. Too many of them are uninformed and have not got fully developed characters. Indeed, cities anywhere in the world are not the most suitable places for the development of young people who come from another land. In England, there are hundreds of thousands of our race, and if we had representatives in these cities who would act in part as trade representatives and as well as rallying centres for the young Irish men and women, it would be extremely helpful.

These men would be a sort of magnet and would attract the best of our people in these centres and build up a sort of community existence which, in turn, would draw in from the outer fringes those who are inclined to drift away from their traditions of nationhood, their religious traditions and their traditions of home life, as they know it here. Such a step could achieve an immense amount of good for our people in Britain and for Britain as a whole. I feel that that is a point of view that should receive consideration.

We know that to-day the Catholic Church is sending missionaries to Britain to speak to the young people of our Faith, to keep them on the road which they trod when they were here, but it should not be left to the Church alone. These people belong to the Irish nation; they are our brothers and sisters, and our sons and daughters; and I believe that if they were handled as they should be, they would be of immense strength to the Irish nation and to Britain itself. They would have great possibilities of providing informed opinion and thought in Britain. They could educate the millions of people in Britain who are ignorant in regard to this island, and let them know what our people are like.

There are just two other points on which I should like to dwell for a moment or two. Various Ministers have piloted a number of Bills through the House during this session. We had the Minister for Industry and Commerce here on a number of occasions when the Industrial Investment Bill was going through. The policy enshrined in that measure is to attract foreign capital to this country, for its development. Senator McGuire takes exception to the point of view presented to Europeans in regard to conditions of industrial development in this country. Senator McGuire has been a little further than his own townland and can speak with some knowledge on the reactions of Europeans towards declarations like that from this island. I do not know myself if they fit in too well with the kind of statements made on other occasions because it is difficult to harmonise the point of view of one who will speak with pride, and justifiable pride, of the achievements of this island in the seventh, eighth and ninth centuries, when its missionaries traversed Europe and brought civilisation and Christianity to areas where they were not known, and the point of view of one who rises up to-day and says we are undeveloped.

It is quite true that in ways we are not developed. We are not developed industrially. However, it would be a great mistake to suggest that industrial development was the only sign or mark of a developed people. That would be quite untrue. If it is the type of civilisation which is to be found in industrial cities in Britain that we want to have here, then I think there would be quite a number of people who would not be at all enamoured of that idea. I should like to hear Senator Stanford's opinions on that. It is a good thing, and quite justified, to attempt to get on with the work of development, but it is not at all simple, and we do not seem to be building the foundations we expected and we are certainly not getting the returns after all the words that have been expressed. This matter has been spoken about both in this House and outside it, in the U.S.A., Britain, Germany and practically every country on the Continent, but the fruits have yet to be gathered. The seeds have not yet started to sprout.

I suggest to the Minister that with the orientation in the whole matter of world travel, and the attitude of nation to nation, we should give more attention to making a much greater investment of our share of capital assets in the development of the tourist industry than we have thought of giving up to the present. I believe that there are vast areas in this country—there are areas in my county—which have never been touched by the foot of a tourist. Senator O'Reilly comes from an area not very far from me—some 20, 30 or 40 miles away. There is an area stretching from North Longford, Leitrim and down through the County Cavan to which tourists never dream of going. It is visited by none of those fishermen who catch tons of fish in a week. That area is completely undeveloped. It could be developed out of the resources available to the people in the area.

If some of the hundreds of thousands with which we seek to employ 200 or 300 people in some of our small towns were spent over a vast area, I am convinced it would do a great deal of good and would confer lasting benefits on the country. The benefits would be distributed over wide areas. Business people, the farming community and the country would benefit. It would benefit the country's sense of progress and its concept of what development is would not be perverted by the idea that you have only got to invite foreign technicians in with their money. We cannot wait much longer for the sort of development I suggest. We should turn our thoughts upon ourselves; ascertain the assets available to us and try if we can to provide ourselves with the capital to develop these assets.

There is a Minister in the Cabinet who is a very active and, I would say, an intelligent Minister. He talks a great deal about fisheries and forestry. I will not make any comment on fishery policy, except to say that he is putting very hard work into it and eventually good will come from it. The point I want to make is in reference to the development of our forests. At times, it is difficult to know what exactly is our policy in this connection. The area is up one year and down the next. The Minister has changed the policy somewhat.

A number of years ago, I suggested to a previous Minister that at least some thought should be given to the idea of interesting the small farmers and hillmen in the more remote and hilly areas of the country in afforestation. The people who reside in areas where forests are to be developed should be given a share in the forests by the State. It might be only a small share. I am convinced that the wisest national policy for us to pursue would be to invite those people to become shareholders in the forests.

Although such a policy would not be easy to operate, it would do two things. If you are to have forests and operate them when they are developed, manpower must be available. It would be far sounder economics to have the manpower living reasonably adjacent to the forest. Such a scheme is in operation in Sweden and I think it is in operation in Norway also. Furthermore, if men have shares in the forests, they will have a sense of duty and responsibility in regard to what is their own. They will do their utmost to protect their property against that most disastrous thing of all—the forest fire. They will be interested to see the wanderers and the strangers who might come amongst them and they will be interested to see what they are doing with the property. The development of forests in the more remote parts of this country always provides a problem in regard to fire.

I should like to spend some time discussing problems of health and local government, but I feel that the points I have made are ample for one member of the House. I hope the Minister will give some attention to the suggestions and I hope that the people on the opposite side will not think that I have been too critical of the defects in their agricultural policy.

The matter I want to raise is, I think, not particularly appropriate to this Bill, but I have had no other opportunity of raising it. I think it is of such serious import that it must be raised before this House goes into recess. I am going to criticise a member of the Government—a Minister. I refer to the specific undertakings given by the Minister for Industry and Commerce during the passage of the Tea (Purchase and Importation) Bill, 1957, through this House. The Minister for Industry and Commerce gave a public guarantee that certain things would be done. His undertaking has been broken. I failed to get any satisfaction from the Minister and I have met with nothing but evasion and delaying tactics, so much so that the first opportunity upon which I could get the matter raised was in the Dáil on the night of its recess, but the Minister refused to answer any question there. Now this House is about to rise and this is the only opportunity I have to raise the matter.

I hope the House will bear with me as I have some rather extensive quotations to make. A very large sum of money is involved but what is involved more is the dignity of this House and the system of Parliamentary Government, as we know it. I now refer to Volume 49, No. 5, column 444 of the Official Reports. I asked the Minister:—

"What precise difference will there be between tea merchants who do not join this company and who import tea from the East and who have to import it through the company machine? What precise difference will there be in the advantage or disadvantage that will accrue to them?

Here is the reply:—

"Mr. S. Lemass: None that I know of."

Let me quote from column 448:—

"Mr. Barry: Would the Minister indicate in figures, so that I could understand, what disadvantage it is to those who do not become members or shareholders?

Mr. S. Lemass: They suffer no disadvantage."

At column 450, the Minister for Industry and Commerce said:—

"... I am trying to convince Senator Barry that it makes no difference to traders if they are in this company or not..."

Later in the same column the Minister said:—

"What the Senator will be charged will depend on the services which the Senator requires. If the Senator requires this company to act as his agent, presumably they will charge an agency fee. Alternatively, he may buy the tea himself anywhere he likes —in Timbuctoo or anywhere else— and the company will recover for the service of shipping the tea in bulk to him only the proportionate cost of the freight.

Mr. Barry: At precisely the same rate as it charges its own members?

Mr. S. Lemass: At precisely the same rate.

Mr. Barry: I want that clearly understood in this House.

Mr. Baxter: That is the Minister's answer on that point?

Mr. S. Lemass: Certainly. I have been saying that for the last five minutes. I am glad it has penetrated.

Mr. Baxter: The Minister did not say it clearly."

Let me quote from column 455:—

"Mr. Barry:... I am accepting the Minister's statement that there is no disadvantage whatever in remaining outside this company——"

That ends the quotations from the debate. I think they are very clear. I was very pleased at the clearness with which the Minister answered my questions. I felt he was rather peeved at the pertinacious way I followed him in this matter. At any rate, I got the information I required.

Subsequently, a firm of tea merchants in the south-east of this country wrote to me. They were large wholesale merchants and they had apparently followed the course of the debate. They said that the Minister's undertaking was not being carried out, that the company in question, Tea Importers (1958) Limited, had made a proposal to them that if they wanted to get tea shipped from the East, as well as paying the freight, carriage and insurance charges, they would also have to pay a tax to the company of 3d. per lb. I wrote back and said that could not be so, because I had the Minister's firm guarantee that such would not happen. However, I was worried and I wrote to the Minister; and I must quote now the letter I sent. It is dated 30th June, 1958, and reads:—

"Dear Minister,

A paragraph in a memo from Tea Importers (1958) Limited, dated 20th June, says that ‘where the company is called upon to act for a registered wholesaler who is not a shareholder of the company, an agency commission of 5 per cent. On the f.o.b. purchase price will be charged'.

This would run into a fabulous amount of money and directly contradicts your undertaking to me in the Seanad that non-members would not suffer disadvantage.

It would add threepence per lb. to the other charges being made by the company for handling. This would, in turn, be added to commissions paid to firms in Calcutta who buy on behalf of non-member firms in Ireland and would, efficiently, render such importers non-competitive."

I dated that letter 30th June, but I had to wait 12 days for the reply from the Minister.

The letter will be made available in the Library?

Yes, I will lay all the letters before you. I received a reply from the Minister, dated 10th July. I got it on the 12th, but too late to get a parliamentary question put down before the Dáil rose. It said:—

"I received your letter of the 30th June——"

I may skip that paragraph, as it is a requotation. He goes on to say:

"It does not seem to me to be an unreasonable proposition that a non-shareholder in the company should be expected to pay a fee to the company for acting as his agent and I said in the Seanad that an agency fee would be charged."

I am going to leave that letter there. I felt that the word "agency" was ambiguous, and I wrote to the Minister on 12th July:—

"Dear Minister,

Will you please clarify the following:—If I purchase tea independently of the company, do I understand clearly (as stated by you in columns 450 and 451 of the Seanad Debates) that no charges will accrue to me outside the common charges for transport insurance, etc?"

I had to wait another seven days for a reply to that. I got it on last Monday evening. There was no reply whatever made to the point, but it repeated the first letter and it was—I am saying this deliberately—a completely evasive reply, not signed by the Minister but signed by his secretary. I have given the appropriate details and I feel the House should be interested. My main purpose is to comment on the breaking of a public undertaking by a Minister.

As to the proposal itself, that this company should levy a tax of 3d. per lb. on its competitors who are enterprising enough to do what the law requires of them—to buy from the countries of origin—it is an impertinent proposal that any citizen should oppose. It was a custom in the Middle Ages that the king rewarded certain of his subjects, for services rendered, by bestowing on them the proceeds of certain taxes on imports. In 1958 surely this Parliament is not going to give a Minister power to bestow similar privileges on a small group here—to allow that small group to levy taxation on a larger group and effectively on the entire community. That I will resist and that is the reason for my insistence on this point during this Bill's progress.

This company has obtained from this House power of monopoly in the matter of transporting and insuring this tea—and for that service they are allowed a State guaranteed gilt-edged profit of 10 per cent. Surely they do not want more? The Minister, who stated in this House that the company should only get reward for the services it rendered, now states that he does not think the proposal unreasonable. Thus, he denies a specific undertaking. I would ask the House to regard this matter as of grave public importance which reflects on the dignity of this House and on the integrity of the Minister for Industry and Commerce.

I had hoped to get the Minister for Industry and Commerce here by hook or by crook, but he has failed to come and he has stated publicly in the other House that he would not receive me in his own office. I think Senators and people outside should ask the reason why.

I am afraid I have not very much to add in this debate to what I said on the Vote on Account and on the Finance Bill. The simple truths which I attempted to enunciate on those occasions gain nothing by repetition. At the same time, it may be important to keep repeating them, because, if repeated sufficiently often, they may carry some weight in certain quarters not yet convinced. I shall give a few examples of what I might call elementary propositions which I think it necessary to emphasise in these debates. One, for example, is that a Government or a country must live within its means. Another is that no country can spend itself into prosperity. The third is that high taxation may have undesirable effects on a community by the disincentive effect on saving, investment and work. The fourth is that high taxation is inevitable, if Government expenditure is high. The fifth is that the best way to increase employment in a country is to keep down taxation to the minimum level.

These are a few of the truths which seem to have received widespread acceptance in political circles to-day. At the same time, I think it necessary to keep on repeating them, in order to give the Minister for Finance moral support against the ever-increasing claims which are made from various quarters upon the public purse. The Minister for Finance has started the present financial year with the best possible resolutions. The Budget is balanced—at least, on paper—but, of course, between now and the end of the financial year, it is very likely that there will be a number of Supplementary Estimates. I know the Minister finds it impossible to resist all the claims which may result in Supplementary Estimates; but I ask him very earnestly, from the point of view of the public good, to resist claims and to refuse all claims for Supplementary Estimates, except for expenditure of a productive kind, of a kind that will tend to increase the wealth of the country and not merely redistribute it.

I think that this attitude on the part of the Minister is necessitated by the economic background of the country at the present time. As the Minister himself said in the Dáil, introducing the Estimate for his Department, the country at the moment is in a position of stability. It is neither progressing nor declining. The year 1957 was, by all the accepted criteria, a year of slow progress. Agricultural production, industrial production, employment and savings all increased slightly during the year. The external assets of the country also increased.

As far as one can see, the prospects for 1958, though not bad, are not quite so good as for 1957. In the first six months of the year, the increase in imports was greater than the increase in exports but the damage done to the balance of payments on that account was reduced by the improvement in the terms of trade. I think it is not unreasonable to forecast that the present year will end without either a surplus or a deficit in the balance of payments. If that forecast is correct, on the one hand, no restrictive measures of a kind which might cause unemployment will be necessary, but, on the other hand, no measures of expansion which might cause disequilibrium in the balance of payments are justified.

When the balance of payments is just barely in equilibrium, as it seems to be going to be in this year, a domestic expansion would lead to a deficit. A deficit in the balance of payments is generally agreed to be something which should, if possible, be avoided because it would result in a drain on our external assets.

Perhaps it might not be out of place on this last occasion before the recess to say a few words as to why this loss of external assets is regarded generally by economists, bankers and financiers as a very undesirable thing. It might be argued that, in view of the very large external assets held in the Irish Republic, the country could afford to run a deficit on its current account. I think a very important distinction must be made between the liquid external assets in the banking system which are available for making current payments and the very large external investments, for example, stocks and shares in British companies, which are held by private people.

I do not think it is sufficiently appreciated in some of the discussions on this subject that the only external assets immediately available for paying for imports are the liquid assets in the banking system. The privately-held investments are not at the disposal of the banks or the Central Bank or the Government, and anything in the nature of compulsory mobilisation of those assets would inflict a great injury on the credit of the country. It would be a war measure which would be justified only in circumstances of extreme urgency. Therefore, we must rule out anything in the nature of a raid on private investments and we must emphasise that the only assets available for meeting deficits in the current balance of payments are the assets in the banking system.

Those assets have, by general agreement, sunk to a dangerously low level. It is true that, as a result of the better year in 1957, they ceased to decline and they later increased; but, even at the present level, they are a great deal less than they were some years ago and nobody, I think, would suggest that their level is not rather dangerously low.

It must be understood that, as long as the present monetary arrangements in this country prevail, a further loss of external assets will necessarily lead to an internal credit restriction. As long as the basis of our monetary system remains what it is, the capacity to expand internal credit depends on the possession of liquid external assets. Whether that is the best of all currency systems which could be devised in this country is a matter of opinion and a matter of another day's debate; but, taking things as they are and taking the currency, banking and financial structures as they are and as they have to be worked at the present time, a further loss of external assets would lead to a restriction of internal credit which would result in unemployment and, probably, further emigration.

It is sometimes argued that a deficit on current account caused by the importation of capital goods would justify further depletion of the external assets. That is an argument with which I do not agree. In the first place, if that principle were accepted, the door would be open to some very dangerous evasions. It is extraordinarily difficult to draw the line in the import list between capital and consumption goods. The same physical goods may be capital goods, if they are used for certain purposes and consumption goods if they are used for other purposes. If raw materials are to be used for the building up of exports, they are entitled to be regarded, I suppose, as capital goods. If on the other hand, they are to be used for domestic consumption, then they are consumer goods.

The same is true of stocks. The same physical commodity may either be coming in to be immediately consumed or may be coming in to rebuild dealers' stocks. By any definition of investment, accumulation of stocks more rapidly than stocks are being consumed is equal to adding to the liquid capital of the country and, therefore, the same goods that sometimes might be regarded as consumption goods at other times might be regarded as capital goods. Therefore, my first objection to this argument is the extreme difficulty in distinguishing between capital and consumption goods in the import list.

It seems to me that if private investors in the country, that is to say, the people who build up capital, want foreign capital goods, they can liquidate part of their sterling investments in order to pay for them; or, if they do not possess sterling investments themselves, they can induce other people to liquidate part of their investments if they issue a prospectus or otherwise hold out the hope to investors that such an exchange of foreign investments for internal investment would be a profitable proposition.

Furthermore, if the Government or other public authorities wish to expend money on a capital programme, they, of course, have to issue loans. If those loans are on attractive terms, if the purpose of the loans and the terms on which they are issued are such as to appeal to private investors, such persons can decumulate part of their external investments in order to subscribe to the loans.

What I am trying to suggest is that, if there is an importation of capital goods which will be used for investment in Ireland, which is financed by the sale by private investors of external securities or by their subscribing to Government loans to which they subscribe partly by the liquidation of external securities, such an importation of capital may cause disequilibrium for the time being in the balance of payments. Imports will tend to exceed exports while the capital goods are being imported. But such a deficit will not cause any drain on the liquid assets in the banking system because those assets will now be replenished and reinforced by the sale of the external securities.

The same is equally true of investment by foreigners. If foreign investors decide to invest capital in Ireland, the requisite currency for the purchase of capital imports will be provided by the foreign investors in foreign currencies, without making any raid on the liquid assets of the Irish banking system.

If that analysis of the situation is correct, it seems to me that there should be no difficulty in the way of obtaining external capital in this country, without any pressure on the liquid assets in the banks. If attractive investment opportunities present themselves, there is a sufficient amount of external capital in the country, outside the banking system, to enable people to raise large amounts of sterling and other foreign currencies to purchase all the capital goods they require. A swap of that kind—because that is really what it comes to—will not take place unless the people with the external capital assets come to the conclusion that the return on the new investment of capital in Ireland will be greater than what they lose by the decumulation of their existing capital assets. In other words, they will be motivated by the perfectly correct business desire of increasing the return on their investments.

If external capital assets can be used to purchase capital goods which, when invested in Ireland, would give a higher return than the return on those capital assets from abroad, then everybody has benefited and nobody has lost. All that would have happened would be that the owners of the capital would have decided to exchange their investment from one direction to another and, as I said, working under the impetus of private self-interest, they presumably would be exchanging them, or at least trying to exchange them, from a less profitable to a more profitable form.

That is what, I think, is meant by saying, as is so frequently said, that there is no shortage of capital in Ireland to purchase capital from abroad. In the sense that I have tried to explain it, I believe it is true. However, to say that there is no shortage of liquid assets in the banking system to purchase either capital or consumer goods is not true. There is not sufficient abundance of liquid assets in the banking system to do more than just pay for what is paid for by the exports of the country. The only part of the external assets of the last two or three years that could be legitimately invested abroad by the purchase of capital goods would be, in my opinion. the small surplus of last year. That small surplus could be used for that purpose, but it is not very likely to be repeated this year and, therefore, in its absence, the correct way to pay for caital goods is by the sale by private people of existing external securities.

To come back to the Appropriation Bill, because I am trying to be relevant to this debate, if the Government— after all, we are discussing the policy of the Government—wishes to increase investment in this country by the importation of capital goods from abroad, the best way the Government can do it is to create a favourable atmosphere for investment. The Government has the power within very wide limits to alter the business atmosphere of the country. This matter was fully discussed a few weeks ago in this House on the Bill for the encouragement of external investment and I do not intend to go over that field again. The only thing I want to repeat is that it was generally agreed, nobody dissenting, that the atmosphere for investment in Ireland will depend to a very large extent on the level of taxation and on the incentives in the taxation system, many of which in recent times have been specially designed, successfully I hope, to encourage investment for the production of exports by Irish and foreign investors.

If capital came in in that way, if Irish holders of external assets were to liquidate them in order to import capital goods, that would be a true repatriation of Irish capital in the strict sense of the word. The savings which have been sent abroad in previous years would now come home. It would be exactly the same as if emigrants who went abroad to earn their living decided that the opportunities of earning a living here were better and came back to the country voluntarily. It would be an entirely healthy sign. If, in addition to that, foreign people were investing in Ireland, stimulated by the business prospects which, as I said, can be very largely affected by Government policy, the situation would be even better. In addition to the emigrants returning we would have a number of immigrants as well. In either case there would be no pressure on the liquid assets in the banking system and, therefore, no need for anything like a restriction of credit.

These are some of what I have described as the simple principles, which seem to me to be correct. These are the kind of principles that economists and bankers believe and feel they should preach. It is the duty of the Minister to translate these principles into practice. All that can be done by Senators, by members of the Dáil, by bankers or economists is to try to enunciate what we hope are sound doctrines, but it is for the Minister to put them into practice. I know that he has a great many difficulties to overcome, that he is being pressed on all sides for further expenditure, but, as I said here last year, the Minister is in a very strong position. He has a majority and he has security of tenure as far as we can see. Therefore, it is his duty to put principles before popularity in the finances of the State. These principles have been consistently proclaimed for many years by the Banking Commission, by the Central Bank, by the chairmen of the commercial banks and by the majority of the students of economics in the country. The Irish patient has not lacked the advice of many physicians.

It is interesting to see that new foreign consultants from O.E.E.C., the International Monetary Fund and the International Finance Corporation, are being called in to deal with the patient. I should be very much surprised if the advice of these external consultants differs from that of the old family doctor who has been attending to the patient for so many years. We all know from our own private experience that very often the consultant who is called in may know a great deal about some narrow subject, but that, when it comes to dealing with the patient, he does not know as much about the background, habits, circumstances or constitution of the patient as the family doctor does. Therefore, I would ask the Minister for Finance not to be bemused by new-fangled drugs, panaceas and nostrums prescribed for the patient by these external advisers. The old family doctor very often knows as much about medicine as the consultant and he knows more about the patient. Finally, what is not to be overlooked, his fee is a good deal lower and for that reason, he is not to be despised.

On all these problems about economics, you can divide men into two camps, the men who want to do something and the men who do not. I am in the camp of people who want to do something. Let us have no doubt about that. If Senator O'Brien, my senior colleague in the college, appears to me to be in the camp of men who do not want to do anything, I suppose that is a matter of opinion. When he tells us that the liquid assets had sunk to a dangerously low level, when they were equal to one year's gross imports, we may ask how does the sterling area survive when the total liquid assets of the sterling area are equal to about ten or 11 weeks' imports of Britain alone? How does Britain survive in those circumstances? How does it carry on 50 per cent. of the trade of the world in those circumstances?

I notice my colleague did not use a single figure during all his statements on general principles. That is fair enough. Sometimes an excessive use of figures is very bad and I do not disagree with him on that, but when you are discussing monetary matters, it is essential to consider the figures. Senator O'Brien may say to me: "Well, look at the dangerous position the sterling area is in." Senator O'Brien's statement was unreal when he said that we must rule out anything like a raid on private investments abroad. Who has ever suggested it? He has stated that you must rule out something that nobody has ever suggested. I have never seen a suggestion that private investment abroad should be raided by anybody. Never anywhere in the proposals of the wildest currency crank was this suggested. Accordingly, as Deputy Costello said in the Dáil the other day, it is like driving nails into a fog when you deal with these proposals.

I should like to ask a question about a development I have noticed over the last three or four years. Why is it that in this period of three or four years back we see such a tremendous accretion of new volumes, quarterly volumes, reports from the Central Bank and commercial banks? They are all designed for one purpose—to defend the existing system and to support the idea of our liquid assets being kept in British Government securities. That is what I am speaking of and nothing else—the system of investing our liquid assets in decaying securities. I did not hear one word to-day from my colleague, Senator O'Brien, about the immense real loss this country has incurred over the last 20 years—certainly since 1938—through the fact that our liquid assets are invested in these decaying British securities. I have never been contradicted by anybody when I make the statement that these securities are decaying continuously—never once.

The British over-taxed this country in the last century to the tune, it was calculated by a British Royal Commission, of £2,500,000 a year. The native politicians calculated that 100 years at £2,500,000 would be £250,000,000, but the statisticians and financiers said it would be the equivalent of the interest, whatever the £2,500,000 represented in terms of interest over the period. In other words, you should capitalise the £2,500,000 and multiply that by ten or whatever number of years it may be. Anybody can make up that and decide for himself whether it is £250,000,000 or not. I am prepared to allow anybody to decide that for himself.

In the present century, we had a major political feature, in the late 20s and 30s—the land annuities—which were £3,000,000 a year. It became a major political question whether or not they should be paid to Britain for the remainder of their life-period —30 or 40 years. They are not being paid to Britain, but instead we are paying Britain every year the devaluation, which is 4 to 5 per cent., on this investment in British Government securities, on £200,000,000, or whatever is the excess over a reasonable amount wanted for trade.

I notice that the Minister, to a certain extent but not too arbitrarily, threw some cold water on what I said on the last occasion about how much a reasonable amount would be for trade. But I shall come back to that again and refer to what he said was my reference to a speech in the Dáil on a previous day.

Perhaps I did my colleague an injustice, owing to the strong views I hold on this subject, because he did say that we might use the small surplus accumulated on our balance of payments last year. That "small surplus", as Deputy Costello pointed out in the Dáil, means that commercial banks and the Central Bank have accumulated £28,000,000 in London over the past 28 months. Somebody might take that up statistically and say that it did not start 28 months ago but only 23 months ago. I make them a present of that point. Much of that surplus was accumulated at a time when most other countries were pulling out of London. It may be that the British will be kind to us as a result of this and say that we are among their supporters or they may feel, as I do, that it is useless to expect a mouse to hold up an elephant. The British may feel they are the elephant and they may not even notice the mouse.

Yes, it has happened. I notice among the most conservative people—except in this matter I might number myself amongst them —the continuous reference to the idea that if we use up more of these liquid assets to develop our own country, it will result in further unemployment and further emigration. I may be asked what is my proposal and I shall come to it later and develop it at some length. I have heard it suggested many times that if we used up these external assets, we would have mass unemployment. But what have we had twice in the present decade but mass unemployment? What does one want in relation to mass unemployment? We have had over 11 per cent. of our insured workers unemployed twice in the last decade, once last year and again in 1953. If one takes the year as a whole, the figures were higher in 1953 than last year, despite the fact that everything was supposed to be right——

They were never as high as in March, 1957.

The number of unemployed last year, taking the year as a whole, was not greater than in 1953 as a percentage of the number of insured workers.

March, 1957 had the highest.

There is no point in interrupting me——

An Leas-Chathaoirleach

Senator Lenihan will be able to make his speech later.

I am delighted to hear Senator O'Donovan being annoyed at interruptions.

I do not mind them at all——

An Leas-Chathaoirleach

Senator Ó Maoláin should set a good example.

——but I feel it is necessary to retort to them on some occasions. I think we must be honest with ourselves. I cannot help feeling the fact that what the Banking Commission reported in 1938, when sterling was the strongest currency in the world, and British Government securities the strongest in the world, has no more to do with the problem that faces the country to-day than whether a man could get some kind of wheelless cart to take his family home from Mass on a Sunday. I am sure there was a time when a man did take his family home from Mass in a wheelless cart and that the man who first used a cart with wheels was regarded as an extraordinary figure in the neigh-bourhood. That is how I feel about it.

There is one further statement I wish to make on this subject. We have had all this talk about reducing our external assets. The Minister for Lands has said that we have reduced our sterling assets by £200,000,000 in the past ten years, but if that is so, how is it our income is no less? Could anybody answer that? The income from the country's foreign assets appears to be still as big as—if not bigger than—in 1947.

Because it is soundly invested.

What is soundly invested?

The Central Bank has made sound investments.

The Senator does not understand my question.

An Leas-Chathaoirleach

The Senator should address the Chair.

Figures produced by the Central Statistics Office show a decline in our gross external assets of £225,000,000. If there was a decline of £225,000,000, why has not our income from investments abroad gone down by an amount equivalent to the income from £225,000,000? Nothing of the kind has happened and for the very good reason that these assets have not been spent. I got the capital values from the Central Statistics Office with great difficulty a couple of years ago. I had to prise the information out and the Department of Finance tried to prevent me getting it. These capital values were calculated for me by the then Director of the Central Stastistics Office and the Department of Finance complained because I had got them.

What did I find? I gave the figures in the debate in the Dáil that year on the Vote on Account. There was no decline at all in our external investments; they were of the same value. Of course, it was different money and there was a plus. There was an amount we borrowed on the American Loan Counterpart Fund. There was that as a plus and there was also an increase in the value of investments in industrial securities in Britain to offset th investment in British Government securities.

What would you spend that money on if you had it?

I will come back to it. I am going to make it cogently here again.

An Leas-Chathaoirleach

Senator Lenihan will have an opportunity to answer. I will call on him if he stands up.

I wish to speak on another matter in connection with the provisions in this Bill. I spoke previously here about the necessity to spend more money on university education. I could argue it would be essential that in many parts of the country we should spend more money on what is called in Britain, grammar education, on what is called in America, high-school education, and what we call secondary education, but, to my mind, our primary requisite is in the institution to which I am attached, University College, Dublin.

The grant to the Faculty of Agriculture in Dublin is the same as it was prewar, except for the increases to meet the cost of living bonuses given to the staff, due to the rise in prices. That grant was fixed in 1926, 30 years ago, when there were about 30 students in the Faculty of Agriculture and 30 other students were attending a one-year course, which was not worth much then, and which has gone since. There are now 400 students and the grant is still the same, that is, the Government grant. Last year, it was necessary to build new laboratories in the college and they were built out of the depleted resources of University College, Dublin, and cost somewhere in the region of £15,000 to £20,000. At the same time, the Department of Agriculture was spending £250,000 on Johnstown Castle, fixing up dry rot and half a dozen other things.

I notice in the Estimates for the year 1957-58 there was an allocation of £30,000 for private agricultural schools, and this year there is an allocation of £60,000 for private agricultural schools. Why the remarkable difference? Why is no more money allocated by any Minister for Agriculture, no matter what Government he belongs to, to University College, Dublin, where the only Faculty of Agriculture in the country is? A more important question is that of the grants to the university as a whole. The President of University College, speaking at the last graduation ceremony a couple of weeks ago, pointed out that Queen's University, Belfast, with 3,000 students, had an allocation of £1,000,000 a year, and that the grants to all the Irish universities given here in the Republic are £670,000 a year, while there are 8,000 students in the combined universities and colleges of this country. Those 8,000 students have allocated to them two-thirds of the amount of money, in parity of value with sterling, which is allocated to 3,000 students in Queen's University, Belfast.

Of these 8,000 students, half attend University College, Dublin, and, not alone that, but the more expensive faculties are in University College, the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, the Faculty of Architecture, the Faculty of Agriculture and so on—all the more expensive faculties. It is easy enough to run a liberal Arts College. They exist by the hundred, almost, in the United States and they do excellent work, and I am not decrying their work. I am just saying that they can carry on more easily. The grants were readjusted two or three years ago on a purely mechanical basis, a 20 per cent. increase to each institution, and no increase was made to University College, Dublin, though it had 1,000 more students than when the grants were previously allocated in 1950.

Let me put it in blunt terms. Do we want to starve the Catholics of Dublin of university education? That is what we are doing. This fight has gone on for more than a century. First and foremost, do we believe in university education, or do we want to starve the Catholics of Dublin of proper university facilities? I hope, and I believe, that the Government will look after that, but I think it is right and proper that it should be stated in the bluntest terms.

I come now to the point Senator Lenihan was asking me about. I believe that one of the fundamental needs in this country, to keep the rural part of our economy going and to push it ahead, is a proper system of agricultural credit. Let me start with the report of the Agricultural Credit Corporation "to be presented to the shareholders at the 31st annual meeting at 11 Kildare Street, on Wednesday, 30th July, 1958, at 3 p.m." What does that show? It shows that if you add together the loans guaran teed by the Minister for Agriculture and other loans last year, you get a total of approximately £2,400,000 made available to the farmers and outstanding at 30th April, 1958. What do you find for the previous year? You find nearly £2,600,000. There was a drop of something of the order of £200,00 in the last year.

During the Central Fund debate in this House, the Minister, although I had not raised the matter at all, came back to the House and decried the steps taken by the previous Government, just before they went out of office, to attempt to put a proper system of agricultural credit in operation. I notice that the Minister's mind is on this subject a great deal and I will await with great interest his proposals on this matter. He has referred to it on a number of occasions. At column 320 of the Seanad Debate on 27th March, 1958, the Minister outlined the scheme under which a person might get a short term loan, if his valuation did not exceed £50—that covers the great bulk of our farmers—a loan equal to ten times his valuation, subject to a limit of £250, and providing the farmer is prepared to consult the agricultural instructor.

I think it was a well rounded-off scheme. What happened when it got into the State Departments? What did they do with it? The scheme was launched. The number of applicants in the first month or so—nobody would apply after the first month in view of what happened—was 707 and the number not qualified was 516. At that time the Minister said he did not know anything about it—he learned it only that morning. He learned it only that morning when provided with these figures: loans sanctioned, £17,560; number of loans refused, 43. In other words, 120 applicants were sanctioned out of 707. Why were they not qualified? For the simple reason that the Department of Finance put in the stipulation that any man who ever got a six-day notice for his annuities was not a qualified person. Is that kind of thing honest? I do not think it is, and I am not afraid to say it here or anywhere else. To be quite frank, I could not say what I really think about it in the Seanad.

Let me just add this much. I notice that the chairman of the Agricultural Credit Corporation has been changed. I must say I regret very much one remark made by the Minister during a discussion elsewhere about it. I thought it was a shameful remark to make, but let us pass that. If the Minister's new chairman does this job well by this time next year, I certainly will clap him on the back. I do not mind if he is a first cousin of the Minister's the Minister's brother or the Minister's son, if he does the job well, he will do good work for this country.

I want to come now to the question of my analysis on the second last day in this House of the figure of national income. I took the figure of national income commonly accepted as such in ordinary discourse. That was the first figure in the table that Senator Lenihan subsequently took out of the volume of the Statistical Survey. I deflated it by 6 per cent. Strictly speaking, if I were being accurate, I could have deflated it by more because the value of money declined in the early part of last year.

The final column.

The final column included indirect taxation, less subsidy. Indirect taxation is added on, and when you deduct the subsidies, you are left with a much bigger sum.

That explains nothing.

It is the way the final column was made up. What is the use of the Senator making stupid remarks like that? Why does the Senator want to make an ass of himself?

Which Senator?

Gross national expenditure. You get the national income and you add on to it indirect taxation and subtract food subsidies. If the food subsidies are cut, you have less to subtract.

At constant market prices.

Is the Senator talking about gross national product or an index number of some kind? Would he make up his mind?

The final column.

The Senator can deal with it again.

An Leas-Chathaoirleach

That is the best way.

Senator Ó Ciosáin said that we had said very little about the cost of living.

I said you said very little about full employment.

No, with all respect. Having been caught out before, I came here to-day furnished with my references. Would the Senator look at column 947 of the debates:—

"I notice that very little reference was made by the speakers opposite to the cost of living and to the question of unemployment."

Unemployment, yes.

Well, now, Senator. I am either right or wrong. Which is it? Be honest about it. Was I right or wrong?

The Senator is not at the Commerce Society now.

I did not ask for the interruption. If I got it, I am entitled to answer it. I take it it is answered? I did refer to the cost of living, not at great length. A few other people also referred to it, not at great length. The cost-of-living index went up by 11 points in three years while the previous Government were in office. It went up by 11 points in one year when the new Government came into office. That ought to be enough to say about that, except that I have an important point I should make. When replying to the debate the last day, the Minister suggested I had not been accurate about a matter to which I referred. Before I go on to it, it would be better if I dealt first with the debate on the Taoiseach's Estimate in the Dáil. In the Dáil on 17th July, Mr. de Valera said in relation to the volume of the Statistical Survey to which we all referred the last day:—

"This volume indicates that the year 1957... was, as I have more than once described it, a year of economic recovery in many respects."

Then, the same as the Quarterly Review of the Irish banks and the same as all the speakers, he gets bogged down:—

"The real national income increased; agricultural output increased."

He can produce no other statistic. I produced a flood of real things the last day I spoke here—the huge increase in emigration, the fantastic increase in the number of people unemployed, the decline in the number of people employed, a decline of 100,000 since Deputy MacEntee came into office.

The Senator is not serious that there has been an increase in unemployment.

Here is what the Taoiseach said about it, at column 847:—

"There was not a corresponding increase in industry: employment in manufacturing industry was slowly increasing; unemployment was slightly diminishing ..."

Just imagine these diminutives.

The Senator said it was increasing.

This soft language. What did he have to say about emigration? At column 850:—

"In regard to emigration, as I have said in reply to questions in the past, we have no definite figures on which we can absolutely rely, but any indications there are show that emigration is still running at a high level."

Notice the word "still". Did it not increase by 20,000 to 25,000 last year?

That is what the Senator says. Nobody else says it.

What does Senator Lenihan mean?

Where does the Senator get his figures?

You can get them in the British House of Parliament.

A lot of queer things came from there.

An Leas-Chathaoirleach

Senator O'Donovan must be permitted to make his speech without interruption. If some Senators do not like it, they will have an opportunity of answering later. There must be order.

Senators asked for it. I shall read it out for them. The reference is column 850 of the Official Report. The Taoiseach said: "When you have not got any accurate figures, anybody can stand up and say that the rate is 10,000 more than it was before, or 10,000 less than it was before." Not at all. I did not say that. It was 20,000 more than it was before.

On what basis?

Wait and hear from the Taoiseach's own words. I am quoting from the same column of the Official Report, Volume 170, No. 6, of the 17th July of this year. He said: "We have no means of knowing definitely what emigration is at present." Note the word "definitely". In other words, to the last digit—you know that kind of game—to the last digit of accuracy.

Stop parsing and give us the quotation.

I am going through it accurately. It is no harm that I should edit it a little, as I go along. The Taoiseach continued: "The passenger balance figures, while unreliable on previous occasions, seemed to be fairly accurate for the period 1951-56,..." That is the most recent period when they were verified by the census: they were accurate. "... but one does not know how far there is a correspondence since 1956 between the passenger movements and emigration. There was certainly no such correspondence some years ago." Of course, there was not. There was no correspondence when people had to have identity documents, and so on, and when people who wanted to move backwards and forwards did not carry them for reasons best known to themselves. "However the indications, in so far as we can get them, indicate that emigration is still running at a very high figure,..."

The Senator just said that the Taoiseach said 20,000.

I said 20,000.

The Senator said the Taoiseach said it.

Who said it, anyway?

The Taoiseach said that emigration is still running at a very high figure, meaning that it has increased to an enormous extent; that is the plain meaning of the words.

Then the Taoiseach dealt with the position which obtained in 1956 and he had this to say about external assets, as reported at column 850 of the Official Report: "We all admit that that was a situation which had to be dealt with, but the question was whether the methods used were actually the best." When the levies were being imposed, I do not remember that anybody on the Opposition side of the House at that time came up with any proposition. I do remember noticing that one important Deputy was not in the House. I took it that he had been silenced by his Party. I took it at the time that that was why he did not come into the House at all but merely came in for the Division. However, I suppose that made up for the House. I suppose that made up for it. Later, in his speech, as reported at column 851 of the Official Report, the Taoiseach said: "Our aim, of course, is not to build up foreign assets.... Even with the greatest care in trying to forecast, nobody can be absolutely certain about those things, but, if anything should appear to be going awry, we would have to take immediate action." It sounds like the oracle at Delphi.

In fact, and there can be no denial, the present Government—no matter what their proposition may be or no matter what they may pretend whether to themselves or to anybody else; no matter what appearance they may put on things—are systematically building up these liquid external assets. Here is a typical example of the kind of thing we get. It may have been a slip; it is possible. However, at column 1043 of the Official Report of Thursday, 17th July, 1958, the Minister for Health, Deputy MacEntee, read out, as the index of import prices from 1952 onwards, the index of export prices— the case being that import prices had gone up substantially and export prices had gone down. He said: "The index figure of import prices ...." In fact, it was the index of export prices which he read out.

It is a printer's error, probably. The Senator knows that.

It could not be a printer's error in that particular way. On the 26th March last, I raised the matter of the cost of living in this House. The Minister for Finance interrupted me to say that I was wrong and was doing him an injustice. As reported at column 195 of the Official Report of Seanad Eireann, I said: "I noticed the Minister made one other slip in his figures. He spoke about the cost of living having gone up 11 points under the inter-Party Government and that now it has gone up seven points. Actually, it has gone up nine points." The Minister denied that most vociferously. I did not dash out of this House to check up on his statement but it did by chance happen that I came across the truth. On the 20th March in the Dáil, as reported at column 685 of the Official Report, in reply to a question by Deputy Donnellan on the subject of the cost of living when he asked: "What is it now?" the Minister for Finance replied: "It is 142 now, up seven points."

I withdrew on the 26th March and I apologised to the Minister although I had grave doubts about the accuracy of what he told me. On a matter of accuracy, I do not like to be put in that position and I shall not ever again withdraw anything the Minister suggests I should.

An Leas-Chathaoirleach

It does not arise at this moment.

Withdraw!

It does arise. Just a moment. At column 196 of the Official Report of Seanad Éireann, 26th March, 1958, the Minister went on to say: "It came down a point in December. I do not like the Taoiseach to be put in this position. He was right." Was he?

The index for February was published in the newspapers on the 15th March—and we were discussing this on the 26th March. What is one to take from the Minister's statement to me that he asked about it? He said: "It came out the next day. I asked for it and they said it would come out ‘to-morrow'"—and it was out on the 15th March. I have the papers here. I shall pass them to the Minister if he wants to look at them. The Minister may have been mistaken, but he shoved it down my throat on that occasion and I apologised to him. I hope he will have the decency to apologise to me.

If the Senator is right, I shall, but I want to make sure that he is right.

Check up on it.

There is a confusion there about this.

I was considerably embarrassed about it because I had thought it was out before the Minister spoke. I have given all the references. The Minister convinced me that he was right. I do not know whom he asked what, when. However, it is in the Irish Independent and the Irish Press of the 15th March. “There was an increase of 2.07 points in the Consumer Price Index between mid-November last and mid-February this year, the Central Statistics Office stated yesterday”—bringing it up to nine points. That refers to the 15th February and we were debating this matter on the 26th March. I did not dash off the next day, but I came across the matter and I was perturbed. My memory is not so good that I could be certain that I was right but, at the time, I was surprised I was wrong. I do not think the Minister should have interrupted me and pushed the matter down my throat. He said, as reported at column 197 of the Official Report of Seanad Éireann of the 26th March last, when referring to the Taoiseach: “On to-day's figure, he was right... I used the latest figure we had.” What is the use of that? If we are to have that kind of discussion in this House then anybody can have the House as far as I am concerned.

The Senator does not mean a word of it.

Ní theastaíonn uaim dul i gcoinne an tSeanadóra dheireannaigh a labhair, agus an méid rudai a thug sé isteach sa diospóireacht, ach ceapaim go raibh an diospóireacht ró-leathan. D'fhéad-faimís mórán rudai a thabhairt isteach sa diospóireacht seo dá bhféadfaimis a thaispeáint conus mar ba chóir airgid an chiste a chaitheamh. Sin é an rud atá ar bun anseo inniu. Do cheap mé ná raibh sé oiriúnach tagairt do dhéanamh do cheal-oibre ná do rudai mar sin. Sílim go bhfuil cúrsaí na tíre ag dul ar aghaidh maith go leor agus go bhfuil feabhas ag teacht orthu, pé ní a deireann na daoine thall.

Tá méadú ar an suim airgid a deineadh as torthaí na talún agus ar an airgead a deineadh in ár ndéantúisí i gcoitinne. Sin sampla den tslí in a bhfuilimíd ag dul ar aghaidh. Ach, dá mbeadh an scéal i bhfad níos fearr ná mar atá sé ní dóigh liom go mbeadh daoine áirithe sásta mar is nós linn, na laethannta seo, droch-mheas a bheith againn ar ár gcúrsaí féin agus sin é an rud is mó atá ag cur as dúinn fé láthair. Dá bhféadfaimís an port sin d'athrú, bhéadh sé i bhfad níos fearr.

I do not propose to follow the last speaker along all the roads he has travelled because in my view such a course would not be very helpful to this debate. The Senator again referred to such things as the cost of living, unemployment and emigration although, to be candid, I thought that such things should not arise on a debate of this kind because we are concerned here to-day to ascertain the best way in which the finances of the Exchequer can be expended and to make any suggestions we think proper as to how the existing position could be improved.

Unfortunately, the tendency on the part of certain politicians, and certain people outside at the present time, is to belittle what has been done over the years in this country, to throw cold water on the efforts made to advance the country's cause in every direction. I think that is a very damaging attitude for people to take up. They sometimes draw comparisons between what has been done here and what is being done elsewhere but it has often been said that distant cows wear long horns and distant fields are green. If we look more closely at our own fields, we shall find that they are fairly green too. I was surprised to hear Senator O'Donovan say that there was no increase in the value of agricultural output. I do not think I am misquoting him when I say that.

I did not say that at all.

Then I must be dreaming.

I did not refer to agricultural output at all.

The Senator did.

An Leas-Chathaoirleach

Senator Lenihan, who is not in possession at the moment, must cease interrupting.

Not alone did the Senator say that but the Leas-Chathaoirleach said the same thing when he was on his feet, that there was no increase in the value of agricultural output in this country.

I did not mention it at all.

The Senator did say it.

With all due respect——

An Leas-Chathaoirleach

If Senator O'Donovan said he did not make the statement, the Senator must accept that. That ends the matter.

In any case, it does not matter whether he did or not. If figures were produced from the Irish Statistical Survey or any other record the Senator would not accept them. He did not accept them the last day.

I would accept them and interpret them. That is the point. It is my proper function. That is what I did the last day.

With regard to the value of the agricultural output, there certainly was a definite increase from 1956 to 1957——

There was.

——from £133,000,000 to í147,000,000 that is, an increase of £14,000,000. That is not bad for one year. Let us hope that there will be a similar increase in the coming year and, if there is, we shall all be quite satisfied. As I said last week in another debate, it is gratifying to know that the trend in these things is upward, in the right direction and not in the wrong direction. An increase of £14,000,000 is not a bad achievement but, of course, I am not a person to over-emphasise that figure. That is not my policy. I think it only right that we should give most of the credit to the farmers of this country for having brought about that position.

They are paying for it now.

They are up against difficulties now I know, but these are difficulties over which none of us has any control. Indeed, if we might occasionally make a mess of it, there are others who might have even made a worse mess of it. As I said before, there is too much pessimism in this country. We have a tendency to belittle the efforts that are being made. We are inclined to be too critical of our own country. That is one of the weaknesses which emerge at the present time.

After all, it is not an unhealthy sign of the country to be able to produce surpluses in the economy of this country. We have a surplus of milk and butter and now we have a surplus of wheat which is presenting us with something of a problem. Those people who say that agriculture has made no advance in recent years should realise that we have actually arrived at the position now when we are up against surpluses, when we have these commodities surplus to our own requirements and that our difficulty now is to provide a market for these surpluses. That is the chief difficulty.

Senator O'Donovan referred to our external assets. We have heard references to these over and over again and nobody seems to be in a position to give us the actual figure for these external assets. If the Senator were to develop his argument to its logical conclusion, we should not have any external assets at all. I hope I am not misquoting the Senator now when I say that. I would ask any sensible person who understands these things whether it is better to have external assets with which we can purchase capital goods from abroad or to be without them. I think it is better to have them. The Senator also referred to what he called investments in British securities.

British Government securities.

Very well, British Government securities. Whether they are British Government securities or British securities is much the same.

They are outside the country, anyway.

There is as much difference as day and dark.

I notice the Senator did not tell us what should be done to remedy that position. Does he advocate that the Government, or any authority here, should prevent people in this country from investing abroad in whatever way they like?

That is the question. Is there to be freedom of action in that respect? We want to know that. Or should we pass legislation to prevent those people from investing abroad? That is the point.

Why do they not invest at home?

We would all prefer to see them investing at home —there is no doubt about that—and it would be the patriotic thing to do. If they do not invest at home, are we to bring compulsion to bear on them? I should like to get the Senator's view on that some other time when he is speaking in this House. As I said, we have no cause to complain in this country, so far as I can see. There is an increase in our agricultural produce. There is an increase in the output from our factories over the year. Our national resources are being developed; perhaps with the passage of time they will be developed more, but there again the question of capital comes in and there cannot be more development of our national resources than what the amount of capital we can get for that purpose will allow. Our health and social services are as good as they are in most countries. Our housing policy is ahead of that of most countries. There is plenty of food in the country for our people and the standard of living is as high as it is in most countries. Therefore, we have not got a lot to complain about.

That is why all the people are flying away.

It is a pity the Senator would not fly away.

Senator O'Donovan also referred to the question of university education and he finds fault with the Government for not making more money available to increase the accommodation for an increasing number of university students. That is not an easy matter, either. It is a question of capital. If I were to give my view on this question of university education, I should be inclined to say that there are too many people being admitted for university education at present because the difficulty afterwards is for those people to get jobs in their own country. If they do not get jobs in their own country, they will have to emigrate and then the Senator, and other Senators, will be complaining about the increase in emigration.

The Senator also referred to the Agricultural Credit Corporation with which he found fault for not making more money available and for having turned down application. Surely to goodness, they are in duty bound to examine these applications as they come in. The money they deal with is not their own money; it is the people's money and they have to be careful to examine the bona fides of the applicants as they come along. Therefore, I do not see what fault can be found with that, but sometimes we are very apt to advocate the expenditure of other people's money.

The Minister, in the other House, said that he was not sure whether we should wind it up or develop it——

That is another day's work.

——and he was right.

As I said, I do not propose to follow the Senator along all the roads he travelled in this debate. Senator Baxter referred to the present number of cows and said that it was very desirable to increase the number of cattle. With that I am in entire agreement, but at the same time I would put in the proviso that the cattle should be of the proper kind. What we want is a better type cow. I, for one, would prefer to have three good cows to four bad ones and I am afraid that at present we have a good many uneconomic cows in the country and it should be the policy to eliminate them as far as possible.

I believe that on this Bill we may speak on Government policy. As an ordinary individual, looking back over the period since the Government took office, I think that the poor people, the working class people, were never as badly off as they are now. Senator Ó Ciosáin can talk about butter production. We are subsidising butter when our own people in the City of Dublin and in the country cannot afford to buy it because of the Budget. They are buying margarine instead. Can any Senator deny that? Let us face the matter as we should. I know that Senators on the Government side will get up and try to defend the policy of the Minister and the Government, no matter what it is, but they know well enough that they are not doing the right thing as far as the majority of the poor people are concerned.

We talk about bringing in foreigners and foreign capital, but I know that since this Government came into office, some of our own industries have closed down. One of those industries was allied to agriculture, the flour mills in County Wicklow, and its employees have gone to Britain. In my own town of Enniscorthy, a foundry has a skeleton staff working for want of capital and the owners cannot get capital, if they go to the banks or to the Government. People are talking about giving facilities to firms to go to the West of Ireland. There is no increase in employment, but there is an increase in unemployment, no matter what the figures say. The figures have gone down in the labour exchanges. Why? Because the men have emigrated. There is no one working on the land to-day. There are fewer employed there, naturally, because the use of machinery has put the men off the land.

Industrial development is at a standstill. I know from my experience, living in a community of poor people, that out of 24 houses there are not 12 wage earners working. They are unemployed and trying to exist on unemployment assistance. The Minister comes from that constituency also and knows the position in his own area. We should face up to the facts. The Government have done nothing—they may say what they like—but set up new boards. Everything to-day is a board and they have money to pay the boards. I understand the majority of boards are very well paid. They can find the money for that.

It is the duty of the Government to do something for the people. They promised the people that and that is why they got a majority. We gave certain promises to the people when we joined in 1948, in the inter-Party Government, to which I was proud to belong and which brought peace to the country at that time. Have we that peace to-day? No. We have these young men back in the concentration camp, which ceased to exist in 1948. They were there up to 1948 and I suppose they would be there still if the present Taoiseach were in office at that time. That is not a very satisfactory state of affairs for this country. They are some of the best young men in Ireland. Are they to remain there until this Government is put out, with not a word about those people? That is a part of Government policy about which everybody was silent and afraid to notice.

There are no interruptions now.

We shall interrupt if the Senator wants it.

We think these things should be considered, if we are talking about Government policy. If that is Government policy, it is a damned bad one.

You brought the gun into politics.

He never used a gun. Do not accuse the man of that.

I know as much about guns as they do. If I am getting under their skin, I cannot prevent it.

You were there in 1920 and 1921 and what did you do?

You were in the cradle, wherever I was.

We need not go back to that. The House is dealing with the Appropriation Bill, 1958.

Let them attack away —I can take it and I am used to it, because I had to fight my way in politics and on public bodies, on behalf of the people I represent. The attacks will not cow me down. I think that public policy is a scandal. The Government are there since 1957 and now the Dáil has finished up and gone away in 1958; yet what hope is there for the unemployed, what hope for emigrants? None. The present Government have no policy and the sooner they tell the people that the better. They should not hoodwink the people by telling them that there is something around the corner, that new industries are to start here when they bring over these foreigners. They know well enough that all that is not true. The Government have failed badly to keep the promises they made.

I am a member of Wexford County Council and I know that never in the history of the county had we fewer employed. There are crowds of men at the exchanges and those not there have gone to Britain. That is not a good policy for the Government to boast about. They told wives to vote for the Fianna Fáil and put their husbands back to work. Coming down to my own county—and I challenge the Minister on this, as he comes from Wexford—I ask are there as many working there this year as there were under the inter-Party Government? He knows what I say is true, as he is the Minister for Finance and he withdrew the money from the Local Authorities (Works) Act. That Act had kept unemployed men working during the slack period. He caused the cost of living to go up by withdrawing the food subsidies, although he told the people at the election that he would not do so. Those are hard facts.

I meet people every day of the week who ask me what the Government are going to do, whether there is any sign of work starting, and whether there is any chance of getting money from the Government. The unemployed say that the Government are willing to give money to foreigners to go over to the Gaeltacht where the fellows talk Irish, but they are not to come south of the Border or they cannot get the money. That is more of the spoon-feeding that certain sections are getting. All should be treated alike. This Government say they are a Government for the Twenty-Six Counties, but they are handing out all the nice things to the fellows in the West. I do not begrudge it to them.

The Senator does.

I heard Senator Ó Ciosáin talking about the farmers. Let me tell the Minister now that the farmers in his own constituency are not very happy. They are disappointed over prices. I do not accuse any Minister of saying this, but their canvassers told the people there would be a guaranteed price for wheat. I see that in the other House they denied it. Their canvassers went from farmhouse to farmhouse telling the people: "Put out the Coalition Government, put back Fianna Fáil and get back what Deputy Dillon took off you." That was said in every farmer's house in Wexford and on that they got a majority. There is no getting away from that. Now they are trying to deny it.

We are not denying it; we never denied we got a majority.

They did by telling, not lies, but untruths. They said that they would give the price. Read Deputy Corry's statement in the Dáil. He is one of their own Party and even he said it. Deputy Corry, the Fianna Fáil Deputy from Cork, said it in the Dáil in the presence of the Minister for Agriculture. Will I quote it? I have it here.

On a point of order, is it not the custom of this House to address the Chair? There has been a great deal of cross-chat in this debate and it is not improving the level of the debate, in my opinion.

I shall quote it now:—

"Mr. M.J. Corry (F.F.) said he told people during the general election campaign that they would get 82/6 a barrel for wheat, because he believed it following what he had been told as a member of a deputation by the previous Minister for Agriculture."

On a point of order, is it not the custom in this House to divulge the source of the reference a Senator is quoting?

An Leas-Chathaoirleach

Senator O'Leary will inform the House from what he is quoting.

A daily paper—the Cork Examiner.

Can the Senator prove that?

An Leas-Chathaoirleach

Please allow Senator O'Leary to make his speech.

That is what Deputy Corry said—that they would get 82/6 a barrel for wheat, because he believed it followed from what he had been told as a member of a deputation to the Minister. Would Senators believe that? They are all saying they did not say it. There is a Fianna Fáil Deputy saying it in Dáil Éireann.

It is about time the people outside woke up so that they will not be humbugged all the time by politicians. I am speaking as a worker who had to go the hard way. I can say to members of this House that they do not know what is happening outside. The real cause of all the evils in this country is that the Government are shutting their eyes to the main issues. That cannot go on forever. There is no use in saying that everything in the garden is rosy when it is not or that everyone is living in the lap of luxury when there are people starving in the midst of plenty.

Senators may not like it, but the truth must be told and we are here to tell the truth of what is happening to the people I belong to, the general working-class poor people. They are suffering under this Government to a very great extent. They are unable to buy the necessaries of life because of the high prices imposed by the Minister for Finance. Never before has the stone of flour, the loaf of bread or the pound of butter been as expensive as it is now. How are the people to exist? How is the old age pensioner to exist on 25/-? How is the unemployed man or the widow or the orphan to exist on the allowances they receive? Is there anyone here who will deny that these people are not getting the necessaries of life? They are deprived by the Government who gave 12 coppers to compensate for the increase in the cost of living. I do not think that has been mentioned in the debate. That would not buy four ice-creams for four children, not to mention four pounds of butter.

The Minister should earnestly endeavour to do something for the people and not just sit back because his Party has a majority and can carry on for the next four years. For how long will the people stand it? That is the burning question. The nations of the world are holding summit conferences and all the rest, gaining time, waiting to get ready to strike.

This country is going through a great depression. There is grave unemployment. Local authorities have stopped building houses. Other works have ceased. Land reclamation schemes and other schemes that gave employment in rural Ireland have been stopped since 1957. Let Senators who are listening to me defend the Government's policy and we will see what they will say. They should not just sit there looking like—I do not know what to call you. I would not like to say.

I thought the Senator was asked to address the Chair.

An Leas-Chathaoirleach

Will the Senator permit the Chair to conduct the business, please?

When I look at all the Senators on the other side of the House, I feel bound to say something. The first thing that the Minister should do is to restore the money for Local Authorities (Works) Act schemes in order to create employment, to sanction grants for housing schemes when they are submitted, both urban and rural.

They were not turned down in my time. It was not in my time—in your time.

Did the Minister read the report of the meeting of the Wexford Corporation the other day? There was a deputation to the Minister. Did the Minister give them the money?

We will have the figures on the Housing Bill.

There is no scheme turned down.

It is about time that bickering about who fired the first shot should cease. Get going and do something for the country before it is too late. If another 12 months are allowed to elapse, there will be no one left in rural Ireland but the old people. The young men and women will have gone. Every Saturday night in Enniscorthy, one would think an excursion was leaving the railway station. There are crowds of people who are going away and one sees mothers crying over their sons and wives crying over their husbands who have to emigrate because of the policy of the Government.

Business suspended at 6 p.m. and resumed at 7 p.m.

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