Central Fund Bill, 1959—Second Stage (Resumed) and Subsequent Stages.

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

Mr. Burke

When speaking on this Bill yesterday, I said I believed the paramount difficulty which Governments here will face is that the standard of living of our neighbours in Britain and of our cousins in America is nearly twice, in the case of Britain and four times in the case of the United States, as high as ours. Many of the younger people do not understand why that should be; they tend to blame the Government and they have not given the mature consideration to our history, particularly our economic history, which would enable them to see that we have not been endowed by nature with the resources enjoyed by the U.S. and Britain.

This problem confronting us as a nation is the same type of problem as confronts nearly every member as head of a household. We cannot afford to live beyond our means. We must be satisfied with the income we earn by our own exertions. As a State we must be satisfied to keep our spending commensurate with our income. As a business man, I believe that even though I do the same amount of work as a man in a similar position in a similar type of industry in England, I must be satisfied with a lower level of income.

The same thing is true of Ministers of State. It is only right to say, in passing, that they get far less remuneration than their opposite numbers in Britain and the U.S., but that is only in accordance with the different economies of the countries. The same thing applies down along the line: civil servants, professional men and skilled and unskilled workers must accept somewhat less in our economy than their counterparts abroad. If they do that, we should then have a cheaper level of production, and while their money incomes cannot be as high as in Britain or in the U.S., each £ they receive should have greater purchasing power.

That is one reason why I thought the Government unwise in removing the subsidies. The imposition of the levies and the result, a contribution to the Exchequer of £9,000,000 or £10,000,000, was an effort by the inter-Party Government to make our £ more valuable, to increase its purchasing power. When the subsidies were removed, the Government discovered the consequence was what we now call the fifth round of wage increases. Through the arbitration machinery provided there was an immediate notch-up in the cost of all forms of service when the levies were withdrawn

I know this problem is almost impossible to solve and I am merely touching on the question of the referendum, but I want to say that changing the system of election will not solve our problem. It is of such a basic and perennial nature that it can be solved only by the Government appealing to the latent patriotism that exists in every vocational group in the country and saying to them that if they want to stay in Ireland, they must work for Ireland and accept somewhat less than they would have in Britain because in other respects they will get far more. This is probably one of the most pleasant countries in the world to live in and the tempo of life, from the point of view of enjoyment, is better than anywhere else. Even as regards climatic conditions, it is said that we can be out of doors on more days in the year than in any other country.

In terms of money values, we may not be as well off as our neighbours, but we have compensating advantages. Some of these can be brought to our people through education. Unfortunately, all our efforts in the past have been concentrated on securing our freedom and, as Dr. Philbin, Bishop of Clonfert said—and I think it is quoted in the "Economic Survey"—we like to believe in freedom as our end, like marriage in a fairy story.

I am afraid our younger people, many of whom have not got an opportunity of going to a secondary school, are inclined to grow up with that idea. Really, it is higher education we need to convince the people of the value of what we can have here and to bring home to them the fact that if we wish to have more in money values, we can get it only by working harder and more intelligently. The Minister for Finance was reared on the land and people who come from the land of Ireland generally have their feet on the ground and understand these economic facts. Before they leave the farms, they see how life begins and how it ends and they need not text books to teach them these things.

In conclusion, I suggest to the Government that if success is to be achieved here, it must be achieved through inviting and securing the complete co-operation of all the various vocational groups, many of which are out of touch with the needs of the present day. I do not want to mention specifically any group, but the Minister for Agriculture recently had difficulty in securing persons for very essential services in connection with a growing branch of our agricultural trade. That indicated to me that these people are out of step, or that someone is out of step with the present trend of economic realities. It is not for us to judge the issue here, but a solution must be found, not a political but an economic solution, a solution of compromise in which all parties are prepared to sacrifice something for the common good.

We shall have an opportunity of addressing ourselves more fully to these subjects on the Appropriation Bill and I do not propose to delay the House any longer, except to say that I believe our economy is a living and viable one, but it will only continue to be so, if we are prepared not to expect more from it than it can give us and if we want more, we must work harder and more intelligently and perhaps save a little to-day so that we may have more to spend tomorrow. There is no other way to do it. It was thought once that by changing a Government, you could get more money. That fallacy has been exploded. We wish the Government well and offer them every co-operation in their economic programme and the various schemes they have put before us.

Eamon Ó Ciosáin

It is only right to congratulate the Minister for Finance on having brought the finances of the country into a very healthy state. It is not easy for any Minister for Finance to meet all the demands made on the Exchequer from time to time by all sections of community, but the Minister has made a very good job of the administration of the Department of Finance since he took office two years ago.

On the straight vote, perhaps.

Éamon Ó Ciosáin

It rose to 56,000. That was a big increase. One must remember that up there they are supposed to have the backing of the British Government. In reality, as things are, they would be much better off if their economy were integrated with the economy of this part of the country.

Senators have asked the Minister to increase the social services in certain ways—to increase old age pensions, blind pensions, widows' and orphans' pensions and so on. We would all subscribe to that policy, but the difficulty, of course, is to find the money for it. There has been a demand here, also, for a reduction in taxation, but as everyone knows, it is impossible to reduce taxation and increase the social services at the same time. We cannot have it both ways.

At the same time, I also would ask the Minister to reconsider the position of those people who form the most needy sections of the community. If, in the not too distant future, he finds that our financial position enables him to grant increases to them, I am sure he himself would be glad to do so. I know that he would be glad to reduce taxation, too, if he could, but that is more easily said than done.

Professor Stanford

Many of us will have noticed a welcome increase in the Estimates for university education. Many of us will hope, too, that it is a sign of a more generous policy in the future. A wise parent will never try to save on education, if he possibly can avoid it; and a wise Government will never try to save on education. On the whole, our Governments have been too restrained, too much inclined to save on education for the last 20 years. Frankly, I would welcome a more generous policy and a more progressive policy in the Department of Education.

However, the increases are clearly there for this year and anyone interested in university education will be grateful for them. There was an increase of £282,000 over the £670,000 of last year. The total amount now to be spent on university education is £953,000. I should like to draw attention to three kinds of disproportion in this Estimate. The first disproportion is——

An Cathaoirleach

May I remind the Senator that we are not dealing with the Estimate? We are concerned more with policy than with the Estimates.

Professor Stanford

Thank you, a Chathaoirligh. I think I can phrase it so as to meet your comment. We are discussing policy on education and, in particular, the fraction of the total Estimate which is to be voted by this Bill. What I am about to say is primarily a matter of policy rather than a financial detail. The fact is that we must spend on education. Many of us may say that there is a considerable increase this year. But we have only to look across the Border with Senator Kissane to see just how far we still lag behind in our policy on university education. That has been said many times before, both by myself and by Senator O'Donovan.

To take Queen's University as a simple example: over £1,000,000 is given to Queen's University, Belfast, from public funds every year. That is an annual revenue of £1,000,000. That £1,000,000 is for one college with less than 3,000 students. Contrast that with our policy. We are offering less than £1,000,000 for five separate colleges and for more than 8,000 students. These figures speak for themselves. The contrast is very regrettable. One could take any English provincial university—Manchester, Bristol, Sheffield, or Leeds— and the contrast would be even more regrettable. There is no point in labouring the matter, but I urge the Minister for Finance and the Minister for Education never to forget that particular form of disproportion.

The second disproportion to which I should like to draw attention is that between the amount being spent on our universities and the rest of the national expenditure. Let me cite one simple example; it has already been quoted in the Dáil. This simple example will, I think, drive home the point I am trying to make. It is proposed to spend £5,000,000 on aeroplanes to fly the Atlantic. Less than £1,000,000 will be spent on our universities. I cannot understand how in a struggling country like ours, and we are a struggling country, that kind of disproportion in public expenditure can be justified. These planes will be built entirely outside the country. As far as I can see, not a single penny of that £5,000,000 will go into the pockets of Irishmen. The construction of them will not help our economy in any way. Yet, we are spending five times as much on these planes as we are spending on our universities.

Just contrast the effect of spending that £5,000,000 on our universities— and that is something we might very reasonably do when we consider the amount that is being spent on the universities in Northern Ireland and in Great Britain. What would be the effect of such expenditure? The main effect would be that our universities would at last be properly housed. In Trinity College, for historical reasons on the whole, we are fortunate in our buildings. Our needs are very much less than the needs of other colleges. The needs of University College are clear to all. May I say here that we, in Trinity College, will give the fullest support to generous schemes of building for University College, Dublin? We would urge the country to give every support to our plea that lavish money should be spent in the near future in getting proper buildings for our sister university.

Consider what the effect on morale would be, as distinct from the effect on education, of a lavish building scheme of that kind. There would be the employment given to builders, plasterers, painters, furnishers and all kinds of people. But there is something more than that. My mind goes back to Athens in the fifth century when by a piece of embezzlement, I am sorry to say—Pericles embezzled the funds of the Delian League; but leaving aside how the money was raised—these magnificent buildings which are still the glory of Athens and the glory of Europe were brought into being. I am not, however, thinking primarily of the historical effect of such buildings. I am thinking of the effect of the buildings on the morale of Athens in that day. It was at once a tremendous inspiration and encouragement alone to the people of the city of Athens but to Greece as a whole.

I suggest one of the best ways of building up national morale is through the medium of spectacular building— not just utility building, but genuinely spectacular building with the best architects, the best materials and the highest ideals. We will be told that this extravagance could not be countenanced. How can it be called extravagance when £5,000,000 will go out of our pockets next year for aeroplanes that will probably not make one penny for us and will only increase emigration as far as I can see? Yet the thought of spending £4,000,000 or £5,000,000 to rehouse our universities apparently makes most of our people shudder. I cannot understand it. I think it shows shortsightedness and lack of ideals.

We do not want the equivalent of Mexico City University. Some of the Senators may have seen pictures of that. It is a most extravagant and fantastic expenditure of hundreds of millions of pounds. The result is bizarre. We do not want anything of that kind here, but we do want something worthy of the city of Dublin, something worthy of the standards of Irish universities. That could be provided with the money which will be sent to California within the next year. I make the argument for two reasons: for the sake of university education, that is higher education, and, secondly, for the morale of the country. It would lift up the hearts of the people if a really good scheme of building were put through within the next couple of years, so that not only the citizens of Dublin but the citizens of Europe could see Irish architecture and Irish materials at their best dedicated to what has always been near the heart of the Irish people—higher education.

I make one proviso. If this generous sum of some millions of pounds is to be spent on new buildings for our sister university in this city there should be some reasonable proportion of that large sum set aside for the needs of the other colleges and universities. University College, Cork, also has its needs. Trinity College, though, as I said, we are historically fortunate in having on the whole good buildings, needs new laboratories and classrooms. Also the cost of maintenance is fairly costly for us, but the Government have been doing a great deal from that point of view, and we are grateful.

It would be unfair to give £4,000,000 for the building of a university college and say there is nothing for anyone else. That would be grossly unfair. Let us have reasonable proportion in a generous policy. It will not merely be to the advantage of higher education but it will be an encouragement and inspiration to the whole country. In the light of what I have said does there not appear to be a marked disproportion between this less than £1,000,000 for our universities and £5,000,000 for what may be almost useless aeroplanes?

The third disproportion is within the universities Estimate itself. If one examines the figures at page 174 one finds that University College, Dublin, is receiving £143,000, which is more than one half of the total increase. The other three main colleges— Galway, Cork and Dublin—are receiving something in the neighbourhood of £40,000; £47,000 for University College, Galway, and £40,000 for Trinity College, Dublin. Maynooth and the College of Surgeons are not receiving any increase. It is clear from these figures that University College, Dublin, is receiving three times as much as any of the other colleges for current expenditure. These are not capital grants; these are grants for annual expenditure. If one examines the Trinity College grant a little more closely, one sees that of its £40,000, £20,000 is really what amounts to paying off an overdraft for capital purposes. The remaining £20,000 represents one-fourteenth of the total expenditure on the universities.

I should like to ask the Minister a question to which I hope he will be able to give me an answer. What is the basis for that disproportion? Why has University College received half, when the others receive only one-seventh? I am sure there is a reasonable basis for it, but it escapes me. One reason does occur to me; it may well be in the minds of many Senators and I think we should meet it fairly and squarely. It could be that the basis of allocation is to give grants only on the basis of students of Irish birth. It may be in the minds of the Minister and the Department that if a college has a great number of students from outside the country, they should not be reckoned in assessing the grants. If that is the basis, I suggest it is an unreasonable one and I shall offer three arguments for that.

First, I should like to deal with the large number of overseas students in Trinity College, Dublin. The first reason I would offer is that most or many of these non-nationals are of Irish extraction. The father or mother is Irish, and the student comes back here because he regards himself as Irish still. Secondly, if they are not of Irish extraction, it is very much to the advantage of this country that young people should come from England, France and further afield, to Ireland and learn to understand the Irish attitude to things and go back with a friendly and understanding outlook on this country. They are in a sense honorary ambassadors when they go back to their own homes, and that consideration is not to be neglected.

Further, there is one very good cash argument to show that if we did subsidise these overseas students, we would not be wasting money. I mentioned this before, but it should be kept constantly in mind. Every one of these students from overseas brings into the city of Dublin approximately £300 a year, possibly a little less but certainly over £250 a year. On the present Estimate, they are being subsidised to the extent of approximately £70 a year. I reckon there is a net gain to the city of Dublin and the people of Ireland of something like £200 a year from each of these students who come to one of our colleges from overseas. Even as expenditure on the tourist trade, that would be fully justified. Of course, that is not the main argument. The main argument is that Ireland has always been hospitable to people from overseas who want to come and study here. It would be against our historical tradition, and short-sighted, for the Government to make a discrimination in awarding grants to the universities between Irish nationals and non-nationals.

There is one other matter. It is not a popular thing to refer to, but, in all frankness, one must refer to it. It is not our fault in Trinity College that we have not a larger proportion of Irish students. At the moment, the proportion is approximately 50 per cent. of Irish to 50 per cent. of overseas. The reason is perfectly clear and I shall not elaborate on it. It would be wrong for me to do so, but I think it is right for me to mention it. We are under an ecclesiastical ban. If we were not under that ecclesiastical ban, we would have far more Irish students. I do not think it is presumptuous to say that. If they are prepared to come from London, France, Germany, Switzerland, I imagine they would come from Kerry and Mayo, too.

An Cathaoirleach

The Government are not responsible for that.

Professor Stanford

No, but I am just taking care that the Government are aware that the disproportion of students in T.C.D. is due to circumstances which are largely not under the control of the college. If instead of these thousand or so overseas students, we could have a thousand Irish people to fill up the places, nobody would be better pleased than we, and I assure the Minister and the House that there is always absolute preference given to Irish students coming to the college.

Perhaps I have laboured that point. I am sorry if I have, but it is a fact we must reckon with. I come back now to what I began with, that there is disproportion within these Estimates. University College has got a very big share of the cake. We are glad there is a big-sized cake and wish it were bigger, but we should like to know why the cake was cut up in that way and whether the proportion is based on the ground of national and non-national students. It would be a narrow and illiberal policy, if it were so.

There is another matter I wish to mention. There is a kind of trade or business in this country which is suffering at the moment and deserves relief. I have no financial interest in it, but I attend their meeting-places perhaps once a month. That is my total interest. I refer to the cinemas. At the moment, they are being very hard hit by taxes. I have figures here which I am sure the Minister has seen.

An Cathaoirleach

I trust the Senator will not go further into that matter because it is one that relates to the Finance Bill.

Professor Stanford

I shall pass from that but if there is a further opportunity to think favourably of them, I hope the Minister will take it.

The next matter definitely does come within the Bill before us. It is something that has never in my memory been raised in the House, within the past ten or eleven years, that is. We do know the importance of our fisheries and we are lucky in having an energetic and efficient Minister for Lands and Fisheries. But I wanted to draw his attention and the Government's attention to a fault in the development of our harbours. This is derived from personal experience in Dunmore East, County Waterford, last August. It was necessary for the harbour to be dredged—and we cannot have efficient fisheries or any industry carried by ships unless our harbours are kept in proper condition. During the month of August, I had a very good opportunity to observe from close quarters the working of one of the dredgers of the Board of Works. The Board of Works has three dredgers as the House probably knows, and these chiefly attend to the three national ports, Dun Laoghaire, Dunmore East and Cobh.

My impression is—and it was shared by many notable people in that small but important harbour in the south of Ireland—that the ship itself was completely out of date. The machinery was inadequate and inefficient. We must have proper equipment if we are to do this job quickly. Secondly, the way of working this out-of-date ship was deplorably inefficient. Much of that kind of work depends on the state of the tide. It seemed to us—and we knew a bit about the sea—that the ship simply worked on something like office hours, so that if the tide was unfavourable, no work might be done, and when the tide was favourable it might be out of working hours and so no work was done, either. The result was inefficiency and delay and very great inconvenience to the users of the port of Dunmore East. Worst of all—and this is what we are fighting in this House—there was a sense of frustration and inefficiency. To see out of date machinery being worked inefficiently is no encouragement to those who want the country to progress.

I could say a good deal more about that, but I would urge the Minister and the Minister for Lands and those in charge of the Office of Public Works to give particular attention to their method of dredging at the moment. I can only say that it is not adequate for what we hope to do with the harbours and fisheries in future.

Mr. Baxter

There are one or two matters to which I should like to draw the Minister's attention, but it seems that I am rather restricted in the time at my disposal. However, as you were kind enough to call on me, I feel that I should avail of the opportunity to express a view that is in total disagreement with something the Minister is doing and it is better that we should have it out here. At least, I should be glad to hear his point of view on it because I daresay he has reasons for what he is doing.

The Minister is not only a collector of taxes but also disburses the taxes. As I have said on numerous occasions in this House, when handling the affairs of the Department of Finance, he must be concerned not only with securing the taxes in any year, but must always try to look ahead—at least, I should hope that he would— and consider the possibilities for his successors. There must be people to pay taxes and people must be engaged in profitable enterprises in order to be able to pay taxes. The first question that arises for consideration by all of us is a question to which Senator Kissane gave some attention, that is, have we the people and will we have the people? How optimistic are we about that? How optimistic is the Minister?

To-day there was a quotation given in the House from Dr. Lucey, Bishop of Cork. The Minister for Education expressed the view that if a member of the Hierarchy or anybody else thought that the Government were complacent about the problem of emigration, that would not be representative of the facts. I do not think that any of us who thinks of a future Irish nation can be complacent about the problem of emigration. I am completely with the Bishop of Cork or any other bishop or layman, Senator or Deputy, who says that sufficient attention is not being given to this problem. It is the gravest problem confronting the country. I know Senator Kissane for a long time and I have very great respect for him. I should like to hear him discussing that problem in a more realistic fashion. From figures which the Minister for Education quoted here to-day it would appear that he was ready to accept that 48,000 of our people went to England last year and got social security cards there and that that was the measure of our emigration. I am not good at figures but figures have been quoted which showed that 57,000 or 58,000 people emigrated in the previous year. Senator Kissane was inclined to blame the predecessors of the Government for that. I would suggest that only 48,000 people went last year because there were only 48,000 to go. That is the grave situation as I see it.

The problem of emigration is being constantly adverted to, but I do not see any intensive effort made to study the real causes of emigration. We all know that people who are in employment in this country emigrate. The desertion of the countryside and small towns and, indeed, some of the large towns, is such that if the problem is not grappled with soon, there will not be an Irish nation. The reduction of the number of consumers in the small towns is a major problem for the business community there. This problem is not being studied close to the source. I do not know that any body of people have tried to discover from those who emigrate the reason for their emigration or have tried to study this serious problem on the spot, to learn why it was impossible for the people to stay at home, whether the reason was psychological, economic or did a boy leave because the girl with whom he was in love had already gone? When the Bishop of Cork speaks as he does about emigration, he is not the only Bishop who could speak in that way. There are many Bishops in the remoter areas who see the day not far distant when there will be one priest in a parish where there are now two and perhaps the time when one priest will do for two parishes. Who will be in the Minister's position then to solve the problem of finding over £100,000,000 to administer the country?

I would urge that all of us should be much more realistic about this problem and, instead of being hurt, offended and bothered by those, whether Churchmen or laymen, who have the courage to speak out about this problem, should say what they know about it and make their contribution to a solution of the problem. It is because that is not being done that many people are being discouraged by the situation as they see it.

There is a decision that has been taken by the Minister and, I presume, by the Government. I do not know in how far they were guided by the monumental work that Senator Burke has before him and by the White Paper. I want to protest against the decision of the Government in transferring funds from the Land Project to the fertiliser scheme. I do not want to be misunderstood. I was on a deputation 30 years ago from the Committee of Agriculture in Cavan to the then Minister to urge that a scheme to subsidise fertilisers would be put into operation. It took a long time to get that distance. If we had started to grow grass then, and had not abused the people who wanted to grow better grass then, we would have much more grass to-day and many more cattle and the total economy would be much stronger than it is. Frankly, I find it difficult to conceive why the Minister took this decision, if all the facts were available to him.

A great deal of the land of this country is marginal land. There are people living on that marginal land— producers. I would say that 50 per cent. of the land of the Republic might be termed marginal land. There are areas, say, Louth, Meath, portions of Westmeath and other Leinster counties, North Cork, Waterford, Wexford, where there is good land but a great deal of the land is poor, really marginal land. Its ability to produce will be measured by the amount of kindness we can give to it.

The first point is this. There are people still living there, although they are dying out. On that point, I had a discussion recently with a young professional man in my own county. We talked about an area which I knew well. It is an area seven miles in length —portion of three parishes. There were hundreds of families there when I was growing up. I could name one after another the people who lived over most of that area. This young professional man said to me that there was not a marriage there in a generation. When the stock that is there goes, it will be the last and there will be a whole countryside of seven miles without a human being. The people who are there are living on marginal land— the kind of land that benefited under Section B of the Land Project. That is being scotched now.

I want to put this to the Minister. I am quite certain they are trying to do the best thing, although I may say that it is freely circulated—it is a very tragic thing if it should be so—in my county that this change was made in the scheme because of the man who introduced it. If that is so, it would be dreadful. That has been circulated. What I want to put to the Minister is this. I have not got all the figures, but I understand that last year we had allocated to Section B of the land project £900,000. That is dropped. Presumably a fair amount of that money is to be added now to Section A. I do not think that in my county Section A will take the place of Section B.

Let me explain for the benefit of the members who may not understand Section A and Section B of the land project. I live on a small farm of bad land. I was brought up on a small farm of bad land and I know what bad land is. I am not the only member of the House in that position. Senator O'Reilly could tell you what his area is like and what the effect of the land project work would be there.

Under Section B, I was able to have my land drained and fertilised by the Government machinery. They gave a grant and portion of the charge was met by me, but the portion which I had to meet was added to my land purchase annuity. It was not necessary for me or any of my neighbours to put any cash down at all. That has now been dropped. Under Section A, the grant was given and the balance of the money which the scheme cost had to be paid out by the owner of the land. Since this decision was taken, I have had experience of a scheme made for a small farm of 30 acres which was to cost £1,200. The sum of £900 would be available for a grant and the farmer would have to put down £300. In addition to that, he would have to find the contractor and pay him as the work was executed. He would have to wait until the job was completed before getting any of the grant. That closed down that scheme as far as our county was concerned, as well as the west of Ireland, the western seaboard and the poorer areas in the Midlands.

I think it was a great error of judgment to do that. It showed, in my opinion, a reckless disregard of the conditions under which the small farmer on bad land is living. Senator Kissane addressed himself to the value of the fertiliser scheme. I am all with him in that. I have experience of it. I have been advocating it. I have tried, by word and example, to advocate it. I believe that fertilisers can bring us considerable benefits and if the other resources are available to us, we can realise the benefit of better grass.

Money is being transferred from the land project, from a poor county like Cavan, and is being made available for the purchase of fertilisers in Meath, Westmeath, Tipperary, Kildare and elsewhere to men who have 200 or 300 acres of land. They will be subsidised to purchase manures. That is a very good thing, but it is altogether wrong that the money which was necessary to improve the wet land in the poorer counties should be transferred to do that job.

The truth is that the members of this House who know anything about farming know quite well that if you have undrained soil, it is practically worthless. Certainly, you will not get the benefits from the application of fertilisers that you will get if you drain the water away. If you put on lime, phosphate and nitrogen, with the wet land, you will not get the temperature up for a month later than you would if you had the water drained away. That is my experience. You apply nitrogen to soil from which you get no value at all.

I feel there must not be a clear appreciation of the wrong this is to the thousands of small farmers all over Ireland. Apart from that, in my county, we had between 200 and 300 men employed under Section B of this scheme. Some of these men came to me and asked me what they would do. Some of them were packing up to go to England because there was nothing else for them. They were working on and improving the land. They were giving something to the farmer which the farmer was unable to provide for himself. They made him a much more efficient person as a producer and a taxpayer in the State.

Some said this was costing too much per acre. I am quite certain that you can cite me instances of the high cost per acre over a limited number of acres. That is true—at least, I believe it is true. I have heard of these fantastic figures, but they are not average figures, nor are they representative of what the work cost over the country as a whole. A really good job was done. Even if the cost of the scheme was £30, £40 or £50 per acre, you had land at the end of it. You had something from which you could produce and you had land upon which families could live. The attitude of many of the people is to leave and clear away.

The standards of life in the country to-day are such that people want more. They desire more. They are not able to get it from 20 or 30 acres of poor land. The Dutch reclaim land from the sea at more than £100 per acre. I have been there and I have seen it myself. They have got land for centuries to come at £100 per acre. If you take it for ten years, is not that a rent of £10 per acre? If you take it for 20 years, is that not a rent of £5 per acre and if you take it for 50 years, is that not a rent of £2 per acre? Yet we talk about spending £20, £30 or £40 per acre. You have got something brand new; something that is a tremendous asset to the country. It is a new conquest and we are doing the conquering ourselves. It is something we should continue and something of which we should be proud.

Presumably the Minister has figures, or can find figures, of what the cost of reclamation in Bangor Erris would be, but I would suggest it would be a higher figure. I do not know what the figure was for the 1,000 or 2,000 acres which the sugar company have so magnificently reclaimed in Galway, but, whatever it was, they have got land which they had not before. Certainly, I think you will get this land drained and equipped for the future at a lower cost than that at which you would take a congest from the west and allocate good land in the east to him. I wish the Minister would look into this matter again, because, in my opinion, he has taken a decision which will depress a great many people up and down the country. It is a decision that will reduce employment in the countryside, where valuable employment was previously being given. That decision has shown a lack of sense in trying to maintain a balance in our economy, something for which I could hardly find an explanation.

I want to say a few words in regard to the eradication of tuberculosis in our cattle herds and I only wish more time were available to me because that subject is of tremendous importance. Indeed, it is fundamental to our whole economy. It is comforting to know that the Minister and his colleagues now see the value of our cattle economy. I do not want to go over past events, but it is unfortunate that we did not previously have a truer appraisal of what was of real interest to the country in earlier years. If we had had that, I should say that public expenditure to-day would not be half the burden and half the worry it is.

The Minister for Agriculture has very considerable difficulties in promoting the scheme for the eradication of bovine T.B. It is a tremendous undertaking and maybe in some respects he is not getting as much co-operation as he ought to get. It is the duty of everybody in the country to give the maximum co-operation in this matter. We are implementing the scheme because we have to. We ought to have done it earlier, but, at any rate, we are doing it now. There are, however, certain aspects of the problem about which I am not happy and I should like to know if there is a completely thought out policy in regard to it. If there is, I should like to hear more about it.

We have areas in the west which are first to be stocked with healthy cattle. Then the scheme will come into the east, and the southern counties are being left for later on. In some of those southern counties at present, it operates only in so far as the farmers themselves are taking on the responsibility of trying to clear their herds. Everyone who can speak on this matter ought to urge the farmers to participate in the scheme, because our whole position is dependent on our ability to furnish a clean bill of health very soon in regard to our cattle stocks.

The aspect of the problem which perturbs me most is that the figures indicate that we have 83,100 more cattle this year than last year. It does not matter what side of the House talk comes from in boasting about what we have achieved in the strengthening of our economy. Over the years, that is about all we have done in strengthening our economy—increasing our cattle stocks. We may have some more industries, but I do not wish to deal with that aspect of our economy, or how the value and output of them has increased the taxable value of the people who own them and the people who work in them; but, as far as agriculture is concerned, we all know the kind of year last year was. What I want to say is that these 83,000 odd cattle are young cattle and I doubt if any of them will be available for export this year. In the main they are yearlings or, perhaps, between one and two years old.

I have examined the figures in regard to one county, a county which, so far as I know, has not yet been attacked in regard to the eradication of T.B. The last figures I saw showed that there are 113,000 cows in it. There are 5,000 in-calf heifers and the figures which I have seen would indicate that nearly 50 per cent. of the cows there are reactors. Therefore, when we go to clear that county —one of the vital counties in our whole dairy set-up and where the mothers of the cattle of the future are to be found—we will have to find 60,000 cows or heifers in calf in one year for that county, if the breeding stock is to be kept up.

That is not the only county where things are pretty bad and I should like to know what plan the Minister for Agriculture has in his mind, or is in the minds of the Cabinet, as to where the replacements will be found. Have we a plan about all this? We ought to have a plan. I do not know quite how, but we ought to be encouraging each farmer not to sell any of his female stock at all, if he can keep them, mate them, and prepare them to be mothers of herds for a number of years to come. If not, the net result of the scheme for the eradication of bovine T.B. may be that we may end up with 150,000 fewer cattle than we have at present. If that happens, we shall be up against another problem in regard to our balance of payments.

If that should happen, there would be great difficulty in building up our economy to the position of strength in which it was before this scheme was attempted. If that goes on, side by side with a decreasing population and all the other difficulties under which we labour, I could not be optimistic that either the Minister, or any successor of his, would find it very easy to provide the finances which the machinery of government will demand in the future. Perhaps there may be others in the House who would like to address themselves to this problem. I know that many schemes have been placed before the Ministry by spokesmen for agriculture, as to how we can do better in the eradication of T.B., but, a producer of milk gets no more for the milk from an accredited herd than he gets for the milk from a herd, 50 or 60 per cent. of which are reactors to the tuberculin test.

If we are to make progress in this scheme, I believe that the people who are progressive will have to be paid something for what they have put into their efforts towards progress. These were the matters I wanted to direct the Minister's attention to. Perhaps they were not put as coherently, or with as much taste, as the Minister would like to hear them advanced, but I think they are fundamental to our whole economy. The solution of these problems will be of great importance to the country's future.

Mr. McGuire

We have had a very interesting discourse from Senator Baxter on the agricultural side of the economy and I propose to deal with the other side, namely, industry, which is more in my line. To begin with, the figure appearing on the Book of Estimates is an increase on the previous year's figure. It is £115,500,000. It seems to be impossible to arrest this upward climb and perhaps the Minister has done his best this year, certainly on the expenditure side, to cut the bill, but it still mounts. The "Economic Survey" stresses the necessity for lower taxation when it says: "High taxation is one of the greatest impediments to economic progress."

There seems to be little hope of any reduction in taxation this year, even though such reduction is so badly needed. Ministers and economists for years past have been stressing the importance of reducing taxation, but it seems to be impossible to do so. I suppose the only thing we can do now is just to deplore that fact.

I wish to drop the complaining note and not to be taken as complaining when I speak of what we have done or failed to do in the past in our industrial and commercial activities. On the contrary, I would say we can be pleased with the comparatively high degree of industrial development achieved here so far, but I think it is evident that we have now reached the point when new ideas, plans and incentives must be forthcoming, if we are to achieve the continued expansion in industry and production that we need for the future. The need has become increasingly apparent for a plan for industrial expansion based on solid business and economic principles —I have repeatedly referred to this necessity myself year after year— rather than upon the very often purely, or heavily, political and social considerations we have applied to these problems in the past.

I welcome the principles that have been stressed in the "Economic Survey", the White Paper, and the Capital Investment Committee's Report. Their emphasis on the proposition that obedience to the economic laws must come first, if we are to have the improved social conditions we aspire to, is a very timely—in fact, almost a tardy—reminder of the fact that it is necessary for us—absolutely vital—in future to have regard to the economic laws in business affairs, if we are to solve the industrial, social and political problems which will face us in the future.

The common theme of the "Economic Survey", the White Paper and the Capital Investment Committee's Report is the vital necessity for productive investment in industry and agriculture by both the Government and private enterprise in order to achieve our aims. It is obvious that a favourable industrial atmosphere must exist and also that a realistic industrial philosophy must prevail. By this, I mean that economic rather than political considerations must come first. Up to now in many cases, political and social considerations took priority over the economic facts of life. I do not know that we should deplore that happening up to this because we had a lot of social leeway to make up and we had a lot of what is called infra-structure to build up, but I think we now realise—and I am glad we do—that it is time to go out on purely business lines for the future with this infra-structure built up underneath upon which the new industrial structure can be erected.

There are still some suggestions from some quarters that the Government should push on further with State enterprise, while leaving private enterprise as a secondary preoccupation, but the emphasis in the "Economic Survey" is on the necessity for a drive to expand the private enterprise economy. It says that the sphere of private investment is the one on which every individual in this country must mainly rely for its progress. I quote from the Banking Journal of December last:—

"The encouragement of private enterprise involves the creation of an atmosphere of public confidence which depends on the existence of a suitable infra-structure of business investment"

—this we already have—

"but still more on the maintenance of low-cost production and low taxation. Public investment will, in the long run, prove impossible unless private business is healthy and progressive because it is from the surplus created by private enterprise that the necessary savings are created."

This is the answer to those who want to go on with still more State enterprises, without realising that further State enterprise cannot be made possible, unless the private enterprise economy which produces the wealth to carry out State enterprise is itself prospering and developing. Therefore, if we want further expansion of State enterprise, we must follow the advice of the "Economic Survey" and turn our attention with more enthusiasm and zeal to the development of private enterprise. I welcome the White Paper in that it has announced its agreement with this policy and proposition. Furthermore, it has announced the intention in future to press on with the encouragement of private enterprise activity.

There are two considerations in building up an industrial economy and these, I suggest are, first, that an industrial enterprise to be successful, must be located in the place best suited to its operation from the economic point of view, where the best power is available, the best transport and so on. Location is, therefore, of great importance. The second consideration is the atmosphere, the national and local atmosphere, in which it operates. The Capital Investment Committee's report states:—

"Mere schemes of work for work's sake do not add to the total employment in the community, since they must be paid for by reductions in consumption in other directions. For the same reason the committee does not favour uneconomic localisation of industry with the object of curing local pockets of unemployment."

Further, it states:—

"New employment will be most effectively created by a rational localisation of production."

In other words, we should exploit our national advantages and locations to the best advantage.

It is important that these activities should move with, and not against, nature. The artificial placing of industries where they are unsuitable and uneconomic should be avoided in future. I quite agree that up to now such action was very often well meant, the idea being to establish industries for the purpose of giving local employment. In a great number of cases, these misplaced industries have proved uneconomic and very disappointing in the long run, not only to the economy generally, but even to the places where they are located. I grant that there have been some successful ventures, but if one does enough of anything, one is sure to get some degree of success, but I think the success in many cases was very dearly bought. In the long run, it is a short-sighted, wasteful and disappointing policy to do this.

The reason is obvious. Success in industry cannot be achieved in locations that unnecessarily increase the cost of production, especially now when we must produce goods capable of competition in the export market. Naturally, the efficient business man will study the natural advantages and disadvantages of every locality before committing himself to an industrial concern in any case.

Decentralisation of industry, which is part of this problem, is desirable. But decentralisation of industry is a different thing from scattering industry. If you scatter industry all over the place you merely get uneconomic conditions and waste of all kinds. What I should like to see is centralisation in situations around the country where the conditions necessary for successful industrial enterprise are present. There was an excellent article in the Irish Times on this subject some weeks ago and I have taken my line from it. I do not propose to quote it in full but I shall mention some of the points in it with which I agree.

The kind of decentralisation that should be adopted in future plans should be one in which industries are grouped around towns and areas which are naturally suitable for economic industrial enterprise, places with good road and rail communications and ready access to the sea, in order to have ready availability of raw materials and also the speedy transport both to and from the concerns. We are happy in that we have such places with ready access to the sea for the purpose of getting in raw materials and exporting finished products—such places as Cork, Waterford, Limerick, Wexford, Dundalk, Drogheda, Galway and Sligo. That is the right kind of decentralisation— the placing of our industries as far as possible around those areas. Such action would result in the development of a number of strong pockets of industry, where a tradition of skill and a pool of skilled workers would be built up. An era of stability and prosperity would be established in these localities. This would do much to make these towns attractive places in which to work and live. Ultimately we would have not only an economic form of industrial life in these areas but a minimising of the tendency to emigrate from these towns and to trek to either Dublin or England.

There is widespread criticism of the centralisation of industry and centralisation generally in Dublin. It is being condemned as being an unnatural concentration. But the fact of the matter is that it is really not an unnatural concentration. It is happening in other countries, and it is not even unusual. In present-day Europe, in Italy, France, Austria, Denmark and many other countries, this same phenomenon is apparent—this trek to the cities away from the country. By adopting this principle of centralisation around our other cities, we might avoid Dublin becoming too much of a giant and too top heavy.

While on the subject of Dublin, I think it is bad policy, if people want to build industries in Dublin, that they should be prevented from doing so. Again, we ought to obey the economic law. It is much better, even if Dublin became bigger, to have Irishmen employed in Dublin rather than having them go to Birmingham and other places in England. It is a question of employing Irish people in Ireland. If Dublin is the only place where industry can be set up to employ them, there should be no Government policy to prevent these industries from being set up here. From now on, we ought to avoid setting up industries in unsuitable areas for purely political or even good social reasons. Ultimately, they are not good social reasons because these industries will ultimately, fail. They are bound to fail unless, of course, they are bolstered up indefinitely by unnatural protection and sops of all kinds, which I do not think we can continue to afford on any large scale in the future.

Dublin has the advantage of accessibility and transport, but there is one matter to which I feel it is necessary to refer. In fact, I have been asked to do so. As I said, an all-important factor in a benevolent climate for industrial enterprise is access to raw materials and speedy transport to and from factories. The climate existing throughout our transport system is an essential factor in our productivity, exports and competitive potential generally. It is high time the spotlight was thrown on the appalling situation at the port of Dublin. This is now the only port in Ireland—probably in these islands, if not in the whole of Europe—where container traffic is banned, in the face of its obvious necessity, its endorsement by official trade union circles and a recent recommendation by the Labour Court that at least a fair trial should be given for a limited period to this generally accepted mode of transporting goods. In addition, whereas the national agreement regarding unofficial strikes has been generally honoured, to the credit of trade unions and employers alike, unfortunately the spirit of the agreement has not fully penetrated to the port.

At this moment an unofficial strike in Dublin port has led to a hold-up in the discharge of 234 tons of seed wheat, which it is essential should be sown within the next ten days. A consignment of car parts, vital to the continued employment of a substantial number of men, is similarly frozen in the hold of that ship and the export of a large quantity of stout is prohibited by the same action on the part of a handful of dockers who, in breach of their agreement and in defiance of their union, have taken the law into their own hands.

It would be well, when we are considering the general economic future of the country, that the Minister should give serious attention to acts like these, which, given the existence of recognised trade unions and of collective bargaining machinery second to none, should be no part of the conduct of any section of the community. The dispute arises over the withdrawal by the company of preference cards from men who refused stevedores' instructions to load six bundles of tubing weighing five tons in a hoist which by agreement is admitted to carry ten tons. The difference in labour cost renders the handling completely uneconomic. I feel it is my duty to refer to this.

If we are to have any law and order in the future in our industrial economy, it is necessary that all concerned should pull together. If our industrial life is to be upset by irresponsible actions by either employers or workers or by restrictive practices, all the best intentions of any Government or any business people will be frustrated. I shall not say any more about that.

I have referred to the location of industries and the necessity for having them in the proper location and now I should like to refer to the atmosphere which is necessary if our industrial enterprises are to be as successful as we would like to them to be in the future. We need efficient businessmen as well as having industries in the right place, but in order to attract such people and create good industries, the business atmosphere should be made as attractive as possible. I have already said that a good businessman wants to operate in the best possible place, but he also wants to make an attractive profit, and that applies to our own people as well as foreigners. We know that the main idea of going into business is to make a profit and having made a profit, one desires to be allowed to keep a reasonable measure of it. Any conscientious businessman requires his profit, not so much to spend on himself, because a really good businessman will not spend much on himself, but to plough it back into his business and create more capital and more production; in other words, to have that self-generating capital which we badly need in this country.

As regards foreign investors, it is not sufficient to tell a foreign investor that it would be profitable for him to come here. He must be convinced that to come here promises a more profitable investment than elsewhere. Last year, when I was making the same suggestion, the Minister said that taxation here was no worse than elsewhere. I do not think that is the real answer to this proposition. The great advantage that we could have in this country, to outweigh the disadvantages, would be a really attractive taxation code, as applicable to industries, for the building up of capital and giving reasonable profits. I think the taxation incentive is the best weapon we could use. It would be irresistible and would produce very fruitful results.

It is not just enough to be no worse than other countries; we should be much better in this regard, especially as we are in the initial stages of industrial development. However, I think we have seen the light in this taxation question. On the question of exports and the remission of tax for ten years which the Government now offer, even from a long term view, that is only a very small sop and it will have to be very much improved, if we are to get the atmosphere that will produce the dynamic increases which are absolutely vital.

Before I leave this point, I should like to quote again from the Irish Banking Review of December last. It says:—

"The Government can do a great deal to create an atmosphere favourable to private investment which needs confidence, security and the hope of profit. Domestic interests must be encouraged to save more and to repatriate some of their external holdings and foreign investments. The best contribution the Government can make is to keep taxation low and favourable to enterprise."

I should also like to refer to one other remark in the Government's White Paper. On page 9, it says:—

"No programme of economic development will be successful unless the people have the will to work."

I need not say this as coming only from me, for it is a general opinion, that one of the greatest dis-incentives to the will to work at present in this country is high taxation. That applies not only to employers and to owners of businesses, but to workers as well. To work harder and to earn more is merely to incur more and more heavy taxation, and therefore this question of taxation is of primary importance and will have to be considered if harder work is to be forthcoming. It is extraordinary that the brochures which have been brought out tell prospective industrialists about the attractions of Ireland—about subsidies, grants and protection—but are never able to tell much about reliefs in taxes. Tax reliefs are a primary inducement and if offered, a lot of these other things would not be necessary.

I shall conclude by summarising in a few words what I have said. I have stated that for the stimulation and expansion of existing productive enterprise, more and greater incentives for profitable trading are required and, as an addendum to that, I would say that something should be done about removing the new taxes and heavier rates on people who make additions to their businesses and carry out improvements to their premises. It seems quite crazy that when a man spends more money on his premises, and on creating greater facilities for better trading, he should be penalised for doing so. In other words, at a time when he is spending more money he is asked to hand out still more money to the State or to the local authority, in penalty, as it were, for being progressive.

Secondly, for the creation of new industries it is highly important to have regard to the economic suitability of the location of the enterprise and also to provide a healthy economic climate in which a good profit incentive will be an irresistible driving force leading to the success of the enterprise.

Mr. Donegan

I feel we should all congratulate ourselves on reaching the Central Fund Bill with only a few hours in which to discuss it after talking for the past few weeks, not about what the Government should do, but who was to do it. I feel that the Government, having forced that upon us, have left us very little time to talk about this Bill. The general increase of £4,000,000, in my view, gives very little hope to that part of the community on which we all depend, namely, the farming community. The only ray of hope which is left is the fertiliser subsidy.

I note that we are to borrow the fertiliser subsidy. I was intrigued last night to hear Senator O'Donovan referring to the borrowing as probably not being quite the right course to follow for the very reason that fertiliser is not a permanent thing. The application of fertiliser is something which a good farmer engages in, but which is not lasting. Some fertilisers are more lasting than others, but from my own experience, they are not permanent. Nitrogenous fertiliser is not permanent, nor is phosphate, or burned phosphatic rock and after 24 months, the effects have gone. Therefore, as the farming community, in the last analysis, must pay for everything, then it is right that they should know this fertiliser subsidy which is being given to them will eventually be paid for by them, as this is borrowed money which has to be paid back by the citizens.

I agree that it was a grave mistake to have financed this fertiliser subsidy by the removal of Section B of the land project. In my own case, I have applied for the Section A grant and I do not even know what I am to get. It is unfair that the man on the poorer land, who now will have to pay more, can no longer benefit from Section B of the land project.

The fertiliser subsidy is an excellent thing. I think it would have been done long ago but for certain inherent dangers. While approving completely of it, it is no harm to mention these inherent dangers. The main inherent danger is that the source of phosphatic fertiliser is controlled by one group and the entry of the rock phosphate into this country is exclusively through one international cartel. It has been a fact over the years past that on the price charged for this rock—and it is from this rock that our fertiliser manufacturers manufacture their phosphate—we pay a subsidy of £4 a ton.

The price of this rock was based not on the cost of production but on what the international cartel believed the Irish farmer could pay. While that cannot be done blatantly now, there is a grave danger that, over the following years, this international cartel will again relate the price they charges for their phosphatic rock to the Irish manufacturers to what they believe the Irish farmer can pay, taking into account whatever the fertiliser subsidy per ton may be. There is that grave danger there. I hope it will not result in the subsidy being negatived. I hope the Government will keep a very keen eye on that aspect of the matter in the years to come.

The political opportunity in the fertiliser subsidy has not been neglected. Every seller of fertiliser cannot show the price of superphosphate straight; he must show the price and then the reduction in respect of the Government subsidy. If we introduced a fertiliser subsidy I think we would do the same but it is no harm to mention it in passing.

The past two years have been marked by a realisation brought upon people who, up to that time, were adamant that such was not the case, that we are dependent entirely on our agricultural industry for our future and our present. I name among the people who did not seem to have faith in that industry bank directors and members of the Government. With all the crises there have been, with our balance of payments crisis in which the export of cattle became such an important factor; with our credit squeeze crisis which was possibly brought about for a purpose; with all our other crises that we can remember, people now realise that the only thing we have is our farming industry.

When it became a fact that all but 11 counties of the British Isles were closed to our store cattle, something had to be done. Something was done. We have the large figure of £3,500,000 rising from £1,820,000 last year, voted for the eradication of boving T.B. However, that is entirely a general capital charge upon the country. It is treated—because it is put into the capital side of the Estimates—as a capital charge. I submit it is not a capital charge upon the farmers. It is a capital charge upon the country. If we do not spend that money, the man working in Capel Street is in as much danger of losing his remuneration as the man who works in Leitrim, Cavan or Louth. That being so, the problem must naturally be faced and, if it is faced naturally, and we concede that point, we find that the figure given of a net increase in the Vote for Agriculture of £1,831,650 is reduced to a real net increase of nearly £200,000.

After such a disastrous year and with the admission by all that we have nothing left for our agricultural sector, I think that is not sufficient and is entirely inadequate. All the efforts the Government made—and I have no doubt they made them, as all Governments would—to reduce the amount of money in this Book of Estimates were brought to nought. I believe they were largely brought to nought by the wholesale removal of the food subsidies in the 1957 Budget. It is a fact that the effect of this is progressive and probably has not reached the end of its course by now.

When sitting on the Louth County Council I had the opportunity of examining the estimates that came before us there last year. I had the opportunity to learn that last year, when we met all the spectacular increases for our institutions, they were in the column referred to as "Food, drink and tobacco." This year, the spectacular increases were in the column "Salaries and goods to be bought." People will succeed in getting the remuneration they deserve. the 10/- wage increase may have settled with the worker on the roads, may have settled with the insured worker, or should I say, the trade union worker. It did not settle with all the higher officials of the salaried classes. I do not grudge them the money; they must get their just remuneration. However, the reason for the inability of the Government to reduce this figure of £115,000,000 to its previous figure of £4,000,000 lower is directly attributable to the progressive effect of the 1957 Budget.

A complete analogy can be seen if one scrutinises the Estimates of 1952 and the struggle that had to be made in the year 1954-55 with the result of that wholesale and I think entirely mistaken removal of all the food subsidies. I am not so innocent as to believe that if the Government could have left things exactly as they were they probably would not have done so. However, the complete and sweeping removal of the subsidies could not be right if the subsidies were at all right in the first instance. Nothing so sweeping could be done by a Government and yet be all right. A lot of it had to be wrong. The progressive result is having its effect and the difficulties of the country and the Government now can be attributed to the 1957 Budget.

I want to refer to the pricing of industrial goods produced in this country in relation to the pricing of similar goods abroad. We have here a very complete system of protection for goods manufactured in this country. It is right that we should have that in many instances. In a lot of instances, I think these protections should be reexamined periodically. They are not reexamined. Once protection for a product is given it remains.

I do not want to mention any particular product or company. I know, however, of a product sold in this country at, say, a unit of 3d. and the price for the same product—a product produced in great volume—across the Border in Newry is 2d. I can only deduce that in order to compete in the export market we are selling a lot of goods to our own people at much greater prices than are really necessary if we were to sell them based on the cost of production. I know that all over the world this has to be done but I think that with our rather wholesale system of protection it should not be done without constant revision and constant attention to see to it that our own cost of living is not going up because, if it does, the gentlemen sitting behind the Minister and everybody else will get their just remuneration and the size of the bill in this Book of Estimates will go up year by year, as it always has gone up, as stated by Senator McGuire.

Last year was a very good year for the production of butter and milk products. As a result, the Government found themselves in difficulties. They used a formula whereby one-third of the extra losses would be borne by the farmer and two-thirds by the Government. This year, we have had the opposite and the losses are far less. Yet the real reduction of one penny per gallon which the Government imposed on the dairy farmers has not been restored. That is downright dishonesty. I believe these men are entitled to some increase.

Great play was made, notably by the Minister for Lands, with agricultural marketing. Steps were to be taken in England and that would be an excellent thing. Advertising was to be used to put across our products, the packaging of every product was to be seen to, and the product was to be placed in every shop in English cities which sold that sort of thing, so that we could sell our agricultural products there under our own trade names. What has happened? Why is the Minister for Lands so silent now on this project? Why is there not something in the Book of Estimates that shows us our agricultural market is being seen to? Is it that one election is over and the next one is not nigh? Is that the answer? If it is, it is a very poor one. Really and truly, the manner in which the creamery and dairy farmers of this country have been treated for the past 12 months is scandalous. They have been made to suffer a reduction in price of one penny per gallon, and that reduction, as I say, has not been restored. The carrot which was dangled in front of them has been removed because there is no election in the offing.

I note, too, in this Book of Estimates, a reduction in the amount allocated for wheat losses—losses on disposal of wheat and payments to wheat growers—of £330,000. The amount last year was £800,000 and the estimated amount this year is £470,000. Does not that give a complete picture of the way in which the unfortunate wheat farmers were treated last harvest, during the most catastrophic period they ever experienced, and that by the Government which plastered wheat on every deadwall in the country, by the Government which railed at us when we had to reduce the price to a certain figure per barrel, but who, when they had to reduce the price by a further figure, proceeded to do so in so complicated a manner that many farmers do not know what they got for their wheat last year. There were so many pluses, minuses, multiplications and deductions that the farmers do not know what they got.

There is a motion on the Order Paper dealing with this matter which will, I presume, be discussed after Easter and, therefore, I do not want to go any further into it at the moment, except to say that the antipathy—and that is a mild word— which the Fianna Fáil Government have always shown to the agricultural community, except when they wanted their votes, is too well known now to be discussed——

Dr. Ryan

We always got them, too.

Mr. Donegan

Not always.

Dr. Ryan

Always.

Mr. Donegan

Not always.

Dr. O'Donovan

You got them the last time all right.

Tomás Ó Maoláin

Especially from 1933 to 1937.

Mr. Donegan

Lest we find ourselves out of order, I shall continue. We have had great discussion about planes. There are two things about the purchase of these jet planes. One is the weakness of the Tánaiste for reverting to any of his brain-children. If they are taken from him, he is like a child who insists on having the toy which is on the top shelf. An instance of that is the scheme to spend £5,000,000 on jet planes. There is not a hope of getting a returns from that expenditure of £5,000,000 comparable with the return which would be got from an expenditure of £5,000,000 on the agricultural industry, on industrial development, on agricultural marketing and many other such things. The people will not accept it and it is a political error for the Government. The other night I was in a certain place and I was in a room where, actually, a union group were meeting. They wanted to know if I would vote for an increase for painters employed by the Drogheda Corporation. I found myself, God forgive me, defending the Government because they attacked me about old age pensions and I said: "Gentlemen, I am all for you; I want to see the old age pensioner getting more, but may I make some little explanation of the Government's dilemma?" They said: "Certainly." I said: "Well, an increase of 2/6 represents a cost of £1,250,000. Therefore, unfortunately, you will realise that from year to year the old age pensioners are the hardest people to satisfy." A man at the back said: "What about the £5,000,000 for the planes?"

Is it not true as was said here to-day —it was said by Senator Stanford— that we must look at this Book of Estimates on the basis of comparison. If we are not in a position to help the old age pensioners, and, mind you, it is a social thing and a very important matter, we certainly must not spend £5,000,000 on these transatlantic planes that will not employ 1,000 or even 100 men. They may, in fact, be of some little help to the tourist industry, but they certainly will not repay an expenditure of £5,000,000.

I note there is merely a token sum for the payment of compensation to workers in the Dundalk Engineering Works. Quite honestly, I am very pleased with what the Government have done in the Dundalk Engineering Works. They were faced with a grave dilemma in which up to 1,000 people were about to become unemployed. I do not wish to blame one Government or another—I do not think any blame can be apportioned—because the dilemma arose and having arisen, something had to be done about it.

Looking at it in a broad way, the only thing to be done was to try to start some sort of productive industry which would eventually stand on its own two feet. The Government have undertaken to invest £1,500,000 and they are pressing forward with various companies they have instituted. I wish them well and I am glad that merely a token sum is included in the Estimates for additional payments to persons who lose their employment in the Dundalk Engineering Works. The Government have not won the race yet, and before they win it and re-employ the men who have been disemployed there, I may criticise them and criticise them severely. I just want to say that to-day I am prepared to thank them for what they have done and that, as a Louth man, I appreciate it and I do not wish to criticise one Party or another.

Senator McGuire very properly referred to the question of the availability of transport and of know-how in industry, and to the fact that industries must be situated in the right place wherever that may be. I agree and I think it is far better that a man should move from the west of the Shannon to Dublin or Waterford or wherever the industry would be best placed.

Take the case of America. Some 30 years ago, 80 per cent. of the population of America lived on the land and 20 per cent. lived in the cities; now 80 cent. live on the land. Birmingham will expert its pull on Galway just as Dublin will. Many people have talked a lot of nonsense about emigration. I am not in favour of it, but as long as it is there I can see that it is a factual thing about which no one can do very much, except by the manipulation of the productive influence to try to keep as many people at home as possible.

I notice in the Department of Defence Estimate that the expenses of the equitation team have been reduced from £8,500 to £2,500. The Army equitation team were our best diplomats abroad. They did a great deal for the country. They may not have made the connections which got factories, but in their halcyon days they undoubtedly were the ambassadors of Ireland abroad. I know that we were very parsimonious towards them and that the men we sent to ride our horses in horse shows in America, Italy and elsewhere, even in Australia, were given very small allowances and that they had to attend at functions and spend money largely out of their own pockets. I should like to hear an explanation of this Estimate from the Minister when he is concluding, and I hope that this reduction of £6,000 is not foreshadowing the end of the Army equitation team. It would be a great mistakes if it were so. We have not done them too well in the past. I hope we shall do them better, or certainly not worse, in the future.

As usual when Fianna Fáil is in office, there is a general increase in the Department of Defence Estimate. The net increase of £355,840 brings the Estimate to £6,723,900. The largest increase is in the pay of officers, cadets, N.C.O.s and privates, £215,731. It is a lot of money. I wonder if it is justified. I wonder if we need a larger Army. The increase obviously foreshadows more men. It is not an increase in the amount of pay; it is an increase in the numbers of men. I think we are incorrect in having a greater Army and that we probably could do with a lesser one. The Army men say to me that when the inter-Party Government were in power they had not got polish for their boots, but when Fianna Fáil are in power they can send out jet planes. That may be a bit of honest speaking, but that is what they tell me. While we may have erred a little the other way, it is better to cut down as much as possible on the Army Estimates, as long as they fulfil their obvious duty, rather than be too flaithiúlach with them. While I wanted to see the Army equitation team kept at normal level, I think an increase of £350,000 in expenditure on the Army, in this year of grace, when things are not so good, is incorrect and should not have been allowed.

Going back to what Senator Stanford said about comparisons, I should like to refer to the increase of £5,539 in the expenditure on the Peatland Experimental Station at Glenamoy to £47,785. I well remember, before the days of the commission on this matter —when I was a member of Dáil Éireann, actually—the protestations there were that this would pay. When we cut it down, it was said that if we had kept it on for another year or two it would have paid, that there would not be any debit balance and there would not be any £47,000 to be voted. Here we are again with an increase of £5,539, notwithstanding what the commission said.

78 seats—all along the Bray road. Business suspended at 6 p.m. and resumed at 7 p.m.

Dr. Sheehy Skeffington

I should like to devote my remarks this evening to three ministries. The three Departments about which I want to say something are the Department of Justice, the Department of Social Welfare and the Department of Education.

On the Estimate for the Department of Justice, I should like to say that it has been a source of continuing disappointment to me down the years, since the formation of our own Government, that there has been no governmental move for radical penal reform. I should like to see a Minister for Justice who would concern himself actively to put before the Government a series of schemes in order to bring our prisons, reformatories and industrial schools up to date, and perhaps a little bit ahead of other countries, instead of lagging 20 to 25 years behind.

One of my earliest memories as a little boy of three and a bit was being taken in 1912 to see my mother in Mountjoy. I still remember the inside of Mountjoy, though I am glad to say that so far I have avoided a repetition of that experience. My mother served several terms of imprisonment. That particular sentence was for the crime of breaking windows in Dublin Castle in the cause of votes for women. Her experience was that she could not find it in her to think of herself purely as a political prisoner, as some do, and keep apart from the other prisoners. She always felt that the prison population were one. She felt as strong a fellow-feeling for the ordinary criminals as she did for her own political colleagues, whether they were in the Suffragette movement, or later, in the Nationalist movement. It promoted a regret in her, a regret I now express, that in a country where almost all the leading politicians have seen the inside of a cell and know what it is like to be in jail there has been no movement for penal reform, a reform which would set a headline for the rest of the world.

Why is that? Is it because, having seen the inside of a jail, one soon forgets what it is like? Is it that we have some inherently backward and narrowminded view of imprisonment, retribution, and punishment? I do not know what the explanation is. I have talked about this with politicians, and they say: "Yes, it is true, we are all jailbirds in a sense." Why do the jailbirds then not remember what it is like to be in jail? Why do they not promote the reforms that are being slowly brought about in Britain, but in which we have made singularly little progress down the years? I should like to see our jails, in so far as we have to have them existing, being models of what modern penal institutions should be, instead of being models of what penal institutions used to be in the days of Queen Victoria.

I want to refer to another point which is related particularly, to industrial schools. I notice time and again when a child is committed to a school, industrial or reformatory, that the length of sentence seems to be terribly long. You get a little boy of nine breaking into a lock-up shop and stealing jam or sweets, and being sentenced to seven years in an industrial school. That is the kind of thing that happens. Why? You see that nine out of ten times, they are committed to the age of 16.

The other day in the country a boy of 12 was brought to court and summoned under the School Attendance Act, and was sent to an industrial school until the age of 16. If he had attended school properly, he would only have attended school until 14, but he was sent to the industrial school until he is 16.

In this case, furthermore, the judge asked the further whether he could afford to pay anything towards the upkeep of the boy. The father said he was unemployed and was getting £2 7s. 6d. a week to keep himself, his wife, and his children, and that quite clearly he could not afford to pay anything. The justice saw that. The boy was committed. The State then pays for that boy in the industrial school 45/- a week which is probably only just adequate, in fact, but if the boy had stayed at home the family would have been give only 6/- to keep him.

In that case, the father went out into the street, crying after the boy and saying: "You shall not take my boy from me. I will appeal." The boy was taken away for four years, because he has not been attending school. The point I should like to link up with this whole question of reform is this: I should like to see reform in those who fill and those who run our reformatories and industrial schools and prisons, as well as attempted reform of the prisoners.

Furthermore, and it is linked with that, on the question of children, I should like to see more co-ordination between the various departments that deal with children. A question was asked about this case in the Dáil the other day by Deputy Dr. Browne. He asked the Minister for Education about the case. The Minister for Education said that, since the committing to the school was done under the authority of the Department of justice, he could not make any answer—although the boy once committed, is under the jurisdiction of the Department of Education! That is very bad. It is a neat parliamentary way of passing the buck and not answering a parliamentary question, but it is intolerable for children to be thrown around in this way under the responsibility now of one Minister and again of another Minister, and, in the final analysis, supremely neglected as far as the State goes.

It is apparently possible for the State to pay 45/- a week for the upkeep of a child in such an institution where, presumably the catering is done on a big scale, but the State can give only 6/- a week to the family towards the upkeep of the child at home. Should we not examine our consciences about that? We pay lip-service to the sacredness of the home. We talk about the evils of Communism and say it breaks up homes and tears the children away. Yet we find that kind of thing going on before our eyes.

If the father, for instance, of such a child as I have been speaking of were paid anything like 45/- a week for the upkeep of that child at home, I suggest the home would probably be much better, and possibly so would the child's attendance at school. I admit there may have to be some disparity, but I suggest that the disparity between 6/- per week for the upkeep of the child at home, and 45/- per week for the upkeep of the child when torn away from home is too great.

That brings me to the Department of Social Welfare. It is easy to shed tears about the widows, the blind and the old age pensioners. I think it has been done on political platforms throughout the country. I am old enough to remember the outcry and the scandal in the country when the Cumann na nGaedheal Government reduced the old age pension from 10/- to 9/- per week. That was a very big vote swinger for the Republican candidates at the time—and, of course, the full 10/- a week was brought back fairly soon.

I think we ought to recognise that in those days 10/- a week was regarded by everybody who spoke in public as a scandalously low amount to pay to old age pensioners and which they did not even get until they were 70 years of age, but in terms of purchasing power to-day, what we now give with great unction to our old age pensioners is 25/- per week. I do not think anybody here thinks old persons can live in dignity and comfort, as human beings ought, on 25/- per week, but we shuffle off the responsibility by saying we have not the money, or that the money must be spent upon "productive" things, or that we just cannot manage it.

I remember a question, which was asked, I think, by Senator Cogan, at the time as to how much it would cost—it was when the previous Government were in office—to abolish the means test for old age pensioners and blind pensioners. I think the answer was something like £2,500,000. That £2,500,000 would, I suggest, be admirably spent not on increasing the old age pension, but on abolishing the means test for those pensioners of 70 years of age, because for them it would be an enormous thing.

A sum of £2,500,000 in relation to our Budget would be relatively small. If the Government do not feel they can do that, could they not go some of the way and make the means test less stringent, because on its present scale it means that if the old age pensioner has so much as £104 a year from some other source, he or she cannot get a penny in old age pension.

I come now to the Department of Education in which I am particularly interested. I want to say some things about it, and I hope at not too great length. The point I made before, and which I intend to make again, is that when a child is late for school, it gets punished, but when the Minister for Education produces his report for his Department three years late nobody is slapped for lateness. There is no censure in that case. Yet, year after year and Government after Government this Minister is late—and has he got an excuse, a signed letter from the Taoiseach to say: "Please excuse the Minister for Education; he is late again; he was slow doing his homework, as he found it very hard"?

It is time the Government woke up to the fact that the Department of Education is, year after year, telling us what happened in our schools and in our educational system three years ago. The news is about to break in a few weeks' time, I think, when the Department is bringing out its current report as to what was happening in our schools in the year 1956-57. We are again to be given the figures and the facts for three years back. I would ask the Seanad whether they think that that is good enough, Personally, I do not think it is. I should like to hear what the Minister thinks about it, or is there some excuse about conditions and situations, and so on?

Some years ago, I suggested to the Minister's predecessor that it was fantastic for the two big State examinations to treat the Irish language like a dead language, and to hold no oral test at State examinations. I was told emphatically, presumably on advice from the Department, by the then Minister, the Minister of the Coalition Government—that it would be virtually impossible to organise such a test.

I salute the present Minister. He has decided that for the leaving certificate—not for the intermediate certificate—but for the leaving certificate, at last, after 37 years of Irish Government, they will treat Irish as a living tongue. That is a victory which we ought to salute, because if Irish has any value at all as a school subject it is as a living tongue, not as a dead language, not as a language just to be written down. The major educational value is in learning how to launch oneself into another spoken tongue, and surely it has been a betrayal down the years to treat Irish as if it were, like Latin and Greek, dead, and could not be spoken. Things do move, apparently. The Department has moved, and next year, I believe, they will actually have an oral test for the leaving certificate. They are very frightened about it, very scared; it is very tentative. They have made no promise at all about the intermediate certificate, but at least they will have an oral test for the leaving certificate.

I am afraid I am not satisfied. I do not want to bite the hand that feeds me, as it were, or to look a gift horse in the mouth, but I do feel that children doing the intermediate examination might have the privilege of having their spoken Irish tested and any other modern language they may take. I do not care how difficult it is. I do not believe it is any more difficult than it is in France or Britain, and I have mentioned before, indeed, that any child going for the general certificate of education in Britain and taking the subject Irish, as he can, must do an oral examination in Irish, because the British education authorities, both in Britain and in Northern Ireland, regard Irish as a living tongue even at the intermediate stage, which our Government, in practice, do not. I know, of course, that in words they pay great tribute to the language as a living tongue, but not in practice.

We have the situation, in fact, that as far as university matriculation goes —I speak open to correction—the only university matriculation examination which insists in the examination for Irish upon an oral test is the entrance examination into Trinity College. We have always had an oral test, because with any living tongue, we believe in the necessity for testing it as a spoken language. I believe U.C.D. is about to introduce that. It may be that both Cork and Galway have done it, but my information is that for the matriculation, so far, the only university matriculation having Irish as a spoken tongue is that of Trinity College. It is true that it is not a compulsory subject there, but it is also true that when it is chosen Irish is treated as a living tongue. The question may be asked of the Government, why, except in relation to the leaving certificate, and that in the future, must Irish continue to be treated officially thus, as a dead language?

If I started talking at length about the general policy with regard to the Irish language, I should be repeating a lot of what has already been said, but I should like to say that I think it is more than high time in this country that, with whatever tears it may be necessary to shed—and, after all, what are tears for but to shed them?—it should be recognised that the Irish language is not the vernacular tongue of the country and never will be again. I say that that should be recognised as a basic fact. I believe, furthermore, that the Irish tongue, where it is still being spoken and surviving, ought to be fostered and encouraged and protected in the best possible way, which is by giving economic support to those who speak Irish in the Irish-speaking districts. I believe, furthermore, that Government expenditure should be generous to foster the interest in Irish of enthusiasts, of those who are really genuinely interested, and not interested in it simply because it will help them to get a job, but I believe that no further money should be spent upon fake compulsion and tests that people are reluctant to take, which, in my opinion, are not merely promoting an antipathy to the language but are, in fact, acting against the best interests of the language itself.

No less a person that the Professor of Psychology in University College, Dublin, Reverend Professor O'Doherty, made an excellent statement about the whole question of teaching other subjects through the medium of a language which is not one's mother tongue. We in this country tend to get very emotional about what is and what is not our mother tongue. Father O'Doherty made it quite clear that one's mother tongue is not necessarily one's ancestral tongue, that our mother tongue is, in fact, the first language through which we achieve communication with the outside world. Now, for nine-tenths of our people, that is English, and when the child of four or five first goes to a national schools, if the teacher attempts to instruct that English-speaking child in arithmetic, or other subjects, through the medium of a language that it does not know, the teacher may be doing very big damage to the child, to the child's thought processes, and also, incidentally, to this strange new medium which the child could far better in other ways be taught to love and have an interest in.

I believe, in other words, that if there were a more intelligent, better-informed Government policy towards the language, it would pay a better dividend from the point of view of fostering the language; and the language would have a longer life, because I believe the language is now being watered down and diluted and diminished, and finally will be killed off by Government policy, killed by kindness.

Now I should like to come to the question of secondary education in this country and to deal with the Department's attitude towards it. Again, I should like to start by congratulating the Minister and the Department on the recent increasing of the scale of increments to registered secondary school teachers. That was excellent, and I think the increases were reasonably generous. They were not by any means over-generous. They certainly were overdue. They were given, however, and we should note that and give credit to the Minister for that.

It is true, as I suppose everybody here knows, that the ordinary lay secondary school teachers in this country depend to a major extent upon these increments for their livelihood, and in many cases they represent considerably more than half their salary. Therefore, it is a good thing that they should at last have been increased. But, in relation to increments there are still quite serious defects in the departmental system, defects that a Minister of imagination ought to set about changing. In the first place, a man who has got all the qualifications to become a registered teacher cannot become registered, despite the fact that he may have an honours degree, a higher diploma in education and have passed a language test, until he has taught a qualifying year in a school. That kind of regulation is just stultifying, and cheeseparing, for the sake of saving a few hundred pounds, and it ought to be abolished. It ought to be made easy for teachers——

An Cathaoirleach

May I suggest that this detailed discussion of the matter is not appropriate to this Bill?

Dr. Sheehy Skeffington

Yes, Sir; I accept your ruling. I would put it in general terms simply thus: I think the Department's policy on education in relation to such things as registered teachers and their increments is due for an overhaul, and should be changed. I shall not go further into details because I accept and respect your ruling. In relation to increments, there should be a change. A similar change of attitude ought to come about in relation to the whole way in which the Department of Education help secondary schools by grants. They help by increments. They help also by capitation grants and I believe the Government's policy on education ought to be modified in relation to that also.

With regard to scholarships, I do not want to go into detail, out of respect for your rulling, but the whole question of the way in which money is dispensed in the secondary schools and to children in them should be seriously examined.

Now I have mentioned some ways in which I consider secondary school education is not very well served. We know, of course, that there are no grants at all for buildings. Nevertheless, I would say that in relation to the policy of the Government, secondary schooling is, perhaps, rather more favoured than most other branches. I should just like to quote the general figures from the statement of net audited expenditure on Public Services, in relation to Votes 37,38 and 39, Primary Education, Secondary Education and Technical Education, and also Vote 43, Universities and Colleges. The amount of the increase of the present Estimate over the first year quoted, 1950-51, in relation to secondary education, is two and a half times as great in the present Estimate, 1959-60. For technical and university education, it is just about twice as big; and for primary education, it is only one and a half times as big.

I feel that there is a big disparity there, and that primary education is the least privileged of our branches of education. I should like to see in relation to that—and I do not want to go into details—a change in the Government's general attitude towards school building. I should like to see them, when they find there is a shortage of schools, and especially of classrooms, instead of building colossal schools which may cost anything from £3,000 to £6,000 per classroom, putting up short-term, "utility" schools to bridge the gap for the sake of children in overcrowded conditions now, and for the teachers who have to deal with such overcrowding; in other words, put up schools which we know will not last, which may be provisional, but which will meet the problem as it appears now in the moment of crisis, rather than try to build, long-term, colossal, palatial schools, which will meet the problem only in 30, 40, or 50 years' time.

My colleague, Senator Stanford, has dealt in a manner which I would entirely approve with the question of the university grants. There are just two supplementary points I should like to make on that. Senator Stanford started by saying—and I should like to echo what he said there—that although in the present Estimates we find a very big increase, comparatively speaking, in the Estimate for University College, Dublin, an increase of £143,000, it is in no sense of envy that some of us feel that one or two of the other colleges might have been as generously treated. It would be absurd to say that the grant to University College, Dublin is too big. I think it would be very easy to demonstrate that it is too small. Therefore, it is in no sense of suggesting that it is too big that I turn to have a look at the other grant totals. We know there are special problems of overcrowding, understaffing, underpay and so on at University College, Dublin, but those problems exist in all our university colleges.

I notice that if you examine the increases which are given at page 174 of the Estimate for the Public Services, if you notice what percentages increase if given in each case, you will find that for the National University, the central office and organisation, there is an increase of £10,000 which represents a 50 per cent. increase, that is, £10,000 in relation to the £20,000 grant last year. In relation to University College, Dublin, the increase is £143,000 which again represents roughly a 50 per cent. increase on last year's figure. For University College, Cork, the increase of £43,000 represents an increase of only 35 per cent. on last year. For University College, Galway, the £46,930 again represents roughly a 50 per cent. increase. Maynooth College get no increase, and the College of Surgeons gets no increase. Trinity College gets an increase of £40,000 which is just 34 per cent.

On those figures, I should just like to make two further comments. One is that this amount of £40,000 increase which is being granted includes a Grant-in-Aid for repair of college buildings, which are historic college buildings, of £10,000 and a grant towards redemption of capital expenditure of £20,000—a repayment of existing debt or deficit—so that the real increase this year represents a mere £10,000. That is the first point.

The next point I want to make is that Trinity College, Dublin, has one point of difference with the other university colleges in that it is far more a residential college than any of the others. The amenities it has to provide are more extensive, and are of a different kind from those in colleges which place less emphasis on residence. Therefore, I may legitimately say that the 34 per cent. increase is perhaps not calculated with sufficient regard to the realities of the situation. I do not want to say any more on that. Indeed, I have already spoken at greater length than I intended to.

In conclusion, I will say in relation to the Department of Education that the major problem facing them now, and which I do not see them tackling in a realistic spirit at all, is the problem of overcrowding in the classrooms. I am shocked—I am not easily shocked—when I find that the Minister, when he is asked in the Dáil questions as to the actual extent of overcrowding in classrooms in Dublin and Cork, makes the answer that it would not be in the public interest to spend the money it would take to find out.

In other words, he is not prepared to find out. He does not know and he does not care. The only kind of answer he gives is in relation to the average. If you divide the teachers into the number of pupils you will find there are some 43 to 46 pupils per teachers, but he does not know, he does not care, and is not prepared to find out what the true overcrowding situation per classroom is in Dublin and Cork. How can a responsible Minister face his critics in relation to these children without even knowing what are the conditions of overcrowding in city schools, in Dublin and Cork particularly?

In my contention, the whole future of the country depends upon the educational chance that we can give to our half a million or so of primary school children. In my submission the Department of Education is falling down lamentably upon that task. I should like, therefore, to enjoin the Minister and the Government to give serious reconsideration to the basic facts of education in relation to the primary schools of Ireland.

Mr. Carter

The Central Fund Bill gives the Seanad an opportunity of discussing the trends briefly past and present and if one is to go by most of the indicators that give us an idea of the way in which our economy is progressing, one may take it that we have made reasonably good progress in the past couple of years or so. The Estimates, which usually compare the position with that of previous years, show that a greater drive is under way and that, despite charges to the contrary, the Government have made every effort to point the way to success. On this Bill, and on previous Bills, the Government have been charged that they have done nothing but direct their attention to changing the system of election. Of course, that is not so. While the system of election is of primary importance in any democratic country, the economic and fiscal programme of the Government is also of great importance.

We assert that whilst the Government have been engaged in introducing measures to change our electoral system they have also been engaged in performing good works, if you like to put it that way, in regard to our economic activities. It is not fair to say that the Government have been lax, for one moment or that they neglected any matter regarding our drive towards prosperity. It is quite clear that the critics of the measure to change the electoral system are not taking notice of all the factors involved. It is quite clear that a number of people have set out to condemn and destroy the Bill which has just been defeated in this House, and to prevent the people of the country from exercising their due authority.

Some of the critics of the measure asserted first of all that we wanted to change our system of election to an illiterate system. Then they mended their hands and said we were changing to the British system and the Belfast system. Regardless of that we again assert that any country which wants to make reasonable progress— whether it be political or economic progress—must have a sound system of government, and we further assert that now is the time to plan for that system. Now is the time, when we have a Government with a strong majority, to plan ahead. We are not planning for the present. We are planning for the future and we are recognising the fact that we may not always be able to secure as strong a Government as we have, under the system at present in operation.

An Cathaoirleach

In view of the long discussion we have had on that subject, the Senator might leave it now.

Mr. Carter

I was dealing with the effort to increase and expand our capital programme and I would like to refer to some matters contained in the White Paper. The White Paper and the "Grey Book," as it is known, have been a source of reference here for some time past and most thinking people have welcomed them. No one has found any fault with either publication, but when we speak of emigration let us try to offer a solution. At present we talk of co-operation and I heard people here during debates on other Bills extolling co-operation regarding both economic and governmental activities. The fact is that we have no co-operation in the sense of co-operative societies. The co-operative societies we have are such only in name and so long as the Government continue to do the "moke" they will remain co-operative only in name.

As advocates of privates enterprise, we all prefer to see individual investment rather than paternalism or collective investment. While that is so we must have recourse to a certain amount of State investment because we have no tradition in building up our own industries due to our history. That being so, we have reached a stage when certain people here would like to rely on paternalism, people who call on the Government on every occasion to cure every ill that may exist whether on the social side or the financial side.

In economies such as ours, the Government can only indicate the road they want the people to travel and if we want to take advantage of the markets abroad and beside us we can only do so by combining our efforts. In one or two branches of agriculture, poultry and egg production and production of pigs and bacon, we have a favourable opportunity to do this. It has been said that the ancient Irish elk became extinct because he refused to eat his grass in accordance with current conditions. I believe that and I believe that unless the small farmers can be induced to co-operate in those two lines they will also become, like the elk, extinct and no amount of representation in this House or any other will prevent that because the cold hard economic facts are there and nobody can get around them.

When I speak of co-operation I mean co-operation between individual producers. I mean an effort based on a townland where you would have for producers of poultry and eggs one poultry house worked as the Boorenbund works it on the Continent thereby making it possible to produce a constant supply. I think the same could be done with the pig industry. If we cannot get that effort in those branches of our agriculture then we will not be able to take advantage of the White Paper or the proposals outlined in it. We can go on with our present system of co-operation which is not in reality co-operation at all. It relies on the Government for help when markets are bad and starts shouting about prices at certain times and then the situation arises when everyone starts blaming the Government for everything.

The fall in the population in the counties to which I wish to refer, Leitrim, North Longford, parts of Cavan and such counties, set in from the day we ceased to be economic producers of poultry and eggs, pigs and bacon. When people speak of emigration they should recognise the fact that no young boy or girl now leaving school is prepared to work at home for any length of time. They want to take advantage of conditions abroad and emigrate in order to earn £9 or £10 a week. They do not consider the other economic factors involved, what they are able to save or take home at any given time. Their idea is to get employment, get the money and that it is their own affair what they do after that. An effort should be made to inculcate into the younger generation the fact that any young person fleeing the country at present who is not forced out by economic factors is doing a disservice to the country, is not prepared to work for the country and should not be recognised here because of that.

I could give many examples of young people leaving home at present who need not go but who, for some reason, prefer or pretend to see that the future lies with other lands rather than with their own country. I think they have no reason for believing that at present. When people bewail emigration they should remember these facts and recognise that the Government in the White Paper and in other publications have made every effort to induce outside capital to come in here in an effort to create industry to provide work for the people at home. That is not easy to do. We are in competition with other highly-geared industrial countries and, first of all, with Britain. Many other countries have entered the race. Italy has become a first-class producer of many lines of consumer goods with an excellent finish and presentation and at reasonable prices.

The French are also engaged in that work. China has now spread her wings and is coming even into Europe and under-cutting Japan in markets which the Japanese traditionally held as producers of cheap goods. I feel we must take note of all those factors and also that we have other influences operating against people coming in here to invest money. The fact that we have strong ties with America, that many of our people emigrated there and subsequently brought up families there is not enough to guarantee that Americans will invest money here on any large scale but we hope they will recognise some of the advantages we have to offer. We can only hope that for the future that development will grow and that they will come to regard money invested in this country as a sound investment.

The three reports of the Capital Investment Advisory Committee, the "Grey Book" and the White Paper all go to show that we must be realistic about our efforts for economic expansion and accept that we cannot make prosperity by wishing it and that no amount of talk will induce our people to change their ideas overnight. You cannot have a revolution in any field of activity overnight.

I only wish some area, some county committee of agriculture, would take it upon itself to try out one of the pilot schemes in order to take advantage of some of the suggestions embodied in the White Paper and thereby demonstrate, in one given area, that it could co-operate on the basis I mentioned; co-operate as producers and not under the name of a co-operative, which, in reality, is not a co-operative at all.

The housing programme was mentioned and it was only last night that I read in the Evening Press that the Dublin Corporation have a big problem on hands in this regard. They are trying to hand over, I think, roughly £42,000,000 worth of property, to the tenants. It is by no means an easy task to get the tenants to recognise that they would be better off as owners of their own houses. This country has gone a long way towards solving its housing programme. Through subsidies and other ways, it has encouraged the building and reconstruction of houses and in that way various local authorities have undertaken heavy commitments. They are now at the stage when they want to transfer these houses to the tenants. That is a laudable objective and the Government and the local authorities should get every encouragement in that direction. At present we hear people bewailing costs, but when you come to that consideration, local authorities have to bear very high costs in this regard and I was glad to see during the year that the Department of Local Government was active in that direction.

I have nothing more to say on this Bill, except to remark that whilst we hear criticisms, we are not as a rule offered solutions to coincide with the criticisms. I should like to hear some alternatives, or some solutions, from the members who criticise the Central Fund Bill and the Minister for Finance who, as I said, following the worst harvest in history managed to keep the flow of imports reasonably in line with our exports and who, I presume, will manage to produce a balanced Budget. He is to be congratulated on the way he handled the Budget last year and I assume that he has the support of most thinking people in his task.

Professor Quinlan

I, too, should like at the outset to join with my fellow Senators from the universities in expressing appreciation of the increased grants for university education. I should also like to say that in no way do we begrudge our sister college, University College, Dublin, the large share it has got. In fact, this is only timely and we hope it is only a first instalment all round because the amount spent on university education is still somewhat less than the amount available to Queen's University, Belfast. If we are to compete in the modern world, we shall have to keep our universities provided with the facilities to do that.

Our Government have accepted the challenge of modern air travel and it has, within the past 12 months, spent £1,000,000 on the extension of the runways at Shannon Airport. Likewise, we have the decision to acquire jet aircraft. In other words, the Government are very anxious to keep abreast of modern developments in certain fields and I hope that they will adopt the very same attitude to university education, and in fact to all education, as they are adopting in the field of air travel.

I should like to express just a few points of criticism and I join with Senator Stanford in being rather mystified by the manner in which the increases have been worked out. For instance, I make it that the increase to University College, Dublin, has been 43 per cent.; the increase to University College, Galway, 50 per cent.; to Trinity College, 33 per cent.; and to University College, Cork, 29 per cent. I wonder was that based on the fact that Cork is the furthest of all from Dublin. I hope this is only a first instalment and that we will progress from this.

We had last year the "space" commission and we have all been impressed by the eagerness with which it got to work and the thoroughness with which it has accomplished its task. We were led to believe that the report of the commission would be available long ago and I should like to ask the Minister when the report will be available. Again, I join with Senator Stanford in conceding the great claims of University College, Dublin, for increased accommodation, but likewise we have our claims, too, and while in no way wishing to stand in the way of University College, Dublin, we think we should all be developed and enabled to meet the challenge of modern science and the modern age.

I should like to point out one glaring omission, that is, that there is one university institution which has received no increase. It is the one of which we are most proud—Maynooth College. The Grant-in-Aid for secondary education stands at the same figure as last year, £20,000. That is definitely a source of real criticism on this apportionment because we should realise the treasure we have got in Maynooth College. It is the largest Catholic seminary in the world, and, above all, it is a seminary that is producing really first-class work. It might be said right away that it is at the very height of its intellectual activity and there are six high-class journals emanating from it at present. That is a record of which a university six times its size could be proud. I know the conditions under which those producing the journals work, their complete lack of clerical assistance, and I suggest to the Minister that before budget day, he should see fit to apply at least the same measure of generosity to Maynooth College as he has applied to the other colleges. I think everybody here would join with me in voicing that appeal.

I come now to another point, that is, that the apportionment of the grants seems to be on a per capita basis. That is a very wrong principle in higher education, or in any type of education. If you are setting up an engineering school and you have 100 students in the faculty and if you increase that number to 200 students, it does not follow that your costs are doubled. In fact the costs probably increase in the order of 50 per cent. to 60 per cent. but they are not doubled. That is a fallacy we must guard against. It can work in the opposite way also, because any type of education, whether university or other, depends on small classes. You must have that intimate contact between teacher and students to ensure that the students get the maximum benefit from their association with the teacher and are developed to the fullness of their capacity. It is held by the highest authorities that classes of 20, 25 or 30 in most faculties are as much as you can possibly handle.

Calculations have been made as to how much it costs to produce a doctor or an engineer, and the average is £70 per student. That is fallacious. If I have a class of 20 and if next year there happen to be 22 or 23 in the class I get no more for teaching those. The extra couple cost very little. The average cost is a completely misleading figure and the calculations as to what it costs the nation for those graduates who have to go abroad and seek their living are all fallacious. We cannot charge them at the average cost. It is a differential cost and I would commend that to the Minister and suggest that in his approach he should keep in mind that we are dealing with differentials.

While the university is an essential part of any modern nation, we should also remember the important part that the university plays in the economy of the nation through its faculty members, through its contacts with the industrial life and through being in a position to give impartial, independent opinions. One may not agree with those opinions but they are given bona fide and are backed by facts available to the person at the time.

There is another aspect of university education which should be developed. We are seeking new industries and wondering how to attract money into our economy. Through the university there is an opportunity second to none in catering for students from abroad. In America with very little effort we could get a large number of undergraduate students to do their undergraduate work in our colleges. The same holds good for England. Senator Stanford mentioned that each student coming in would spend £250 or £300. I would be inclined to say that for American students it would be far higher, about £400 or £500. Each student who comes here from abroad is as valuable to our economy as a worker in a new industry. They both play the same role in creating wealth for the community. Whether it is the worker operating his machine and producing a new article or the student who is drawing his allowance from outside, they are making an equally big contribution to our economy.

At present we are anxious to attract new industry. We consider £3,000 per worker employed as a rather modest sum. In fact, in the oil refinery we spent £30,000 per worker and in relation to other industries the expenditure is of the order of £15,000 or £20,000 per worker employed. Even if we take the minimum figure of £3,000 per worker, that means that a university that is prepared to cater for 300 additional students is as valuable to this country as a factory employing 300 workers which we would be able to put up at a cost of 300 times 3,000, almost £1,000,000.

I suggest, therefore, that when the report of the "space" commission is approached that should be kept in mind, even if a long-term programme emerges from the "space" commission. The expenditure of, say, £6,000,000 or £8,000,000 on providing facilities for university education, should be thought of in the same terms as factories and as what you would pay to give employment here to 1,500 to 2,000 workers.

One bad omission here in relation to university education is an omission on the part of the Department of Agriculture. No improvement is being made in the grant to the dairy science faculty in University College, Cork, which stands at exactly the same figure as it stood last year, that is, £25,000. Are we serious about this problem in relation to the whole dairying industry, from the creamery platform to the production of butter, cheese, milk products, milk powder, the provision of machinery for the creameries, and so on, when we are prepared to spend only £25,000 per annum on all that? Is it any wonder that we are having difficulty in selling dairy products, when out of a total output of at least £40,000,000 per year, we can spend only £25,000? I suggest that the Minister for Finance should see that that glaring ommission is rectified. It contrasts rather markedly with the fact that we can afford to spend £78,000 on the Institute for Advanced Studies. I am not for one moment saying that that is money badly spent but surely, if we as a nation can afford to spend £78,000 on theoretical physics and Celtic studies, it is ridiculous that we spend only a third of that amount on our major industry, the dairying industry.

I mentioned in the course of the debate three weeks ago that I intended raising an important matter in relation to foreign affairs on the Vote on Account. Due to the absence of the Minister for External Affairs in the United States, it is only fair that I should not proceed with this matter but I hope to raise it by way of motion during the next session of the Seanad.

Tomás Ó Maoláin

Go gcuidigh Dia leat.

Professor Quinlan

It is something we should debate in a clear and impartial manner. As adult members of a community, we should face up to the responsibilities of our foreign policy and see where we are going and whether, with the best of intentions in the world, we may be allowing ourselves to be classed by the company we keep.

Tomás Ó Maoláin

To be what?

Professor Quinlan

Classed by the company we keep.

Next we come to our agricultural policy. I may say I regard it as a pity that the Seanad cannot take time on this Vote on Account, to take the various Votes section by section, so that we could really bring the opinions of the Seanad to bear on its many items.

Mr. Lenihan

This, of course, is the Central Fund Bill.

An Cathaoirleach

This picture, shows that, if we set it as our target to raise the level of all the farms up to the level of the top third of our farms—surely that is not a tremendous objective for, say, a ten year period—we would increase our over-all production by about 75 per cent. Again, that figure is not impossible, since all it calls for is a little over 5 per cent. per annum compound increase. We are capable of doing that, if we get that increase. We can go through the facts and figures. You do not need a farm survey to tell you that the good farmers employ more labour than the poorer farmers or the bad farmers. That is a self-evident fact, and the farm survey, of course, shows that. It enables you to calculate how many more you would need if you raised the standard all round up to that of the top third of the farmers in each parish. You can make that calculation and you will find—I give only a rough figure—that the increased production would be valued at something like £144,000,000 or, reducing it slightly for external prices, it would be worth about £126,000,000 extra.

That is a prize which we cannot hope to get out of any industry we set up at the moment. In industries we are dealing in hundreds of thousands of pounds, but in this, our main industry, we are dealing in millions. If we have an increase of £126,000,000, from the farm survey, we can calculate what the cost of that would be. It would mean more fertilisers, more equipment, more seeds and so on. We find from the farm survey that the cost would be about £54,000,000, leaving a balance behind of about £72,000,000. That £72,000,000 has to cater for three things. It has to enable the farmer to plough back something; it has to give a higher standard of living to those working on the land at present, whether they are farmers or labourers; and, thirdly, it has to provide the pay for the additional labour required to get that output. The additional labour, by the calculation I have made here, works out at over 40,000 workers, assuming that the present rate of increase of efficiency continues. Efficiency is increasing at about 4 per cent. If you assume that to continue, you still need the additional workers.

The global results of it are that you could afford to increase the whole income of the farmers at present by about 30 per cent., including the real income of those labourers working on the land. That is a prize and a target which is worthy of any national effort and it is something which would make a tremendous difference to our country. As well as that, the 40,000 additional workers would absorb something like £15,000,000 of the £72,000,000.

Over and above everything else, we must set aside quite a big sum— £12,000,000 per year—for capitalising the increased output. Agriculture is simply an obsolete factory. If you are to get the production out of it, you must build it, you must put the money into it, just as surely as you put the money into the oil refinery or any other industry. That is where the real crux comes in. I may say that the amount of capital necessary, again working from the farm survey, would work out at something between £100,000,000 and £120,000,000, to get this 75 per cent. increase, which we could get in ten years at an average rate of 5 per cent. That means we are faced with the task, if we want this prize, of pumping into agriculture £100,000,000 to £120,000,000 in ten years. That is what we have to do.

I can show the side effects briefly. You give an additional £60,000,000 worth of purchasing power to the agricultural community. Approximately half that is spent on consuming additional agricultural produce. The other half goes into the factories to buy the products of the factories which the agricultural community are then in a position to buy. In that way you build up the spiral. As well as that, the increased costs—fertilisers, seeds and so on—will largely go towards buying the products of Irish industries. I have made some rough calculations. Assuming efficiency and so forth, in order to cater for this increased purchasing power and the increased demands of the agricultural community in relation to fertilisers and so on, we need at least an additional 20,000 to 30,000 workers in our factories. That would increase the present net output of our factories by 25 per cent. These are prizes worth striving for. These are targets worth aiming at.

The crucial point is, of course, the provision of this additional capital. If we want to bring this about over the next ten years we are faced with putting at least £100,000,000 into agriculture. In the Estimate we see a sum of £11,000,000. Most of that can be written off. At most it means about £2,000,000. Now it cannot be held that the taxpayers should carry the burden because clearly they cannot. Taxation has reached the limit. It cannot go higher. We should have courage then and make an act of faith in the future of our country and in the future of agriculture, the same act of faith as the British Government made in our farmers in 1900 when they passed the Land Acts—no more and no less. At that time there had to be a tremendous change over in order to buy out the landlords. The total cost to date has been £128,000,000. Probably in the British days something like £80,000,000 to £90,000,000 was spent. By present day standards that would amount to at least £300,000,000 to £400,000,000.

Let us think then of the enormous task that faces us. Let us think of the enormous task that faced the British and the way in which they met it. They simply borrowed the money, put the farmers into possession and let them pay it back afterwards. I suggest we adopt the same approach. If we build up our farmers into the position in which they can produce extra wealth they will be very much better off. When they are better off they will be able to pay back that which enabled them to become better off.

The land purchase annuities are run out. The money raised under the Land Acts is almost paid back. Let us make a second effort. Let us raise the money again now and get it back in the same way. The £2,500,000 paid in land annuities is the least worry the farmers have. If the farmers are put into this greatly improved position four times that figure will present no difficulties to them. The figure they were faced with in 1912 to 1915 was actually double the present figure. It was £5,000,000—and that at a time when the £ was worth at least four times what it is worth to-day. I do not think a repayment period of 50 years would be suitable in our present circumstances. Let the period be 20 years and let them pay back at the rate of £10,000,000 per year. That will enable us to recoup a gross of £200,000,000 or get back a loan of about £150,000,000. That is about the amount we need to make this first stage transition. Any money we can spare, like the money in the fertiliser scheme, should be used to pay part of the interest on the loans given to farmers in the early years of development. That is the scheme we have adopted in relation to hoteliers and the development of our tourist traffic. Let the State carry the interest for the first four or five years. That would be a real use to make of the taxpayers' money as an incentive to the development of agriculture.

Many schemes have been announced by the banks in the past year for advancing credit, with the full approval of the Government and the farmers' organisations. Really all that is merely trifling with the problem. It will never do much more than window-dressing because it does not reach down to the small farmer and so credit is not spread as widely as it needs to be spread. The first step in the development of credit should be the abolition of the Agricultural Credit Corporation. We can dispense with that altogether. We have readymade schemes if we will only develop them. Every farmer has a receivable order and that receivable order has been used in the fertiliser scheme. The farmer could get eight to ten times the face value of that order, and all the lending authority need do is pass on the charge to the Land Commission and let the Land Commission deal with it subsequently. A credit scheme on that basis could be worked at minimum cost. In such a scheme we should not worry too much about the fellow who squanders what he gets, provided two or three make good use of it. The Land Commission never yet failed to get their money and the Land Commission can deal with the squanderer and make his farm available to some young man who will be prepared to work it.

I appeal for a completely new approach to the question of agricultural credit. We would need some committee, like the Investment Committee which has done such good work, to plan——

Tomás Ó Maoláin

Might I interrupt the Senator for a moment to find out when it will be possible for the debate to be brought to a conclusion and when will the Minister be able to reply. May I suggest that not later than 9.30 might meet with the approval of the House?

An Leas-Chathaoirleach

Could the Chair get some idea as to where we stand with regard to speakers or how long speakers will take?

Professor Quinlan

Tomás Ó Maoláin

You will have one, a Leas-Chathaoirligh.

Mr. L'Estrange

Mr. L'Estrange

Paragraph 18 of the White Paper states:—

"The liming programme followed in recent years has made considerable progress, with the result that we are now one of the largest users of lime per acre in Europe..."

I suppose they will tell us that Fianna Fáil started that. As a matter of fact, in 1947, as Deputy Dillon has so often stated, there was not enough ground limestone in this country to fill one egg-cup. The success of that scheme is due to Deputy James Dillon, and the inter-Party Government.

Now let me quote from paragraph 56 of the White Paper:—

"There is no doubt, however, that the bulk of our agricultural exports will continue to be marketed in Britain, and our trade relations with that country are, therefore, a matter of prime importance."

It is a grand thing to see this Party, after the havoc and destruction they wrought in this country in the past, now converted and that they realise the importance of the British market—a market they told us at one time "was gone and gone for ever, thanks be to God."

Instead of the farmers keeping cattle, the present Taoiseach told the farmers on one cold winter's day at the fair of Arva, it would be much better if they started to keep bees. He told them that the best type of bee to keep was the Egyptain bee. Unfortunately, many of the poor farmers in the country were stung and badly stung by the drones that exist in the Fianna Fáil Government and in the Fianna Fáil Party for the past 20 years. Despite the fact that they told us they would do without Britain and the rest of the world if every damn ship was sent to the bottom of the sea they now in the year 1959 realise that all they said in the past was wrong as they now realise that all they claimed about P.R. was wrong.

There is one thing certain. Fianna Fáil have been consistent in their inconsistency for the past 20 or 25 years but, again, it is a pity they did not realise the importance of the British market 20 or 25 years ago. If they did this would be a better country for all our people and we might not have the high unemployment and the high emigration that we have from Ireland at the present time.

We know that this is an agricultural country. If the people on the land of Ireland are prosperous, then the whole nation will be prosperous. We have 12,000,000 acres of fertile arable soil. We have a population of little over 2,500,000 people representing roughly five acres of land for every person in the country. Let us go back to 1947. After 16 long years of Fianna Fáil Government we had not even enough butter to feed our own people. At that time we imported butter from New Zealand and other countries.

I heard speakers to-day referring to our adverse trade balance. It might be no harm to point out that in 1932 our total exports were £36.3 million. Fianna Fáil then came into power and they were in power for 16 long years of uninterrupted Government. We have been listening for the past week to people telling us here that Fianna Fáil under P.R. could not pursue a proper policy because Governments would come and go. They could not get a Government strong enough to do their work properly. Fianna Fáil were in office for 16 long years at that time. A world war intervened and the price of our cattle doubled, not due to anything Fianna Fáil did, but due to the fact that there was a war. As I have said, we exported £36.5 million worth in 1931.

Sixteen years later the price of what we had to export doubled, not due to anything the Government did, and in 1947 our total exports were £39.5 million, or an increase of £3.5 million in 16 years. If the price of our exports had not doubled we would have been exporting roughly £18,000,000 worth less than we exported 16 years before that, and this is the Government who tell us they have the plan, and that they have accomplished anything that has been accomplished in this country during the last 40 years.

There is not much of a future left for anybody.

Mr. L'Estrange

An Leas-Chathaoirleach

Will Senator Carter please recognise that the Chair is speaking? I want to address myself to Senator L'Estrange and draw his attention to the fact that there is about one minute left.

Mr. L'Estrange

Tomás ó Maoláin rose.

An Leas-Chathaoirleach

Before the Minister commences, I shall ask the House to hear the Minister as the House should hear him—in silence.

Dr. Ryan

I do not intend to deal with all the misstatements which Senator L'Estrange made because that would take me until daylight, and it would take too long to unravel them. There are two or three points which I wish to make clear. Senator L'Estrange probably thinks he is being smart and offensive to me by talking about the slaughtering of calves. I always like to have the opportunity of explaining what happened. I was Minister for Agriculture. I was not in favour of slaughtering calves and it was not our policy to slaughter calves, but we were fighting an economic war with Britain and getting a poor price. The farmers in the South of Ireland, who always slaughtered the inferior calves, slaughtered more calves than previously. In order to compensate them to some extent, we gave them a bounty on calf skins. The economic war ended because the farmers stood by us. They fought that war successfully to a conclusion and we won the economic war, while Senator L'Estrange and his friends were going around in blue shirts trying to get the farmers to give in. I have nothing to be ashamed of, but if I had worn a blue shirt I certainly would be ashamed for the rest of my life. I would be ashamed to have put on a blue shirt and to have tried at that time to get the farmers to go against the Government. That was the issue and that was what the Blue-shirts tried to do, but the farmers stood by us.

On a point of order, I do not think any man in this House, whether he is a Minister or otherwise, has the right to say that a Senator told untruths for 35 minutes.

The Minister is completely wrong. I got my information from the official statistics. If the Minister can prove that one statement was wrong——

Mr. Carter

If the Senator will allow me I shall prove at least one misstatement with regard to my own town.

Dr. Ryan

Several Opposition Senators including Senator O'Brien and Senator Burke criticised our proposal to treat the fertiliser subsidy as a capital item. Let me first of all quote from the White Paper which says:—

"To bring about a rapid expansion in the use of phosphates on grasslands is one of the main objectives of the Government policy. It is not proposed to rely only on exhortation and advice. The Government will make available a sum of £1.75 million each year for the next five years to reduce the price of phosphates and thus encourage farmers to use them more extensively."

I wish to draw attention to the fact that in drafting this White Paper we had in mind—and nothing has occurred to make us change our minds in that respect—that it would be a temporary and intensive subsidisation of fertiliser. For that reason it has been treated for the time being as a capital investment. If it should be found necessary or advisable by a Government, say, in three or four years' time to make this a more lasting subsidy, then there would be every reason why it should be treated as current expenditure. However, at the end of five years, having got the land into better shape and the farmers having developed the habit of using more fertilisers, it would be necessary either to drop the subsidy or, if we were to continue it, to find it out of current expenditure.

Senator Baxter said that the phosphates would be used especially by the larger farmers. I do not agree with that. During the war when we were getting very little fertiliser into this country—we had a very small quantity some of which we mined from our own resources and some of which we got on a very limited quota abroad —the greatest clamour for fertiliser was from the small farmers of the West of Ireland. They pointed out to me that they could not go on producing their potatoes and oats unless they used more fertiliser. There was not the same demand at all from the large farmers.

Senator Baxter also spoke about changing Section B of the land drainage improvement scheme to a fertiliser scheme and said that this would mean that fertilisers would be used by the larger farmers. If we were to take a census of the fertilisers used under this scheme and a census of the land improved under Section B of the land project, we would find that much more money was spent by the large farmers under the land project than under the fertiliser scheme. As a matter of fact, so far as my observation goes in my own county, and the county in which I now live, every farmer I saw who took advantage of the B scheme was a big farmer. It was not suitable for the small man so it was the big farmer who took advantage of it. It cannot, therefore, be contended that in transferring this money over to the fertilisers, we are doing a disservice to the small farmer.

Senator O'Donovan referred to paragraph 137 of the White Paper which sets out the four factors which are to be borne in mind in considering the extent to which external reserves should be drawn on to finance any gap in investments from available sources. The Senator said he disagreed with our conclusions, that is, so far as I have taken a note of his suggestions. He expressed some criticism of the remarks in the White Paper concerning these external reserves and, so far as I could follow him, he thought if we had a different monetary system, we would be better off.

Dr. O'Donovan

No. What I wanted to put forward was simply that as a piece of currency theory, this was just tripe.

Dr. Ryan

Even within our own system?

Dr. O'Donovan

Even within our own system.

Dr. Ryan

I must say in the system as it is, I do not see that any objection can be found to these conclusions. I was giving the Senator a bit of the benefit of the doubt in saying that perhaps he had another monetary system in mind. Personally I do not believe—perhaps the Senator does—that any miracle would be worked by another monetary arrangement. Our economic ills will be settled by more production, not by more money, whatever way the money could be got and, therefore, I cannot see that miracles can be worked by a change in our monetary system. As things stand at the moment, more harm than good might be done by making any change.

Senator O'Brien expressed disappointment at the 2 per cent. rate of increase in production, and said it would not solve our problems. He said it would be less than the rate secured in Europe generally. I agree that is quite true, but there is nothing to prevent us from getting an increase and we certainly will not object if the target is too low. In other words, if we achieve more than we expect, if we get a higher increase than 2 per cent., naturally we shall be very glad. We came to the conclusion, in drawing up this White Paper, that it would be better not to put up targets we could not attain, because people are then disappointed, and it would be better really to exceed our target rather than not reach it. For that reason, we were, perhaps, somewhat conservative.

I am afraid, on the whole, Senator O'Brien's criticism of the White Paper was rather depressing. I should have expected from an economist making an objective statement something different from what he gave expression to here yesterday evening. We expect, as we state in the White Paper, to double our production inside of 35 years. Well, of course, anybody may say to me: "Why not treble or quadruple it?" Why not? If we can, of course, why not? We are just giving an estimate of what we can do with our present resources.

We were not taking into account, I think, in that, what private enterprise may do, and we are making conditions for private enterprise, if you like, as favourable as we possibly can, by giving as Senators know, concessions in taxes on exports, concessions to people who start industries here. I want to make it quite clear that whether they are native or foreign, they will get these concessions. As a matter of fact, foreigners may not get exactly the same concessions as our own people at home, but they will get concessions in any case. If we get a return from private enterprise, we expect to do better than two per cent. per year.

I should also like to say that we have had general approval and general welcome for this White Paper. It has been very well received on the whole. I do not want to give the impression that I am in any way disappointed or annoyed with any criticism that may be made. Naturally, a certain amount of criticism could be made of any document that might be produced. What I am disappointed in, perhaps, is that when a person like Senator O'Brien offers a certain amount of criticism, we get nothing by way of an alternative to any of our proposals. It would be very welcome indeed if we could get some alternative from some of our critics.

Generally speaking, this White Paper lays down targets of production. It does not even give an estimate of what the employment may be, but if there is more production, employment will naturally follow. On the agricultural side, let me say that I do not believe there will be any increased employment certainly for the first five or ten years during which this White Paper is operating, because if you take, and they have already been quoted here, the figures of our employment in agriculture as compared with England or Sweden—two examples which rather coincide, where conditions are much the same as our own or at least quite near to our own—we would have to be producing about twice as much as we are producing at present, on the existing employment, to give the same return to those engaged in agriculture. Naturally, our people will look for a better return because that is what I suppose emigration means—if they are not getting the same conditions here as they can get elsewhere, they go. Therefore, they will look for the same return.

We must face the issue that our production will be very much increased before the present force engaged in agriculture will be increased. On the other hand, the fact that we increase agricultural production will give a fillip to our economy generally, because the farmers, the farmers' sons and the farm labourers, who we expect will do better as time goes on, will have more money to spend and the spending of that money will, in turn, I hope, promote industry.

On the industrial side, we hope to get increased production. In our efforts to increase production, we must see that it is efficient. We cannot produce very much more for home consumption, so the extra production must be for export; and when we go into the export market, we have to compete against the world generally. That means that we must be efficient in our methods, in order to capture the export markets. The future there lies in developing our resources as quickly and as efficiently as we can, so that we will have a bigger volume and range of goods and services capable of being sold against all competitors.

Although we have not given any estimate as to how that will affect unemployment and emigration, if we succeed in getting production going in that way, I think that employment will follow naturally, and then emigration will, of course, go down. I am not claiming, and I do not want ever to be quoted as claiming, that we have solved unemployment and emigration by this White Paper; but if we achieve what we are aiming at in the White Paper, we at least are dealing with unemployment and emigration as effectively as they can be dealt with at the moment.

Senator O'Donovan also quoted another figure, to the effect that between 1951 and 1954, when Deputy MacEntee was Minister for Finance, expenditure went up from £75,000,000 to £115,000,000.

Dr. O'Donovan

£105,000,000.

Dr. Ryan

I have not checked on the figure. I have accepted that figure from the Senator. I remember one figure, because at that time I was Minister for Social Welfare and Minister for Health. I know that during those three years I was responsible for taking £15,000,000 of that. Actually, when leaving office in 1954, our expenditure on Social Welfare and Health had increased by £15,000,000 from 1951. Therefore, if the expenditure by Deputy MacEntee went up by £30,000,000, half of it at least went on Social Welfare and Health.

Senator O'Donovan raised another point. I said in the Dáil that the Book of Estimates was with the printer. Senator O'Donovan pointed out, since he came in, that it was not with the printer but with the Department of Finance. That only strengthens my case, that I had nothing to do with the preparation of the Book of Estimates. I certainly had nothing to do with it, if the book was not printed when we came in; and I thought I had made my case when I showed it was with the printer, and that I had done enough. Now I am told by Senator O'Donovan that it had left the printer. I certainly had nothing to do with the preparation of the Book of Estimates. However, I am not going into that, as it would take too long. I said that when challenging statements made by Deputies Costello and Sweetman with regard to the amount by which the Estimates should be reduced for 1957-58.

There was a lot of talk here about unemployment. I shall take the employment figure, as I think it is a better figure to take, since unemployment and emigration are so intermixed. Anyone might easily get a favourable unemployment figure by more emigration, or an unfavourable unemployment figure by less emigration. Therefore, the employment figure is the better one to take. I take the employment figure for transportable goods industries, which is the one taken very often as an index of economic recovery. In that particular year, 1958 over 1957, the figure went up by 2,000. It is not very much, I admit, but it showed a definite trend. It had come down by 6,000 from March, 1957, when we took office. Obviously, we came in on a downward trend; and, as Senator Carter said here, a Government cannot stop a trend very quickly—it takes some time. That figure probably went down and down until June or September, and then it began to rise again. We are now on the upgrade, at any rate, and that is a more hopeful sign.

One Senator here expressed his doubts about the amount of money which will be available for agriculture by way of credit. We mention a figure in the White Paper—I think somewhere about £7,000,000. As a matter of fact, we found that the commercial banks—and we did not have this figure at the time we were preparing the White Paper—between October, 1957, and October, 1958, had increased their advances to farmers by £3,000,000. They went up from £16,500,000 to £19,500,000. I was asked in the Dáil if that meant that farmers were hard up after the bad harvest and that they had borrowed for that reason. That was not the reason, since the farmers' balances in the banks had gone up slightly at the same time, I think. Anyway, we all know that the joint stock banks now are generally issuing schemes, every day of the week. One bank is issuing one scheme and another bank has a different scheme; and the general trend now is that bankers are inviting farmers to come in and ask for money.

It is a great change, it must be admitted, over a period of two years. When we came into office, the banks were taking in loans; there was a credit squeeze; and they were pressing for money. People were coming along and saying: "For goodness' sake, talk to the bank and ask for a little more time." It is a very good economic trend that credit should be available now so easily. It is not there for everybody, of course, but at least it is more readily available than it was two years ago. I suppose we can claim, as other Governments have claimed in the past—though we do not often claim things for ourselves— that we have brought the country from despair to hope and confidence.

Senator O'Brien talked about a reduction of taxation, as did other Senators. I am not clear on what the Senators have in mind. When they talk about a reduction in taxation, they might mean, for instance, that we should do with less money than we had last year. Or they might mean that some tax should be reduced, by taking something off beer or income-tax, and in that way taxation would be reduced. It is possible that we might reduce the incidence of taxation by reducing income-tax or by reducing the taxes on, say, beer or tobacco, and at the same time, collect more money. If the country were on the upward trend and money were coming in better, we would collect more money.

The revenue, as Senators know, in 1958, was on the same tax level as in 1957, but the revenue yield itself was much better. I do not know how much better for this year yet, but I know it is going to be better. If the tax incidence were not increased or, better still, if the tax incidence were reduced, even though more money may be taken in for expenditure, the Government which could do that would be doing fairly well. Of course, I am not in a position to say that anything either way can be done in the Budget which is coming along at the moment.

Senator Murphy said the Government had become complacent about unemployment. Nothing could be further from the truth. As a matter of fact, I think we have always that figure in front of us, as regards unemployment and emigration; and every economic step which we are taking is taken with a view to absorbing the unemployed and cutting down emigration. We do not come along and say we are going to employ 150 men here or 100 there, but we know that, if the methods we are adopting succeed, employment will follow.

Senator Barry started off by saying that he would not talk Party politics. I always get suspicious when I hear someone saying that. However, I think it would have been better for Senator Barry to have talked Party politics than start attacking one Party after the other. He tried to kill confidence generally in politicians and that is a very bad thing to do. Cynicism is the easiest thing in the world for anyone to practise, but it is very damaging.

The Senator who spoke next said that the coalition's first care is agriculture, while Fianna Fáil's first care is always industry. I do not think that is true. In another part of his speech, he said that expenditure had gone up by £6,000,000 since we came into office. If you take industry and agriculture and put his statement to the test, you find that in those three years—the third Book of Estimates is before you—agricultural expenditure is up by £3.35 million during that time; Education is up by £1.8 million; Social Welfare is up by £2.6 million. That is more than the £6,000,000 he spoke of. On the other hand, the Industry and Commerce Vote has gone down very much—more, actually, than the amount of the food subsidies which were taken from that Vote. There is no support then for the statement that the Coalition Government always put agriculture first while the Fianna Fáil Government always put industry first. We keep both before our minds all the time. I hope the coalition did too.

Senator Stanford, and other speakers, made a comparison—it is a type of comparison I dislike very much— between the amount of money spent on education and the amount provided for some other services. These speakers talked about our spending £5,000,000 on a transatlantic air service while only £100,000 was provided for something else. One can draw any number of comparisons like that. Is it the idea that we should not spend money on, say, a transatlantic air service, shipping, or some other scheme until certain other things are done first? It is possible the country needs other things, but we must at all times preserve a balanced economy. When we devote £5,000,000 to developing a transatlantic air service, that is capital development. We are assured by the experts—I myself know little or nothing about it— that this service will be a paying proposition. If it is, well and good. We put in £5,000,000 and on that £5,000,000 we get interest.

Senator Stanford talked about giving more to the universities. The sum he mentioned was, if you like, a comparatively small amount—£20,000, £30,000 or £40,000. There is no reason, of course, why we should refuse to have a transatlantic air service in order to give this money, if it is necessary, to the universities. But one must preserve a certain proportion. The type of argument advanced is founded on the pedagogic approach. People making the comparison say: "You can give all you like to a transatlantic air service but you cannot give £20,000 to this or £10,000 to that." I admit a Government has to put up with that sort of criticism; it is all too common. But the argument is not well founded.

Senator Donegan accused us of establishing this service because the coalition scrapped it. I think it would be truer to say the coalition scrapped it because it was our idea first. Indeed, I think the coalition made a grave mistake in scrapping it, but they set out in 1948 to prove that we had been an extravagant Government. They stopped the transatlantic air service, and the Bray Road scheme. I could never understand why the Bray Road should be regarded as a Fianna Fáil road while the Naas Road was not. But that appears to be the coalition reasoning. I saw three people killed on the Bray Road and, when I cannot leave Dublin before half past ten, I wait until after 12 because I do not want to be killed on the Bray Road. Apparently the coalition did not care who was killed on it so long as they could call it a Fianna Fáil road.

Senator Stanford talked about capital expenditure on our universities. That is a different matter, but there is a limit to the amount of capital one can find. It is much easier for a Minister for Finance, on the whole, to supply capital rather than current expenditure because he may not get the revenue to meet current expenditure. With capital expenditure, however, he will have a pretty fair idea as to whether or not the proposed expenditure will recoup itself and therefore it is much easier for him to find capital expenditure. If the committee inquiring into the matter make a recommendation in relation to University College, Dublin, and if the Government agree—the Government naturally must agree—things will be done.

Senator Stanford referred to our attitude towards Trinity College. I cannot speak with any familiarity on all the little details—this is the bailiwick of the Minister for Education— but I know some of the principles he has in mind. I know that many factors were taken into consideration in deciding the amount of the grant to each of the four colleges. Number of staff as compared with the students was one; another was the growth in the number of students—how many new students since the last grant was given. It would obviously be unfair to give the same percentage grant all round because one college might have had no increase in the number of students and another might have had a very big increase. All that had to be taken into account and that brought one down to the average grant per student. The amount was not fixed, of course, but there was a comparison made.

There is also a different standard of remuneration in the colleges. That had to be borne in mind. All these factors were taken into account. I do not know how they were weighted, but they were all taken into account before the money was apportioned between the four colleges.

A question was asked as to why Maynooth was not included. I would advise Senators to let Maynooth look after itself. There is no doubt it can look after itself. The same advice applies in relation to the religious authorities in charge of these auxiliary agricultural colleges.

Professor Quinlan

Would the Minister please explain? How can they look after themselves?

Dr. Ryan

I am merely saying that Maynooth is a very efficient organisation. It has a very efficient governing body. They are well able to look after themselves. I do not think they want any interference.

Senator Baxter said that there can be no hope of reducing taxation unless there is increased production and increased employment. Our income from taxation was higher in 1958 than it was in 1957 so, on Senator Baxter's formula, there must have been more people in production and more people in employment in 1958 as compared with 1957. That is a fairly good indication of the position. When people are productive and when people are in employment they spend more on goods which are taxed and in that way revenue increases.

I do not think it right for Senator Baxter to say that the problem of emigration is not receiving the attention it should. Perhaps he is right in a way because, no matter how much attention it gets, I agree it would not be too much. At the same time I should not like it to be taken that we are ignoring or neglecting the problem. We certainly keep it in the forefront as far as we possibly can. The White Paper clearly indicates our aims for increasing production. If we succeed in that, employment will follow. When employment follows, emigration will be reduced. I am not finding fault with Senator Baxter for his criticism, but what we would really like are concrete suggestions. Apart from what we have tried to do ourselves, we have not got any useful suggestions from others as to how we could increase employment. We have certainly got no feasible suggestions. We should be glad to get them.

It is not correct to say that we have stopped land improvement. We have stopped Section B of the scheme because we felt there was a good deal of waste under it. I shall not go into the figures now because it will not help my case, or prove anything, just to show that a huge sum was paid out, and not always to the best advantage. Any Senator can say: "Stop that, and put a limit on the amount." As far as I could see, the scheme appeared to me to be essentially wasteful.

I think Senators generally have believed that Government Departments do not do things as well as private enterprise will do them. I think a farmer who is spending a certain grant on reclamation will make much better use of it than the Department of Agriculture. If it is done under Section A, where the farmer gets a certain grant and puts a certain amount to it himself, he will see that the work is done to better advantage. Therefore, I think we will get better work under that Section.

To talk about reclamation in Bangor Erris is not a comparison. That was done as an experiment—to do a certain amount of research on reclamation of that kind and see what good use it could be put to. It may be very expensive indeed. We are trying to find out if it is economic for the ordinary farmer to do it commercially. We have not learned enough yet to be able to pronounce on that.

I agree with Senator McGuire: I think we all agree that we have, maybe, to add to our plans now for the development of industry—particularly because we have now reached the stage of practically supplying our own needs in most of the things we want. To have any sort of substantial increase in industry means that we must go into export. In turn, that means that it must be very much more efficient and better organised. I think we have offered any inducements we can offer to people who propose to go into that sphere of activity.

As Senators know, we are remitting income-tax on export profits and also giving certain grants and loans to people to start industry, and so on. We cannot, from the financial side, be expected to do any more. I think Senator McGuire said we were not perhaps advertising our wares sufficiently in that regard. That may be. However, we can have a look at that, too.

I do not want to enter into the point made about decentralisation. There may be a good lot indeed in what Senator McGuire says, namely, that for an industry to be efficient, it must be able to compete against industries in other countries and that it should, therefore, get everything possible in its favour and should be allowed to go wherever those engaged in it think is the best place to go. In a case like that, they are not finding any great difficulty. It was all right, in starting small industries in the past for the home market, to try to direct them to the smaller centres in order to give a bit of employment here and there. They probably could carry on all right.

I should like to assure Senator Donegan that I myself got an invoice for fertilisers and, as he points out, superphosphate is down, I think, at £12 10s. per ton and then, underneath, is written "Subsidy £4; net £8 10s." Senator Donegan wanted to know if that is put in by the Fianna Fáil Government for political kudos. I do not think so. I think it is put in by the Department of Agriculture in order to go as far as they possibly can to see that the subsidy is passed on to the consumer. I think it is a safeguard in that way for the consumer.

Senator Donegan also said that the abolition of the food subsidies is still having its effect. He talked about the increases in the costs of local authority institutions which stem from that and says that the same thing applies to revenue here. Whatever about the revenue, this applies to expenditure: when I say to him that the current expenditure as forecast for 1959-60, is lower actually than that which he had in 1958-59, it means that there is no point whatever in his case.

Senator Donegan says it is difficult for farmers to know what they got for their wheat last year. I should love to deal with that question, but perhaps it is getting too late. They got more than they were promised because 90 per cent. of last year's wheat was unmillable. No promise was ever made to any farmer that unmillable wheat would be taken from him. I think I can say, in respect of every scheme by every Government, that the prices were fixed for millable wheat. Last year, 90 per cent. of the wheat was unmillable. It was taken from the farmers as an ex gratia gesture by the Fianna Fáil Government. Therefore, the farmers got more than they were promised. I shall leave that to my colleague, the Minister for Agriculture, when he is dealing with the motion on the Order Paper.

I am grateful to Senator Donegan. He said he would defend the Government against a group movement for more for old age pensioners. He said it would cost £1,000,000 and that the Government find it very hard to get £1,000,000—which is very good and kind of the Senator. But when they said to him: "What about the £5,000,000 for transatlantic air services?" he probably said: "There you are. We did away with that and they are putting it on again." I do not know if he really defended this Government very strongly.

Senator Sheehy Skeffington spoke about penal reform. Nearly all the leaders of Fianna Fáil and some of Fine Gael were in jail in their time. While he was speaking, I asked myself why we do not take more interest in it. I think it is that, from our experience, the penalty of being in jail consists of 95 per cent. loss of freedom and that the conditions there do not matter so much. Being away at all is the really hard part of it. I suppose that is why we have not taken great interest in these penal settlements, wherever they may be.

To abolish the means test for old age pensioners would cost £2,500,000, but I do not think I could agree with doing that. I am speaking very academically now, I can assure the House. If I had £1,000,000 to spare and the Government told me to devote it to the old age pensioners, I would give it to the existing old age pensioners rather than abolish the means test. Those who have no means whatever could probably do with a little more and those who have not the old age pension have means and are not so terribly badly off as the others.

I do not agree, either, with Senator Sheehy Skeffington about Irish. He says we should regard it as a live language and have an oral examination. I regard it not only as a live language but as an official language. Therefore, I do not see the necessity for an oral examination. We do not have an oral examination in English, for instance. Why should we have it in Irish if it is to be put on the same footing as English? I do not think I have anything else to deal with on the points put up to me.

Question put and agreed to.

Agreed to take remaining stages to-day.

Bill considered in Committee.

Section 1 agreed to.

SECTION 2.

Sections 3 and 4 agreed to.

Title agreed to.

Bill reported without recommendation and received for final consideration.

Question proposed: "That the Bill be returned to the Dáil."

Dr. O'Donovan

I promised Senator Dowdall that I would give her the reference to a statement by Mr. Verolme. I went to the trouble of looking up the reference. It is in the Irish Independent, Saturday, January 10th, 1959, on the main page. It is at a news conference that Mr. Verolme held. This is the note:—

"Asked why he had come to Ireland, Mr. Verolme replied: ‘I have not come to make money. I have been plagued by your ambassador and your Government to come'."

I used the word "badgered". That is the only point on which I should amend that reference. Senator Dowdall is quite wrong in suggesting that my reference was not correct.

Dr. Ryan

We must have a good ambassador.

Professor Quinlan

On this stage I wish to remark that the Minister appealed for suggestions with regard to emigration and unemployment and said that he had not received any in this debate. I devoted three-quarters of the time at my disposal to showing how the land is the key to both these problems.

Question put and agreed to.

The Seanad adjourned at 11.5 p.m.sine die.

Seanad Éireann debate - Thursday, 19 Mar 1959