Not mathematically, you didn't. Was it thought wiser not to disclose the lines of the agreement until the people had been sold the "cat-in-the-bag" and then to let it out gradually in the hope that the actual terms would not be noticed? Is this why the negotiations were opened immediately after the Dáil had risen when there was no Question Time? Is it intended to have it signed, sealed and delivered before the Dáil resumes?
If this proposed agreement is in the national interest, not just in the short, economic term but in the long economic and political term; and if our people are told, before it is signed, sealed and delivered, the details of it, and what are the reasons for it, then they may then accept it, but a hole-in-the-corner approach will, I think, be unacceptable not only to the Dáil and the Seanad, but also to the people.
I should like to turn now to the economic problems which face this country at present. These difficulties, as the Minister has properly indicated, do not find their origin in any single cause. We are faced with a complex variety of problems, some of which have arisen independent of any possibility of control by the Government or anybody else, others of which have been the responsibility of the Government or of other sections of the community. We face difficulties arising from the temporary fall in cattle prices, from the impact of the British import levy, the overexpansion of credit by the banks last year, the magnitude of the wage increases agreed in one lump in the ninth round and also from the abnormal rise in consumer prices— itself attributable to a multiplicity of causes. All these have contributed to our present situation. Above all, there has been failure by the Government to cope adequately with these problems to which, indeed the Government have contributed something, for example, by pushing up prices through the tax increases of the past two years, by failing to stand by the Second Programme targets in the current year's Budget, by failing to get off the ground an incomes policy and by failing to develop credit and prices policies in good time.
There are, in fact, four inter-related problems: the balance of payments, the credit situation, the sharp rise in prices and the confusion in regard to industrial relations and wage claims. It is worth while trying to disentangle these four issues so as to determine responsibility for the difficulties that have arisen in respect of each and to see how best to get out of these difficulties and to seek to avoid a recurrence.
The Minister has dealt quite fully with the present external payments position and the reason why this has arisen. He has not referred to one of the reasons which I believe has been important in the decline in the net inflow of capital, that is, the fact that from October to June our interest rate position vis-à-vis Britain was so unattractive to the Irish depositor, and perhaps also to English investors here, that there was an outflow of funds which might have been avoided if the Government or the banks—one is never quite sure who is responsible—had not pursued, during this period, an inappropriate cheap money policy which has been carried, up to recently, to extremes at the expense of encouraging savings.
Apart from that qualification, I would not disagree with the Minister's analysis of the reasons for our external payments difficulties. I would make one point, however, about the fall in our external assets. The Taoiseach, and the Minister if I recall correctly, spoke of a very sharp decline in these assets in the first six months of this year and it ought be said, and from the point of view of maintaining confidence it is desirable to say, that some part of this decline—perhaps £10 million to £15 million—is attributable to normal seasonal pressures. When the Taoiseach spoke of a drop of £33½ millions, it should be remembered that only part of this, little more than half, represents a genuine decline.
Turning from the balance of payments to the credit shortage, it has to be said that a large part of the problems that have arisen are due to the over-extension of credit by the banks up to the spring of this year, often for indefensible purposes. This is something that should have been dealt with earlier. The banks are to blame for this and one cannot help feeling that the Central Bank should have intervened earlier and that the Government should have concerned themselves also about this over-extension of credit in the face of the quite evident certainty of a disimprovement in the deposit situation, with the smaller inflow of funds that was bound to occur after the British election and the raising of the British bank rate.
In the face of this certainty of a slower growth of resources, this overexpansion of credit was something that should not have been allowed to happen and which has contributed significantly to our difficulties. It must also be said that our credit difficulties are due not only to a temporary shortage of resources, and an over-extension of credit, but also to the fact that after a period of rapid economic growth and with the development of inflationary pressures this year, there have been exceptional demands for credit. The gap between the availability of credit and the demand for it has been widened by movements on both sides, by a rise in the demand for credit and a levelling off of the growth of the resources available.
A third problem is the increase in prices. It is worthwhile looking at this very closely. There has been a good deal of misguided talk and of oversimplification in regard to this matter. There have been two useful analyses produced about what has been responsible for this position, what are the factors that led to it. One was in the NIEC comments on the Progress Report on the Second Programme and the other was in Economic Statistics, published before the Budget. Both are a little incomplete in one or two respects and neither is completely up-to-date. For that reason I have attempted to bring them up-to-date and to make them more complete and the results of the work which I have done in this regard come out as follows.
We have had an increase of 13? per cent in the cost of living between August, 1963 and May, 1965, but it is only due to a technicality that the figure is not 14 per cent. It was only because we had a late Budget that the figure was not 14 per cent. If the Budget had been a few days earlier, the full effects of it would have been included because the work on compiling statistics on prices for the cost of living was then going on. However, we are faced in reality with a figure of a 14 per cent increase over 21 months, an increase which was more rapid in that short period than the increase for the whole of the preceding six years.
Of this 14 per cent, four and a half per cent was directly due to Government action, to increases in taxation and also, to some small extent, to the increase in milk prices. Two per cent was due to increases in meat prices, reflecting improved external demand for meat, inevitably to the disadvantage of the housewife. Two per cent was due to the abnormal rise in potato prices, due to last year's harvest. This is something that should remedy itself if this year's harvest is better, but if not, it will remedy itself next year. It is, in any event, a temporary factor due to special causes.
Minor items which have affected prices are higher import prices, (about one half per cent) and increased housing rents — three-quarters per cent. When you add up all those, you are left with a residue, an increase of four and a half per cent in the cost of living which must almost by definition, be due to wages and profits.
I think we can track this down a bit further. In this country wages represent about 30 per cent of final consumption. If wages go up by 12 per cent—as they did in the ninth round—this pushes up the costs of the goods we consume by about three and a half per cent. That is the immediate effect. But in the months that followed the wage round, earnings have risen by only one per cent while labour productivity in industry has risen by six per cent in 12 months. When you take account of these factors, the net effect of the wage increases, allowing for increased output by workers during this twelve month period, on prices must have been something like two to two and one-quarter per cent.
You cannot of course assume that this applies generally outside industry as productivity rises in other sectors more slowly. Taking these factors into account, the effect of wages over this period of 21 months on the cost of living must have been something like two and a half per cent to three per cent. One is then left with a residue, an unaccounted-for residue, of one per cent to one and a half per cent, or perhaps even two per cent. It seems almost certain that this must have been accounted for by an increase in profits, as disproportionate to output as the increase in wages.
Between 1962 and 1964, profits, total profits including professional earnings, rose by over 20 per cent. In the past company profits have tended to rise more rapidly than total profits. We have not got figures for 1964, but relying on this past form, company profits must have risen by something like 25 per cent in this two-year period while output rose by 15 per cent. It thus appears that profits like wages have been outstripping productivity.
Thus the blame for price increases is not to be allocated solely to the Government although they have played their part; it is not to be allocated solely to the unions or to the workers, although they, too, have played their part. Some at least of the blame— this is implicit in the legislation introduced to control prices—must be due to employers—to businesses which have raised their prices more than was necessary to keep their profits rising in step with the general increase in output and have thereby pushed up prices. In the past 12 months, there are indications that this process has been rapid. In the 12 months ended May last the price of sundries rose by four per cent, and the price of clothing rose by 2½ per cent. This was during a period in which output per worker in industry increased by six per cent but in which earnings rose by only one. It may perhaps be argued that this situation came about because industrialists did not raise their prices automatically, immediately, when wages went up by 12 per cent last year. That is not a satisfactory explanation. The increase in prices last year was approximately appropriate to the increase in wages that then took place, and if prices have gone up further since, then at some stage either last year or this year there has been an excessive increase in prices and profits.
Turning to wage increases, I have stated that the 12 per cent increase immediately boosted costs by 3½ per cent and thus prices. There was no prospect of recovering that, in the short term. The point which has to be made is that, since then, as labour productivity in industry has risen, prices did not come down—in fact they have risen further. The fact that this has happened is something that needs to be pressed home to the people responsible. It is something the trade unions should consider because many of the difficulties we face have arisen because a wage increase of such magnitude came about in one big jump. A 12 per cent increase in wages to cover a period of 2½ years is not, perhaps, in itself excessive. The problem arises not so much because we cannot afford a 12 per cent increase in each 2½ year period, even if this is perhaps a little excessive, but because it comes in a single jump.
A single jump of 12 per cent in wages pushes up prices. It forces the Government to raise taxes and forces industrialists to raise prices. But neither the Government nor the industrialists lower taxes or prices in the period that follows a general wage increase. It would be much more in the interests of the workers and of the economy if the trade unions would face the fact that there would be much less disruption if wages rose by smaller jumps, say four per cent or five per cent each year rather than this enormous increase of 12 per cent in a single year. It would be much more in line with the practice in other countries.
Also, from the trade unions' viewpoint, 2½ year periods impose excessive strains on the unions. Workers get restless and their loyalty to their unions is tested. It is difficult for unions to do nothing for 2½ years and workers tend to look for other benefits such as shorter hours and three weeks holidays in between times. We aggravate these pressures by leaving too long an interval between wage rounds. We can take a lesson in this respect from what has been happening since the last wage round. All, with the possible exception of those who have made short-term profits, can learn a lesson beneficial to them.
The position may be summed up by saying that a temporary worsening of our external payments position, not in itself intrinsically serious, has been seriously aggravated by the emergence of inflationary pressures and this is due partly, though only very partly, to an excessive rise in wages, partly to an excessive rise in profits, partly to an excessive expansion of credit and partly to an inordinate increase in taxation, unaccompanied by a corresponding improvement in the welfare of the community. For this situation responsibility is divided—between the trade unions, the employers, the banks and the Government. Of course, the primary responsibility attaches to the Government whose responsibility it is to mantain equilibrium and to secure an orderly expansion of the economy.
This Government have secured much of the credit for our economic expansion since 1959 by virtue of coming into power at the bottom of the 1956-57 recession, by virtue of their willingness to abandon their traditional policies and by virtue of their preparedness to adopt policies proposed to them by their advisers. They have made obvious efforts to expand the economy along lines that seemed appropriate to them. Having gained perhaps more credit than they deserved for the favourable evolution of the economy during the years 1959 to 1964, the Government must equally accept responsibility for our present difficulties to which, indeed, their own actions and inaction have contributed. I shall list the weaknesses of Government policy that have contributed to this situation. I emphasise "contributed" because it must be said that it is not all their fault.
Firstly, there has been the lack of a credit policy other than the shortsighted pressure in favour of low interest rates which caused part of the trouble. Low interest rates have led to an outflow of capital, for with unduly low interest rates, deposits in Irish banks have proved unattractive to Irish investors and the banks have been no longer able to attract the money. This has now been reversed by the decision of the banks not to lower their interest rates when the British interest rate went down. It is better to have a higher interest rate that will attract the resources we need, than to carry on with an out of date policy of low interest rates. This change in policy has been justified. Moreover, until recently the Central Bank and the Government did not have an active credit policy. This permitted the banks to expand credit excessively for the wrong purposes and blame attaches to them for this.
Secondly, the Government are to blame in that they have failed to secure, either internally or externally, the competition necessary to prevent prices rising. As prices rose sharply, the Government have been forced to bring in emergency legislation of the most repellent kind. There is no doubt that competition is inadequate and where the blame for this lies it is difficult to say. However, it is the Government's job to see that the machinery necessary is there—that, for instance, the Fair Trade Commission are given power to ensure the existence of competition. External tariffs should be lowered where necessary, a process which was begun but was halted by the British import levy. From the balance of payments point of view, one can understand why this halt may have been thought desirable, but it had the effect of slowing down the development of competition.
Thirdly, the Government are to blame for their failure to act to control building. It has been evident during the past 12 months that the building industry's expansion has been too rapid, that its uncontrolled expansion has often involved heavy resources being put into buildings of limited economic and social benefit—office blocks, for instance. This has been overstraining the economy and creating pressures which are undesirable. It is both feasible and desirable that some control should be exercised on building, that some licensing system should be worked out in conjunction with the industry.
It need not involve an enormous bureaucratic mechanism. It requires some control that would enable the Government to know what is going on so that they would be able to put their foot on the brake or on the accelerator as the occasion demanded. A National Building Advisory Council has been established but it has proved remarkably ineffective. The only action it seems to have taken is to submit report to the Government in the last couple of weeks which is shutting the stable door when the horse has certainly left. Has the Council the necessary powers? It has been the subject of criticism within the industry. Should it be given power to go ahead with an investigation of the industry? The Government should give attention to this.
Fourthly, the Government are to blame for their failure to control their own current expenditure. The Government have announced that efforts are to be made to prune current expenditure. You do not prune something which has already been pruned or which has been kept under control. We know that much of the difficulty here has arisen because of increases in the remuneration to the public service. The Government point out that the increases which have been given to Government servants have been as a result of arbitration awards which the Government are bound to meet. There are two possibilities here. On the one hand the arbitrator may give a fairly large increase in salaries and wages to Government servants, because those people have been left without increases while the rest of the community has received them. In other words, the arbitration tribunal grants these awards because a good case has been made to it that they should be granted and because it has been shown that there has been a time-lag in giving them, in which case the Government are clearly to blame for allowing this time-lag to take place. It is most undesirable that any group in the community should have its remuneration held back over a period so that at some point justice demands it be sharply increased. Other groups or other sections in the community will not remember that the remuneration to public servants has been allowed to lag behind. They simply notice the huge increases that have been granted and they in turn look for further increases.
The alternative to this is that the increases in remuneration to public servants are unjustified in which case they should not have been awarded. More probably, however, they are largely justified but are proof that the Government did not run their affairs properly, that they allowed a time-lag to occur which has caused the granting of these large increases to this big group of workers and has thus brought about this "leapfrogging". There are so many different arbitration tribunals that a case could be made for having one particular one to deal with all public service cases. If there were only one tribunal, it would check the inherent disadvantages of the present system and would prevent any leapfrogging.
It is notable that almost all the industrial trouble with regard to wages in the past few months has been in the public service. The only major dispute outside has been the printing strike. The rest of manufacturing industry has been free from trouble. There have been no excessive claims by unions. There have been no large-scale strikes apart from the printing strike, caused by a claim for a 33? per cent status increase in line with the public service. When I speak of 33? per cent status increase in the public service, I am including the 12 per cent increase given last year. The Government must take responsibility for what has happened in this matter.
Fifthly, the Government can be criticised for allowing their capital programme to get out of hand in the very first year of their economic programme. The Second Programme makes provision for a certain amount of capital expenditure. The purpose of the Programme is to put constraints on Government action to ensure that we proceed in an orderly manner. This does not mean that nothing can ever be changed but it does mean, particularly in the early stages of the Programme, that you do not permit expenditure to jump and then start cutting back within a matter of weeks. The Government's capital expenditure in this year's capital budget was in excess of what it provided for in the first year of the Second Programme. They must learn to accept the constraints of that programme.
Sixthly, the Government are to be criticised for having failed to control hire-purchase in good time. This led to excessive growth this spring in the demand for cars and other consumer goods. This is something in regard to which action could have been taken sooner. I shall give some figures in regard to this. In the 12 months ended November, 1964, the increase in the volume of car sales was nine per cent more than in the 12 months ended November, 1963. This was, of course, more than the increase in national output but cars are one of the things to which people give priority—the sale of cars always tend to rise more than the national output. During the following three months, ending February, there was an increase of 37½ per cent in the sale of cars over the same three months of the previous year. The fact that for three successive months the increase had been at this level was known in March or early April, I would have thought this must have been apparent to the Government and that they should have taken action then with regard to hire-purchase, which of course is a controlling factor with regard to cars. The Government did not take any such action until July. Even the motor trade itself expected that earlier action would be taken. They expected that action would be taken in the Budget but nothing was done about it then.
Lastly so far as I am concerned— I am not suggesting this is an absolutely comprehensive indictment of Government policy because there may be others on these benches who will bring up other matters—there has been the Government's failure to evolve an incomes policy. It is of course easy to be destructively critical but the fact is that the Government's performance in this area has not been good. It has not been up to the level of their performance in other areas. Let us just run over the record. The Taoiseach, on 10th March, 1960 spoke in the Dáil on the seventh round of wage increases. This was an eight per cent increase. Our economy was recovering at that time and it was highly desirable that some of the benefits should be spread to the community at large and the increase given was entirely appropriate and timely. I am quoting from vol. 180, No. 3, columns 320 to 325. I am not giving the quotation in full but some extracts from it.
The Government have been most seriously concerned by the possible consequences of the recent general round of wage and salary increases. ... We were, and are, particularly concerned by three aspects of this increase in wages and salaries. The first of these is the effect on the cost of living; secondly, the effect of a higher general wage level for workers and those employed in industrial and urban occupations, at a time when agricultural income is declining; and thirdly, the possible effect upon the country's export trade... I think it is certain that because of these wage increases, some increase in the general price level will take place during the coming year.... All over the whole situation, it is inevitable that the effect of wages upon prices will begin to appear in the months immediately ahead of us. There is no good pretending that it may not happen.... It is quite clear that unless the effect of these higher wages is completely offset by greater efficiency, by harder work, by all the measures which can contribute to improved productivity—measures to offset the higher wages bill upon the unit costs of production—our hopes for economic expansion can be entirely destroyed.
The unions cannot have been terribly impressed when one and a half years after this highly exaggerated indictment of a very reasonable wage round the Government repeatedly intervened in the electricians' dispute to push up the amount of the award with the result that the level of the eighth round as it had evolved up to that point was doubled. Government intervention in the electricians' dispute was entirely out of line with what the Taoiseach had said 18 months previously.
After this we had the Closing the Gap proposals to hold back wage increases for the time being, but which did not express any similar intention to take action with regard to non-wage incomes. This did not make a good impression on the trade union movement.
The Government launched the ninth round nine months later. Although the timing of this announcement was appropriate, and cannot I think fairly be criticised, the fact that the Government appeared to claim credit for it by announcing that the time had come for it, obviously undermined the unions' confidence in the Government, a confidence which it is essential to maintain if we are to build up an incomes policy.
The next intervention was in the ninth round negotiations. Having waited until ten per cent had been offered by the employers, the Government intervened and said that agreement must be reached because negotiations had at that stage broken down but that not more than eight per cent must be paid—after ten per cent had already been offered! This was an entirely inconsistent attitude.
The next thing we had was the mess up in the public sector because of the time lag in Civil Service status increases. As well as all these "stop-go" policies there was a failure to launch an incomes policy, or to accept the need for restraints on incomes other than wages, which must be a prerequisite of any incomes policy. I am afraid the country is caught between, on the one hand, the Government's unwillingness to contemplate seriously restraint on the growth of non-wage incomes, incomes getting into the hands of individuals after taxation, and, on the other hand, the Labour Party's doctrinaire desire to control profits, dividends and prices, regardless of the impact of such policies on economic growth.
I think, however, a way out is now beginning to appear. The Irish Congress of Trade Unions at its conference in Cork passed a resolution which when carefully read seems to me to provide what the Government have not provided so far—a possible basis for a genuine incomes policy which would be in advance of anything so far achieved in any other country. The resolution states that an incomes policy must involve a just distribution of incomes but, recognising that this is difficult to achieve in the short term, it says that this is a matter for long-term negotiation.
For the immediate future it says that any incomes policy must involve reconciling claims of lower paid workers with those of higher paid workers. There must be substantial increases in the incomes of lower paid workers and pensioners, male and female and of persons dependent on social welfare benefits and public assistance payments. In other words, such a policy must involve a bigger increase for the less well-off than for better off members of the community. We can all agree with this. The increase in incomes of workers generally must be sufficient to offset price increases. That is not asking anything enormous. Again it says that the increases in workers' incomes must enable people to enjoy steadily increasing standards of living. That is what any incomes policy must involve. Finally, to achieve this, it says that Congress must resist any limitation on wage or salary increases not equally applicable to other incomes, and not taking account of the level of such incomes. That is not unreasonable.
Here then we have, I think, the basis for an incomes policy. It will not be easy to achieve, but there is no fundamental obstacle in the way. There is the problem of reconciling the lower paid worker with the higher paid worker but this can be solved with the co-operation of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, which is clearly available. With regard to social welfare benefits, all are agreed that these should rise as rapidly as possible, but we have discussed that already today.
In this non-doctrinaire approach of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, I think there is hope of a solution. The greatest difficulty will be in devising some method of ensuring that the incomes people receive after taxation—what are described as unearned incomes—do not rise unduly. A solution to this will, I think, be found in the Fine Gael proposals during the election campaign for a Dividend Equalisation Tax. It would be quite undesirable, though I fear that some of my colleagues on the Labour benches may not agree, that any proposals should involve restraint or control of profits or dividends earned competitively. This could inhibit economic growth. But it would not necessarily be undesirable that the total amount of income which people in receipt of dividends get after tax should be so controlled. This would involve no disincentive to people to invest in progressive companies. They would get more than less intelligent investors because there would be the same rate of tax applying throughout to all dividends. But this would meet the reasonable requirements of Congress. I recommend this Congress proposal and the Fine Gael proposal to the Minister for his consideration because in these I believe we may find the beginnings of an incomes policy.
To sum up what needs to be done —first, the credit policy role of the Central Bank which it has taken on in the past few weeks must be maintained. It must continue to co-operate with the banks and to guide them as to how much and for what purpose credit is given. It must avoid any repetition of last year's excessive expansion of credit. I think it should also initiate a general review of banking policy. It is 30 years since we had a Banking Commission here and during that time a lot of things have happened and there have been enormous changes in our economy and in the structure of our financial system.
There are many questions which could properly be examined by a Banking Commission. There is the question of whether the banks should continue to be permitted to hide a large part of their assets. I am not saying that this should be changed— I am inclined to think that it should still continue in order to ensure the maintenance of confidence in the Banks, but it should in any event be looked at. There is then the question of whether the banks should have power to disclose only a fraction of their profits. I am not convinced about this. I cannot see that the disclosure that bank profits are perhaps twice the figure disclosed would undermine confidence in the banking system, which is the reason given for permitting non-disclosure of all the profits. It seems to me there is no reason why they should not be disclosed.
Is the margin between advance and deposit rates, out of which bank profits come, too high? That is something which, I understand, is being examined in Northern Ireland. Should it not be examined here also? Is it in the public interest that bank advance rates should be agreed between the banks instead of being the subject of competition? Is this not contrary to the practice permitted in other sectors by the Fair Trade Commission? Is the duplication of banking facilities by having so many banks competing with one another desirable? This was criticised in Economic Development but nothing has been done about it. There has been a bank amalgamation since then but the bank taken over has been expanding more rapidly than previously and even more rapidly than the bank which took it over!
What should our interest rates be in the light of the failure of our cheap money policy? What should our attitude be to external financial institutions coming in here? This is something to which, the Central Bank tells us, it is giving consideration. Should certain banks be able to take advantage of the Companies Act, 1963, to stop disclosing, as hitherto, data on the basis of valuation of their investments? I understand this Act was designed to strengthen the position of the shareholder and to require the disclosure of additional information, yet two of our banks have stopped disclosing certain information because they are permitted to do so by this Act! Is this desirable? Again, is it desirable that banks should publish accounts giving no comparable data for the previous year as one bank has done this year? Is it desirable that the consolidated accounts should be so drawn up as to make it quite impossible to distinguish relationship between the bank and its various subsidiaries? Is it desirable that bank chairmen should tell the public and their shareholders in their annual reports and speeches little or nothing about banking or the performance of their bank?
These are matters which should be looked into, and I think I have raised more than sufficient points to justify the setting up of a committee or commission for this purpose.
Secondly, the Government must initiate a permanent prices policy for which there is a need. The Bill now before the House is inherently objectionable in the powers it gives to the Minister and to the Government without appeal. It is intolerable that this legislation should be required in peacetime. It is also unnecessary. Either prices are fixed by agreement between firms, in which case the Government should ensure that they are dealt with by the Fair Trade Commission, or they are not fixed by agreement but by competition and no action is required except Government action to stimulate internal and external competition and restrain the development of monopolies.
I was disturbed to find that the Labour Party have fallen for this Bill. In the terms in which it has been put to the Dáil, this Bill appears to be the most stringent piece of wage control legislation we have had in this country for a long time. This may not be the intention but it is certainly what it sounds like. We have been told that it is the intention of the Minister, using the powers under this Bill, not to permit any increase in price arising out of circumstances under the control of the firm and further that price increases will be permitted only where there has been an increase in the cost of materials, thereby specifically excluding increases in wages. If an industry chooses to increase its wages it may do so only if it is able to do so without increasing prices. This would clearly be the most effective way to put a curb on wages. It would be interesting to hear an explanation by the Labour Party of their support for such stringent wage freeze proposals.
Price control is always objectionable except as an emergency measure. It creates black markets, shortages and distortions of competition. It encourages combinations. It is undesirable in any mixed economy in the interest of the public. The answer lies in making the price system work. The Irish public—in this part of the country, anyway—are not, I think sufficiently price conscious. Indeed, if anything, there is a tendency for people to pretend that they do not care much about prices and to think it is mean to go from one shop to another to see where the cheapest goods can be found, but that is exactly what we should encourage them to do.
We have the example of a new town in Britain where the town authority there sets up a board showing the prices of goods in the different shops so that the people are enabled to see where they should go to get each item at the cheapest price. Why should we not do that here instead of having price control of the most brutal kind? Why should that type of information not be available to us here? Why should there not be a programme at 8.15 a.m. on Radio Éireann, say, telling people where in the principal towns, they can get articles at the cheapest prices? Why should we not have that rather than this rigid price control? Some manufacturers and shopkeepers might dislike this but they will dislike price control even more.
