I am not saying that for a moment. This is a study which is very intense and must be said to be objective, being by such a noted authority as Professor Parkinson. Eventually it was conceded also that the four nations which were left for further consideration, Finland, the Netherlands, Britain and Ireland, all had an equally high level of administrative competence. You could not apply any test in that sphere which would segregate one from the other or which would in any way help to determine the final choice, also in relation to the fact that our administrative competence is achieved by a proportionately smaller administrative staff.
Here in Ireland there is approximately, according to the 1967 survey, one member of administrative staff to every 33 of the population, which is significantly lower than Great Britain and one or two other countries also. The final test applied, which is the one in which we were eventually eliminated, was a test of working days lost during a period of 10 years. After having survived all the other wide-ranging criteria, Ireland was eliminated on that test.
I do not propose, in opening on this note, to suggest that administrative efficiency, whether it is the envy of other nations, or economic achievement, is the criterion we should solely concern ourselves with here, but I should like to point out to those who say we have not made any significant achievements that objective steps such as those are, and should be, a source of encouragement to us in continuing on the road on which the Government have set themselves.
Before I leave this point I express my apology to Senator Murphy in that I think his point was not, even though we are well thought of by those who take the trouble to study us—there are not enough of them who do so—that we should try to reach them. In that I am in agreement with him. As I say, that, to some extent, confirms, if rather briefly and concisely, the efficiency in the administration and the conduct in the nation's affairs. I would choose rather to occupy myself this afternoon with those matters which relate to broader social questions.
Economic achievement is one matter, but the problem of harnessing this wealth to the social benefit of the community is altogether another matter. This is, has been and will continue to be the basic policy of the Government Party. As one considers the various Departments and what has been achieved in the various fields this can clearly be seen to be the case.
This annual debate here gives us opportunity for a wide-ranging discussion which does not arise in the same way in the other House, and I trust that in ranging fairly widely I will not take too long. I certainly will not be in a position to be as precise as Senator Garret FitzGerald on matters of budgetary policy and general principles of finance, but I hope that what I have to say may be of some relevance in the various fields.
I take first the field of finance, one in which I do not express myself to be in any way competent as to financial policy or programmes. One of the matters which has given rise to concern in recent times in Ireland is the conviction amongst large sections of the community, in fact at every level of the community, that everybody is paying too much income tax. I do not mean that any individual thinks that the other fellow is paying too much. The individual feels that he himself is contributing more than his fair share of tax. Walk into any reasonable representative group, and every vocational group will be making a strong case for the other fellow sharing more of the burden he himself is now sharing. This attitude is an unhealthy one in the community because it creates divisions where they should not exist. I wonder if some other type of taxation might not merely yield the necessary finance but as well help to solve these divisions and to create a greater participation and responsibility throughout the community. Last year in this debate I mentioned quite inappropriately our method of taxation, and now that I have an opportunity of being, for once in a while, in order and relevant, I should like again to say that I welcome any suggestion on our taxation system, and I welcome particularly anything or any proposals which would spread the burden over the community.
There are obviously some inflationary tendencies in the TVA system which is applied in France and being considered here. There are also, I suppose, certain elements of inflation involved in conventional budgetary policy in that when new increases are levied on certain items new wage demands may or may not arise, but what I would hope could be achieved by an extension of a system of indirect taxation which would be related to spending rather than to income is that those who have to spend at a certain level will pay according to what they spend. Those who have nothing to spend cannot ipso facto pay—I mean, of course, above a certain necessary level.
There are obvious inequities in the present system which may be inherent in the system of income tax we have at present. One is that the wage and salary earner is immediately assessable for the actual full income he receives, and this of course means that having been given his due and just allowances under the present system he is then subject to the standard rate of income tax. There are many others—and this must be obvious to all of us—who are relatively much better off and who have a much higher standard of living. Take the case of young girls starting in the Civil Service who may be earning something in the region of £8 a week and paying £4 10s 0d or £5 for digs, while there are many others in the community much better off than they are who can live at a much higher standard but nonetheless are not in any way subject to income tax. Notable among these—I am referring generally —are people involved in the professions, people self-employed in their own right, and indeed the farming community above a certain level. Surely here is a basic inequity which we should set ourselves towards resolving if we are going to have a situation where some people contribute more than their fair share, particularly having regard to the fact that others contribute far less.
The solution is very much worth searching for, whatever problems may arise in the actual financial returns. Again from the economic point of view, indirect taxation would have to be—and this I would leave to the experts since it is not for people like me to make generalisations of this sort—selective in its application to a certain extent, applying at a higher rate at a higher level and at a lower rate at a lower level. I think it would have the financial advantage of a built-in brake on spending. If you are going to have indirect taxation there would be a built-in restraint and one could see that you could have a general pattern of the return over a reasonably foreseeable period. One would not need, except in special circumstances, to change the cycle or the tempo of taxation as may arise in a conventional budgetary policy.
This is a matter that should activate the Minister for Finance and his Department, if it were given serious thought and active consideration. I appreciate immediately that the first matter the Department must concern themselves with is the effort to continue the services being effected in the various arms of Government activity. This is a matter on which they will have to be satisfied before any change is implemented. It would of course have the desirable end result of seeing the end of community divisions in a country where community divisions are now becoming a matter of concern and yet sharing equitably, in a true Christian fashion, the burden of community responsibility which all too many of us are little or not at all concerned about. One of the characteristics of recent years in Ireland has been that of vocational interest as distinct from community responsibility. Anything that will go in any way towards relieving that problem is worthwhile here.
Before I pass, rather happily, shall I say, from the field of finance in which I do not find myself comfortable, I should like to say that it has been clear that what has been done in the recent Finance Bill and in the credit restrictions of late 1965 and early 1966, was done in anticipation of much that happened in other countries. In late 1965 and early 1966, we were able to introduce, as we then knew it, the credit squeeze on the advice available to the Government. As a result, that plan helped us to overcome difficulties in advance of other nations such as Italy and France and other European countries which very shortly afterwards had to take much more drastic steps than we took in advance.
This type of awareness of the international monetary and trading situation is something which I think has been a characteristic of the Department of Finance and the Minister's advisers in that Department. It is something, though it may not have been the immediate cause of the Finance Bill, that certainly is more than a coincidence in that it came in advance of other more restrictive programmes introduced in France and in Great Britain. A Deputy in the Dáil suggested after the mini-maxi Budget that we had no further need of our customs officers on the Border, that henceforth no customs officers would be required on the other side. I did not hear of him coming back when the British restrictions were announced saying that, in fact, he wanted back the customs officers whom he relieved from their duty two weeks previously.
It is the Government's job to anticipate all problems before they arise. This is accepted financial policy. I am sure Senator Garret FitzGerald would endorse that. Due credit must be given for this anticipation. One would hope that even if we in future had to again come to some decisions negative criticisms, which sometimes greet proposals of this sort, would not compromise whatever Government may be in power and taking such steps.
In relation to our general balance of payments, one of the things we have to promote widely in this country is that we all have responsibility, not those of us who sit here if only once a term, or those who sit in Government, or those engaged in the Civil Service. The community has responsibility. If any message becomes clear it is the message of the sharing of responsibility.
It should not be necessary at all times that a buy-Irish campaign be promoted actively. The people should be actively aware of the necessity for such a campaign. I am afraid far too many of our select shops and select customers in this city and elsewhere are not in the slightest degree concerned about this problem. They are concerned, in so far as there is selectivity involved, with choosing the foreign product and anything produced in Ireland is regarded as substandard. It may be that we have a long way to go to catch up with the design of Italian shoes, but maybe already we have surpassed the quality of Italian shoes. For those who would like that design and quality they should at least pull down 13, 14, or 15 boxes of Irish shoes from now on before they make their ultimate selection and pay twice or three times as much for the Italian shoes.
This operates in every sphere. There are those who maintain that English readymades have the best cut available. This may or may not be true but surely our materials have the same or better standard than English materials. Otherwise, other people are coming here to buy a product that is inferior. The consumer at every level should become fully conscious of his responsibility. It is the halfpennies that make the pounds, and we should not just feel that this is a matter to be worked out by some gnome or expert in a remote office in a remote Department.
We now come to what I may call the productive fields of activity in the nation. I take, first of all, the one in which most people are engaged and that is agriculture. I do not intend to delay long on this because there are others better equipped, and more directly involved, to comment on it than I. There are some matters which have come to my notice as being matters of significant achievement or of some concern. First of all, one must commend the wide range of development plans in every sphere. I do not intend to list them here. This is no place for commendation of the things which are available in the field of agricultural development. Senators will be aware of the Land Project grants, the various grants administered in the Department of Agriculture for out-offices, water, and such things, as well as many others such as the heifer scheme, and so on. I would encourage very much the extension into every sphere of activity in agriculture of this type of grant. In order to increase the yield of productivity these were badly needed. Perhaps I might make a precise reference. I think on the few occasions we lift ourselves above the soil of our own land the first thing that strikes us is the absolute multiplicity of ditches and fences covering the whole country, bordering small farmers possibly but small fields particularly.
These may have historic reasons but I think there is a higher proportion of Ireland in ditches and fences and banks than any other country. I know there are grants available for the clearing and demolition of these ditches and making the land covered by them productive. But, somehow or other, it has not had the desired effect, in the fullest sense in any event. I would hope that the Department of Agriculture and the Minister's various advisers would extend the scheme of grants that apply in this particular sphere. These grants could increase our productivity in agriculture maybe 10 per cent overnight, and not only that but they should promote as well the idea at local level and through the various farming bodies.
Having mentioned the farming organisations, it would be appropriate for me to say that, as in any other sphere of activity, the success of any programme in agricultural matters depends largely on the involvement and participation of these bodies and the involvement and participation of the Government. Here I should like to draw a clear distinction between a fallacy which the farming organisations, or at least one of them, have adopted. I will not say anything that would cause acrimony in a matter in which I am not involved but I refer to the comparison made by that body when they compared the Minister's participation in the National Agricultural Council with a member of the Federated Union of Employers sitting in on a trade union body. They equated the Minister as an employer with the Chairman of the Federated Union of Employers vis-á-vis a trade union. There is no such equation. No Government Department or Minister is an employer of any section of the community except those State servants coming under their control.
A Government's job is to create an environment to encourage those involved in a particular section of the economy. If a Minister thought that he would be more actively aware of the problems of the farming community by taking a place on the National Agricultural Council I would have thought that such a step would have been welcomed by the members of that farming organisation. There may be other factors involved in this but if there is to be an amended National Agricultural Council I would still think it very much in the interests of the agricultural community that the Department and the Government, whose concern is the improvement of the standards of that community, should at least be represented on that Council. If the farming organisation sees it in another way, and perhaps they do, I still suggest that it is in their interests.
I welcome the recent development in which the farming organisations seek to involve themselves in and control the processing and marketing of their own produce. The recent attempt with regard to Cork Marts is the type of thing that should be encouraged and I hope it will be successful. Those who sow the seed should reap the harvest. This is an example of the benefits accruing to those directly involved and such participation may augur well for further developments in this field.
There are two brief points I should like to refer to in connection with the problems of small farmers. One is the problem of rates and valuations. Our valuations were affected in a different environment many years ago. There were many instances where it was desirable to have a higher valuation because valuations affected and gave certain rights of franchise, or representation in the House of Lords, or perhaps an entitlement to titles. Many people who have since come into possession of parts of these over-highly valued lands under the auspices of the Land Commission find themselves almost crippled by the valuation. There is in my own part of North Tipperary a significant discrepancy between valuations applying within a radius of five miles of each other. In many instances one valuation is twice as high as another for the same type of land. This causes certain dissatisfaction, constant problems and the type of obsession which people get and which is not necessarily a healthy thing. It would be much better if they could forget about their valuations and get on to doing something positive. I know that the system is under review and the sooner recommendations for its improvement are implemented the better. The present system is not relevant to present conditions and I hope that whatever new system will be introduced will be much more so.
There are two final points in connection with small farms. One of the things that have always been encouraged, and the President in his time as Taoiseach encouraged it, is the provision of dower houses so that the young farmer getting married and having responsibilities of his own could give his best efforts to the development of his farm. Unfortunately, where this has been done the valuation of the farm has been increased accordingly. Surely this is a case for some form of relief for social and long-term economic reasons. I would like to have that matter dealt with.
Finally, in the field of agriculture there is one matter which comes up constantly in rural Ireland. In the provision of essential services to farmers in remote areas they are penalised to a certain extent by the fact that they live in these remote areas. I am talking about essential services such as the ESB and, nowadays, the telephone service. We will have to consider well in both Houses and at Executive level whether these services in certain instances are essential services and whether the fact that a person lives in a remote area should be regarded as a necessary criteria. It is past time when we should consider that a farmer living two miles from the ESB power line or from the main telephone line should have to pay more for these services than a person living in a town or beside the main lines. This is something on which I have had constant representations and is something that merits the attention of the Departments involved.
Next, in the order of the alphabet, one comes to the field of education and here I intend to be brief because what has been done here in the last few years is very significant. What sometimes surprises me is that despite the significance of what has been done in rural Ireland particularly, it is what is left to be done that still causes more complaints than ever existed before anything was done.
For instance, where no buses ran before, the constant recurring endeavour now where the bus does run is to bring it up the half mile or mile to the front door. Many people have felt very strongly about this. Where no free education was available before the problem now appears to be, again in connection with transport, that the route of the bus is not particularly convenient and suitable. These are all legitimate problems. I feel that it is vitally important for us to become aware and to promote improvements in these spheres.
The same applies at university level. It is not what has been done at university level but what others would say we should still do that is talked about. Even unreasonable as their demands might be, they get most of the prominence. The result has not been as dire as Senator FitzGerald said it would be before this House adjourned for the Summer Recess. He said that the universities and the students were in a state of great unrest. There have been significant rumblings but one must always realise, whether one is a student or a grown man or anybody else, that there is a limit to the application of any benefit—that there must be a starting point to the application of any benefit. A starting point at least is much better than having no starting point at all. If Governments are to be subject to criticism and pressure because they start them, there will not be any particular inducement to start any other programmes.
I am referring particularly to the university grants system which is a great move in the field of education. I hope that those who press for an extension of it—I almost feel I am entitled to re-apply for it myself— should remind themselves of the fact that these benefits were not available last year and that they are available this year and will be available henceforth.
Coming to the matter of university education, I would like to refer to this because I regard it as being a very important field of activity. We have had many debates on education in this House and I do not think it warrants any further detailed comment. A demand is developing in certain regions at present for universities. I think those who would promote these demands would do well to consider fully first of all the essence of a university. Secondly, problems like the staffing of the university should be considered and, thirdly, one should consider the suitability of a particular area for a university from the point of view of facilities and tradition and other matters of that sort. It seems to me that recent indications are that far from not having enough universities, those we have are not always adequately staffed or possibly adequately financed. We have had an indication from the students in the School of Architecture in UCD, through a weekend sit-in, that they consider their standards are not sufficiently high.
I am not in a position to comment very much on that, though from a brief look around the city at the recent buildings being erected one would certainly be led to the conclusion that the standards are not particularly high if one can judge by results. One would like to see something a little more significant in design and attractive in structure than many of the buildings which may have certain virtues of architecture that I am not aware of, but to me they appear to be entirely funcitional and in 100 years time they will not add anything to the elegance of this city. For that reason I would say in this sphere that these areas would do well to consider whether there is a demand and which needs for higher education are still not met.
They would need to assess, particularly, the need in the field of technology, a field in which significant achievements have been made in the schools of technology in Bolton and Kevin Streets. The needs should be assessed even more in the fields of business administration and marketing, though I have no criticism at all of the facilities available in any of the schools of commerce in Dublin, which are doing an admirable job with limited resources.
If in one field more than another the Irish economy is handicapped at present it is in the field of marketing and salesmanship, at a time when we are diversifying and reaching into new markets and entering into new trading agreements with other countries. The one significant handicap on much of our activities is the fact that we have not a sufficient reservoir of skilled sales personnel. We have not a reservoir of sales personnel who are au fait with the language of the countries with whom we hope to trade. There is much that an interpreter can solve, but there is a limit to the effectiveness of an interpreter in the ordinary day-to-day negotiations in business.
You can talk English to a Frenchman, if he wants to learn your English, or to a German or a Swiss, and he is quite happy to engage in English conversation for social purposes and to improve his English, but when you start to introduce an element of business he forgets he ever knew a word of your language. This strikes me as being a big problem. We are now faced with this big problem in relation to European countries and the European community, whether we become members of the EEC or not. We have not enough Irishmen who have experience in living in, working in and speaking the languages of these countries to promote actively our products on their markets. Until we have, we shall be at a disadvantage. Here is a field which is not only open but crying out for development. When we look at the American scene with all these higher schools of sales, distribution and business techniques we can see the immense benefit this would confer on us. I make a plea to those areas which may already be seeking after something which is possibly already exhausted, to turn their thoughts to something much more constructive and something which will achieve more. These spheres of activity are of much greater benefit for the nation at large.
Very briefly, I want to refer to the promotion of our goods in America. Here I certainly give all credit to Córas Tráchtála and the other organisations and promotional businesses concerned. One thing is very evident. Though we may have reached the Waldorf Astoria in New York for major promotional banquets, we certainly have not reached the consumer throughout the United States. There is something of a breakdown between the Waldorf Astoria and the Mid-West of Missouri and the Mid-West of Los Angeles. I am thinking particularly of probably one of our potentially best products, that of Irish whiskey. On a comparatively recent trip I never succeeded in getting Irish whiskey at it was known to me but a brand more appropriately known in the North of Ireland which was always presented to me as Irish whiskey. Surely, with the immense fund of goodwill available in the USA we should be making a more positive effort to reach that market.
I suggest to the promoters, both in the industry concerned and indeed the State bodies concerned, that possibly a little less of the Waldorf Astoria banquets and a little more of the hard bargaining with the foreman behind each of the major supermarkets, bars or whoever it is who is dealing in personal terms of commission, will achieve much more in the display of our products on the counters and bars of the USA. Until such time as we get down to the basic bargaining—this applies to every level of endeavour—the major promotional works will not yield the results they would otherwise achieve. Other than that I do not think in that major field of Industry and Commerce I should delve any deeper, beyond saying that the recent deposit relief scheme, if we can call it such, was certainly done effectively. It is one which is appreciated very much by those industries whose outlets would otherwise have been in great jeopardy. I met one man who suggested that while his pocket would not have suffered, as Senator Murphy suggested, if we had been kicked, it was about time we kicked back. There are other matters involved in this and I certainly am not going to engage in any kicking match at this stage.
I now come to the matter with which the Minister who is in the House at present is more directly concerned, and that is the social Departments generally. It is those Departments we should be particularly concerned with because, as I said at the outset, the business of a Government is to create an economic environment so that those who can well help themselves can thereby achieve the economic wellbeing of the nation and also, and more importantly in my view, make available to the Government, by their activities and endeavours, the necessary finance to achieve social justice and enlightenment in other spheres.
I welcome particularly, though it is not all that important, the extension of the services in the Department of Social Welfare. For some time, increases in pensions were the order of the day and those indeed were at all times significant, particularly under the present Government, but I was particularly happy to see that the new sphere of activity had gone beyond the mere financial increase and was also introducing services so far as pensioners and others are concerned. When one thinks of free electricity supply to pensioners, free travel vouchers and even free television licences, in some cases one can see that those things provide for those people, whose problems are so different from the rest of the community, essential comforts and facilities which make their old age in many cases, and loneliness in others, more tolerable than it would be otherwise.
They are the type of things which a Department should extend as much as possible. Mind you, I am sure an increase in pension will always be acceptable, but the services made available will immediately have a direct bearing on the environment and happiness of the recipients of those services. I am particularly happy to see that as from the 1st January next a new increase will be available. This is part service and part increase to old age pensioners whose daughters are looking after them and have to look after them in certain circumstances. Here we are actually providing in the home what would otherwise have to be provided in an institution. We should not allow ourselves ever to forget that the home is the basis of our society and for an old person to be in a position to stay in his or her own home in his or her old age, is a comfort which many of us at this time cannot appreciate. The fact that now, after assistance, the daughters of such pensioners in many instances will be the means of an increase in pensions because of the maintenance costs involved, will introduce a lot of happiness and that is what we are concerned with.
I ask the Minister in this House at present to consider extending that not just to those who have been in employment and who had to leave insurable employment and who had at least three years insurance contributions, if not in the first instance at a later stage, to those who may have been insured for only a certain period, and to some people who could not ever go into insurable employment because of the fact they had to remain at home to look after their parents. Obviously this is a type of development which should follow sooner rather than later and I am quite confident that with the enlightened outlook of the Minister and the Department of Social Welfare, one can expect further development in this sphere.
For once I should like to refer to a particular sphere where I think finance is being provided where it is not entirely necessary. That is the sphere of children's allowances. When you consider the number of widows, for instance, who are subjected to a means test, when you find the number of them who are almost obliged to live on a meagre living because if they undertake any extra work—I am speaking particularly of widows—they may disqualify themselves for further pension, and you consider that children's allowances are given to people with a certain income, immediately one realises there must be food for thought. Let us be quite honest: those widows suffer very great hardship.
I am sure all Members of this House will agree with me when I suggest that a means test should be adopted, even arbitrarily, in respect of anybody earning £1,500 or more. This would automatically exclude every Member of this House. I do not think that would do any injustice to any part of our society. It can, of course, be graded, as for example university grants were in the sphere of education, according to the number of children, and you could have a sliding application of children's allowances. I stand convinced that if anybody earning in excess of that figure is in need of children's allowances, then he is spending in excess of his needs.
I should like to see whatever little might be saved by my proposal being channelled to a direction in which it will, no matter what is done, always be needed. I do not want to be taken as criticising what has been done, but everybody concerned in the field of social welfare will be concerned not with what has been done but with what more can be done. I would hope that maybe sometimes the widows particularly will benefit a little from the fact that Senators and Deputies and people like them and many others throughout the country are no longer claiming children's allowances.
To come to another sphere of activity, at least from the point of consideration mostly associated with social welfare—that is the sphere of activity in the Department of Defence dealing with Old IRA special allowances—if ever there was a group of men to whom we owed entire gratitude and recognition it is these diminishing numbers of Old IRA pensioners. We should be searching for ways, as long as they are with us, to show them as fully as possible the appreciation and recognition we have of what they have achieved and we now enjoy. Again I am happy to say that there have been significant increases in recent times in that particular sphere of activity. Generosity in many ways when concerned with subjects so deserving as they are should, if possible, know no bounds.
While I have always found the Minister and the Department of Defence very fair and liberal in their interpretation and application of benefits by way of special allowances to Old IRA veterans, I would say that we should not, as we do at present where they are in receipt of an old age pension calculate that in assessing the amount of the special allowances to which they are entitled. Unless they have other sources of income one could fairly exclude the old age pension. Many of them feel somewhat that their services are not fully recognised, and there is a responsibility and a duty on us, and one that we should be happy to accept, to see that while they are still with us—and it must be limited—their old age is cushioned with the comforts that their earlier endeavours in their youth certainly deserved. Here again I would like to say that all of them appreciate what has been done though many of them would like that more could be done, and I would join with them in their pleas.
In the field of health as in the field of social welfare there are great new signs of a participation between the Department and the Minister for Health and the voluntary bodies concerned in the relief of particular chronic problems such as those of handicapped and disabled children of various types. This work in co-ordination with voluntary bodies is one of the healthiest signs we have at present in the country's development—healthy for two reasons, because it shows that the community themselves are fully aware of their responsibility in this sphere and are not waiting, as some would sometimes do, for the Government to dole out assistance for problems of this kind, and healthy also because the Government, and the Department of Health particularly, have shown themselves ready to act in conjunction with each other and to have an active liaison between each other in the relief of so many of these real problems.
The number of mentally handicapped children around the country that one becomes aware of is very significant by comparison with the numbers one would have been aware of 15 years ago probably, because in those days in the era of less enlightenment people hid a problem of this kind whereas nowadays in an era of more enlightenment people are prepared not only not to hide but in fact to come out in the open with their problems and look for others and prepare to solve their problems with them. Nonetheless there are many homes paying extraordinarily high medical expenses towards maintaining at home in the first instance and in institutions in other instances mentally handicapped children. Many voluntary societies have great activity in this sphere. I would like to make a special plea to the Minister for Health for an allowance for the parents of mentally handicapped children whether they are being maintained at expense in institutions or they are being maintained at some discomfort and indeed expense at home.
Again in the sphere of health one can welcome the co-ordination between the Department and the voluntary bodies engaged in the care of the old. The new scheme announced some time back by the Minister for Health in conjunction with the local authorities which he hoped would be effected with the least formality possible, the scheme whereby voluntary bodies looking after the old were given certain financial assistance in effecting the services they were making available—this scheme is a perfect example of the type of co-ordination we need to maintain and extend. It is a happy thing to see a Government Department that is not just waiting for a standard channel or a conventional line of assistance through a State agency. It is a very significant thing that the Department and the Minister are prepared to give assistance directly to voluntary bodies, because most of these voluntary bodies provide services for the old in their homes and in doing so relieve the State of what would otherwise be an impossible burden to carry. By this scheme you serve the practical purpose of relieving the problems of the old person and you also thereby save the State significant financial expenditure.
Lastly in the field of health I welcome particularly the announcement which I trust we will see implemented before too long of the scheme whereby the present system of dispensary treatment and medical cards will be eventually abolished. I know of few other matters of more concern at that level of the community than the medical card, and enmity which arises from it and the problems it causes, and social divisions in the community which it appears to identify, are things that we would be well rid of as soon as possible. I would hope that the medical profession and those who will be essentially concerned in implementing any new health scheme will see as soon as possible that the people who are basically concerned, and those are the patients, particularly the poor patients who cannot provide these services for themselves, will endeavour to achieve with the Minister for Health a new system of medical treatment for the nation which will replace this old system, and the sooner they can do so the better.
The reorganisation of the hospital service, as proposed in a recent recommendation, is something that could be left to a later date but I think all goes well for a new era of enlightened and specialised medical treatment. Perhaps I might come to the field in which we were eliminated in the semi-finals, shall I say, of the best administered country in the world. That is the field of labour relations. We have many examples in this country of enlightened areas of labour relations. We have enlightened industrial relations for a long number of years. We have, particularly, and I think it is because it is a new creature to a certain extent, the Shannon Free Airport Development Company who have reached enlightened industrial and personnel relations that can be a guideline for any other State body and indeed for all industries throughout the country. This is based almost entirely on delegation of responsibility, from the chairman right down the line. With that delegation of responsibility follows automatically a clearing of responsibility, a sense of pride and achievement and indeed a sense of determination in fulfilling one's own particular job.
Anybody who has any experience of the Shannon Free Airport Development Company and their employees and various executives will see immediately a readiness to meet challenges as they arise, a readiness to break out of the heavy containing shell which sometimes exists in other spheres of industrial activity. Perhaps I might quote an example. When the now famous medieval tours were being promoted in the first instance one of the problems the company found themselves faced with was the basic problem of not having a sufficient number of people with actual experience, or any type of such experience for that matter. It is a great thing to know that many of the top executives in Shannon Airport in those early months voluntarily undertook the roles of ancient bards and table servants at night at those banquets, after their work, thereby giving an example to subordinates that where a job had to be done anybody, or any leader, had a responsibility to do it.
Frequent communications from management, down to the shop floor, and consultations are an example that cannot too often be expressed and certainly not often enough followed. If an organisation as extensive as that company can succeed in implementing fundamentally sound social policies, and this includes as well the implementation of principles of industrial democracy, one wonders why many smaller industries with less complex problems cannot do the same thing in their spheres.
Here I should like to refer in passing to the interim report on industrial relations in the ESB. Much of what was recommended as being desirable in that report in fact is being, and has been, implemented for some time in the Shannon Free Airport Development Company. We must be concerned here with the fact that recurring labour disputes occur more often in our semi-State bodies, or at least in some of them, very clearly identifying themselves in a particular sphere of industrial activity. We should look to the root cause. What the Fogarty Report did was to search out and find many of the root causes of industrial unrest in the ESB. We should like to see something similar done in CIE and in any other State body that has more than its share of industrial disputes.
I should like to refer to some of the recommendations of the committee on industrial relations in the ESB. One was that full-time members of the board should exert personal leadership by being widely known by and involved with their staff. This is so basic that one wonders why it needs to be said but, unfortunately, it is not at all fully implemented. It should be widely known who their staff are. The recommendations also state that you would have part-time members of the board. This is very significant. This would involve one group representing the community as at present, the owners and the consumers, the community being the owners of the national resources.
More properly, they state that there should be two representatives of the employees of the ESB. This type of suggestion is something that deserves very careful consideration and, indeed, deserves implementation as soon as possible. We will have to start thinking in terms of, say, Senator Murphy's people, and I accept what he said entirely. They will not feel that other sectors of the community have all the perks while they have all the burdens. We will have to launch on a programme which will give a return in the investment to the workers, not just in terms of wages but in terms of the sharing of responsibility—indeed, as exemplified in this report, a certain sharing of ownership. This is the type of proposal—which is qualified obviously, and it must be—which will heal some of the divisions that are all too obvious in the community. It has been done in Shannon Airport and these people on the board are people who have come right from the floor in many instances. Maybe they have not come right from the floor but from the circles of lower management.
This can help in the channels of communication that exist. This was suggested in the ESB and it could equally be suggested to many of the semi-State bodies, particularly those who have problems with personnel. The report also states that you would have an executive board who would be responsible for management for the full-time members of the board and who would have a supervisory board who would comprise the part-time members. Their job would be to represent the community and the employees who would inquire into and check on the work of the executive board and, particularly, approve all major changes of policy.
If I bore the House with this question of involvement, I think these proposals alone would go a long way towards achieving this type of involvement and the healing of divisions that are all too evident in the community. The report also had something to say in connection with the union structure within the ESB and this is a matter which the trade unions must obviously have well considered. The report states that this must be the first principle as far as union representation is concerned— that it would be desirable to have one representative union for each category of ESB employees for negotiation purposes, one and one only. It went further and stated that four groups of unions for negotiation purposes should be sufficient for the whole staff. This has immediate and obvious advantage and while there may be—though I fail to see it—some advantage in one union over another which can provide the same negotiation and services, certainly from the point of view of the health of the industry as a whole, it is important to rationalise as suggested in this report. There is also a recommendation on full-time officers for negotiating, organising and training in the work and—this is something the unions would be concerned with—specialist services in job evaluation, education and training.
All these ideas are far removed from what now appears to the public to be the first concern of trade unions and that is the hard fact of table negotiations. Table negotiations are only the last stage. All these proposals and activities are the proper responsibilities of the unions and the others need not follow if these are implemented.
Finally they suggest, in the light of what has gone before, that there should be strict adherence to agreed procedures. This would be entirely in line with the policies implemented in European countries generally. They conduct, at an early stage each year, negotiations between the major unions and the industrial employers and they enter into agreed procedures and fixed target prices or incomes. This is the general pattern of the European community policy which is related more to targets than our present programme. When these targets have been fixed they are binding, certainly in principle if not in law, and the sooner we enter into that type of preliminary agreement in relation to each major industry the sooner we will solve many of our recurrent crises in the field of our industrial relations.
I now come to the Department of Local Government. As our economy develops one of the matters to which we must give foremost attention is our road development programme. Historians will tell us that right back to the Romans and up to the present time of the Americans, the Germans and the Italians, if you want a thriving economy you must have a good road system. Our main roads are already showing signs of breaking under the weight of their present transport burden. I was very glad to see that a proposal I made here last year for the introduction of a regional road board system is being implemented but could I make this suggestion to the Department concerned, that they do not wait until the road construction programme in a particular area is under way before they acquire the rights-of-way which are necessary?
Many countries have wasted millions of pounds in waiting until the job had begun before acquiring the necessary rights-of-way. In America they have wasted money in acquiring factories which they do not want and which have to be demolished, houses which they do not want and which have to be demolished in order to get their road programme going. When the Regional Planning Boards are set up they should at once undertake a programme of acquisition of the rights-of-way which they consider necessary to achieve their objective.
There is also the problem of air pollution and possibly of water pollution. On morning after morning driving into this city I see clouds of black filth being poured forth from many industrial chimneys. I see a grey cloud descending over Dublin and I also see clouds of the same type of pollution coming from our various transport vehicles. We have regulations but are we going to wait in this country until we have spoiled the purity for which we are envied by so many people? Now is the time to rid ourselves of these pollution problems.
I have noticed that most of this exhaust smoke comes from the vehicles of a certain road construction company which is more guilty in this respect than any others I know of. This would not be allowed by any other society than ours. We have not got a reputation for hygiene but, without any thanks to ourselves, we have got a reputation for clear and pure air and the price which other nations would pay for this is something that we should not cast aside.
The sooner we enter on a designed programme to rid ourselves of air and water pollution the better. In many of the highly industrialised countries of northern Europe water pollution is so intense that they have to inport water from the Swiss lakes. I remember the secretary of an international body telling me on one occasion it is not inconceivable that we might some time be exporting what we now consider our greatest national problem but what might become our greatest national asset, that is our water. Senator McQuillan might be happy then that the Suck has not been drained.
