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Seanad Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 3 Dec 1969

Vol. 67 No. 4

Appropriation Bill, 1969 (Certified Money Bill): Second Stage (Resumed).

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

In the few minutes during which I spoke on the Bill last night, I had commenced dealing with the difficulty experienced by local authorities in recruiting technical staff. I pointed out that one of the reasons for this was because of the salary scale of officers with particular reference to engineers and architects. There is also the competition which local authorities have to face from industry and commerce in general.

Any competent engineer or architect will choose the private sector rather than the local government sector because of the salary differential. Representations have been made to the Minister for Local Government to bring the salaries of engineers, architects and technical officers up to a level that would enable the local authorities to compete for their services with the private sector.

Before the House rose last night I was dealing with this matter of the large turnover in technical staff because of the methods of the appointments commission in allocating certain marks for experience. Some of these commissions insist on trying to get the best man for the job and take into account the different local authorities that those people have been in. That leads to the position where an engineer—I use the engineering profession as a prototype of what I am speaking—who comes into a local authority on a certain scale will first of all have to get to know the district and the various jobs involved in that district. It will take him from three to six months to familiarise himself with these aspects before he is au fait with the engineering running of the local authority. During that time he sees advertisements for other jobs that may give him a higher salary but even if they do not offer a higher salary, they would enhance his chances before the appointments commission if he moves out. This is a slight defect in the appointments commission. Large local authorities may be slightly at fault in that they do not move technical officers into other types of jobs within their profession.

I should like the Minister for Local Government to take note of this because the problem is becoming very serious for local authorities, at least in the two with which I am associated and, I am sure, other Senators also have this experience. Sometimes they are engineers, assistant engineers or engineers junior to them. The prolonged vacancies are there and they stand to be filled. It is a recurring problem to local authorities today and it is a serious problem. Somebody may say that it would be wrong to pay them more in comparison with other employees of local authorities. In the long run it is cheaper because it accelerates for instance the installation of roads and the development of housing sites if you have got proper experienced staff and staff who have been with the particular local authority for some time. That is one point I wish to make.

I should like, having done that, to go on to an issue which also affects local authorities. I want to advert here to the dispute which is current at the present time between the Irish Medical Union and another party. Different people have different views as to who that party is. Some people maintain the dispute is with the Minister for Health, some people say it is with the local manager and some people say it is with the Managers' Association. This has been going on for some time and it has resulted in an impasse. The impasse itself might not be so serious but it has been reflected in the general public not so much in the populous areas but in the other areas, if I might use the term, the more thinly populated areas, of this country.

The union have instructed their members not to take up locums for a medical officer who might be ill. He can do that and I will explain it later. That is the broad statement and I will explain it also. This of course may be, could be and has been injurious to the general public.

In order to put the situation in some perspective I want to refer to some circulars from the Irish Medical Union. This matter actually came up, I should explain, under their request for getting time off from their duties, weekends, half days and days. That is being done at the moment of course by an arrangement with nearby doctors and doctors in neighbouring dispensaries or in neighbouring practices. The Irish Medical Union wanted this to be on a stronger basis. They wanted it to be recognised by the responsible authority, be he the Minister, the Department, the manager or the Managers' Association. In view of that they tried to initiate negotiations as far back as 29th March, 1967, in a letter to the Department of Health. They pointed out the various grades of medical officers and stated that there should be adequate and recognised time off from official duties.

Considerable correspondence followed and the Department said the question of time off should be raised in the first instance with the county managers in particular cases or with the County Managers' Association. Some county managers were approached by us. Their circular states that while not unsympathetic to the claim, they indicated the question should be raised at national level through the Managers' Association. The claim was referred by us to the Managers' Association on the 16th September and following various reminders from us the association replied on the 16th February, 1968, suggesting we should take the matter up with any health authority where the existing arrangements are not considered satisfactory.

This went on further and the attention of the association was drawn to the fact that certain county managers had been approached. They indicated to us they wished the matter to be dealt with by the association. The association, that is the County Managers' Association, replied in July, 1968, stating: "It was decided the Association's previous decision in this matter should be confirmed." I do not want to bore you too much with dates but it is necessary that I show where this matter started.

The meeting with the Minister and his officials took place on the 4th December, 1968 and following prolonged discussion the Minister stated he had every sympathy with the claim, that he accepted the principle of the claim and that he would approach the Government for the funds necessary to meet the claim. Following much correspondence we again met the Minister on the 30th June, 1969 and pointed out that our claim had still not been met. The Minister stated he already accepted the principle of the claim and that he would not go back on his word. He agreed to endeavour to arrange a meeting with the Managers' Association on the subject.

Shortly after that there was a change of Ministers and Deputy Childers became Minister for Health. We promptly informed him of the history of our claim. A meeting between the union delegates, that is the Medical Union, and a representative of the Managers' Association took place on 17th July, 1969, as a result of Ministerial intervention. The managerial representative stated that if the Minister were prepared to subvent completely the cost of local payment, the Managers' Association would consider operating a local scheme but that managers are not prepared to approach their councils to seek the necessary funds to meet the cost of local payments and that as our claim involved additional expenditure it could not be considered. As a result of that, certain actions were taken by the council and this is what I adverted to at the opening of my statement on this item.

The council have now directed that a union member should not undertake a local authority locum in the event of the absence through illness of a district medical officer. This is the serious position. They also state:

The council have directed me to inform all members of the union of this. The direction is limited for the present to the locums acting for DMOs, district medical officers, during illness. It is not the intention that there should be any withholding of essential medical services in any dispensary area but it is the intention that medical services should not be provided through the dispensary system. In the event of absence through illness of a dispensary medical officer, local arrangements on a private practice basis should be made in the ordinary way and the doctor undertaking the locum should deal with all patients on a sick doctor and on a private practice basis. The local doctor should make the position clear to dispensary patients who require his services. Persons unable to pay for services must be treated in accordance with the traditions of the profession. Some public patients will be unable to pay anything, others can well afford to pay something. No one must be left without attention.

Complaints reached our party through various centres and Deputies about crises that arose on foot of various things like this or the misinterpretation of that direction from the Medical Union. We have a sub-committee which deals with health among other things. At a meeting of that committee it was decided to ask the representatives of the Irish Medical Union and the Irish Medical Association to meet the sub-committee. These two gentlemen met the health sub-committee of the Fine Gael Party on 26th November last. We heard their views and we decided that this matter should be aired and that there had been undue delay in bringing the two sides of this dispute together, whether it is the Minister, his Department, an individual manager or the Managers' Association who are at fault. The Minister for Health, in my view, has power to direct a meeting to be called. I do not want to infer that I am taking sides in this dispute. I want that made very clear. The point I am trying to bring out is the delay in getting negotiations commenced. This has been going on between the Minister and his Department and individual managers and the Managers' Association and nobody has started negotiations on any basis whatever and the ordinary public are the sufferers.

The claim of the medical officers through their unions is for every second week-end off, one half-day off per week and one evening off per week. They say:

Our claim, if met, would result in our members concerned being on duty for over 100 hours per week.

I have not calculated this. I am quoting from this document. Most Senators will have seen this document and know what it contains. I presume it is correct. Even if the claim is met for the time off they will still be working 100 hours per week. If this is so I consider that this is a reasonable claim. This brings us to the method of financing time off.

Up to this it was the custom that a doctor himself arranged to have somebody take up duty in his place when he needed time off to go to the races, play golf or dig his garden. Those who are not married may find some other method of spending their time. He defrayed the expenses of providing this locum. They want to put this on a footing which I think is probably correct. They want it recognised that they are due their time off, that it is a right of theirs to have time off and that locums should be appointed by the manager and paid either through local taxation or central taxation. When we met these people we asked them what their estimate was of the cost of providing this. They gave us a figure of approximately £350,000 but said that the Minister—that was the previous Minister—estimated that the cost would be approximately £½ million. Finance is one aspect of the difficulty but I do not think it is a great difficulty considering that they still would have to work 100 hours per week. Whether it costs £350,000 or £½ million to give these people some freedom to enjoy their recreation it is well worth it.

Another difficulty that arises is that in certain under-populated areas, especially along the west coast, it may not be possible to provide a locum. Even the manager may not be able to provide a locum although it is his function and duty to do so. Suggestions were made at a meeting we had and perhaps somebody would convey them to the Minister for Health. One was that for week-ends the Minister should allow assistant medical officers of health who only work five days a week until 5 o'clock approximately, to do week-end locum for the medical officers and to be paid for it, of course. Some of us made inquiries and found that assistant medical officers of health in general, perhaps not all of them, would be quite willing to do week-end locum.

Another suggestion made, which I would not consider quite so good, was to appoint a doctor in a large county like Galway, Mayo or Donegal who would rotate different week-ends to allow doctors to get the time off to which they would have a statutory right. I am not so sure that that would work out as well as it looks on paper but I would commend the first one and mention the second to the Minister to help find a solution to this problem. Many people on county and city councils would like to know whether the Managers' Association is a statutory negotiating body. That might tie in here to some extent. It can be answered in the reply to the debate.

I want to deal now with the subject of pollution in a very broad sense. Perhaps I should not advert to the pollution of the two Houses of the Oireachtas at the moment. It might not be taken too kindly if I made reference to that.

We need some pesticide.

I am grateful for the assistance. However, this is very pertinent to the running of this Chamber, the other Chamber and the ancillary rooms of this premises. A complaint has been going around Leinster House recently regarding the inability of somebody to regulate the central heating properly. I consider it apt that I should voice that complaint here. I am very concerned to bring it to the attention of the person or the committee responsible because in the last few days the heating in Leinster House has been overpowering. I am not referring particularly to the Dáil.

Much has been said about pollution of rivers recently due to industrial waste or sewage disposal. There might be further investigation of the provision of sewage works throughout the country. Sewage pollution of course often occurs in the city too. Greater investigation of sewage works, sewage farms, or something of that nature might be undertaken and even those factories or houses or sewage schemes that are entered into rivers could be treated beforehand and the effluent made less impure. There is much talk about it at the present moment and I do not propose to delay the Seanad on this matter.

I should like to refer to the pollution of the sea by oil. Everybody knows about the disaster of the Torrey Canyon. With oil being brought in and refined in Ireland at the present time this is a problem we must face. Mention has been made of this before but there is no harm in repeating the danger of oil pollution and in asking what has been done about it. An international body has been or is in the process of being set up to deal with this matter, but we do not know who is responsible in this country to determine what compensation certain people or businesses in control of strands, beaches and off-shore facilities should get. This should be brought to the notice of the responsible Department and information in relation to this should be forthcoming at the end of this debate.

Noise is another nuisance. Certain precautions will have to be taken about this, especially near airports where the noise by modern jets—and future jets will cause even more noise —may be very detrimental to the people living nearby. Investigations should be made into the deleterious effects of such noise at airports. There are other types of noise which are covered already in certain Acts and I do not propose to deal with those. The same problem applies to traffic and on this subject I think mention should be made of the problem of traffic jams in Dublin and Cork and in the other more populated centres of this country. Something radical must be done to clear the congestion that is now cropping up and I should like some reference to this in the Minister's reply.

Another subject that has been in the papers in the last six months is the question of the pollution of food, and here again I use the word "pollution" in the broad sense—pollution either in the production of food, in processing or in its servicing. I should like to bring up the whole question of food under four headings. Sufficient investigation is going on at the moment into the effects of sweeteners and cyclametes which are now off the market. There may be others that need investigation and a close watch should be kept on that matter.

On the question of pesticides, it is not realised fully the dangers they may cause. Certain residual quantities of pesticide get into food and cause harm but it has not been estimated what amount would cause that harm or exactly the harm that would be caused. That has not yet been determined but a close watch must be kept on it and on the question of insecticides.

We should keep a watch on all of these things. I think it was Senator Cranitch who said that the price of freedom and liberty is eternal vigilance. The price of living is also eternal vigilance and in this sense I refer to living in its true meaning. A matter that has been the subject of a commission in England, the name of which eludes me but I think it was the Swan Commission. They dealt with residual quantities of antibiotics in food. This came about through our modern custom of trying to accelerate the growth of chickens and pigs. It has been proved that quantities of antibiotics transfer through the food to the human being. It is well known—and the member of the medical profession beside me probably knows more about this than I—that small quantities of antibiotics introduced into the human body will create immune bacteria or strains of immune bacteria and this is very harmful. I saw on a television programme recently that any drugimmune bacteria can transfer that immunity to another bacteria not even of its own species. This is becoming an extremely serious problem; it has been mentioned before in the veterinary officers report to the Dublin Medical Council, it has been brought before the Dublin Health Authority and it should be taken up at a national level. I think that it might be no harm if the health authorities and the medical profession and the Department in general had a look at this report. Somebody may correct me if I use the word "Swan". I think the name is Swan, a report in England about this question of the danger of introducing antibiotics into the production of animals.

There have been for years now complaints about the high cost of land, especially for building. In my opinion this is due to a wrong and irrational method of servicing land. This is due to small thinking, small-mindedness, on the part of the Department of Local Government. It is quite obvious that the way land has been serviced, that is the provision of drainage and water to land in small pieces, will of course inflate the price of a small portion of land out of all proportion, and you will have a situation where developer or builder is competing against developer or builder for that piece of developed land. That of course is the cause of that inflation, that rise in prices.

I advocated ten years ago to the Dublin City and County Manager that he should request the Department of Local Government to advance a loan to Dublin County—maybe in the nature of £1 million; I do not know what it would be at the present time— to service the whole of County Dublin with water and drainage. What I mean by that is an area roughly the size of County Dublin. It may include a piece of Wicklow or Meath or Kildare, but it should be roughly the size of County Dublin. By so doing you would then have developed sites, by which I mean serviced sites. You would also have the position of site competing against site instead of builder against builder for site. A lot of people might think that this would be an extraordinary idea to expend a large amount of money on, but it could be got over by charging a levy on each site as it would be developed, to be paid by somebody taking it over. A levy would be put on the site and recoupment got by that method. If that had been done some years ago the price of land today would not be nearly as high as it is, and it is growing out of all proportion.

I will not take too long more. I have just two small points. I want to make a protest—this is not the first year I have done so—at the absence of Christmas relief work this year. There was an absence last year, too, of Christmas relief work which had been provided through the local authorities to give employment to people who at this season of the year would gladly welcome and need it. This protest of mine—and I am sure that other people have this in mind as well— should be recorded.

I will finish by coming to another hobby-horse of mine, infectious diseases. People might think that this is a specialised item. It probably is, but I am sure that on this Appropriation Bill fairly wide-ranging subjects can come into the debate. I think that the time has come when a complete revision of all the Infectious Diseases Acts should take place. They are outmoded, and they are outmoded too in view of the——

The Senator will appreciate that he may not advocate new legislation on this Bill.

I am not speaking about the Bill. I appreciate your point. I did not think it referred to the Bill.

New legislation or changes in legislation may not be advocated.

I am sorry. All right. I will therefore wind up by asking that the itemised questions I have raised might be answered by whichever Minister is winding up on this Bill. Thank you very much.

There are a few points I should like to make on this Bill. I should like to talk a little about education. We have heard learned Senators having a little scrap here yesterday evening about the university merger. While it looms large in the academic mind, the merger or not of the universities, it does not loom large in the mind of the man in the street. All that concerns the ordinary taxpayers is that they would get value for their money in any merger or not that might be coming up, and the loss of status or not to one university or another does not really matter to us. The education of our children is what matters, and it might be borne in the minds of these people when they are having their talk about merger that perhaps if they asked the man in the street what he thought about it that this is what they would be told.

Our whole educational system at the moment seems to be geared to university. Taking it on to its logical conclusion one wonders where we are going to get accommodation, teachers, even lodgings, for the number of students that it is anticipated we will have in the universities in a few years time. I wonder if we are not going off on a wrong bend here, and I think that we should think of the technical colleges, and the parents and children should be taught to think that in the regional technical colleges which are now going up there would be a greater future for a number of our children to go to these schools rather than to think of a university alone. This is something that I feel we should be thinking of, and parents and people who are in charge of education as well.

In this respect I should like to make a plea for some kind of a university degree for home economics. It seems strange to me that a man can get a degree in animal nutrition but there is no degree at all for women to go out and teach home economics and human nutrition. Surely human nutrition is more important than animal nutrition. After all the whole health of the State depends on how well its people are nourished, and it is high time that such a degree was brought into this country. We have the degrees all over the world but not here in Ireland. This would come up against something which happened recently where you might say that because women did not have a degree in the first place they could not get a master's degree. They did a course exactly the same as men, a post-graduate course, and at the end of it the men got their master's degree in agriculture but the women were conferred in absentia with a diploma There is something wrong here. This is something that could be thought of seriously by our education authorities. We are now having a higher education authority establishment in Limerick, and perhaps here we could set up such a faculty.

There is great talk on health and nursing. Surely our nurses need some kind of university training as they are getting in other countries. They cannot really work as hard as they have to work in hospitals all day and get in their lectures when the field of medicine is widening all the time. They must get an opportunity of attending some university lectures.

I should like not to say much about agriculture, though I notice that so far there has been a great lack of speaking on agriculture. What I should just like is the co-ordination of the advisory services. I would ask for some form of co-ordination between all the advisory services—and I do not mean just agriculture—that instead of marching on parallel lines and never meeting these advisers would be somewhere centred together and that they would work as a unit. Perhaps the agricultural advisory services might fight hard if they felt that they were being taken over by the Department of Agriculture and no longer run by committees of agriculture, but I am sure that some kind of solution could be reached.

The only other thing I should like to say on agriculture is a small thing on fisheries. I come from an inland town and I find it very difficult to get fresh fish. I was listening recently to a talk on catches of herring and it was mentioned that you could nearly pick them out of the sea with a spoon—you would not need a net at all. Yet it was a week afterwards when we in Roscommon got the herrings from Galway, 50 miles away. Our fishery authorities could do something about getting the fish to us a little faster. I heard talk yesterday on the wireless that 780 tons of herring had been caught the previous day and a lady said later that, of course, we could not consume all of it in Ireland. I thought that we do not even get the chance to consume even a few ounces while it is still fresh.

We have consumer legislation coming up and the Minister is to be congratulated on it. It is long overdue and there is no need for me to stress why it is needed. I trust that it will come soon and that it will be very far-reaching. If so, I am sure a lot of the nice jingles we hear on television will disappear. Before our own station was started, I used to rush in and look at the advertisements, not bothering to look at the programmes. We realise now that we must pay for all these nice jingles. As I have said, we need consumer legislation and I hope it will be wide and far-reaching.

I suppose Senators are waiting for me now to start to talk about the status of women. I will not say much about it except to mention that I heard a gentleman and a lady yesterday talking about the abolition of certain clauses in the Constitution. There is Article 41, and it states in section 2:

In particular, the State recognises that by her life within the home, woman gives to the State a support without which the common good cannot be achieved.

We all agree with this, I think. There is no doubt at all, however, about women outside the home. One indeed wonders if the only function she has to perform is to stay within the home. There is not any reckoning being taken of what women contribute to the national income. Statisticians have not estimated a cost on it. I think women in the home contribute a lot and they contribute quite a sizeable amount to the national economy. Their contribution should be recognised as such. The Minister for Finance is here and we hope that when he is preparing his Budget and examining income tax he will also examine income tax in respect of married women. I am sure that because he is a man of great understanding, if he looks at the position of women in this context he will do something about them.

I shall say just a few words about the drug problem. Everybody is talking about it and we are all jumping on the band wagon to talk about it. It is becoming quite a serious problem and I wonder if we are thinking seriously enough of it and of the number of trained personnel that are needed to deal with it. I am hoping the Minister for Justice and the Minister for Health will take due note of it and will see that the hospitals and the social services needed will be set up as quickly as possible. I am afraid that in some cases we have heads in the sand. We must wake up so that the problem will not grow.

Education is a great thing and perhaps more use can be made of television and radio to deal with this problem. We hear a lot about it but it takes a little time to educate parents' minds to the fact that their children may be drug-takers. None of us likes to think that our children would do it—we always think of other people's children and very seldom of our own.

In the Devlin Report there was mention of a Department of National Culture. Although national culture may not be the best name for it, we need a Department to co-ordinate all the recommendations and suggestions in the Devlin Report. It would take too long to go into it now in detail but I should like to draw the attention of the Minister for Education, under whose jurisdiction the National Museum is, to the fact that there is a National Museum poll of visitors who are asked to make recommendations from time to time. It seems difficult to believe or to understand that the report which these people prepared in 1964-65 is being published only now. I wonder if the Minister might tell us how long it will be before it will be acted on. Perhaps the Taoiseach will decide when he reads the report that some such Department as this is necessary. We hope so.

The last topic I should like to raise is the question of the development of the west of Ireland. I know there is a sigh from everybody who lives within the pale, or outside the designated areas, because where the west is concerned people say: "Oh, they are at it again". We are not asking for charity and perhaps the people who first used the phrase "Save the West", put a voodoo on the west because we are told the quickest way to kill a person in accordance with voodoo religion is to say the person will die. We are not dying in the west. We have no intention of dying. However, we have a serious population problem and I ask for understanding of that problem from the people who do not live in the west. The Buchanan Report has many suggestions and there are maps showing the fall in population and showing the serious situation with which we are faced.

I do not think we can blame any Government. This has happened and has been happening since the Famine and we had a number of Governments since. It is a serious problem and it must be tackled because more than half the country is a designated area and a country cannot afford to have half its area underdeveloped.

Senator Belton and others have put certain questions to the Minister. This is in accordance with the practice of this House on this Bill. I remember the first occasion when I was in this House that we had an Appropriation Bill to discuss. It was 1954. The Minister for Finance was Deputy Sweetman and he came and sat through most of the debate, and he made the point at the beginning of his reply that in a sense he regarded the occasion as a kind of "information please" programme in the Seanad. It is the only opportunity the Seanad gets for putting questions as well as for making comments arising out of the work of the various Departments. I remember that Deputy Sweetman took a very careful note of the major questions asked, and that he did his level best to deal with all questions, whether he had notice of them or not, and I was very struck by the way in which he remembered to satisfy individual Senators arising out of questions they had asked.

I may recall, of course, that Deputy Sweetman had his first Parliamentary experience in the Seanad and, because we cannot discuss the Estimates separately as they do in the Dáil, and we have no Question Time in this House, he saw the value in having a Minister in charge of answering this debate who was prepared to do his best to take up every question asked.

I remember a similar situation when Dr. Ryan, who was later to become a Member of this House, was Minister for Finance. He similarly endeavoured as best he could to cover the various questions and to answer them as they came up. I am sorry to say that the present Taoiseach while he was Minister for Finance introduced a method which there has been a tendency to follow since. That was a method of winding up very briefly by saying that the debate had been a long one and that the Senators would not wish him to take up their time in replying to every point made.

I am saying this in the hope that the present Minister for Finance will do what he has done on occasions in the past and take the trouble to answer the questions great and small. Among questions that I personally intend to ask there is no particularly needling question, but I am speaking in general for all of us here. We would like questions to be attended to and, if possible, to be answered.

On occasion in the past the present Minister has tried to do this, but sometimes he has not. With the Minister it seems to be a question of mood. I hope he is in good mood today. He was a little short, with me in particular, yesterday. In fact, he told the House that nobody ever paid any attention to what I said but I hope that he will now pay just a little attention to what I am saying on this topic.

In this connection, I remember the Minister saying two things about me to the House during the last session. One was that I had only got in by the skin of my teeth; but there he was mixing me up with a colleague who had got in by 13 votes after a recount, whereas I had in fact headed the poll and was actually the first Senator to be declared elected to the House. That was in 1965. The Minister's memory betrayed him. The other thing the Minister said was that in the whole course of his career in various Departments I had never made any representations to him. Perhaps I bothered him less than other people, but I have before me a letter from him of not so very long ago explaining that it was impossible in the case of a particular widow of a Civil Service pensioner to give her any ex gratia grant and saying that she was in the same position in this regard as the widow of any other Civil Service pensioner who drew his full pension during retirement. This man's pension, the Minister informed me, was larger than most. The letter continued, and I quote:

...if an ex gratia award were to be made in one case, it would have to be made in all, and in fairness to the taxpayer a close rein must be kept on superannuation payments from voted moneys...

This man had the enormous pension of £600 a year. This is not ancient history. The letter is dated July, 1967. The Minister might be forgiven, of course, for forgetting individual representations of this kind but I remember on one occasion leading a deputation of six, half Irish and half Nigerian, to the Minister's office, where indeed he received us very nicely.

An Leas-Chathaoirleach

The Chair is a little worried that the Senator's account of his political career does not seem closely related to the Bill.

I respect your ruling. I am just trying to suggest that in matters like this the Minister's memory would not seem to be very good. One would think that at least he would remember my leading a delegation, half Irish and half African, into his office but, apparently, this, too, has been entirely wiped from his memory.

I come now to specific points in relation to various Votes before the House. I mention first the Vote for the Office of Public Works. I should like to make a plea in regard to our ancient monuments, the very ancient and not so ancient, that they be maintained and repaired as well as supporting notices asking people not to damage them. Some of the very beautiful ruins are falling to pieces and, indeed, some of them will not last very much longer unless actively sustained.

In this connection I should also like to make a plea for more explicit notices when a notice is being posted up to say that the monument is a national one and must not be damaged. In Clonmacnoise, for instance, the notices indicate what the monuments are, and give a good historical account. The notices on all our monuments should give this type of more explicit information.

We have an individual Vote in the first part of the Schedule for pensions and superannuation compensation. I should like the Minister to let me know what is the exact present situation in relation to pensions for the widows of civil servants. I know that through his good offices the situation has been greatly improved, but I should like to know what exactly is the position and what the future intentions are in this regard? In saying this, I suggest that a pension of any kind, whether a private or public service pension, should, like a salary, be regarded as being for both the man and his wife and if the man dies, it seems unfair to wipe out the pension entirely: at least half of it should persist.

Vote 21 is for salaries and expenses of the Garda Síochána. I recall, under another Minister for Justice, the late Deputy Everett whom I knew well, and whom I counted as my friend, bringing before us a Bill regarding the extension of the right to keep people in cells in individual Garda barracks. It occurred to me that it might be a good idea to go around and have a look at some of these. I did this, and in the course of doing so I visited five barracks and the Bridewell. When I got to Store Street, an intelligent garda said to me as I was talking about the conditions of prisoners in these cells, I should give some thought about the conditions of the gardaí. I had already noted the poor conditions in the Bridewell. The only place where they could empty tealeaves in the Bridewell at that time was into the prisoners' bath. This did not seem to be very satisfactory. When I looked at the dining and residential accommodation at Store Street, I was horrified. I drew the attention of the House and the Minister to these conditions.

I should like to know from the Minister, with his colleague, the Minister for Justice, what exactly is the position now. Are the Government satisfied that the Vote is sufficient to provide adequate residential and catering services for the gardaí on a level that it is right for them to expect? I draw the attention of the House to the fact that you cannot expect a very high standard of respect among the gardaí for the conditions in which prisoners are kept, if they themselves are kept in conditions which are distinctly below par, not to put it too strongly.

In relation to this particular Department, the Department of Justice, we can say it would appear to many of us to put an onus on the colleagues of the present Minister for Justice to say that in relation to certain matters the code of behaviour and standard of behaviour observed should be very carefully scrutinised. We had in the Dáil the other day the reading out by Deputy Sweetman of a letter from the present Minister for Justice in which he made it clear, writing and signing his name as Minister for Justice, and by the notepaper, that this emanated from the Department of Justice, and using the plural "we" in making certain promises to the constituent he was writing to, making it clear that he suggested to this constituent that although she was no longer, under the law, entitled to a particular tenancy she should move in "quietly"—that was the adverb used by the Minister—and that then he and the others included in the Ministerial "we" would do the very best they could to keep her there, although technically, at least, she was not entitled to be there.

The fact that this can be made public and that the colleagues of the Minister, including the Minister before us, apparently feel there is nothing odd or reprehensible or to be condemned in such type of official letter-writing—and the letter we will remember included the injunction to destroy it as soon as it was read—is to be deplored. I notice the Minister for Justice in another place said he would stand over every word and every line of it, which, if the letter were burned, would mean presumably he would go up in smoke. The fact that such a letter apparently arouses among his colleagues no feelings of distaste, I am afraid necessarily lowers in the eyes of the public not only the status of a particular Minister, but the status of those who have felt they can, at the moment at any rate, say nothing at all on such a lowering of Ministerial standards.

I remember in this House the same Minister for Justice came in and told the House, when I was trying to protest about the deportation of Ralph Schoenmann from this country, that I had met Mr. Schoenmann at Dublin Airport, and that I had visited him in Mountjoy Jail. Both of those statements were entirely fictitious, total fabrications. I was obliged to point this out in a personal statement to the House. While it may be possible for a Minister to be legitimately mistaken about what happened at an airport, it is not legitimate for a Minister for Justice not to know definitely and factually of visits made to prisoners in a jail over which he has jurisdiction. It seems to me rather odd that this particular Minister should engage so lightheartedly in public and in his Ministerial capacity in such flights of fiction and fabrication.

I want to turn now to the Department of Local Government. Mention was made yesterday and today about the question of land values. I have been told that in Sweden they have a system whereby if a public authority are considering the taking over of a piece of land for building or other purposes they give notice of this fact to the owner and they ask the owner of the land to place a value on it himself. If the public authority consider the value he places on it is on the whole too high they say: "We intend to defer taking over this land for some ten, 20 or 25 years, and in the meantime we will ask you to pay income tax and rates at the rate you have assessed yourself as representing the value of this land." That is a very simple device, and it results in a pretty equitable judgment by the owner of the land of the real value of it to him. Of course he may not enjoy parting with it, and he may prefer to hold on to it for another 25 years or so.

In connection with this, it is quite obvious that if a piece of land is acquired for building, whether in the private sector or in the public sector, the piece of land which may originally have cost something like £200 to £300 an acre and is then sold at £2,000 to £3,000 an acre—I am not exaggerating because some land in Dublin has been sold for as much as £10,000 an acre— if it is sold at this amount, even if the land in question has been acquired and in the contention of the owner his parting with the land has been due to a council asking for it for the promotion of housing and so on, it must be recognised that the increased value of the land has (a) been put on it by the community and not by the owner of the land, and that the profit should therefore accrue to the community and not to the owner, and (b) that this increased value and this increased price will necessarily be reflected in the final rent.

This point should be stressed. If you say: "I got rid of my bit of land but it was mainly to help the housing of people who are short of housing and an enormous profit was forced on me, and I felt it would be a bit caddish to make a present of the land to the nation or even to sell it at the price I paid for it, I feel I was in honour bound, within our system, to take whatever profit could be taken," but let us not fail to see that all of this profit will be paid for by the final owners, or tenants, of those houses. It will appear in the rent.

In those conditions I do not think we need be surprised that there is a shortage of housing, in the big cities in particular, and in some of our smaller cities and towns also. This land price question is a problem with which so far, in my opinion, the Government have dealt with in a very inadequate way.

I recognise that Dublin Corporation in trying to house newly-weds instituted many years ago a system of drawing lots among those who were newly-weds within the previous year to find who would get houses. In general, something like 1,400 or 1,600 applicants go up for this lottery and about 200 dwellings are allotted in this way. This being so, some of those newly-weds will have to remain without this type of accommodation perhaps for as long as ten years, under the present system.

Can we be satisfied that Government or local authority policy is adequate in this regard? I think not, and I think everybody here will agree with me, at least in theory. Also connected with local government, and perhaps it should be even more closely connected if the recommendations of the Devlin Report are to be followed, is the whole question of conservation which has been dealt with by other Senators. This is something both in the city and in the country in which, if we do not give it major attention now, we will never get a second chance. It is far easier to allow the countryside to be destroyed than to get it back into the state of beauty in which much of it still remains. Exactly the same applies to many of the houses in this city.

Let us recognise that the corporation and the Commissioner and the Department of Local Government have acted very wisely, if a little slowly, in relation to the conservation of the Grand Canal in Dublin with the hope that this will be developed in such a way as to make it the major amenity which it could be. I believe that the expenditure, which was not small, which was spent on the drawing up and the publication of the Devlin Report, has been fully justified when I read such recommendations as recommendation 25.4.1 which states:

We recommend that the scope of the Department should be extended to enable it to take a lead role in the co-ordination of all aspects of development in local areas. This co-ordination should be on a regional basis. In the light of this recommendation and in view of the increasing emphasis on regionalisation the Department's name should be changed to the Department of Regional Development instead of the Department of Local Government.

This seems to me to be one aspect of the report which fully justifies the money spent on the production and the drawing up of the report. I would be out of order if I were to suggest various things that might arise out of the report and I will content myself now with saying that that money was well spent.

An Leas-Chathaoirleach

I am glad that the Senator appreciates he would be out of order.

I appreciate your gladness, a Leas-Chathaoirligh. I come now to the question of education. There is a great deal that could be said, and in the past I have spoken a lot on this subject. I do not want to allow myself to be tempted to go on too long about it but several things has been said about "the merger". I think it was Senator Farrell who mentioned it last. She said, and this is something that would find an echo in the country, that the taxpayer does not care very much about the status of the university, what he or she wants to know about is value for money.

I would respectfully draw the attention of the Senator and the House to the fact that the status of the university may, in fact, be an element in the value you get for money. If you succeed in running down any school, any university, any university apparatus to what is effectively a much lower level by means of pinchbeck methods, then the value you are getting for money, in the degree or diploma, has been markedly lessened, so let us not fall into the error of thinking that the status of all our universities is something that does not matter at all, and that in some way you can mysteriously separate the value of a degree from the status of the university.

I have had the privilege and the pleasure in the last few years on the Council of the Irish Federation of University Teachers of working with my colleagues in UCD, UCG, UCC and in Maynooth. We meet in these various colleges in turn. One of the things that has emerged very strongly there is not only that there is a very strong academic resistance to the idea of the merger as first imposed upon us by the Government before consulting us at all, but also that the amount of co-operation already existing—and let us be fair to the Government—some of it having come into being subsequent to the threat of a merger, is very great indeed.

I might just mention that the co-operation is not quite as small as Senator Keery seemed to imply. In connection with my own Department, the Department of French in Trinity College, for instance, we have always as far back as I can remember, in the days of Professor Chauviré, had the closest co-operation with NUI. In the last five years our extern examiner has been the late Professor Louis Roche, and the closeness of the working together—our own professor was extern examiner in the NUI over much the same period—between the two Departments of French was very great indeed. This applies to a number of Departments, though of course it is true that there are certain disabilities, certain obstacles placed in the way of some students, when it is suggested to them that they might with profit attend lectures in one or other place.

My own opposition to the merger is really based on three major considerations—size, distance and control. We in Trinity College now have very nearly 5,000 students. It is obvious we are going up towards that figure. UCD at present has something like 10,000. They will go ahead faster than we will. They have a magnificent new premises at Belfield. University College, Dublin, which up till now has never been allowed to be what it asked to be for a long time, that is to say an independent university, will be one of the great universities in these islands, great in academic standards, in teaching, in learning, in research and also in its marvellous 250 acre site and buildings. Their numbers will go up to 12,000, perhaps 15,000. Now, at the moment the percentage of university students in the Republic catered for by UCD is 47 per cent. They have very nearly half the university student population in the Republic. I am quoting from figures in the Higher Education Report. Trinity College accounts for about another 22 per cent of such students. This being so, if these two are joined together, 69 or 70 per cent of the university students in the Republic will be at a single university and Cork and Galway and the University College in Maynooth will be trying to divide the remaining 30 per cent between them. Such a structure seems to me to be lopsided, top-heavy, and by that very fact inefficient. I would regard it as perfectly possible in Dublin, as in Edinburgh, in Glasgow, and in London, to have two or more university institutions, giving of course to University College, Dublin, complete autonomy as a university.

I am suggesting then that by size alone—and that is my first objection —if the two universities are compulsorily merged and the university swelled to contain 15,000 or 20,000 students it will be far too big. One result of this will be that there will be an almost entirely non-academic, bureaucratic machine. All the administrators will be non-academic and the gap between them and the students will be accordingly increased.

What about student riots?

The whole point of the many student riots in California, for instance, has arisen from the enormous numbers of students, and the fact that they feel themselves totally out of touch with the administration which is almost entirely non-academic.

An Leas-Chathaoirleach

The Senator should not allow the interruption to carry him into a discussion of riots for which no Minister is responsible.

That is open to question.

I am tempted to riot myself at the moment.

There are Ministers and Ministers. As the present Minister has told you, some of them are very tempted in this direction. Size does produce profound dissatisfaction and frustration, and this may well lead to the sort of thing that has been referred to by another Senator, in other words the students and the administrators get out of touch, and this is in itself bad. Therefore my first objection is size.

My second objection is a simple physical objection—distance. There are two universities here. They are separated by 3½ miles of city traffic. By merging them on paper can you make them into any kind of organic, coherent university? I suggest not. If University College were to have remained at Earlsfort Terrace with widely extended premises this would have been conceivable, and I do not think the distance factor would have been a legitimate objection, but an intervening distance of three and a half miles across the city is a major obstacle. This is an artificial merger on paper, and in practice it cannot achieve any real organic cohesion.

My third objection is the question of control. I believe that it becomes less and less possible to control an enormous university and to have it done by people who know something of what a university can or could do, and I fear that the kind of mixture of ecclesiastical authorities, county council authorities and ex-civil servants who would be running the merged university, even with the best will in the world, would have a tendency to crush much of what we see of value now in our universities.

Passing from that, I should like to pay tribute to the Catholic hierarchy on their recent statement that they favour teacher-parent groups in primary schools. This is something I advocated in the Seanad in 1961 and some Senators may remember that we had a motion on it, and the Leader of the Government party in the House, Senator Ó Maoláin, said that if there were to be parent-teacher groups in primary schools there would be a "soviet" in every Irish village. This apparently is something the hierarchy are now prepared to risk; they feel that if Irish parents come together with Irish teachers this need not necessarily produce a soviet. This is admittedly eight years after we got 11 Senators—including two Fianna Fáil Senators whom I shall not embarrass by naming, but I am glad to say they are both still in the Seanad—to request the setting up of such parent-teacher groups.

I would say in all seriousness that one of the biggest potential factors for improvement in relation to primary schools lies in getting parents, teachers and managers together. I have always felt this could be done without acrimony, and that if there are troublemakers among the parents they can more adequately be dealt with by fellow-parents rather than in the manager's office, where the public does not know what kind of contentions are being made. Therefore, I see in this recent statement by the hierarchy grounds for hope that at last things may be moving in this direction.

I have spoken frequently in the Seanad about corporal punishment and I do not intend to dwell on it now, but I noticed with pleasure that one of my colleagues, Senator Brosnahan, said in a TV debate last year that corporal punishment was being reduced, in the schools. I am not quite sure in what exact terms he referred to it, but he seemed pleased to be able to announce that it was being reduced, and I can only deduce that he was happy about this. I have always said the major reason for its use was because classes are too large, and it is my hope, that with more money now being spent on school buildings, the numbers in classes will be reduced, and the pressures on teachers, of overcrowding, of classes where retarded children are included with ordinary children, these pressures which often lead, understandably, but unjustifiably, to corporal punishment will be considerably lessened. Corporal punishment should never be applied to the major victims, namely the children. Obviously if corporal punishment is the answer it should be applied to those responsible for the overcrowding.

I should like to pay tribute to the Government's activity, under a succession of Ministers, in relation both to secondary school and university students' grants. I suppose nobody is ever fully satisfied, but it would be grudging for us not to recognise that the Government in the last few years have made much progress in this sphere, both in the field of relatively free secondary education and of giving grants to students in certain circumstances for university education. I am not suggesting that the grants are enough, but I am suggesting that it would be dishonest not to recognise the Government have done something far more than make a mere perfunctory gesture; they have taken very large steps forward, and they should be saluted for that fact.

I come now to Vote 45 on External Affairs. On the question of the Vietnamese war, people may say it does not affect Ireland very much, we have not got very much power on this. We all deplore the atrocities that are said to have taken place recently. Let us not fail to recognise that the people who revealed these atrocities—at Pinkville and elsewhere—are primarily the American news media, American newspapers and radio, and American soldiers. To speak about this other than in emotional terms is practically impossible, but to blind oneself to the fact that atrocities have been committed by the other side would be stupid and dishonest. These conditions will continue until the people in Paris finally agree to negotiate on something more than merely the shape of the table. In talking about the shooting of civilians and prisoners in the Vietnam conflict, I am reminded of Norman Mailer's book about the Second World War against the Japanese, in which he gave accounts of precisely the same things happening. A point I should like to make is that if our representatives in the United Nations or in diplomatic circles are making, as I hope they will make, representations on these matters, they should be of a balanced kind, recognising that war itself is a horrible thing, protesting with all the strength at their command about this kind of atrocity but recognising that as long as war continues and negotiations fail, this kind of thing is likely to continue.

One deplores—and I do not think I need to add to what I have already said about it—the position in Biafra. One can say the same thing, that one hopes that peace will early be negotiated, even if it be at the loss of face to either side or to both sides.

I should like finally in relation to Vote No. 42, on Posts and Telegraphs, to pay tribute to Radio Telefís Éireann for the sort of work that they have been doing, I suppose it would be unfair to say "with or without" the help of the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs, but at any rate under his aegis. Excellent work has been done in pointing to certain of our social maladies, in putting information before us, in exposing various types of racketeers and leeches upon the body politic, seeing to it that we are well informed, and cogently informed in so far as in it lies, in exposing unpleasant aspects of our society as well as the pleasant ones. In doing this I pay tribute too to its service in doing what I am afraid we as a nation tend to be reluctant to do, looking at the facts of our society, which contains such things as the appalling housing and job conditions of our itinerants around this city in particular, and the great disparity between wealth and poverty in our society. When we are forced to look at the facts now in public in relation to many of these things, such honest revelations will I hope prove fruitful, and I hope too that there is consequently promise for a major change in our society in the not too far distant future.

It has been the policy of successive administrations to take all possible steps to stem the flight from the land. I realise that this is not a problem confined to us alone. However, in view of our dependence on the agricultural sector of the economy the question of finding the best solutions to the problem is more urgent. The Government have already taken steps to lighten the rates burden on farmers. One feature of this relief however has been static for a number of years. I refer to the employment allowance. I would urge the Ministers concerned to give every consideration to increasing this allowance substantially. Farmers must compete with industry which is very often heavily subsidised for workers. New industries are given training grants to attract young employees. Very often these people would have formerly gone into agricultural employment. An increase in the employment allowance would encourage farmers to give their employees more attractive terms of employment.

Sympathetic consideration should also be given to exempting farm workers from income tax. I appreciate this might cause some administrative difficulties but these should be overcome when the national objective of full employment on the land and in rural areas has to be taken into consideration. The employment allowances should also be extended to female workers helping on the land. Again this would encourage young farmers' daughters to work at home, which in turn would have beneficial effects on the social life of the rural communities. Afforestation on marginal land would also help to create more work in rural areas and apart from the employment content of this work it must also benefit other land in the area. These forests when mature could also become tourist attractions.

The Land Commission could also help in cutting down the flow of people from the land. There is far too much land in the country not being used to anything near its full capacity. The Land Commission could do much to overcome the continuous land shortage by publicising their schemes, particularly the scheme of retirement annuities, among the older people. Already the concession is given by the Department of Social Welfare whereby the first £3 of the Land Commission annuity for a purchased holding is not assessed for old age pension purposes. Perhaps a similar concession might be given in relation to capital received from the sale of a farm. Surely some special fund could be set up bearing interest whereby vendors could invest money received from the Land Commission from the sale of holdings and not have the capital assessed for pension purposes. The money in the fund could be used to generate rural amenities. Long delays in the division of land acquired should be avoided. Small producers must be further encouraged if at all possible. Encouragement should be channelled away from milk to cattle and sheep. Intensive rearing, more use of silage and winter feeding should be encouraged more than at present. The farmers must be educated to the fact that they are running a competitive business and that overhead costs must be reduced by higher stocking rates. The Irish farming community, if it is given the necessary opportunity and encouragement, will overcome the difficulties besetting European agriculture.

There are many speakers clamouring to get in and I promise to be brief and thereby, with the other lady Senators, hope to explode the myth that it is the women in this country who have the long tongues. The first thing I should like to talk about is local government, a topic on which a good deal has been said already by previous speakers. Some of the things I have in mind perhaps have not come out. It is perfectly obvious, I think, to everybody here and to the public at large that there is a change taking place in the structure and form of local government.

We have been promised a white paper and I suppose we are all eagerly waiting for it but already some reorganisation has taken place and to a degree there has been a remarkable alteration in the function of the local authority. When I refer to the National Building Agency and An Foras Forbartha I do not in any way wish to take away from the very good work they have done but I think that we must accept that to an extent they are now fulfilling some of the functions which local authorities previously did.

Local government as we know it is a very important part of our democratic system of government, and any change that is brought about in it should be done in a democratic way and must be seen to be done in a democratic way. The form it may take I do not think at the moment important. It may be regionalisation, it may be that we will decide to keep our unitary authorities, or we may have more of centralised areas. This is not the important thing at the moment. What I think is important is that we have debate and that the whole of the people be involved in this debate. In that regard I would like to point out that in 1967 there was a request to the Taoiseach, the Minister for Health and the Minister for Local Government to set up a public inquiry into local government so that we could all become involved in the change and rationalisation. I think that one must accept that there is need for rationalisation and that we can no longer continue in the organisation laid down in the Act of 1898.

I would again request that we have some sort of inquiry or debate into the reorganisation of local government. I would not like to have this happen before the issue of the white paper, but if this is too late then perhaps we should have it before the white paper so that we all could become involved.

While I am speaking about this I should like in passing—I do this without wishing to give any political party concept to what I am saying but as an official involved and representing an organisation of officials of local government—to express our concern at the dissolution of Dublin Corporation and to express our hope that the Minister in the near future will be able to restore and give back to the citizens and the officials the democratically elected council.

The Devlin Report has dealt fairly extensively with local government. I was glad to see that Devlin recommended that surcharge be done away with because it has proved to be an irritant. It is to the credit of the Ministers concerned that they have always without exception remitted surcharge when it has been imposed by local government.

One thing which is stifling the initiative of people in local government is the power of sanction which is retained by the Minister for Local Government. I accept that when they are given money to spend they have to be responsible for it but to give a simple example, the creation of one extra post of clerk-typist must have the sanction of the Minister. This is control brought to a ludicrous degree. I hope that when reorganisation takes place that sanction will be done away with.

Devlin also referred to the legal position of women within the Civil Service and I will have more to say later on regarding women. A previous speaker, also in reference to the Devlin Report, mentioned that the Government should go ahead with implementing the recommendations of the report and give leadership on it rather than to consult him beforehand. I would disagree entirely with this. This would be dictatorship and if the Government were to go ahead and implement the Devlin recommendations without consulting the staff and people involved they would have more on their hands than a Castlebar-Athlone move. I suggest that the implementation of the recommendations of the report be considered with the staff associations involved in the Civil Service.

I turn now to the proposal of the Taoiseach in response to a request from women's organisations to set up a commission on the status of women in society. I am on record elsewhere as welcoming this commission with some reservations. Therefore, I am very sad that already the commission have been discredited and I hope that the Minister in replying will answer what may be a misquote attributed to him in reply to a question elsewhere that he stated that equal pay in the public service would be one of the major issues to be discussed by the commission. This, on the eve of conciliation talks on equal pay claims in the Civil Service. If the commission are to be used as was Quinn and the Review Body to stop or delay in any way the legitimate claim of trades unions regarding equal pay policy, I would say the commission are nothing but a confidence trick and will be seen to be such by the women workers of Ireland and we will have no part in it. Again, I hope that the Minister has been misquoted.

A previous speaker referred to discrimination. We have discrimination. I agree with the protest going on at the moment against the admission of the Springboks team into this country. I agree with that protest because of the apartheid policy in South Africa but there is very little protesting about the discrimination that is going on right here. Even in advertisements by Government or semi-Government bodies, the position of clerks may be advertised with the words "male only" in brackets. This is a clear case of discrimination and must be ended.

There has been a lot of talk about Article 41 of the Constitution but we are greatly concerned that the Government have not yet ratified Article 111 of the ILO on discrimination. I understand that one of the reasons given when they were previously asked about this was that they cannot ratify this because it would be contrary to Article 41 of the Constitution.

I wish to thank the Minister for Finance for what he did in the Budget for the pensioners in the public sector by giving them parity of pensions with the 1964 salaries. Having said that, I trust that his next Budget speech will give them full parity and that they will be restored to the 1969 level. I am sure the Minister knows how the women of Ireland appreciate what he did for the widows in the public sector.

I should like to compliment the Industrial Training Authority AnCo, and the work they are doing. When I received their policy I was concerned because it mentioned nothing about the training of women but I find, in fact, they have already carried out exclusive training of women. It would be only right that they would make that more public.

Finally, I would ask the Minister for Labour to extend his factory inspectorate because from my travels around the country I find that despite the best efforts of those concerned, there are just not enough of them.

It was nice to listen to so many professional men defend and encourage additional pay in their professions and it was nice also to listen to many other points being brought up here but I should like to speak for one of the Cinderella services —the defence forces.

There is a great need for more attention to be paid to all sections of the defence forces to make their position more tolerable and to ensure better conditions for them. It is only in wartime that any degree of attention is paid to any of the servicemen but something should be done to ensure that people serving in the defence forces do not waste their years but that they are given a chance to get a trade or a diploma or, even, a profession. Soldiers who give many years service should be encouraged to make provision for their return to civilian life. Some type of resettlement grant should be provided for them as distinct from the officers of these forces.

We hear a lot of criticism of the naval service and, unfortunately, this criticism sometimes falls on the men serving in these forces rather than those who provide the vessels for them. There is a great need for thinking in this matter, thinking that would provide something to help these men when they return to civilian life. When these men leave the Army or the Navy, it is important that they be qualified for posts in other fields. Possibly they would be technically trained for fishing. In this respect, great attention should be paid to the type of craft that is provided. At the present time, we are inclined to put all our eggs in one basket as regards the type of ship that we provide. There should be a smaller type of ship.

Naturally, we must look to fisheries protection and in this connection there could be a faster and smaller type of ship. When we consider that our territorial control limits are now extended to 12 miles and the type of ship being used by those engaging in illegal fishing is, in most cases, a much faster vessel than what our people have, it is necessary that we have a faster type of vessel.

I intend to refer to conditions in which the gardaí live. This has been dealt with before but I think it is more important that the Department of Justice should look to these conditions rather than to talk about integration of the legal profession.

As regards social welfare, I should like to make a case for old age pensioners. I have in mind, in particular, the means test that is applied in the case of two old age pensioners living together and if one has a garden patch which he cultivates and if the other has a patch which he does not cultivate, the man who cultivates the patch will lose £5 for doing so. This practice should be discontinued immediately.

In that respect, it is time, instead of looking so much to the professional side of life and to the demands at higher education level, that we should look to the old. It is time everyone in this country, irrespective of whether they are laymen, clergymen, self-employed or how they are employed, should all be made to buy an insurance stamp and there should be an old age pension provided for all our people.

The Senator may not advocate legislation on the Appropriation Bill.

The other matter I wish to refer to is tourism. It is a simple fact that most of our revenue from tourism comes from the Six Counties, England, Scotland and Wales in that order. I live in a tourist area and we have noticed a great falling off in tourism in recent years. This is due mainly to the fact that we are pricing ourselves out of the tourist market. Anybody who travels to the Six Counties will find that a bottle of lager beer produced in Dublin is sold there for 1/11d and it is 2/6d here.

It is the difference of the specific gravity.

That may be so. Is the Northern Ireland specific gravity greater?

It is lower.

I did not know it had that effect.

Give us the names of the pubs where you can get it for 2/6d.

Will you pay more?

However, even if we are to reduce the specific gravity we must try to bring the beer price down—this is the Englishman's drink —to a price which would stop him complaining all the time and saying: "The price of your beer is shocking and is far more than we pay in England." Even if we were to reduce it to a lower specific gravity and give it to him at a cheaper price at least it would encourage him to drink our beer.

With the advent of the car ferry there is a greater need for camping and caravan sites. There is great difficulty in local areas in providing those. The local government laws are very stringently enforced and there will have to be some lessening in the enforcement of those laws if there is to be a growth in this type of tourist traffic. There was a survey recently by the Eastern Regional Tourist Association and it is very revealing. It shows the amount of work which has to be done and how far we are falling back. With the increasing flow in the car ferry traffic this is a point I should like the Minister for Local Government to go into to see if there can be an easing off in the regulations regarding caravan sites and in the provision of caravan sites throughout the country.

The Minister in his introductory statement suggested that the Appropriation Bill offered an opportunity to the Members of the Seanad to use it as a vehicle for debate on the broad spectrum of Government activities relevant to the supply services. I shall try to the best of my ability to discuss the Appropriation Bill along those general broad lines.

We must remember at all times that the Estimates are only a means to an end. In other words, they are the means for financing a broad national policy affecting every section of our society and impinging on every facet of our economic and social affairs. The main concern of the Government should be to maintain a fair and effective balance between the various sections of the community so that full use of all our resources, labour, capital and natural resources can be made and the continuing progress of the country can be assured. This is a gigantic task even in a small country like ours, calling for firm leadership and a clear indication that the Government as a whole, and in the various Departments, know where they are going and go there.

It is only by giving a clear lead to the country that the Government can secure the support of the nation and be assured of the united effort which must be the driving force in a small community such as ours which is surrounded by large and strong neighbours whose policy is not necessarily compatible with the best interests of our own country. One cannot but be disturbed at the present lack of coordinated policy by the Government. It is true we have had in recent years three programmes for economic expansion, the third programme entitled "For Economic and Social Expansion".

The First Programme, helped by an upswing in the economy from the mid-1950's, was generally successful. The Second Programme in more difficult years collapsed before the end of its term and we have now entered on the Third Programme more in hope than in confidence of its ultimate success. Concurrently almost with those programmes we have had a series of reports and committees on a national and regional basis. We have had several Lichfield Reports, we have had the Buchanan Report and recently the very important Devlin Report. We have had in addition the Committee on Industrial Organisation, the Committee on Industrial Centres and Industrial Estates. We have had a national conference on national planning and we have had various reports from time to time from the National Industrial and Economic Council. All those are excellent bodies producing useful reports but leading nowhere without a firm lead from the top and united support from the people as a whole, workers, farmers and industrialists.

In recent weeks there have been conflicting statements from Government Ministers in regard to matters of national policy. One glaring example has been the statement by the Minister for Lands and the statement by the Minister for Justice on the proposal to transfer one Government Department to the West of Ireland. The statements have aroused their supporters but the country as a whole is left in doubt as to the ultimate outcome of the Government's proposals on decentralisation of State Departments. Personally I consider that the whole question of decentralisation should be re-examined in the light of current plans for regionalisation. If industrial developments, local government, health, tourism and other services are to be organised in regions comprising groups of counties, the decentralisation of Government Departments should follow similar lines.

In other words, instead of transferring individual Departments out of Dublin, the policy should be to transfer sections of most of the existing Government Departments to the regions scheduled for development. Such a development would bring the Departments closer to the people and better secure their co-operation at regional and ultimately at national level for Government objectives.

In the context of Government objectives it is opportune to mention what appears to be a severe conflict of interests between industrial development on the east and west parts of the country. With all the advantages of close geographical and economic contacts with Britain industry tends to locate itself in Dublin or in the east in preference to the west notwithstanding the higher incentives offered to industrialists locating in the west. The only notable exception to this trend has been the highly successful industrial complex at Shannon Airport which has meant so much to the contiguous counties of Limerick and Clare. The industrial estate in Galway may, in time, have an important impact on industrial development in this area. However, the remainder of the western area appears to have little prospect of employment through major industrial development in current circumstances.

A major factor in the lack of industrial development in the west has been the apparent lack of Government policy in regard to shipping services from the west and the development of the western ports—particularly Limerick, Galway and Sligo. Recent developments in road, rail and cross-channel shipping services have resulted in the concentration of general cargo services in a few eastern ports fed by rail and road services stretching into the west and south west. Economically this may be—and I underline the word "may" because I have great doubts on the theory myself—the cheapest way of transferring goods from this country to the UK, but from the point of view of maintaining the west and south-west as viable centres of population it could be disastrous. The time is long overdue for an overall ports plan to include assistance to western ports which through geographical or other disadvantages outside their control are losing trade to the transport complexes operating through the eastern ports.

What has become of the committee set up 12 months or more ago to inquire into the cost of transport from the western seaboard and what has become of the 15 per cent differential formerly payable to ports on the western side of the country? Everybody realises that in the context of modern industrial development certain incentives and certain prerequisites are necessary if an area is to develop.

I should like to pay tribute to the present policy of establishing growth centres throughout the country. The only hope of assuring substantial industrial development, particularly in the western areas, is by the designation of certain areas as growth centres. I know there has been severe criticism of this policy on the grounds that it will denude the remainder of the countryside of people but I take the opposite view that a successful industrial development in an area will radiate complementary developments in its contiguous areas.

Furthermore, the financial incentives given by the present Government and their predecessors have helped in no small measure to ensure the rapid industrial development of the past 10 or 15 years. A necessary adjunct to these governmental and financial incentives must be an efficient and cheap transport system and easy access to Government Departments particularly for industrialists proposing to set up in country areas. One of the difficulties that industrialists down the country have is that it is very difficult to contact a Minister or a Government Department unless one knows somebody who knows somebody. Finally, I should like to mention the favourable taxation policy which we have followed in this country.

These are the incentives and help that can be given at Government level but we should not forget another very important facet in regard to industrial and commercial development. I refer to education facilities, particularly facilities for technological and university education. In Limerick we have an extraordinary situation. Nine or ten years ago it was proposed to establish a senior technical college there. That idea was knocked on the head when the proposal to establish eight or nine regional technical colleges came into being. Recently the regional technical college for Limerick has been knocked on the head and presumably we must now wait for adequate facilities until the new third level institution is completed. Meanwhile, Limerick, the only area in the country that has formed a regional development organisation, is left without technical facilities to train the young people coming out of our secondary schools. I would particularly draw the attention of the Minister concerned to the lack of Government policy in regard to one of the growth centres of the country.

We should never forget that the majority of industries in this country are and will continue to be small industries. Small industrialists and small businessmen have problems peculiar to the size of their industry. There is the obvious one of lack of capital and there is the lack of technical advice which they cannot afford.

There is a lack of reasonable taxation applicable to the smaller industry. There should be some differential to encourage a small businessman setting up a new business to accumulate capital. Under our present system of taxation it is almost impossible to accumulate capital as anybody in business knows. Finally we should reduce to the absolute minimum the number of forms required to be filled in.

I should like to pay a tribute to the small industries branch of the IDA. The setting up of that branch was a worthwhile effort and the work being done by the staff of the branch throughout the country has made a very favourable impact on the development opportunities of small industrialists. I know of several instances where the small industries branch has been more than helpful, in some cases has been responsible, for small industries surviving and for industries going on to develop into quite successful and large undertakings.

A disturbing feature which appeared in the papers this morning was the apparent decision of the Government to defer the setting up of the new Department for Physical Planning and Development. I should like to put on record that I regard this as a very serious mistake. The reasons put forward by the Taoiseach when he told the Dáil and the country of the Government's proposal to set up this Department hold, if anything, better today than they did when the matter was first announced. Few people realise the lack of knowledge of natural resources in this country, quite simple things like land and water. Few people, apart from the Ministers concerned, will realise how major industrial enterprises have failed to secure location in certain areas because of the then unknown lack of water in the area.

No industrial or other enterprise can possibly succeed without the co-operation of the workers. In this day of liberal and democratic thinking it is essential that the workers be brought into the picture and made to feel they are part of the enterprise, whether it be a State enterprise, a semi-State enterprise or private concern. If difficult decisions have to be made the people concerned want to know about them in good time and they want to know the reasons; in other words, if they are due to economic conditions which are responsible for changing the pattern of industry, or if they are new developments and changes in public taste. It is essential that workers know about this and most industrialists and businessmen will agree that when they are told frankly and in good time the workers are always co-operative and understanding, provided naturally that their interests are safeguarded and alternative arrangements are made for their future.

Another point, and equally distasteful, is something we see only too frequently—ostentatious displays by successful businessmen which give many workers the idea that money is being spent foolishly or extravagantly, money that could be better paid in higher incomes to the workers. No industry or business can succeed without the co-operation of workers and this can be assured by taking them into the confidence of management, and telling them the facts even when they are unpalatable.

I wish to say a word in support of the Senator who spoke in regard to the Defence Forces. The present recruitment drive for the Army could be expanded substantially and made much more attractive if a career in the Army or Navy was made to appear a stepping stone ultimately to something else in private life; in other words if a young man in the Army knows that he is not only being trained as a soldier but as a technician, getting the latest technological training, the Army would appeal to a far wider section.

I should like to comment critically on the recent action of the Minister for Local Government in cutting off for the first time in my experience—and I have been 25 years in local authorities —what we call the Christmas relief grants. In the case of Limerick Corporation this amounts to a mere £14,000 and it seems to me a very petty example of economy. Most of us who are serving on local councils, whether city or county, know that the men who get relief at Christmas are very often the men who get no other employment throughout the year and I speak on this with personal experience. Very often, too, they are men with large families to maintain.

Finally, I wish to speak on a subject which is far too complex to discuss in a short contribution to this debate—the possibility of our membership of the Common Market which now seems more likely than it did some years ago. If this is so it certainly brings with it the need for an urgent national re-appraisal of our strength and weaknesses. The future of our agricultural and industrial sectors must be re-assessed in the light of developments in the Community over the past six years and, most important, in the light of developments in the years ahead. People should be told the hard facts of the situation so that we may prepare ourselves to take part in that great community of nations, in the knowledge that we have much to give to and much to get from Europe provided we are equipped psychologically and physically to meet its challenges and its opportunities.

The Appropriation Bill is one that covers a wide range, on which it is possible to speak on all aspects of Government and national life. I shall begin by referring to our national problem. I am speaking here for the first time and I should like to say how refreshing it was to find that in the recent crisis in this country the very responsible attitude among all Parties in relation to the extraordinarily difficult and trying situation that developed in the northern part of our country. It is good to find that we are able to put our nation above everything else.

On this subject I do not believe in what I might describe as "preaching across the Border" but I think there are aspects that we ourselves here might consider in the light of the present situation and the future. We are a very small country and taking the long view we shall be living together in a world that is becoming increasingly trying, that is becoming smaller, and in which the interests of those who have to live on one island must become closer. This is a situation that people whom we might describe as the older generation thought was going to be a relatively easy one to solve.

But of course in retrospect one sees that the problems were far deeper and far less easy to find remedies for than those who have gone before us thought at the time. I think one can say that in the northern part of the country there are many fellow countrymen of ours—and I do not distinguish between any particular sections or groups—who have been born into a completely abnormal political situation and which one cannot say on the broad aspect of it that it is their fault because the situation does arise from a history of exploitation over centuries which perhaps is better forgotten.

However the aspect of it that I should like to say a few words about relates to the general attitude which we ourselves on the one hand tend to adopt towards fellow Irishmen and which unfortunately our fellow Protestants or Unionists have been taught or propagandised into adopting towards us. One of the things that we may be able to do if we set our minds to it during the coming years is to try to dispel in so far as it is possible in our power the atmosphere of distrust and of inculcated fear which is one of the features which has emerged in recent times in the Northern situation.

I do not want to go too deeply into that particular area of things, but perhaps there are faint glimmers of hope in recent times. One may hope to see, without wishful thinking too much, an end to the sort of blatant discrimination which is not denied by any section, I think, in any part of the country. It is interesting to see in the papers today the formation of a committee on community relations. It is also interesting to see that most of the members of that committee are not connected with the Establishment in any direct way. It is only right to say that it must take a considerable degree of courage on the part of any of our people in the North of Ireland who agreed to take part in what can only be described as an adventure in this sphere. I was interested to read a quotation from the new chairman of what is described as the Commission on Community Relations. He said: "if I did not think that there was some hope of improving community relations I would not have taken on the job". I notice that he quotes the distinguished father of our Cathaoirleach when he says that the path is a thorny one. He goes on to say that unless a society gets itself into a situation where it will not tear itself to pieces every 20 years then there is no hope for it.

I refer to this because first of all it must take considerable courage for any group of individuals to get themselves involved in that sort of situation where they are bound, even almost certain, to be misinterpreted. There is also the gleam of hope that a situation which is entirely abnormal and has been abnormal for many, many years may be developing towards normality. The important thing on our side is that we should approach the question with as great a degree of judgment and of hope as possible, because after all this is our country and our future lies together whether we wish it or not.

There have been some references to Radio Telefís Éireann, and as I have been fairly familiar with that particular medium for a number of years I would like to say a few words about it. I think that earlier on the thinking in that particular organisation was to a considerable extent orientated on the idea that television was for entertainment. However, over a number of years some of us managed to prevail on them to accept the principle that it was not merely entertainment, that it was also a medium of education and of communication.

Referring back to the question which I raised at the beginning, it seems to me that it is a very great pity that our fellow-countrymen in the Six Counties are not to a very great extent able to see and in some cases hear our national communications system. I am quite sure that they would very quickly conclude, as I notice some members of the Opposition have concluded, that whatever may be the drawbacks of that particular medium of communication it certainly is not Government control.

Perhaps it is no harm for me to say, having being a member of that Authority for a period of four years, that never at any time did I hear party politics as such being introduced into the discussions of the Authority. In fact I think myself that whatever the problems may be in relation to the formation of such an Authority, in the condition of things I doubt if the executives of any such organisation would allow that to happen. But in my experience it has never happened. I am sorry that over a number of years many members of the two Opposition parties have implied that because people were appointed by the Government irrespective of their political outlook that they were therefore going to be biassed in their approach to their national responsibilities. I think that we should be able in Ireland to accept the proposition that when a person is appointed to a position of responsibility that person is going to carry out that responsibility with a sense of integrity and a sense of national self-respect.

Of course anybody who takes the trouble to read the 1960 Broadcasting Act will find that the medium is not in any way under the control of the Government other than in the section which enables the Government to give a direction in writing. This is the sort of provision that one would need, but it is the sort of provision that is highly unlikely to be ever used unless you have a serious state of emergency.

I do not think that you are going to get complete peace and amity in any television system because it is made up of people of varing attitudes and varying feelings. You have got to accept—and I refer to all sections of society and all organs of society —that you are going to get a considerable degree of criticism. One of the problems in relation to television particularly is in the discipline of the medium itself and that television has to respond to the need to hold audiences. For this reason one finds a good deal of emphasis being placed on the more excitable side of whatever subject is being treated. We have only to look at the evening papers in any country in the world to find that certain aspects of cases are highlighted.

The problem of a television station as such, irrespective of whether there is advertising or whether it is being paid for by the community directly, is to maintain audiences. I have been in quite a few countries in which not more than five to ten per cent of the population watched television. The reason for this is either because of political control on the one hand or because there is no incentive within the medium to hold an audience and there is no sense of competition.

I am sure that we, being so close to a very powerful neighbour, would not wish to see a situation developing in which our medium was not being availed of by our citizens. It is very important, particularly when one remembers that television is a medium which can influence for good, that we have the right type of programme. We must be conscious of the fact that more than a third of our population can switch over to either of two other stations. This is one of the constraints within which RTE have to operate.

There is a good deal of justifiable criticism as to the degree of advertising. I personally agree with this but anyone who looks at the accounts will realise the tremendous extent to which Telefís Éireann are dependent on advertising. One of the reasons for that is that so far we are not prepared to give to the station the same latitude in relation to the increase in the licence fee which all European stations have. The Telefís Éireann licence was set in, I think, 1963 at £5 and it is still £5.

It started too high.

There is a rather irrational attitude towards having to pay for something which has to be paid for and if there is over-dependence on advertising we have ourselves to blame to a considerable extent. One need only to compare the £5 fee with the fee of £11 10s. in at least one other European country. There was an effort made to put an end to the irritating business of having advertisements breaking in on programmes. This can be very irritating.

I think the advertisements are the best part.

However, it is not possible to do this unless there are other means of paying for the medium. Another problem related to the financing of the company is in having to maintain the same number of hours as the competing stations. The other two stations are on the air from 41 to 43 hours each week and Telefís Éireann maintain approximately 42 hours per week, about 21 of which are programmes made here in the country and the balance of which is imported.

Again, it is often irritating to have to watch programmes that are certainly not of a very high cultural level but there is a difficulty in that there is only one supplier of television programmes—the United States. If we were to cut these programmes simply because we cannot find an alternative we would automatically be cutting advertising revenue and as a result it would be necessary to cut some of the home originating programmes.

However, in relation to the money side of Telefís Éireann there is what is to me a more serious question developing. It was hoped that Telifís Éireann would, to a great extent, go into the possibilities of the development of television for education in schools. Both television and radio should be available for this purpose as they are in other countries but it is very disappointing to find that while television sets are available to secondary schools, and I understand that half of the secondary schools in the country are availing of television, it is not available to primary schools because of the cost. Even radio is not available to primary schools and it does not appear that it is likely to become available because of the cost factor.

One of the ways in which television can be most beneficial is in its use for educational purposes. Certainly one of the ways by which a means of ensuring educational equality, which we have never had, is available is through the proper use of television. If we are prepared to provide a programme for the primary schools there should be television sets in those schools. So far we have not been prepared to do so and this is something which I consider to be fundamental because there are two inequalities in life. One is the inequality of education which depends, perhaps, on one's parents, and the second inequality is that which arises out of the sort of home from which the child comes. It is obvious that a child who comes from a home where parents had a good education and are in a good position in life are more likely to benefit from education and will wish to continue with his education in life.

One way in which television could help to remove some of the inequality is by its use in the home in the afternoons where at least, the mother would be watching the programmes and would probably have a greater appreciation and be able to convey that to the child. I do not know of any other means of resolving this problem.

If I am entitled to refer to the executives with whom I have dealt in that organisation, I will say that in my view they are people of the highest integrity; they are people with a high sense of responsibility. I would describe many of them as being dedicated to their work.

I shall refer briefly to the State bodies. The work that is being done by An Foras Forbartha is to be greatly commended. The recent issue of the Report on National Heritage, which I have read, is an excellent document and I consider it was long overdue. It sets out something which is of great importance to this country, the preservation of the things which are valuable here. I recommend to the Members of the Seanad that they should read that report. It covers all aspects of things which are valuable—buildings, monuments, various types of plant life and so on.

Another State body which I would commend is An Chomhairle Oiliúna. The State here are providing a means whereby hundreds of young people can acquire skills in this Comhairle Oiliúna or Anco as it is called. I regard this as part of a community responsibility. There are many other State bodies which I could refer to but I do not want to take up too much of the time of the House. The Sugar Company I regard as one of the semi-State bodies which have shown the capacity to recover from a very difficult situation. Those who are responsible for this are to be commended. I am glad to see, from being a member of the Government Party, the improvement in our efforts to attract industries from both within and without. The important part of this is that the more industries we can see established will not alone give us greater strength but, more important, I want to say, as one who worked abroad and saw the problems of emigration, this will also provide work for those of our people who wish to live in Ireland.

The attraction of industries here is due mainly to the efforts made by many people over the years to bring them here. Those efforts I believe were made in the belief that Irishmen would make a better job of things here than the British. This is still the aim and the belief and despite the setbacks, despite the fact that anything a nation undertakes, one can say, could be done better, there is reason to say we are certainly not going backwards.

I should like to refer to something, which some other Senators have already referred to, and that is the question of tourist regional bodies. This is a development in which I was involved in a voluntary capacity. I must say this is a very successful development and I consider the handing over of responsibility throughout the country to regional tourist bodies is something which is showing results. A great deal of credit is due to the directors of those bodies in different parts of the country. Many of them have to travel 30, 40, 50 or 60 miles to their meetings and they do so at their own expense. Many of them have to stay overnight in hotels and this is also at their own expense. This is a very interesting development in my opinion.

It is also very interesting to note during the past two years the extra public subscriptions coming to all those bodies throughout the Twenty-six Counties. The old Irish Tourist Association were getting around £1,500 and the tourist bodies are now getting between them a total of £120,000 from private subscriptions. This is a very good thing to see happening in our community and it shows there is a belief in the future of this country.

One aspect of the work of Bord Fáilte to which I should like to draw attention has to do with the Gaeltacht areas. As I understand their publicity abroad, particularly in non-English speaking countries, no attention has been drawn to the fact that people can have a holiday at very reasonable expense in an entirely Irish-speaking area. I sometimes stay in some of those areas and I find people from different European countries staying there, but they had heard about those areas from somebody other than the tourist offices abroad.

Another aspect of the tourist drive which appeals to me very much is the large increase in the last five years in private accommodation for visitors. The thing I like about this is the small householder, whether in Dublin or on a farm in the country can provide bed and breakfast for visitors for two or three days at a very low rate. This is very welcome to those people. It is very essential from the tourist point of view because it means that accommodation can be provided at a very reasonable price and it is also a considerable source of income to small farmers throughout the country.

There are two aspects on the tourist side also, to which I should like to refer, without going into the area of legislation. One is the lack of display of prices outside hotels, restaurants, cafés and public houses. This is a standard practice in most European countries. If this were done here it would alleviate some of the damage which is caused to our tourist trade by misunderstandings in regard to price. Perhaps the prices could be lowered, particularly in Dublin.

The other thing in this regard I want to refer to is the extraordinarily degree of public begging which goes on particularly in the streets of Dublin, particularly during summer. I have seen visitors not alone being begged from but being blocked in the streets. I know this is a social problem in itself but it is a great reflection on us that the matter is not being dealt with and that the law is being broken in this regard.

Business suspended at 6 p.m. and resumed at 7.30 p.m.

When the House adjourned I was speaking of the industrial drive. In relation to this I should like to stress the importance of being able to compete in outside markets—in Britain and elsewhere. This is an era in which the co-operation of employer, manager and worker is absolutely essential. The situation in our country is changing with the gradual reduction in tariffs. Management and worker must come to realise that it is on the basis on the cost of the produced article that survival will come.

I should like to deal briefly with the Forestry Section of the Department of Lands, having had some experience of this. I should like to compliment the Minister, the officials and the technical staff of that Department. The results of the policy being followed will not be seen in the near future. It is a good thing that all the political Parties are in agreement on the desirability of an adequate afforestation programme. Here, the question of emigration from the land becomes very important because with 3,500 afforestation workers at present if the programme is continued to the end of this century one can reasonably anticipate that the need for full-time afforestation workers will have reached somewhere in the region of 20,000 which will be, apart from the social advantage, a great advantage to us as a community in the production of our own timber.

Senator O'Higgins yesterday referred to the question of our people who have emigrated to England and to other countries and to the possibility of helping them. I am not sure how far one should go in the area of help. It is more important, I suppose that before those who want to emigrate do so they should have skills and a high level of education. This is an area in which we could have some research to see in what way, when they go abroad, we may be failing them. To my mind, having been in a number of countries to which people have gone, there is a tremendous fund of goodwill towards Ireland among our own people and this is something that should not be neglected.

Senator Cranitch spoke of the use of our own language and the possibility of a simultaneous translation system here. I do not want to go into this subject in detail but it is fair to say that it is not possible for those of us who are fortunate enough to have an adequate knowledge of our own language to make a contribution in the House in that language with any certainly that everybody will understand it. Some of us have the advantage of continuing familiarity with the use of Irish but it would be unreasonable to take up time using first one language and then another if one felt one was not communicating. While we do not have a simultaneous translation system it is necessary for somebody like myself to speak in English.

Senator Horgan referred yesterday to our Government not facing up to the future. I do not know why he should think that. However, it is his opinion. My own view is that we have a new Government which has been reasonably securely elected and I believe we will see progress and progressive enlightened legislation. We have a period of steady government before us and we should all have confidence that progress will continue as the people have shown confidence in the Government.

Two Senators referred to the question of luxury spending and poverty and the jealousy this sort of thing creates. I would join with them in this. We are a nation which is only a couple of generations from relative poverty. We are living in a very big world which is a lot more powerful than we are. We must survive in this world and to do that we must bring together all sections of the community because no other people or no other country feel they owe us anything. Consequently those of us who are fortunate enough to have earned money should give the good example of avoiding ostentation —this great weakness among some of us of trying to keep up with the Jones's and thereby causing a sense of grievance among those who have not been so fortunate.

Passing to the Department of Finance, I should like to compliment the Minister on the recent tax concessions for creative literature and culture; this is indeed a very good thing. I would also like to compliment him on the arrangements for pensions for the widows of civil servants which has already been mentioned. Referring to the incidence of tax on earned income——

The question of tax does not come into this Bill, only the administration of expenditure.

I should like to give a word of praise to the Office of Public Works on a number of things they have done in Dublin in recent times. Since it has been cleaned up the GPO is much more pleasing than it was formerly. This is a very fine and historic building and is a place of which we may be proud. The innovation of floodlighting our public buildings is also an up-to-date attitude on the part of the Minister.

The Senator is being too modest: he knows he was responsible for getting me to do that.

It was not I who was responsible—it was one of the voluntary organisations with which I am associated. I should now like to deal briefly with another question that interests me, the current challenge of youth which I personally welcome. It is true to say that if we had not this challenge 50 years ago we should not be here today. Young people are quite right to challenge the things they see around them which they feel are not just. It is a harbinger for the future in the sense that if they are as sincere as others were earlier then they in their turn will help to create a better country and better society.

As I see it, life is a process of endeavour and there is no end to this process. We have heard the expression on the part of many in recent years of disillusionment at the lack of progress and success in the national sphere in relation to the problem of unity and to the difficulties in connection with the language. I thing it can be said that endeavour is what counts and seldom do the realities that result from the efforts to achieve worthwhile aims and ideals measure up to what inspired them. Nevertheless one is obliged to continue to endeavour to achieve. At the same time life must be a continuous examination of everything that is being done because, while perfection is not possible, change is always necessary and this must be in order to ensure our survival here. This does not mean that one must destroy everything but one has the right to examine everything with a critical eye and to go on to build a stronger community and a stronger nation in which endeavour I believe we are all united.

In discussing the Appropriation Bill we have one of the few opportunities provided in the Seanad of having a general look at Government policy and administration and how it affects the country. Dominating everything today must surely be the news from Brussels that negotiations are expected to open within six months on the question of the admission of new members to the EC, and this includes Ireland. Therefore we are right to question at this stage what preparations are being made for that event, how they will be accelerated in the coming six months and when the community as a whole will be given an opportunity of studying this most grave and serious question to be put to the country. Compared with it, the question of whether to join England in the past is almost minute. We are being asked to make, in the framework of the EC, very great national concessions, passing over a great deal of power, and therefore we must question the basis for this. I reject the idea that is prevalent that if Britain joins there is no alternative for us but to join also.

I reject that completely just as I reject the opposite, which says that we should not join at any price. I believe that as rational human beings and as Irish citizens concerned with our country we should study the issues very carefully, we should weigh the pros and cons, and then and only then should we make up our minds. It was in 1958 when this was relevant that I put a motion in Seanad Éireann on joining the Common Market at that period. I was reading it again recently and I think most of it I stand by, that is, that the objections and the difficulties I saw in it are more real today than they were then whereas the attractiveness of the Common Market as it was fashioned and operating in 1958 was very different from the Common Market as operating today.

For one thing, the idealism of the Christian Democrats of that era, of the very famous Europeans and statesmen Schumann, de Gasperi and Adenauer, the architects of the Common Market— that idealism has gone, and nobody can deny that there has been a very considerable shift to the left in European politics. That might appeal very much to some on the Left Wing of Labour, but judging by the denunciation with which the Government Party met these in the previous General Election I do not think that that shift should altogether commend itself to the followers of the present Government or indeed of the main Opposition.

This is something that we have to be realistic about, that the prevailing trend in Europe and within the Common Market is basically a socialist philosophy. Admittedly it is a socialist philosophy which has been tempered a good deal by having had the responsibility of power for quite a number of years. Just like the Labour Government in England I think it probably can work all right, but it has not the idealism and the dynamic force of the earlier concept of the Christian Democrats, which was almost like the recreation in Europe in our time of the Holy Roman Empire of Charlemagne having come back. That is the change and therefore let us be realistic in seeing that.

Also we can examine the outlook of the group to the rest of the world which has undergone a change. It was very outward looking at the start, but if we are to judge by the agricultural policies in its most recent statement it has become inward looking, where they are prepared under the Mansholt Plan to lay waste I think 12 million acres in Europe rather than produce surplus food that might create the problem of disposing of it. But what of the underfed nations, and Europe's big contribution to that?

When we look at the Common Market, we have a Ministry in Brussels fully accredited and therefore we should avail of that Ministry and put it at the disposal of all groups and parties within the State in their efforts to get an understanding of the question of membership of the Common Market. When we examine these things we have the right to question and the Government have the duty to get our citizens thinking clearly on this, to get them to study it, because when the Referendum on the Common Market comes about that will be the wrong time to try to educate our people on the issues at stake. I would be fearful of their getting it across a platform simply as a garbled version of pro and anti Common Market, so that the only solution for that is to encourage all groups within the country to become fully acquainted with it. I see that the Minister fully accepts of course that we will have a Referendum on this topic.

Nonsense.

Of course we will have to have a referendum. Surely we cannot take the greatest step that was ever taken in connection with the Irish nation without a referendum of the people. The referendum will have to be on joining the Common Market—there are no two ways about it, whether the Minister says nonsense or not the Irish Constitution says differently, because the lawyers and the Government agree that in joining the Common Market we will have to make certain amendments to our Constitution. Now if that only called for the deletion of a comma from our Constitution that has to be put to the people by way of referendum and then the issue, comma or no comma, becomes the issue of the Common Market itself, so we are going to have a referendum on it.

The Senator realises that we have had a unanimous vote of the Dáil in favour of joining, and the policy of this Government was put fully before the people at the last General Election and secured an overwhelming vote of confidence.

How does the Minister get away from the provisions of the Constitution that will require a referendum for the constitutional changes that will be necessary in joining the Common Market?

I only intervened, and I am sorry for doing so, because I thought the Senator said that I agreed that there would have to be a referendum on the question of joining the Common Market.

I am putting it that you have no option but to agree and that the Government does not have a discretion.

That is not what you said. You said that the Minister had intimated that he agreed.

Of course I did not intimate any agreement with the Senator's proposition that we must have a referendum before we can subscribe to the Treaty of Rome. I never said any such thing.

Do you not agree that we have to make changes in our Constitution before we are eligible to join?

You said that the Minister had agreed.

Then you will have to have a referendum on those changes, and those changes then become for or against the Common Market. I cannot see any way out of that.

That is not what you said. You said that the Minister had agreed.

The Minister and the Government have agreed that we must have constitutional changes before joining the Common Market.

An Leas-Chathaoirleach

Whether there is agreement or disagreement the expenditure is unlikely to arise this year, so perhaps we could all come back to the Appropriation Bill before us.

I want to emphasise the necessity for our people of becoming informed on this very grave decision, which cannot be done by any vote of the Dáil because the Dáil does not even know what the terms for joining are. Surely we are not in such a hopeless position that we have already agreed that we should join before the negotiations even begin. If we have any self-respect or national respect left that is our approach.

Surely we will only join if the terms offered are to the benefit of the country and we cannot pass judgment on these terms until they are available to us. I had some discussions with my colleague on the university panel, Senator Horgan, and we both agreed to put to the University Graduates Association as the organisation most intimately concerned with the panel that we represent, the necessity for them to appoint a committee to study the implications of the Common Market and to make full use of the facilities provided in examining the case.

I would recommend to the Institute of Engineers of Ireland and other bodies that they take similar steps. It is only then that we will have that type of informed public opinion that can deal with such a complex and far reaching problem.

At home, we must urge the Government to get on with the job of preparing industry and agriculture for the conditions they will be likely to encounter by our joining the Common Market. If we take the agricultural policy, we find that for competitiveness in Europe the accent must be on quality, yet it would appear from the Government's treatment of the dairy industry that they never heard of the word "quality" apart from giving a type of election penny for quality milk about eight years ago and another penny for some similar reason about four years ago. No other effort has been made to gear the milk prices to quality production and it is on quality that we stand or fall whether we are within the Common Market or outside it.

It is no comfort to the nation to know that seven-cow farmers can be exempt from the dictates of quality. We must ensure that a major industry such as dairying is fully geared for the years ahead, whatever we may join. I hope the Government will be able to get on rapidly with the discussion of the implementation of some of the reform programmes that have come before us in recent times. The Devlin Report advances long overdue reforms in the public sector and in general it advances decentralisation and other facets.

An Leas-Chathaoirleach

May I point out to the Senator that he can do no more than make passing reference to the Devlin Report, the implementation of which would require legislation?

I am hopeful that in the new Seanad we will justify the items in the Book of Estimates— that we will justify it by making a full contribution to discussion of these proposals and I appeal to the Leader of the House to see that we meet often to do that.

The speakers up to now have made excellent contributions and I hope the Senator will not spoil this contribution.

We hope that motions on the Order Paper like the one I had two and a half years ago for the discussion of the question of the creation of full employment will be dealt with with less delay. I hope we can do better in the present Seanad. It can be done if we arrange to spend, say, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on the day following a Wednesday session to discuss motions. That would be invaluable, and judging from the excellent contributions which have come from all sides of the House during this debate, great progress could be made. It would be invaluable to the Government as well as to public opinion because this House, by and large, should lead public opinion while public opinion is at the fresh stage rather than to wait for two years when the whole discussion is a dead link.

We must also face the question of the development of the co-operative movement. We have had no shortage of reports on that. These have been gathering dust for about four years although the whole future of the small farmer hinges on the development of the co-operative system—the co-operative system that will reach out and provide that source of outside employment for the small farmer and which will enable him to have the latest tools on his farm.

I am encouraged to think that the time is opportune for taking this big step forward in the co-operative movement. It is opportune perhaps due to the recent statement of the Minister for Lands which was a most forthright and courageous statement. The idea incorporated in the statement was that the 45-acre economic farm was no longer to be the basis of policy but that 20 acres with part-time employment was more the goal to aim at. I envisage in relation to this, part-time workers working at the co-operative centre with the co-operative gangs who are serving agriculture in that neighbourhood.

We can take that step forward and we can help the small farmer so that he will not be constrained to work on his own with inadequate machinery, and we can ensure that he can retain control of his own acres on the one hand and that he has full employment and the benefit of modern technology and machinery on the other hand. If we can do that we will have lifted the small farmer problem to a new plane and we will have gone a long way towards solving it.

Dealing with reports, it is amazing to think that the Third Programme for Economic Expansion has been locked away. It is now almost a year since that was published and as far as I am aware there has not been a single discussion on it in either House apart from passing references. It shows that the idea of economic planning is not taken too seriously by either House and I would hope that at this belated stage we may get an opportunity of discussing the aims of the Third Programme or, perhaps, to get an opportunity of finding out why the Second Programme failed. We can learn from our mistakes in the past and make those the basis of planning the programmes ahead.

Turning to education, I wish to compliment Senator Mrs. Farrell on her excellent contribution and on the general forthright commonsense views put forward by her on education. I detected that she is quite at variance with the idea that we will have solved everyone's problems if by some way or other we can get every child into a university and that he will finish up with a university degree.

It is time we began to take stock of the situation to see whether we should go along with the astronomical numbers who will be in our universities in ten years time. It is one thing for the Government to make the social commitment which they have made that there should be equal educational opportunities for all. I am sure everybody subscribes to that general principle and subscribes to the principle that the fees for implementing this should be by way of scholarships or grants to enable those who cannot pay for attendance at universities themselves to be given their chance when they have obtained good enough results in the leaving certificate to justify them getting that opportunity.

The real expense begins when you consider the task of putting up a university which is capable of educating those young people in a modern way. There is need for a full commitment by the Government in regard to their financial implications to back up their social commitment in regard to higher education for our children. Those were spelled out in the first report of the Commission on Higher Education and their magnitude has probably been frightening to some people although this came as no surprise to any of us within the university system because we know what is acceptable as necessary in England and elsewhere.

We know our staff-student ratio is treble what is accepted as being proper in England and elsewhere. We know the Commission on Higher Education recommended lowering of the ratio to about one and 12. At present they are one and 24 and in England it is one and eight. The cost of doing that will be pretty high and will be a great burden on the taxpayers who of necessity have to provide most of the wherewithal. More important still is a commitment from the Government regarding the use of graduates when trained. There is little use spending the taxpayers' money sending students to the universities, putting up buildings and supplying staff to cater for them, if we have not a positive plan for the use of those graduates afterwards.

No thought has been given to that matter. We are at the moment indulging in a manpower forecast. What about manpower planning which would be far more relevant? We have got to know how to place our young people when they are finished in the university so that they will be of the greatest advantage to the nation. The Government have not faced up to the question of the recruitment policy to be followed for instance for the Civil Service and for various clerical openings such as the ESB and elsewhere which previously were the choice openings available to students who obtained honours in the leaving certificate.

Those people are now being encouraged to go to the universities. What about recruitment for those posts? In the past a good deal of the top management structure in the country was recruited through those clerical openings flowing from the leaving certificate. We have got to make up our minds whether those openings can now be filled by young people of much lower ability than those who filled them in the past. Perhaps many of them can. Can they provide the source for the higher posts in all those organisations? It would seem to me that a great deal of the recruitment in the future for those posts must come from the university graduates.

I believe those posts should be made competitive. The attraction of going to the university should be held out to the young people entering those organisations. This can be achieved if future promotional opportunities within those organisations are improved and presented to the young students after they pass the leaving certificate. In other words, you will have greatly increased opportunities for in-service training or for sending some of those new recruits after two, three, four or five years to take a university course or a diploma course as training for higher posts within their organisations. If this is done they will be able to compete and they will also relieve the university problem to some extent.

The question of the role of technicians and their place in our economy has to be sorted out. It will be poor consolation to us in ten years time to find that we have three times too many university graduates and only a fourth or a fifth the number of technicians we require. We cannot build an economy on that. I appeal to the Government at this late stage, in looking at the financial commitment involved and their commitment to the social principle of university education being available to all qualified for it, to let us have their thinking in even a White Paper on the question of the manpower recruitment in the future, the way in which the nation would like to see secondary school students who have obtained their leaving certificate or intermediate certificate going into the various sections of our national life.

Of course, when coming to that we are brought face to face with the question of the merger. It seems to have subsided in the last 12 months but it is my belief that this is the calm before the storm. At least we must be thankful for a period of calm and perhaps the Government may have an opportunity for a second look at this because it is amazing how often, in a subject in which a person has not much acquaintance and much competence, solutions look very easy from the outside but the more one is involved in any task or in any operation the easier it is to pick holes in those facile solutions that come from the outside. This merger is in that category, this facile solution which seemed to suggest to the public at large that if the two colleges were put together somehow or other only half the staff would be needed. This is completely misleading because in any staff structure by and large over the university as a whole it will depend on the number of students and with our aim at one staff member to every 12 students it does not matter very much whether the students are in one centre or in two centres.

I can see that the Government and others are concerned with the question of the elimination of duplication. The bill is big and frightening and can only be brought to manageable size if we restrict the numbers going into the universities. We cannot permit the uncontrolled expansion that is going on at the moment where it is said that in ten years time we will have double the number of university students we have today. We will have to reduce considerably that number, perhaps raise entry standards but anyway keep to a much slower rate of increase.

On the question of elimination of duplication, it is quite easy to achieve this within the present structure or a slight modification of that structure. What is required is simply that at post-graduate level the various large-scale specialisations that are within each subject should be parcelled out between the university centres in the country as a whole. If one takes any subject one can straightaway isolate four or five main areas of post-graduate work and it is a simple matter to ensure that Galway specialises in one of those, Cork in another and there are perhaps two, three or four left for specialisation here in Dublin between the two here. Students then after graduation simply go to the centre where the specialisation is carried out.

Which one will specialise in medicine?

I said post-graduate work. Specialisation in medicine could be arranged just as easily. Certainly the present idea of a supplement with all in one here will not work and the idea of Cork and Galway surviving against that huge metropolitan complex is very doubtful. Cork and Galway will only be assured of a proper national part if each of one of them is carrying out at post-graduate level work in some facet of the subject which makes them the premier place in the country for that work and that students are going to them from Dublin and elsewhere to carry out that work. The question does not arise very much at under-graduate level. If there is specialisation, if it develops in the senior year a limited amount can be provided in the local places and there should not be any real objection to moving around in the senior year if that were considered desirable though it probably would not arise very much, the real specialisation would begin in the post-graduate schools. There should be no difficulty in arranging sharing of staff or a person holding an appointment for half-time in one place and half-time in another or getting to the American idea of students being able to take their credits around, take part of the course in Trinity, another part in UCD, perhaps another part in Galway and get credit for the work done, all adding up to a degree.

That is the type of rationalisation or saving that the country is looking for and it can be achieved quite easily. There are about 15,000 students in the Dublin complex at the moment and an acceptance at present that university numbers will rise at seven or eight per cent per annum in the next ten years. In other words in ten years time there will be 28,000 students in this complex. Does anybody seriously suggest that a mammoth university with 28,000 students is ideal for Ireland of the 80s? All experience in America and elsewhere shows that the bigger the university the greater its problems, the greater its potential for student unrest and the greater its general administration difficulties and, as Senator Sheehy Skeffington pointed out, the more the administration becomes divorced from the ordinary academic body and the students and therefore the more rifts there are between them. In general problems compound as you grow in size and there is no need for it in our set-up. I suggest that before the storm breaks over us which I forecast will be about next autumn——

The Senator is a bad forecaster.

Before that breaks we should avail of our last chance of rational, clear thinking on this and be prepared to acknowledge that those who are working in the system are actuated by a little more than self-interest. We cannot build a nation if we are to ascribe to all groups that self-interest is their only motive. Certainly, speaking for the university community, there is hardly any group with less reason for concern for self-interest because most of our university personnel can go to England, America, Australia or elsewhere and get posts there that are far bigger, more challenging and better paid than their posts here if they wish to leave the country.

Can doctor graduates get posts in America?

Why not? We have hundreds of Cork graduates there but that is not the aim. The aim should be that students set out, learn what is outside, get the experience of working outside for a few years and then come back home.

I asked the Senator whether they can get post directly after graduation in America.

Not after the NBC films. They are looking for witch doctors.

It might enlighten Senator Ó Maoláin to know that Irish graduates, and especially those I know most of, those who graduated from UCC are held in the highest esteem in all faculties in the United States. I have just come back from a trip there a month ago and it was heartening to see the respect in which they were held.

I did not ask the Senator about the esteem.

I was in one university of 18,000 students. It was heartening to see one of our former students there Dean of a Faculty, Head of a Department and one of the five planners for that university for the future. He is only 35 years old. The co-operative approach is the one that will pay dividends for the Government in handling the university. On the university side all are keen and eager to share in this problem. We are tired of the wrangling and the uncertainty over merger and counter-merger proposals, and we are merely anxious to get on with the job and to set up universities that will do an adequate job for Ireland in the decades ahead.

The Senator has been making the case that entrance to the universities should be further restricted and it is not very long since I heard him make the case that university education should be made available to everybody.

I never made that case. I have been asking for the past seven years for a general Government plan for the filling of those vacancies which in the past were filled by honours leaving certificate graduates and now that the supply is not available for this——

The Senator has always made the case that university education should be made available to everybody who could attain the qualifications for entrance.

If the Senator examines my record he will not find anything of the sort.

I do not want to go to the bother of doing that because everybody knows that that has been the Senator's campaign all along.

As standards stand at present those coming in are perfectly, mentally and otherwise, able to profit from a university education. But the question is can this State afford to put out the university structure that will take these greatly expanded numbers and will there be sufficient left to fill the other posts that are so necessary in the structure of the State? If that does not come we will have the same situation as in England where everybody who qualifies is not able to get into a university and our forecasts for the future are in the same realm.

I wish to turn very briefly to the vexed question of RTE and to say how much I welcome the inquiry that has been set up by the Government, but I think the inquiry as set up will answer only part of the problem. The real inquiry should be into the operations of the Department of Justice. That is what is at issue. We are far more scandalised by the happenings quite close to home in Cork where 209 charges against three persons were withdrawn on a nolle prosequi by the Attorney General, and the district justice himself was started and expressed his surprise at this extraordinary course. That has undermined the whole foundation of justice in Cork city and elsewhere. To my mind the question whether the Attorney General acted properly in that is very much more important than the question whether any of the actors in an RTE programme were phoney.

In my opinion that is out of order, with due deference to the Chair.

Like all the others, I was shocked by the behaviour of a senior Minister—the Minister for Justice—and I can do no more in this House than to call for his removal from the Government.

What shocked you?

It will be a great day for Irish democracy and it will show that the Irish nation has come of age when the Taoiseach has the guts to sack a Minister for conduct that would not be tolerated in any one of the real senior democracies.

It ill becomes the Senator to talk about guts in connection with the Taoiseach.

We had the Broadcasting Bill in 1960 and it was subjected to a long discussion but at no stage was it suggested during that discussion that RTE were to become the moral authority for the country as a whole. At that time we thought we were putting up a type of entertainment medium, but the question of whether we were to instal four, five or six lay folk in Montrose never seemed to have occurred to us in this assembly and I do not think it occurred elsewhere. This is more serious. On the one hand we can see the value of certain of the exposures of some of the maladies in our society which RTE have shown, but on the other hand that role can easily get out of hand and become a deliberate effort by RTE to shape our future society, which is a role that neither Church nor State would assign to RTE. Therefore, it is a dilemma and I do not know how we can get away from it.

The newspapers have much the same type of public commitment so far as exposing the maladies of our society go, but here we have several papers representing different points of view and the overall effect is one of balance but with one single broadcasting unit there is no competition. Television is so much a more powerful medium than newspapers or even sound broadcasting that we have got really to face this dilemma and see what we can do about it. Certainly I would not say I agree with the speaker across who said that RTE are not Government controlled. There was a great deal of the left wing of Labour there. They, of course, have the right to be heard but I do not think it proper that that should colour a great deal of the presentations coming from RTE. The problem is there and we will not solve it by pushing RTE back completely into the role of merely an entertainment medium.

There was the question raised by Senator Brugha in his excellent contribution here tonight on educational broadcasts. I agree, but why can we not have this for at least one hour per night so that we could reach the children at home. I do not see how there could be any objection to that, say from seven to eight in the evening —after all it would be much better than the Virginian or some of the comedy series.

I do not agree with the continual request for longer hours of broadcasting and it seems to me there is a great deal of extravagance in the whole approach of RTE. They are prepared to go to the ends of the country to bring somebody up for two or three minutes on a panel. That type of extravagance could easily be avoided by having more local transmissions from areas where panels would be drawn from a local panel. But if RTE go to the expense of bringing anyone a distance to the studios, then it should be for good and sufficient reason and he should have a sufficient contribution to make to justify that expenditure.

One thing I hope is that the Government will not at this juncture sanction an increase in fees, at a time when all groups are being counselled moderation and lack of ostentation and general behaviour that would carry the inflation spiral still faster. Certainly much of the lavish expenditure and entertainment as practised in RTE may be the standard practice in television in other countries but I do not think it is necessary or that it should be practised here. Just like the rest of us, RTE has simply to live within its means and tighten its belt. I for one would oppose in any way I can any increase in fees at this juncture. I think that the present fee is reasonable and adequate.

I cannot see any reason why the whole programmes of RTE must be geared solely to the negative idea of keeping listeners away from listening to UTV or the BBC. I do not think that there is any necessity for that type of keeping up with the Joneses. Let them give out programmes that have some distinctive national appeal, cut down the times—I think that the hours are far too long at the moment—and by that means we might get RTE back into the role we envisaged for it when the Broadcasting Bill went through in 1960. The problems are there and they must be tackled. They cannot be brushed under the carpet, so I propose that the Government will go further than the present inquiry and perhaps set up an ad hoc committee of both Houses to have a look at the dilemma of RTE and see whether those who started it by the Broadcasting Act, 1960, can come up with the amendments necessary to make the service what we all desire it should be, both national and creative.

Is main liom cúpla focal a rá ar an mBille seo ach níl fonn orm an Teach a mhoilliú ro-fhada.

The first point I should like to deal with is one that has been mentioned in this House quite a number of times both yesterday and today. That is the question of education. It is, I think, the biggest single item. If we put all the various moneys for education in the Appropriation Bill together it comes to something in the region of £60 million and that is something that I welcome very much. For far too long lip service was paid to education and people talked of the importance of education but when they came to spending money education took a back seat. The Minister for Education was not considered to be a major person in the Cabinet. Thank God all that has changed. We now find, as I say, that education is not only paid lip service but that money is spent on it, and spent on it in a very costly fashion. I do not propose to deal at any length with any particular topic because they have been dealt with very adequately by several speakers here.

With regard to national education I wish to welcome the new syllabus, the new programme for the national schools, because I believe that this new change in emphasis, to a child-centred syllabus, is something praiseworthy. This is not something new. It is something that has been advocated for many, many years. As a matter of fact Pádraig Pearse himself advocated that we should get away from the tyranny of the syllabus and that the child and the teacher were the important people in education. Senator Cranitch mentioned this last night. It is something that has been in all good schools and it is very good to see that the Department of Education are working to this end.

Coming to those schools which are now called post-primary schools I am very glad to have seen in my own short time teaching a tremendous transformation, because I remember in our part of the country in the West of Ireland when we had boys and girls cycling 20 miles a day to come to the secondary schools and the vocational schools. These people knew the value of education but they had to make tremendous sacrifices to get it and their parents had to make still greater sacrifices. I am very glad to see all of this changed, and this was derided by some in the beginning. It was regarded by many people, even well-wishers, as being virtually impossible, but now it is a reality and we have up and down the country this modern symbol of progress, the yellow bus which has made many parents' dreams come true.

Senator Cranitch mentioned something last night and I think Senator Quinlan was referring to it as well. That is the question of the large number of people who will now be coming from the post-primary schools with qualifications. Senator Cranitch pointed out, and I would agree with him, that there is not much use in a boy who just barely qualifies for entrance to the university going for the first year there and finding out that he is not fit to make the grade. With the erection of colleges of technology I would hope that many people with the leaving certificate would go into those colleges of technology. It has been wrongly assumed that secondary schools have not a role to play in the provision of technicians and technologists, but if boys with a bent in that direction can go from the secondary schools into the colleges of technology this will fulfil the need.

Senator Quinlan referred to the fear he had that the universities might mop up the best people and that those people going into clerical jobs, the ESB, the Civil Service and so on would be, so to speak, also-rans. He seems to have forgotten that there is going to be a huge number, because of the increase in post-primary education, of people qualifying for the leaving certificate and even for higher grades and we can tell him that there will be plenty of people highly qualified and willing to go into these professions, into the Civil Service and clerical jobs.

There is one thing I would like to mention before I leave secondary and vocational education, and that is the question of physical education. One of the things I was pleased with was to see that the Taoiseach appointed a Parliamentary Secretary, a man whom I know very well, as Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Education and charged him in a special way with responsibility for physical education, but unless we have teachers of physical education there will be a great hold-up, and at the moment there is no training college in Ireland for male teachers of physical education. That is one thing I think that should be remedied as fast as possible because there is not much use in having gymnasia and courses and everything else if we have not got the teachers. It is just too bad that we have to wait and send boys over to Loughborough in England to be qualified. This will not fulfil the need at all, and one of the things I would ask would be that as quickly as possible we should get a physical education training college of our own.

Before leaving education, I think that people dealing with education in any way would need the Seven Gifts of the Holy Ghost, but one gift they would need more than anything else is understanding. I would plead to all branches of the profession of education, primary, secondary, vocational and even up to university level, for understanding of each other's problems and position, and not to make hasty judgments about what other people's ideas are. Everyone is concerned basically with the education of children and if we could get understanding a lot of the problems would be avoided.

Rinne an Seanadóir Cranitch tagairt do labhairt na Gaeilge sa Teach seo. Má tá Gaeilge ag Seanadóir is ceart dó í a úsáid, cuid den am, ar chor ar bith. Má fhanaimíd go dtí go mbeidh gach duine anseo in ann an Ghaeilge a thuiscint, ní bheidh an teanga dhúchais á labhairt anseo choíche.

Ag tagairt d'úsáid na Gaeilge sna scoileanna, ní dóigh liom gur gá go dtabharfaí céim síos don Ghaeilge mar gheall ar béim bheith á chur ar ábhair eile. Tré úsáid a bhaint as ná gléasanna nua-aimseartha múinteoireachta is féidir breis Gaeilge a fhoghlaim in am níos giorra. Ag tagairt do na scrúdaithe teistiméireachta, is dóigh liom gur ceart breis marcanna a thabhairt do labhairt na teanga mar sí an aidhm náisiúnta an Ghaeilge a chur á labhairt go forleathan. Ba mhaith liom freisin breis cláracha Gaeilge a fheiceáil ar Thelefís Éireann.

Tá moladh tuillte ag an Rialtas as ucht breis airgid a thabhairt do Ghaeltearra Éireann chun tionscail a bhunú sa Ghaeltacht, mar gan fostaíocht den chineál sin gheobhaidh an Ghaeltacht bás.

I should like to say a few words on the question of western development and the lack of western development.

Cén fá nach leanann an Seanadóir as Gaeilge?

For fear that there are people present who may not understand.

Tuigim an Seanadóir ceart go leor.

It is a matter for a Senator's own judgment as to whether he should use Irish or English. I do not think any Senator should be confined to Irish all the time or English all the time.

Tusa a mhol é.

Senator Brugha referred to the preservation of our heritage. He complimented the Minister on what he was doing in this direction. I should like to point out that heritage is no good without people and our people are our greatest heritage. It is no good in pointing out an area of a country to visitors and saying "that is the heritage that is there", if there are no people.

The part of the country that I come from has for many years been the area of the highest rate of emigration in the whole country, that is the area of Leitrim, West Cavan, North Roscommon and South Sligo. Between the last two censuses these were the areas in which there was the largest fall of population. In the past, people from these areas emigrated to the United States and later to Britain and a development that gives us some small consolation is that many people from these areas to Dublin. I suppose this is the lesser of two evils.

County Leitrim now has a population of 30,000 people. One might say that that would be only the population of one Dublin sururb but I am glad to see that there is an increase in population in other parts of the country. However, County Leitrim is a lot different from a Dublin suburb in that here there is a historic entity, an area with a history not of hundreds of years but thousands of years. This is the historic area known as Breffni and if the people are all gone from the area there would be no use in pointing out the area to visitors and telling them this is the area that once was Breffni because Breffni meant not the area but the people. I heartily welcome the announcement by the Government that they are proposing to try to stabilise the position in these areas by providing off-farm employment. Forestry has been referred to as part of the remedy for County Leitrim. I would stress that it is only part of the remedy.

When did the Government announce that?

I would point out that forestry is only part of the remedy and that we need to keep as many people as possible on the land and as well as that we need off-farm employment in forestry. It would be an exaggeration for anybody to say that the whole country should be planted. The idea is that those areas that are suitable for planting will be planted and thus off-farm employment will be provided for people whose holdings are too uneconomic to give them a full income.

Turning briefly to Radio Telefís Éireann, which seems to be the topic on everybody's lips at the moment, I am reminded of the time so long ago in Ireland when it was the poets who were feared by everybody. It is told that one Irish chieftain plucked out his right eye at the orders of a poet. These people were so much feared that it was necessary to hold a special convention at a place called Dromeath in Derry and St. Colmcille was brought back from Scotland to see if in some way the power of the poets could be curbed.

The place of the Irish poets has been taken by certain pundits in Telefís Éireann and those people believe that if the Taoiseach is ordered by them to pluck out his right eye he should do so in the same way as the Irish chieftain did at Cork long ago. There is a place for Telefís Éireann and there is certainly a place for commentators but we must remember that it was not Telefís Éireann that was elected as the Government of this country last June but that it was the Taoiseach and his cabinet.

I should like to begin by taking up a topic mentioned by Senator Brugha this afternoon. He intended it well and I recognise the generosity which led him to refer to the discipline and responsibility on the part of all parties as was shown during the crisis in Northern Ireland. However, during that crisis in August, by no means were all of us convinced that the Taoiseach's handling of the matter was right; by no means were all of us sure that he was fully informed about what he was doing or that he had a proper understanding of the problems involved or of the people he was dealing with. The reason why we showed what Senator Brugha was good enough to describe as discipline and responsibility was because we knew that the Taoiseach was playing a difficult shot and we did not want to say anything to him that might cause him to take his eye off the ball.

But three months have gone by since then and I should not like it to be thought that through our discipline and responsibility we entirely agreed with every detail of the Taoiseach's handling of that crisis. I observe that for the first time in my own memory there are people in the North of Ireland now conducting a campaign against goods from this part of the country. There are people up there conducting a campaign designed to ensure Irish money will not pass, as it has passed in the past. There are people whose attitude towards us in the Republic is now such that many people in this part of the country are unwilling or afraid to bring their cars north of the Border.

I observe also for the first time in my memory that a militant organisation in the North of Ireland have crossed our frontier and have committed acts of outrage in our territory. It would be unfair of me to lay the blame for that at the Taoiseach's door and I do not do so, but I say that the handling of that crisis by our Government here in Dublin went miles beyond what was required by brotherhood and by concern for the people in the north of Ireland, that a great deal of it was playing to a gallery of voters here in the Republic and that it had the effect in the North of Ireland of enraging people, who at the best of times are bad tempered, and of causing them to adopt attitudes towards us which in my own view has put back by years and years any hope of close reconciliation with them.

I appreciate the Taoiseach had a difficult job to do and anyone can make a mistake, though my own view is that by proper preparation during the years, by informing himself properly and by his Government informing themselves properly, those mistakes might have been avoided. However, I accept that much of what he did he did in good faith but a lot of it was inflammatory and I think unhelpful.

A Senator

That is a hypocritical statement.

I travelled to Belfast at the end of August with a Fine Gael Deputy. We did not advertise our departure, unlike some Fianna Fáil Deputies, nor did we advertise our presence there. We spoke to many people who occupy what I might call the middle of the road in Northern Ireland politics and their view, which was not prompted by us, was that the activities of the Government here had been at best unhelpful and at worst disastrous. It is no pleasure to me to hear opinions of that kind. I repeat that a man who has not bothered himself to follow closely the kind of people he is dealing with cannot perhaps be blamed entirely for making mistakes but I think we should be careful not to allow the idea to get around that all Parties in this State are falling over themselves in admiration of the way that crisis was handled in August.

It is very important that we should say, not in a contentious spirit but in a spirit of national responsibility, to the Government, that the kind of policy which they pursued towards the North of Ireland in the past, namely going through the motion of passing resolutions at Ard Fheiseanna, will have to be abandoned and serious thought will have to be given to the question of reconciling a large intransigent and to a great extent a very ill-tempered majority up there. We talk about them as being our brothers but we see how they behave towards us when we behave with perhaps less tact than might have been hoped for.

Several Senators have spoken about education and I cannot let the occasion go by without offering some comments of my own on the proposed university merger. I admit it is a tired subject and perhaps a horse which has been flogged to death but I should like to take this opportunity of pointing out, and again I hope it will not be thought contentious or unduly unfair to the Government, some of the respects in which the history of the university merger has made the task of the universities more difficult instead of less difficult.

The university merger plan was produced by the late Mr. O'Malley on the 18th April, 1967. It was produced with nil consultation with any of the interests involved and it was produced, if I may say so with unfailing respect to the late Minister's memory, on the basis of a nearly perfect ignorance about the problems involved. The topic of merger was thrown into the middle of university life here in Dublin and for the following two years it is not too much to say business in the two colleges here nearly ground to a standstill.

This proposal produced convulsions in the colleges which virtually put a stop to any proper planning and when it became obvious, as it did become obvious, that the thing could not be pushed through overnight, that a great deal of problems did exist, real problems not imaginary ones, of which the Department of Education and its Minister and Ministers knew very little, silence supervened and we in the colleges were left holding the baby.

I am very far from saying that the two absolutely separate colleges in Dublin ought to have been allowed to continue to draw subsidies from the people of Ireland without interference. I do not say that and no one could say it, but a sensible man dealing with a problem in his own business, particularly if it is a problem involving anything like combining two Departments or two sets of people who have been working under different rules and different traditions, says: "We will go step by step with this, we will experiment with it, we will try a bit of it and see how it goes".

That kind of approach did not interest—I say it again with respect to the late Minister's memory—Mr. O'Malley and did not interest the Government who were supposed to be watching him and to be joining with him in his decisions. It was more important, or seemed to be more important, at the time to take a spectacular step which of course commanded unlimited publicity for months on end, no matter what the cost to the people who are going to be faced with the task of carrying out the Government's directives in this regard.

Of course it has become obvious that the thing cannot be pushed through and the reason why it cannot be pushed through is one I cannot explain in a few words and will not attempt to do, but it would have been obvious it could not have been done overnight and that perhaps it ought not to have been done at all if proper consultation had taken place. I do not claim the reactions of the two colleges were appropriate reactions. I believe that the first reaction of University College, Dublin was an inappropriate one and far from a creditable one. In Trinity College there are points about the college's attitude I would not approve of either, but the thing could not be done so simply that it could be done without consultation.

While I am on the subject of consultation, let me observe that the students in Dublin, who nowadays are overturning everything, certainly by words if not by actions, in the name of consultation, were eating out of Mr. O'Malley's hand although this decision which affected their future so closely was one taken with absolutely no consultation. This is a reflection which causes a wry smile to those whose job involves them in university education in Dublin. Now, not happy with upsetting the life of the colleges—I call it upsetting because it was upsetting, it was not directing it, it was not guiding it, it was not providing the sort of guidance or influence one expects from a responsible Government, it was upsetting the colleges' lives—the Minister's successor, Deputy Lenihan, on a couple of occasions went out of his way to pat students on the back for their attitude of protest.

Of course, students, like everybody else, must be allowed to protest, but there is a difference between protest and disruption, as a Government Minister ought to know very well and for a Minister to go out of his way after students had protested forcibly and caused damage, certainly in University College—I do not know whether they ran to the length of causing damage in Trinity—is what I call irresponsible. It is something which ought not to have been heard from that Minister. Whatever one of his backbench supporters might have said in the heat of the moment it is a comment which ought not to have come from a Minister for Education.

I summarise those remarks by saying the Department of Educations's influence and the Minister for Education's influence on the university situation in Dublin during the last two years has been very unhelpful indeed in my view and something which has put, rather like the North of Ireland question I was discussing a moment ago, further back rather than advanced the solution of the problems we want to see solved.

I should like to move to a couple of matters which span the gap between the Department of Education and the Department of Justice. The Minister for Justice said in Galway a couple of weeks ago, in the course of a very long statement in which many kinds of law reform were envisaged, that he was looking forward to some kind of change in legal education directed towards making sure that all people practising law would have university degrees. Whoever wrote the speech for the Minister may not have intended to give this impression, but the impression certainly may have been created with the mind of a layman reading that statement that the idea that lawyers should have university degrees was the brain child of the Minister himself. That is not so, nor is it the case that anybody is stopping the Minister from facilitating the emergence of that situation, nor is it the case that the Minister is encountering or ever did encounter any opposition in this regard although he made references of a not entirely friendly kind to the two professional bodies concerned with legal education.

My information is that the Incorporated Law Society sent a draft Bill to the Department of Justice in the middle of this year the object of which was to free the Incorporated Law Society from the necessity of controlling the education of their own apprentices and making it possible for the society to do the very thing that the Minister claims to be interested in, namely making sure that people who are to become solicitors get a university education and receive the main part of their legal education in the university. I have to point that matter out in case anybody reading the Minister's statement might think that the Minister had run into opposition or might run into opposition in that regard. On the contrary it is in the Minister's hand to push this thing forward and we are all waiting for him to do so. Everybody would be behind him if he introduced a Bill to the effect that I have outlined.

I want to deal with something which concerns the Estimate for the Department of Posts and Telegraphs. You will not be surprised to hear that it arises in the connection of Radio Telefís Éireann. Senator Brugha, speaking about the possibility of Government or outside interference in broadcasting said that the Broadcasting Authority Act of 1960 gave only very narrow scope for any such interference. He said that the section—I think it is section 18—which envisages such interference is a section which would be used only in an emergency, in other words the section which entitles the Government or a Minister either to require the Authority to broadcast something in particular or to refrain from broadcasting something. This section, he said, would be used only with the greatest caution and it would be something which would arise only in an emergency.

I took Senator Brugha to mean by that, that apart from this section interference was not possible or could not be contemplated. The truth is that section 18 has never yet been used so far as I know. A Parliamentary Question was put down about it and the reply was that it had never been used. The truth further is that it does not need to be used because we know that there is no necessity to invoke section 18. The Broadcasting Authority—I use the phrase loosely, I do not mean the Authority as such but either the Authority itself or people under its jurisdiction—are apparently amenable to a mere telephone call, let alone the use of section 18. Apparently they are amenable to interference of one kind or another falling far short of a formal section 18 request.

Why should a Minister go to the trouble of making such a formal request which will of course remain on the record if he can pick up the telephone and get his way that way? While I do not and cannot allege, except for the case of the Minister for Agriculture in 1966 that any particular Minister has made particular phone calls it is known that programmes were made, were actually completed or were in the course of preparation—I was interviewed for one of them myself, I would not be surprised if other Members of the House were also—which never were transmitted. The reasons they were not transmitted, as it appears from the information published by people working in the broadcasting station at that time, were not technical reasons: they were political reasons.

While I would agree that a Government must be entitled to exercise some control over what goes out on the broadcasting station I say that control ought to be exercised via the legal means provided by the Act and no other way and if it does not suit the Minister for Local Government for example to have a programme about planning applications broadcast, if it does not suit the Minister for Justice to have a programme broadcast about the Special Branch, the way for him to make his position clear and known and above board is to get the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs to issue a requisition under section 18. That is the fair way of doing it and it is the way the Dáil and Seanad intended when the Broadcasting Authority Act was passed in 1960. To do it any other way is an avoidance of the Act, a breach of the law in spirit if not in fact.

The second last matter I want to deal with is perhaps somewhat less contentious. I hope so. It concerns the conservation of Dublin City and falls under the heading of local government. This city is disappearing before our eyes. I am glad to see that lately decisions of the Minister for Local Government—I welcome them unreservedly—seem to have slowed up the rate of this disappearance. I am glad of that. Everybody interested in the conservation of Dublin or any other town or any country amenity either must be glad of it.

I do not wish to harp too much because I feel there is a sense of responsibility at this very late hour coming into the Department of Local Government and local authorities in this regard. However, I want to stress the urgency of making sure that it will not be said of this generation, I would not even wish that it would be said of the present Government, that they have presided over the pulverisation of Dublin City. I hope that it will not be said that I am asking for retroactive legislation if I say that it is the Government's positive duty to make sure that no further brick is taken away from the essential parts of the old centre of Dublin no matter what may have gone in the past, no matter who may have applied for permission or no matter who may have omitted to object to permission. It is time to make sure that nothing further will be done to destroy the centre of this city.

I would like to see what would happen in Avignon, in Florence, in Rome or in Amsterdam if a property developer proposed to pull down buildings corresponding in those cities to the corner buildings of Hume Street or to buildings further up Hume Street. I would like to see the property company which would have the nerve to make such a suggestion in a self-respecting city run by a self-respecting Government with a real sense of its responsibilities towards preserving physical amenities.

A thing which has been noticed by other people and which always enrages me particularly is the so-called prestige development, the development which relies on its situation in a particularly favoured area, the kind of area which is a prestige area simply because it has certain features of peace or elegance. It is those very features which this development will now destroy. There have been too many such developments in the past. There have been little street-scapes ruined and replaced by large, uninteresting, undistinguished, concrete and glass boxes. I quite understand that the Government cannot watch everything and that some things of value must perhaps go but I do say that that part of Dublin city which charms the outsider and the inhabitant has been disappearing over the last ten years at a terrible rate and it is a responsibility of this Government to make sure whether by retroactive legislation or in some other way that it does not go any further.

In this regard, I have noticed that Cork City for example is a great deal more presentable than Dublin; for some reason development of the worst kind does not seem to have made such strides there as it has here. There is no use in talking about preserving old houses unless the financial possibility for preserving them exists, and while I realise that in a debate of this kind I cannot call for any legislation involving a financial charge, I think the Minister for Local Government should now give preliminary consideration to some scheme whereby people who find themselves in private ownership of these houses will be able to meet the heavy cost of repairs. Ordinary repair grants will not go anywhere near the job of reconstructing these old 18th-century buildings and, to that extent, I have some sympathy with a private owner who receives a good offer from a developer and who simply has not got enough money to keep the house in the way it should be kept. This is something which will require very heavy investment and is something to which the Minister for Local Government and all others interested should give their attention now. The last point I wish to raise is contentious——

Do you think all the others have not been?

——and I say it with as much modesty as my standing as a newcomer in this House dictates. I sincerely mean I do not wish to offend any of the Senators opposite but I cannot sit down without referring to the matter, already frequently mentioned in both Houses, namely the disclosure in the Dáil the other day that the Minister for Justice had written to a constituent, advising her—putting it at its best—to take the law into her own hands. I shall not add to the heap of condemnation on the Minister in that regard—it speaks for itself—but I ask what kind of standards are asked or expected to apply to Ministers?

This same Minister last year dispensed week after week the vilest abuse against those who were bold enough to say that it was an encroachment on their liberty if they had to ask for police permission for holding demonstrations—that clause was originally in the Criminal Justice Bill. The Minister's way of dealing with that was to say that such persons, with exceptions—and he always used the clause "with exceptions"—were Troskyists, pinks, reds, Maoists and so forth. I have no doubt that many of the people who disliked the Criminal Justice Bill were fairly accurately described by the Minister and I agree with him that there were people of that kind of political complexion among the opponents of the Bill, but it is unseemly for the Minister to meet criticism of a far-reaching Bill of that kind by concentrating solely on the political complexion of the Bill's more extreme opponents.

I do not believe it would have happened or that it could happen in many other Western democracies and I thought then, as I still think, that the Taoiseach allowed the Minister for Justice on that occasion to get away with behaviour which should not have been allowed. I do not know Mr. Ó Moráin personally and I do not wish to cause him hurt but I must conclude that he is not really fit to occupy the position he holds, and the fact that he is allowed to continue holding it makes me wonder what standards we can assume the Taoiseach holds in regard to Government and what standards he intends, for so long as he remains Taoiseach, to apply to Ministers. I should like to get from him an example of what he will not put up with—we have seen what he will put up with and what he will swallow and expect the people to swallow.

I have detained the House for a long time and I have given at least one other instance of a Minister who was allowed to have his own way, to foist his brainchild on the people without sufficient thought or consultation, namely the late Mr. O'Malley with his university merger. If you put Mr. O'Malley's history and Deputy Ó Moráin's history together and add to them a couple of other incidents which I will not detail at the moment, one comes to the conclusion that what is keeping the Government together is a sort of understanding that everybody may do as everybody pleases, that the only thing really uniting the Ministers is their determination to put up with one another and to remain in power.

That seems to me a very high price to pay for a united and strong Government, and the price is being paid by the people. The lack of control shown by the Government, the lack of standards exacted from Ministers, is something one would not find in any coalition Government. It is a favourite theme, frequently harped on by Fianna Fáil spokesmen, that you cannot have a coalition because then there must always be compromise. What would be more of a compromise than a situation in which the Taoiseach is apparently obliged to allow Deputy Ó Moráin to do exactly as he likes? I cannot envisage any coalition in this country in which a Taoiseach would have to give more away to the individual free enterprise of a Minister.

I am sorry that in my first real speech in this House I had to speak on this matter. It concerns me very genuinely and it will concern everybody in the country. The reason there has not been more of a public outcry is that people have become used to this state of affairs. I do not know whether the Minister for Finance will take it upon himself to deal with this particular issue, which I agree is not of a strictly financial nature, when he replies tomorrow but I believe I speak for many, both in and outside my own Party, when I say we would all like to have a clear indication of what will and will not be tolerated in Ministerial behaviour.

I wish to speak very briefly on a few of the items in the Appropriation Bill. First I shall mention the question of pensions and superannuations. I have spoken on this matter in previous debates and I am now very gratified at the recent developments in relation to the pensions of widows of civil servants and public servants. I hope to see this matter put on a firm basis and extended to other sections of the community. I have particularly in mind the widows of school teachers; the husbands of these women have at the time of their death usually reached a fairly senior position in the school, being in receipt of salaries about three-quarters of which were contributed by the State. Therefore I think the State should look very sympathetically at the position in which these widows find themselves. Very often their husbands had been teaching in small schools, whose governors cannot afford to pay large annuities to the widows, and I consider these women have a claim on the State.

The next section to which I shall refer is education. We have seen recently very substantial progress in every section of education, primary, secondary and higher. This progress is not merely quantitated just by giving increases in grants here and there but also qualitative by developing a completely new outlook in many directions of education, in the encouragement of larger primary and secondary school units, general grants for university education and in radical proposals for university education.

I agree with Senator Sheehy Skeffington on the urgent need to reduce the size of classes in primary schools. Perhaps this would encourage the cessation of corporal punishment which I would find very acceptable but I think an even more fundamental change might also take place. The better pupil-teacher ratio might make it possible for the teacher to teach small groups to learn by reason rather than by rote. The pupils would then be better equipped to deal with the important decisions they must make as adults and it would be easier for those of us in the universities who have to build on the school foundations.

It is very disheartening indeed when you come across so many pupils coming up from schools who cannot use their reasoning faculty. The only way they can learn a thing is by heart. You must accept that this is a product of the situation where the teacher has to teach very large classes and it is of course easier to make them learn by heart than try to instil information into them by reason.

In higher education the most dramatic development in recent times was the Government's decision to associate University College, Dublin, and Trinity College in a new University of Dublin and to establish the colleges in Cork and Galway as separate universities. There has been little evidence of progress in this scheme recently and many Senators have referred to this. I do not know what this may mean, but certainly it makes many of us anxious because these delays are fraught with dangers. The numbers in all our university colleges are rising fast, and accommodation, even new accommodation, is being strained.

Last year saw a sharp upsurge of student discontent which many agree was caused to a significant extent by dissatisfaction with their conditions. This situation is at present being contained but many of us have our fingers crossed. We must all be concerned lest poor conditions should bring about a recrudescence. In Trinity College it has been agreed that a new building is needed for the arts subjects, particularly of course those that will remain in the college apparently indefinitely, but we still await definite developments. While we wait we have to carry on with literally no accommodation for arts teaching except what we have been able to arrange in a building constructed 200 years ago for about one-quarter of our present numbers.

In regard to the merger I have made it clear here and elsewhere that I believe that a close association of University College, Dublin, and Trinity College is the only way in which we can make real progress, and the logical way to bring about this association is in the scope of a single university. Furthermore, I am satisfied that the best way to put this into effect is by way of the Government decision of July, 1968. In particular this is in my opinion the best means of achieving progress in the sciences and in the professions.

Senator Quinlan referred to the merger and suggested that we should not expect any benefits or economies either in staff or accommodation. I would agree that we must not support the merger decision on any ground of saving in comparison with present expenditure, but we most certainly could expect better value for our expenditure in the future.

Senator Quinlan advanced an interesting argument against the Dublin merger. He suggested that it would make it more difficult for Cork and Galway to make good and that therefore it should be discouraged. I hesitate to suggest that he is adopting a dog-in-the-manger attitude, that if the provincial universities cannot advance then advances by the Dublin colleges must be prevented. I would rather say that his argument should be that sufficient support should be given to Cork and Galway to ensure their progress. He says that there is no need for the merger. Other Senators have referred to the co-operation between the Dublin colleges particularly since the merger was announced, and this of course we all welcome, but surely this only means that we should take advantage of this new spirit for it should make even closer co-operation within one university all the easier.

Senator Ó Maoláin referred to the position of Irish medical graduates in the US. The position is that all foreign graduates wishing to practise in the US must pass this special examination for foreign graduates. This is a type of examination called multiple-choice questions which has been in use in the US for some time but was only recently introduced to many of our students in this country, and many of our students are still very unfamiliar with it. Notwithstanding this a very high proportion of our graduates are successful at this examination compared with those from other countries, though in some cases the best students often prefer to remain in this country rather than go to the US or work in Britain. Those who do choose to work in the States usually do very well, and Professor Quinlan was perfectly correct when he reported that the colleges and hospitals in which they have served value their services highly. I think that every Dean has among his files glowing comments on the work being done by senior students and recent graduates who have gone to work in hospitals in the States.

On just one more item on university education I should like to express the great appreciation of the scientific staff at the increased capital grant for equipment made available last year. Modern equipment is the life blood of the scientist, but it is very costly, and that increased grant was very welcome.

A Senator has already referred to the desirability of training Army and Navy personnel so that they can take up positions on leaving the services. I believe that this should be extended to administration in the commissioned and higher non-commissioned ranks. The reference the Senator made was, I think, to the skilled trades and techniques rather than to administration. In another capacity I have experienced the excellent services being rendered by a former naval officer in an administrative capacity. If we laid more emphasis on their careers after leaving the services I believe it would make the services much more attractive.

I should like to say a word about the Department of External Affairs appropriation. In referring to this item I should like to mention the problem of hi-jacking aeroplanes. Can nothing be done about this scourge? Can our Department of External Affairs do anything about it? Early last September a distinguished scientist who had been doing research work in London was returning to Jerusalem when his plane was hi-jacked to Syria where he was put in prison. I was asked to put my name to an appeal to the United Nations to have him released. I did more than that. I brought the matter to the notice of the Minister for External Affairs and he very kindly took it up with the United Nations officials when he visited New York last September. Whether post hoc or propter hoc, the scientist was released. We are all very grateful to the Minister for his good offices but surely we should do a bit more than that. I do not know at all how it could be brought about but we have an airline of our own and one of our planes may be involved in one of these operations and we must, I think, take serious notice of the effect this has on air travel.

With regard to the appropriation for health, I think that our remarks on this item must be rather restricted because the Minister is at the moment piloting a most important health measure through the Dáil. I would however appeal that in dealing with the new hospital structure which is envisaged in that Bill special attention should be paid to the teaching hospitals. I appealed on this before and I am pleased to know that there is co-operation between the Department of Health and the Department of Education in this matter. This co-operation has been developed within the last year. Quite a number of us are involved in advising both these Departments on the amount of accommodation needed for teaching in a teaching hospital. This new accommodation, which no hospital——

An Leas-Chathaoirleach

Perhaps I could intervene to point out to the Senator that it is undesirable that, to a large extent, he is anticipating part of a debate that will take place shortly in the House.

I will deal very briefly with this. When we are asked to spend more money we should remember that for 39 years we have been in a very fortunate position in relation to the cost of running our hospitals because we have had the Sweepstakes Fund. This fund has paid for the construction of new hospitals and has met the deficits in the running of hospitals. As a matter of interest, I should like to refer to the introduction of the first Bill in Dáil Éireann in relation to the Sweepstakes. It was introduced on the 6th December, 1929 and Captain Redmond, speaking on behalf of Deputy Sir James Craig, asked leave to introduce a Bill entitled

An Act for the granting of powers to enable funds to be raised by means of sweepstakes and drawings of prizes for the support of public charitable hospitals and sanatoria in Saorstát Éireann.

Leave was given and the Bill was to be read on 12th February, 1930.

Sir James Craig was a Deputy representing the graduates of the University of Dublin. He was a Professor of Medicine at TCD as well as being a physician on the staff of Sir Patrick Dun's Hospital. I remember attending there as a student and expecting to be taught clinical medicine but my professor told us how he hoped to provide improvements at the hospital through the operation of this new scheme. At the hospital, Sir James Craig had a peg on which to hang his coat and hat. He had no office and no assistants. He had about 16 patients to look after.

During the past few years small improvements have been made at that hospital but as far as the bulk of the hospital is concerned it is still in the same condition as it was when that scheme was conceived there 40 years ago. I hope that I am not going too far when I say that if in the future our hospitals can be made more like teaching hospitals that it will be worth any money which the Minister for Finance can give to have this situation.

May I ask the Senator a question? There are disquieting remarks about the standard of teaching in the medical facilities of our universities and there are reports to the effect that graduates who sat for the last examination of the American Medical Association, of which the Senator spoke, succeeded to the extent of only 35 per cent of those who sat. The figures given were a breakdown UCD, UCC, UCG and TCD. These reports have been widely discussed around the country and I wonder if the Senator could tell us if there is any truth in these remarks and that the standard of teaching in that respect would not appear to be up to the standard required by the American Medical Association.

I made some reference to certain aspects of this examination. We have gone into this and we find that there are discrepancies between the figure given and what we have been able to get from the education authorities in Philadelphia from where all these examinations are arranged. I do not believe that 35 per cent of the students failed. However, I would point out that for our students this type of examination was never held in our college up to last year. It is an examination where instead of asking the candidate to write all he knows about the heart, there is a statement to the effect that "the hear is a pump or the heart is a solid lump of flesh" to which the student writes "yes" or "no".

A special skill is required in setting the questions and a special skill is also required in answering them so that a candidate might easily fail on the old essay-type question to which he is accustomed. We have never given coaching for this examination. I am only speaking for our students. The other factor is that the best students stay here, the next best mostly go to Great Britain and I do not think that the very best ones up to now have elected to practise in the United States. I have made these points before in relation to this observation.

I am grateful to the Senator.

In voting £360 million in this Appropriation Bill, I should like to point out that a considerable proportion of that money is devoted to education. We must give credit to the enlightenment of the Minister for Education to whom reference was made already this evening and also to the support given by the Minister for Finance in raising the amount of money devoted to education from £15½ million for the year 1959/60 to £58½ million for the year 1968/69. This is a massive improvement in the allocation of money to education. It is a massive investment for the future and we would be failing in our duty if we did not point this out to the people of the country. We must give credit where credit is due.

The Government have shown a right priority in investing so much money in education because education is a basic service and if the basic service of education is faulty or defective all other services based on it must, in time, be faulty and defective.

In the past, when I was studying economics at the university we were told that education was a non-productive investment but we have come a long way from that type of economics. We now realise that education is, in the long term, one of the most productive investments. It is an investment in people; it is an investment in development and it is an investment in the giving of techniques to people so that the country can develop culturally, industrially and economically.

Some of the advantages which have flowed from this investment in education have been spoken of in the House on previous occasions. In 1967, when the late Donogh O'Malley was here he introduced the question of grants for free places in secondary schools. At the time he did not get very much public support and, in particular, he did not get support from those who had a vested interest in education. I was very pleased to give him the support of our entire organisation because in the past, we saw children of great ability and aptitude leaving school after sixth standard and being lost to the country. We saw that it was absolutely essential that every child with the ability and aptitude should have an opportunity in the post-primary sector to reach his full potential.

We are glad that the scheme is now being accepted generally. It is a limited scheme and it is not the answer to the question of free opportunity of education for all but it is a very significant advance in our time in this House. We have also seen the rationalisation of education in various areas. There has been a great resistance to this amalgamation or reorganisation of school facilities in certain areas, and not without reason, let me say. Many schemes which have been suggested have been accepted by the parents, the teachers, the managers or the managerial authorities, but on a number of occasions amalgamations have been forced on people and this is a bad thing. It is a good idea in principle that school facilities should be rationalised.

In 1967 also I found it necessary, in the presence of the late Donogh O'Malley, to mention about the large number of sub-standard schools which existed throughout the country and on that occasion I issued an ultimatum that after the first of November of that year no member of the teachers' organisation would serve in a sub-standard school. I am glad to record now, having made an investigation through the Office of Public Works, that more than 1,000 schemes of reconstruction and improvement, such as the installation of electricity and water supply, have been put in hand since that date. This is also a significant advance because I think it is very detrimental to the proper formation of any child to allow him to be taught in circumstances which are not conducive to his proper formation and education.

In the field of special education also there have been significant advances made and many special classes and special schools have been established throughout the country. We have not yet seen the final solution to this problem of special education for the handicapped because we have long queues of severely handicapped children waiting for places in residential schools. The parents reach a stage with those children where they simply cannot control them or cannot train them properly. The mother becomes a slave in the house. She becomes a prisoner in the house. She has to stick there minding that child day after day. Many thousands of those children exist throughout the country yet.

We will have to look at the development of special education once again. The situation is so bad in some areas that children are kept in mental homes. Whatever chance a child would have of some education and training in a residential school for severely handicapped children, or even mildly handicapped children, that child would have no chance whatsoever within the milieu of a mental home. Those are points I would like to draw to the notice of the Minister for Education.

A welcome development has also taken place in the city centre here in the development of a pre-school situation. A combined effort by the Van Leer Foundation and the Department of Education has established a centre in the centre of Dublin where children are brought from the home environment or from the streets and they are given some early training before taking on formal schooling. This is very important. It is a pilot scheme and at the same time it is, shall we say, the commencement of an organisation along those lines which will be of great benefits to the people in disadvantaged environments.

Environment plays a 50 per cent factor in the development of any child. A child is, as everybody here knows, greatly influenced by his environment. Experiments by psychologists abroad have shown that taking identical twins and placing one in one environment and the other in a different environment that they have developed at different paces and on switching them again the pace can be altered. The child who was influenced by the poor environment can put up a better performance if he is taken from the poor environment and put into the better environment in which his identical twin is. Therefore, environment is a 50 per cent factor in the development of children.

Somebody put it this way one time. Nature deals the cards but social factors play the hand. Though children may start off equal in ability still environmental factors may slow down one whilst other environmental factors may help the other to move along at a much faster pace of development. This pre-school development is very welcome because I have always maintained that delinquents are not born but are made by the society in which they live. If a child is born into a happy home in a good environment he has a very good chance of developing well but if that same child were reared in a disadvantaged home in a poor environment he may become a juvenile delinquent. Therefore, delinquents in many cases should not be blamed for the way in which they have developed because it is society which is responsible for their delinquency.

Many children live in inadequate homes and this pre-school development, therefore, will make some compensation and enrich the lives of those children and make them more meaningful. In the organised society in which we live at the present time where we have gone to a considerable extent in many countries from the simple, pastoral existence of the past into, shall we say, masses of concrete and tarmacadam, we have lost something for our rising people. If you compare the child in a poor environment the footpath is his mountain path, the railing his hedgerow and the tarmacadam or concrete his green field. He has not had the large spaces which other children were fortunate enough to have had in rural areas.

In the development of our towns and cities, we should bear in mind that those children will become a menace to society through no fault of their own, because of our neglect to make proper provision for their recreation and development. Those people kick against society because society owes them nothing. As a matter of fact it is society which has been the cause of their downfall. I emphasise, therefore, that in the development of our towns, in other words in their planning and in the planning of our schools, adequate facilities should be made available for recreation and games.

It is most embarrassing for a representative of any profession, teaching or otherwise, to have to stand in any assembly in defence of his colleagues. The people of this country have witnessed over the last couple of years a savage, vicious public attack being made on the teaching profession. Certain responsible, or so-called responsible newspapers, were prepared to build up this attack into a campaign against brutality in our schools. One certain paper carried the heading in green ink on an occasion: "The Extraordinary Story of Brutality in our Schools." Certain representatives of the teaching profession, religious and lay, visited that paper and pointed out that this would lead on world plane to an attack on the teaching profession in Ireland and an attack on the Irish people.

Our forecast came true. Newspapers in Britain seized on this campaign against brutality. Magazines in Germany and France seized on it. American newspapers seized on it and led to the notorious NBC film about which I will have something to say. There is an old Irish proverb, Is olc an téan a shalaíonn a nead féin—it is an evil bird which soils his own nest. Whatever we have to say among ourselves in criticism of ourselves and others, it is a kind of family situation but it is a lamentable and deplorable position when people look outside this country to denigrate the teaching profession. When you hit the teaching profession you hit a lot of people. You hit at a fundamental situation, you hit at a basic service on which in the long run you must depend.

Debate adjourned.
The Seanad adjourned at 10.10 p.m. until 10.30 a.m. on Thursday, 4th December, 1969.
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