When we adjourned last night I was dealing with matters pertaining to agriculture. The position of Irish agriculture under EEC conditions is complex and important and I hope that the House will be given an opportunity of debating it.
Appropriation Bill, 1970 (Certified Money Bill) : Second Stage (Resumed).
Debate resumed on the following amendment:
To delete all words after the word "That" and substitute the following:—
Seanad Éireann declines to give a Second Reading to the Bill unless all sums relating to:—
(a) the salaries and expenses of the Department of the Taoiseach;
(b) the salaries and expenses of the office of the Minister for Justice and
(c) the salaries and expenses of the office of the Attorney General
are deleted from Part III of the Schedule with appropriate amendments to section 2 of the Bill, until an opportunity is given to the House to take a decision relating to the statement issued by the Government with regard to the possible bringing into operation of Part II of the Offences Against the State Act, 1940.
—(Senator O'Higgins.)
Some Members of the House may be confused. The Chair announced No. 1 but we are taking Nos. 1 and 2 together.
As was agreed by the House yesterday, the debate on the Second Stage of the Appropriation Bill will include matters which would normally arise on the Second Stage of the Finance (No. 2) Bill. In due course we will reach the Finance (No. 2) Bill. We will then pass the Second Stage of that Bill without discussion and proceed to the Committee Stage on which Senators may speak. Matters which would normally arise on the Second Stage of the Finance (No. 2) Bill should be raised, if required, on the Second Stage of this Bill.
I would like to impress on the Minister for Finance the urgency of having an extended debate on a matter so important as our entry into the EEC. On the last day on which we sat before the Summer Recess the Leader of the House almost promised that we would meet in September or October to deal with some of these motions. It is very regrettable that this course was not adhered to. In preparation for our entry into the EEC, in order to put our farming community on the same footing as the competitors we will meet if and when we become a member, there is now a very strong case for complete derating of agricultural land. Some people may look on this as being a sop for the farmers but, on the other hand, the derating of agricultural land is something that we must have because the present situation——
The Senator will appreciate that he may not advocate legislation.
That is true, but I was dealing with Vote 14—grants to local authorities for relief of rates on agricultural land.
The Senator may raise matters of administration relating to that Vote, but he may not advocate changes in legislation.
I was only advocating that this Vote might be increased in order to effect a complete derating of agricultural land. The fact that the rating does not take into account the ability of the ratepayer to pay is something that we must accept. There are too many people being unfairly treated in this way.
With regard to the tourist industry, especially in the tourist areas of the west where most large hotels are used only for the tourist season, I consider that these people are entitled to a remission of rates in respect of the closed season, which amounts to five or six months of the year. This would help them because up to now these extra overheads have tended to increase the prices that the hotels charge. A very definite effort must be made to keep our tourist industry moderately priced; we must try to keep our prices, if anything, lower that our competitors if we wish this industry, which has proved so valuable to our economy, to flourish.
The Director General of Bord Fáilte was interviewed on radio this week on his return from India or some far-off place. I gather from what he said that the income from the tourist industry this year had exceeded the target. This view appears to be in conflict with the views expressed by the Minister for Transport and Power earlier this year, and I do not think it is shared by quite a large number of people actively engaged in the industry. Perhaps the Minister might have the latest figures and give us some idea of the actual position. It is too much if a highly-paid official can go away for some length of time from this country and on his return make this grandiose announcement which tends to mislead some members of the public and perhaps infuriates others who are directly engaged in the industry and who perhaps did not have the same type of experience. Despite the fact there were fewer visitors, it may be that with the steep increase in prices in the tourist industry this year, more money was extracted from them. I do not know about that. The Minister may have figures which might put my mind at ease.
There is another point I should like to refer to on the question of tourism. I have here a report by Dermot Nee. In a survey entitled "The Connemara Project" he stated:
The farmhouse extension is a remarkably effective method of bringing income directly to where it is needed the most, and should be encouraged and expanded wherever possible. However, public grants of moneys or loans for construction purposes must not be excessively burdensome to the house owner, as, this only defeats the value of the program. It is, therefore, recommended that rates and repayments of such grants or loans be given special consideration in order to encourage more of this valuable support for the people.
This is true and it is good to see somebody from outside holding this view and committing it to paper in such a manner. The one point I would query in regard to the Bord Fáilte grants is their application. We have the extraordinary experience of the Midland Regional Tourist Development Company. Some of the counties in that region are underdeveloped areas and they have a different and more generous system of grants than some of the poorer counties east of the Shannon. Perhaps in the counties that have been less tourist-conscious the application of the law might become a little more flexible. The existing grants scheme might be administered in such a way that in any year where the allocation for certain grants cannot be spent because there are not sufficient applications west of the Shannon, the money could be expended on the counties east of the Shannon. This is one of the matters which it is very difficult to understand and perhaps the time has come when we should have a closer look at the administration of some of these areas.
I wish to refer now to the rating system. During this year—Conservation Year—the question of derating buildings used solely for private residences came up and was voiced at practically all of the conferences I attended. It is a very valid point. In some of these old large mansions the only effective way of having the rates reduced is to take the roof off the building. Surely this is not in the national interest? Where there is just one family living in a large Georgian mansion, or a similar residence, there should be some ceiling to the rateable valuations. Most of these mansions have been re-allocated by the Land Commission and to a great extent they are not occupied by the very wealthy owners for whom they were built. In order to preserve some of these very fine buildings in this category of ownership we should do something to alleviate the burden.
Equally, on this score the ESB have a problem in so far as the bimensal rental charges are based on the floor area of the buildings. To my knowledge the new agricultural tenants in some of these large houses cannot afford to have ESB facilities and in present-day agriculture this is a grave handicap. They cannot have milking machines or infra-red lights or other items. The Government owe it to this small minority to see that they get a fair share of the facilities that have been provided at great expense for the vast majority of the people.
The time has come when there must be a realistic improvement in farm prices. I do not think it is at all sufficient for the Minister for Agriculture to announce on the eve of a by-election a few paltry price increases, some of them to come into effect many moons from now. This just will not go down any more and the Government have a grave responsibility to ensure that the farmers' incomes keep pace with the incomes of other sectors of the community.
In this year alone in the pig fattening industry the price of feeding stuffs has been increased three times, yet the price of pigs has remained almost static; it was up possibly in May and June but declined again by about £1, then it recovered about two weeks ago for the Christmas trade. Irish farmers are producing a much better quality bacon pig but the price in 1970 is a few pounds less than the price the farmers obtained for a lower quality pig about 20 years ago. Added to this is the fact that the price of the feeding-stuffs has been increased in the intervening 20 years by over 50 per cent. The Government have not really been fair to the farmers and it is a pity that the farming organisations should again be forced to protest violently in order to get their fair share of the national cake.
I should like to mention the affairs of Comhlucht Siúicre Éireann Teoranta and Erin Foods which are the responsibility of the Minister for Finance. Perhaps the Minister would agree that, in the absence of a long-term policy for Irish agriculture, he might look favourably on realistic prices this year. I consider that the farmers should receive a net increase of 10s per ton in the price of beet for the coming season, just to cover them for the increases in ordinary production expenses. It is certain the cost of production will have risen by that amount for the next season. Transport costs are up and the rate question is certainly one that members of local authorities are not looking forward to with any great relish during the next two months. The increase in the rates will be considerable this year.
In addition, under the Finance (No. 2) Bill the increase of about 33 per cent in taxation on cars and lorries is excessive and is something that the Minister must take into account. He should ask Comhlucht Siúicre Éireann to increase the contract price of the beet crop sufficiently to compensate the farmers. The duty that the Minister is raking in from motor taxation alone which will hit every farmer in the country—33? per cent on vehicles— plus the 20 per cent wholesale tax and turnover tax is excessive.
Motorists are the most heavily taxed section of our community. The Minister gets about 30 per cent import duty from cars; 20 per cent wholesale tax when the car is bought, plus the turnover tax. The service tax of £1 per week is a heavy impost; it bears heavily on the motorist and has led to the situation that we have one of the highest rates of taxation in Europe. In rural Ireland today many young fellows equip themselves with an old secondhand car in order to travel seven, eight or ten miles to work each day. I do not think that this can be described as a luxury and I know that some young men pay £50 or £60 for an old car to carry them to and from work. It is good to see these chaps with the initiative to go and look for work where they can get it and then try to travel to their place of employment. However, as matters are now arranged, if a man can only pay his motor tax quarterly, the Minister stands to gain an extra 12½ per cent on the tax. This is one instance where the Department could do without charging interest on the instalments. The cheapest motor insurance rate now is about £24 a year for a mini-car. This is excessive and does not give a fair chance to the people in the lower income bracket.
I should like to refer again to the beet crop and the Sugar Company. I am anticipating and hoping that the Minister will urge the Sugar Company to increase the price of beet. I should also like to take this opportunity of complimenting the company on the progress they have made in the manufacture, design and production of a range of machinery designed to handle the beet crop from the sowing stage right through to harvesting. Their engineers and workers deserve great credit.
However, this year many farmers have been shocked by the excessively high rate of tare that has been recorded; in some cases it is quite common for people to have up to 26 per cent tare on the consignment of beet and this is very high. I know that this system is a rather hit or miss operation—it is a matter of luck. Nevertheless a 26 per cent tare represents a big loss for the beet contractor. If the Department of Agriculture would give a grant towards the purchase of loader machines, or if the Agricultural Credit Corporation could be organised to give a loan to the beet hauliers in order to purchase such machines, that would serve a very useful purpose and would be of considerable benefit to the farmers. In view of the fact that the farmers' share of the profits are diminishing yearly there is a strong case for extending the grant system so as to give a grant for the laying of loading pads. They could make a regulation covering a somewhat similar grants scheme for cleaner loaders.
There has been a certain amount of difficulty with Erin Foods this year. The existing contracts operated by that company leave much to be desired. Perhaps they could adopt a contract system similar to that operated by the Sugar Company and have no limit on the tonnage. It is ridiculous for a company such as Erin Foods to issue contracts for so many tons and tie it to an acreage basis. This year the yield in some of the crops, for instance carrots, was exceptionally good and it meant that many farmers were left with three and four tons per acre surplus of carrots that they could not dispose of. The company are going to meet the farmers with some type of compensation but nevertheless a problem remains regarding such foodstuffs. The sooner Erin Foods adopt a more equitable contract system the better.
In regard to contracts for beet this year, there is a very clear demand for an increase in the contract acreage. County Laois could do with a vastly increased beet-growing area. It is very necessary that we should get this because if we are to maintain our high standard of crop husbandry we must be able to maintain at least a three-year rotational system. If the Sugar Company continue to cut back on the acreage of beet, the binding of other crops will be rather difficult.
Erin Foods have a wonderful outlet for their produce on the home market, particularly in the sphere of school meals. This year, especially since the vocational schools in many areas are now on a senior cycle of secondary education, there is a strong case to be made for the authorities in charge of these schools, the committees and the Department of Education looking favourably on the provision of something more substantial than a cup of tea and bread and butter at midday for children. In many cases the children leave their homes before eight o'clock in the morning and do not get back until after five o'clock. It is a very long time to be sustained by only a cup of tea and a cut of bread or a sandwich. In my county our vocational education committee, with the co-operation of Erin Foods, are operaing in one school on a trial basis, a scheme providing a meal consisting of a high protein soup and some potato flakes. While I suppose one could not call this a lunch, nevertheless it is more substantial than tea, bread and butter.
We are not asking the Department to pay for this—the parents are quite prepared to pay—but, nevertheless, there remains the question of crockery and the utensils required for the preparation of these meals. They do not add up to much but we hope the Department will consider favourably the question of grants-in-aid for the acquisition of such utensils. We must not neglect the children who are attending vocational schools; they must receive the same attention as is given to children in secondary schools. The method I have outlined would result in boosting the sales of Erin Foods, which is highly desirable not only for that company but also for the farmers who produce the crops.
Therefore, I should like to see a better contracts system for Erin Foods, more extensive acreage for beet-growing and consideration by the Department of Education of the provision of grants-in-aid to offset the cost of utensils required for the preparation of substantial school meals in vocational schools.
I was interested to read what Dermot Nee had to say in The Connemara Project about our educational system. Many people here may hold the same view, but when an outsider expresses this opinion it gives room for thought. Mr. Nee stated:
Finally, it is necessary that a general reorganisation and planning of the entire educational system be undertaken by a competent body with the purpose of bringing the standard and usefulness of Irish education at least equal to any other in the world. Certainly the raw material of the Irish mind is worthy of the best training and education possible to give it. At present, this standard falls far below that of many of the so-called under-privileged or backward countries.
This publication, which is very well presented, contains some rather startling statements. I was amazed that in some areas in the north-east of the country some 50 per cent of the population voted illiterately. I find it difficult to accept that because almost certainly if people voted in this manner in my part of the country they would be suffering from some incapacity or impairment.
Is the Senator sure of this suggestion regarding illiteracy?
It was up to 50 per cent in one or two booths.
In the by-election?
I am only speaking about one or two booths.
It is the same as when Deputy Michael O'Leary said there was nobody left in Donegal except old men and old women fighting the civil war, that all the young people were gone.
I just mentioned that in passing because this man has spoken rather harshly on the standard of Irish education there. My experience in the north more or less tied in with that. It was a shock to find that situation prevailing because the only people in my part of the country who vote openly are illiterate people who are incapacitated or blind and, with the new regulation whereby a member of the family can mark the paper, this is non-existent now.
One point I should like to make is that I hope it will be possible for the Minister to pay the back moneys to the Defence Forces in time for Christmas. There has been an inordinate delay here and it is hoped that the Department of Finance will get down to paying out this money so that the men will have greater spending power for Christmas.
There has been a grave slowing down in school building projects over the past year or so, and this is causing concern. One school I know was closed down for 18 months; some 80 children were transferred to a school in an adjoining parish where they have to stand as seating accommodation was not provided. This is a scandalous state of affairs. Before the Department of Education close down a school in order to create a bigger educational centre in a neighbouring parish or town, they should make sure there is ample accommodation for the children so that they will not be made to stand in class for three or four months. The decision of the Government to slow down the school building programme is regrettable and I hope that where plans are drawn up for new national schools, they will be put into effect, or at least that the cloakroom facilities will be modernised without further delay.
Finally I should like to comment on the poor quality of the postal services. This coincides with the increase in the price of letter postage. The Cork Examiner always reached me on Saturday, but since the postal rate went up to 9d it does not come until Monday or Tuesday. This is a bit of a nuisance. This week I did not receive the Agenda or the Whip until Monday, so it is unfair to Members of the House who have to attend at three or four hours notice. If the service continues to be so bad we would not be out of order if we asked for some special service to ensure that the Whip and the Agenda are posted a day earlier so as to reach us in reasonably good time to have our contributions prepared. There is general disquiet about the service. I do not know if it is true that there is not sufficient personnel in the postal services to deal with the work involved, but I think that the Government and the Department of Posts and Telegraphs have a grave obligation to ensure that this very expensive service is improved. I do not begrudge the workers in this important Department the benefit of a five-day week but nevertheless when shorter hours become operative it is normal that additional staff be taken in to cope with the situation. The idea of the Government insisting that the postal service be a viable organisation as though it were a factory is wrong. That Department is there to render an important service to the community. This is what we are paying for and it is up to the Government to ensure that the public get value for their money. We have the most expensive postal rate in the world, and the long delays in the past few months have been widely commented upon.
I shall not delay the House for long, as other Members wish to speak. I should like to speak on finance first, with special reference to the publication of the Official Report of Seanad Éireann. We are all here as Members of the Seanad. I see several people referred to as "Doctor", "Professor": otherwise we are referred to as "Mr. ", provided the name is in English; and, if it is in Irish, it is merely, for example, "Tomás Ó Maoláin". You do not even get "Uasal". This is very undemocratic. Everyone here is a Senator and everyone here should be referred to as "Senator". I know that none of the people referred to here as "Professor" or "Doctor" would refer to themselves or to one another as such. I will give an example from the Official Report for Thursday 4th June, 1970. It says:
Professor Dooge: I have pleasure in seconding the motion put forard by Senator Quinlan——
Senator Quinlan is entitled "Professor Quinlan" when he is speaking. This carries on through the whole debate and it is ridiculous. If we were members of the Orange Lodge or members of the Hibernians, we would be called "Brothers", so I think the people here should be called "Senators". I have several titles. For example, I am a direct descendant of Dahvis, friend and servant of King Conlon, and I am sure there must be an old earldom knocking around there. It is not that I am jealous but I think it is ridiculous. Senator Robinson could be called "Attorney Robinson". She would be entitled to that. An auctioneer could be called "Auctioneer Garrett" or something else. I like to see all of us getting our titles, the titles with which we came here. While we are in the Seanad, let us be Senators.
Senators
Hear, hear.
I welcome the increases to the Army as published, and I am glad to see that since I spoke on Defence last year the Department of Defence have purchased some ships and we are going to sea again. I am perturbed there is not more being done for the Army. I feel that so long as the Army is left under the control of the Civil Service, there will be no Army. We cannot have an Army controlled by Civil Service rules. It will not move fast enough. We are told it is difficult to get suitable people for Departments. I see no reason why a lot of the civilians in the Department of Defence could not be sent to other Departments and why Army officers and other ranks who have retired at a fairly young age should not be employed on a part-time basis or a continued basis in the Department of Defence. They would have knowledge of it all.
The third matter I should like to mention is planning. I should like to urge that regional planning as such be implemented as soon as possible. In my area in Bray, within a mile and a half of Dublin, housing cannot be provided because there is no water. The Dublin Corporation will not allow water despite the fact that drainage is available. For a mile and a half on the Dublin side of Bray there is water but no drainage because the Bray Urban Council will not allow drainage to come from County Dublin into County Wicklow. Therefore the whole development is held up on both sides for this reason. This state of affairs must exist throughout the country, particularly along county borders where there is no co-operation. There is the ridiculous situation in regard to the Waterford-Cork border that they could not agree on the bridge, so each built their half of the bridge. The word "planning" is ridiculous in this context because it is the very reverse of planning.
There is not enough being done for tourism; there is not enough money for tourism, and the moneys that are available for it are not being properly spent. In the Tourist Board itself there are far too many titles. There is nobody below the rank of manager or supervisor. I mentioned this subject last year and the Minister sitting there had a few words to say. The English tourists who come here in great numbers complain about one thing in particular, the price of beer. They do not mention the price of spirits, wine or cigarettes. They complain about the price of beer.
The Minister for Finance told us last year that there was a difference in specific gravity. I do not see why there should be this difference. If we can have a beer as cheap as theirs at a lower specific gravity, surely then we should do something about it? You can buy a bottle of Harp lager in the city of Derry for 1s 11d, but you pay 2s 9d for it here. This is ridiculous. We shall have to look into the matter of providing cheaper beer. If we do not we shall lose many English tourists; they will go to the Continent. Some may say a man does not come on holidays to drink but if his pleasure is drinking a few bottles of beer and if it is going to cost him an inordinate price, he will stop coming. He might even stay in his own place and go to the "local" where he can enjoy it cheaper.
My contribution to this debate must of necessity be very brief because, as the Minister is aware, I have to consult with my colleagues in the Irish Congress of Trade Unions prior to a meeting with the Government to receive the Government's decision in regard to the withdrawal or otherwise of the Prices and Incomes Bill. I do not anticipate the Government's decision but, if the Bill is withdrawn unconditionally, this will be accepted and welcomed by the overwhelming majority of the people. If it is withdrawn I would suggest to the Minister and the Government that they should follow this up in respect of Part II of the Offences Against the State Act. If it is important and if it is the belief of the Government at this stage that it is impossible and inequitable to attempt to restrict free negotiation on wages through legislation, then surely it is more important not to restrict liberty and freedom of the individual outside the courts of law? I must leave although there is a great deal more I should like to say about both subjects. However, I would appeal to the Minister and the Government, if the Prices and Incomes Bill is withdrawn this evening, to join with that the withdrawal of the intention to invoke Part II of the Offences Against the State Act.
The Appropriation Bill, when coupled with the Finance Bill, provides an opportunity of reviewing Government achievements and Government policy over the past 12 months. The first thing we must point to in this debate is, unfortunately, the very rapid deterioration in the prestige of Government and of politicians generally over the past year. This is to be regretted and it poses a problem for all Departments. We have got to see what is the cause of this and we have to seek out some remedies for it. First and foremost amongst the causes of this disastrous decline and cynical attitude to politics is that deplorable column in The Irish Times, and its attacks on the Taoiseach ought to be deplored by every citizen and every member of Dáil and Seanad Éireann. I hasten to say that, as far as I can see, the worst parts of those articles do not come from the pen of the main correspondent in our midst from that paper.
This is not a matter of administration.
It affects the whole prestige of Government and it is something on which we have a right to speak out.
Not on this Bill. This Bill deals with Government administration.
I can pass to the other facets for which we are paying in relation to administration, the cost of the Houses and the utilisation made of these Houses. I think it is not unfair to say that if Parnell came back here in the morning within 15 minutes he would be at home in either House. He would find there exactly the same procedure, the same 19th century approach as in his time. That is not progress and it is not suited to modern tempo. Democracy, coupled with this form of slow parliamentary government, is made impossible by the news media today and again we must deplore here the way all organs are so subject to the television camera and the television reporter. The Government can, in reorganising their business, see that Government business and the conduct of Parliament come away ahead of any of the requirements of Montrose. We here are not a second studio for Montrose and it is up to the Government to see that we are not reduced to that level. There is a stupid idea abroad that nobody, and especially no politician, has a right to change his mind. Has not the whole of human progress been associated with people who had the courage, when obtaining different facts and further information, to change their minds and to proceed on the basis of the new facts and assumptions? I appeal again for a more scientific and a more 20th century approach to the role of the politician and to his contribution to the democratic society in which we live.
We have listed here the costs of television and so on. It is about time the Government took steps to follow up one of the main recommendations made at the time of the introduction of television here that after a certain period there should be a full-scale review. I know that the majority of the people feel that television has done anything but a service to this country. Considering the money that has been invested in it, it has given very poor service. Its service has been to try to denigrate and belittle everything we hold dear. Some of its religious programmes in recent times have given offence to the vast majority of our people. Is that what Montrose was set up to do? I refer to the dastardly portrayal of Knock and all its stands for in Irish life which was screened some six weeks ago. No doubt some smart aleck commentator did it, but it offended the vast majority of our Irish people. Does the fact that it did this carry any weight with Montrose? Is it to be laughed off as just another smart coup by those in Montrose?
There is no need to elaborate on the unease and the disquiet, as expressed yesterday, about the lack of utilisation of the Seanad. The only positive function for the Seanad in a modern democracy, in a bicameral system, is as a spearhead of an adequate committee system. I know the Minister mentioned in the other House that he is considering setting up a committee concerned with semi-State bodies. I would appeal to him to see that that committee will be a joint committee of Dáil and Seanad and that it will mark the beginning of the utilisation of the potential of the Seanad in a positive national way. Simply reading up the Dáil Debates and giving a re-hash of them is not the proper function of the Seanad.
I wish to return now to the Finance Bill and the grave problems of inflation, the balance of payments and so on that are posed. Galloping inflation has occurred over the last few years and has reached dangerous proportions during the last year. We should realise that we are not alone in this problem. All countries have inflation as a major problem today. Nowhere is it more severe than in the United States. We can make a start at grappling with our problems by looking over the fence and by realising that other countries have their problems, too. We can begin, and should begin, by counting our blessings. I challenge any parent raising a family: "Would you prefer to raise your family here with all our faults and wrongs, or face the task of raising your family in the country with the highest GNP in the world, the United States? Or would you prefer to face the challenge of raising your family in England or anywhere on the Continent?" Anyone who has experienced conditions elsewhere and who has talked with parents in those countries will unhesitatingly say that with all our faults we are still in a very favoured position for the very important task of raising a family.
During my recent travels in the United States I saw the impact there of inflation and the job insecurity and worries are on a far greater scale than ours. Workers, professional people and others may earn bigger money in the United States but they can lose their jobs much faster than anyone in a similar job here.
The whole question of drugs and everything associated with it is very disquieting. Again it is part of an international problem and thank God our problems so far—even though they need to be coped with and tackled— are very small compared to the scale of drug addiction in the other so-called advanced countries.
It behoves us all not to allow ourselves to be carried away with pessimism. No country has ever developed on pessimism. We should not allow the cynicism of recent years to go unchecked. I do not think any political party or any group of politicians can cast mud or impugn the motives of other politicians without automatically taking some of the mud themselves. They themselves must of necessity have some of the faults and failings they ascribe to others. We have got to realise that political life is in every sense a hard and unrewarding undertaking and there should be far more co-operation and far more readiness to acknowledge one another's contribution between those in Irish politics today than there is. It would be better for the country if we had much more joint action and I refer in that to the EEC negotiations. I appeal to the Government not to allow these to become the football of politics. Let us have joint committees of all parties concerned as intimately as possible with those negotiations. At the moment the negotiations are largely a civil service undertaking. As far as I know, there is only one Minister in any way actively concerned with it and the whole of the negotiations are at civil service level. We are going to have a referendum on this, whether the Government like it or not, because it is acknowledged that we have to change the Constitution in some way or another. That means that the Bill to change it automatically becomes the referendum on the Common Market. Therefore, it is essential that the political parties are kept well informed so that they will be much more positive in their approach to the people and there will be much less ill-informed criticism.
Personally, I take a very cautious attitude on the Common Market. In fact I see very little in it to get enthusiastic about. I see a group that has gone from being an outward-looking group in the fifties, which was concerned with uplifting the world as a whole, with feeding the hungry and establishing Europe's role in the context of the Christian democratic philosophy of de Gasperi, Schumann and Adenauer gone inward-looking, gone protectionist and, I regret to say, becoming increasingly devoid of a philosophy or increasingly devoid of leadership in regard to feeding the hungry and the other problems that face the world today. Consequently, again, the common defence aspect has gone out because, thank God, the threat from the east has moderated and has found a counterbalance in the threat from the other side. So that is not the same as in the fifties. Therefore, the main and only reason for negotiating on the Common Market and trying to see what terms we can get is purely an economic reason. We must not sell ourselves short, and we must realise the many advantages we have here, especially compared with the rest of Europe. We have got what is priceless in Europe, free space. We have less than one-twelfth the number of people per square mile as they have in Holland. This is an inestimable advantage and this is what will be prized in the world in 15 or 20 years time. I might express the hope and prayer here that England will make our task easier by not going in. That, to my mind, would be by far the best solution, and we could get down to the task of feeding the hungry. That is, of course, the most positive way of trying to ensure the survival of the world and the prevention of wars, or the keeping of good relations. As well as that, however, we have a very practical interest in it because once we succeed in tackling the problem of feeding the hungry on a large scale we no longer have agricultural surpluses in a world of poverty. We must find out how much our land is capable of producing, and we then have a duty to the world to produce as much as possible from the land; thus can the full potential of Irish agriculture be realised. I should much prefer to see that realised in a world context of a genuine humanitarian crusade to feed the hungry, rather than within the protectionist barriers of a Europe that has gone inward-looking.
Senator Kennedy mentioned the Offences Against the State Act. It is obviously a most serious affair and one that deeply concerns every citizen and should not, obviously, be introduced except as a last resort. If the conditions are so extreme that such a measure needs to be introduced, then obviously it is the duty of the Taoiseach to make the full information available to both the Leaders of the other parties in the House, so that the measure does not, in effect, come in unless all parties are agreed that it must. We have too little of common approach and common facing up to our responsibilities and duties in this regard.
On the question of the Prices and Incomes Bill, I welcome what has been done. Eventually, under pressure of various sorts, including the pressure of the Bill and various actions by the Government, both groups have been brought together and we have got now a prospect of industrial peace over the next two years. In that context the Government would be well-advised to withdraw the Bill, as indeed I believe they will, and give the agreement a fair chance of working out. Obviously, if action has to be taken as a result of serious violations of what has been agreed, the Houses would agree to taking action.
There is very little wrong with the industrial life of this country that a little hard work would not cure. The unfortunate thing is that we have spent the last seven or eight years believing that we can build a country on a formula of more pay and less work. Undoubtedly, many of those in the lower income groups need more to live on. The way to provide that is obviously to provide the opportunities for such people to earn more by either working more efficiently or working for longer hours. That is the only remedy. Pádraig Colum, in the thirties, lamented the decline of the countryside in these wonderful lines:
The silence of unlaboured fields Lies like a judgment on the air.
That applies to our industrial life today. We might say the "silence of unused machines lies like a judgment on the air" because there they are on Saturday after stopping time being paid for collecting depreciation but giving no return. A little give and take would succeed in raising workers' incomes realistically. Where the products have to be sold on the external market as a large proportion of the products of our factories have to be sold, we cannot set our own prices and therefore it should become the responsibility of every factory unit to face up to practical economics and to see that their factory is not closed down because they are pricing themselves out of the market. There is a remedy for the evil of pricing oneself out of the market. It is simply to work longer for the same pay, just like the small farmer who can never be put out of the market or out of business because he is not tied to a clock; he is simply producing an article and when times get hard he has to try to produce a little more to make that bit extra.
The increasing of the upper wage increase limit by the Government from 6 per cent to the proposed 10 per cent is somewhat inflationary, but it is still better than facing the prospect of strikes. We might still, within that context, be able to maintain our competitiveness if other countries have also to follow a mildly inflationary path in the next few years as seems likely.
There is nothing that can solve our difficulties more than "Buy Irish". May I ask the Minister what has become of the Buy Irish campaign? It seems to have totally vanished. It is absolutely ineffective with all the foreign-produced goods which are available in all our stores, and there is little or no evident differentiation. The housewife just buys and is not conscious of the fact that what she has bought was produced in England and that she could easily have substituted it for a home produced article. Until we couple buying Irish with the holding on to jobs at home I do not think we can succeed. We should try to get through to the housewife the message that to keep her children employed here, and to maintain their positions she has got to buy Irish; the more foreign goods she buys the more jobs disappear and more people have to emigrate. We must bring this Buy Irish campaign down to absolute bedrock. As a matter of urgency, will the Minister try to do something about this campaign? Whatever funds are required should be provided unhesitatingly. This is a campaign that generates its own funds in that articles produced here put money into circulation. The result is that, through taxation, the money is dropping into the coffers of the Exchequer, so that the money is there to finance the Buy Irish campaign. The full support of all organised groups, especially the trade unions, should be sought to give this another push in the New Year.
I wish to turn to the question of agriculture and what we can glean from the Finance Act and the Estimates. Unfortunately, we did not learn much except that there seemed to be little or no effort to prepare our agricultural industry for entry into the Common Market, if and when that happens or indeed to step up the efficiency of agriculture. The disastrous two-tier system for milk introduced by the former Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries is now recognised by everyone as being almost a national catastrophe. At present we are actually short of milk to fulfil some of our sales contracts. The sales of dairy produce have improved considerably over the past year. At the moment cheese is being sold at a price that requires no subsidy. Milk powder is in very short supply, and I am informed that if the price it is making at present is maintained over the next year, it could justify paying up to 7d per gallon for skimmed milk. We read of the imagination and initiative of Bord Bainne and their director, Mr. McGough, to whom we should all pay the highest tribute, in setting up this milk reconstitution plant in the Philippines. Is it not unfortunate to see that having invested our money and being one of the major shareholders in it, we must now go out and buy dairy products to keep it going? Surely dairy produce is one of the items we want to sell in the Common Market because it has the highest return per acre we can get, at least twice as high as can be got per acre from beef or any alternative use of our land. Make no mistake about it, if we do get into the Common Market, what we are producing at the time we get in is what will condition the share we shall get of that market. The planners of the Common Market—and they are called "Eurocrats", a new breed of bureaucrat altogether—would like to see us as the beef ranch of Europe. They already have plenty of small producers of dairy products on the mainland of Europe and they would like to give us as little as possible of that lucrative market. We are playing into their hands with the stupid policy introduced last year of trying to reduce the production of dairy produce. I appeal to the Minister to see what can be done to remedy that in the New Year. Admittedly, a step forward was made by raising the level of the two-tier system from 10,000 gallons to 30,000 gallons per supplier before the reduction began to take place. I think what is required now is to concentrate everything on quality and any money the Government can make available in the coming months towards increasing dairy production should be coupled completely to quality. In that way we will ensure that the dairy products will keep pace with the improvement in marketing and in the general production of goods shown over the past few years. In this regard the Government will have to come off the fence in connection with amalgamation of creameries. We will have to get away from the parish pump approach to this question which is bedevilling discussions on it. We have to realise that we must diversify and have minimum units to afford this.
The whole of Denmark is, I think, organised in three or four large processing groups. We have the basis for real groups, for example, Mitchelstown and Golden Vale. Golden Vale are being hamstrung because they cannot achieve the necessary amalgamations. The Government will have to give a clear statement of policy on this. They should encourage fully amalgamations. The provision of trained, skilled helpers in agriculture is long overdue. The dairy farmer is naturally seeking some of the freedom, such as the five-day week, which other workers enjoy. What this means in his case is not that he wants the five-day week, and to send the cows on holidays for the other two days, but simply that he wants to have relief services available during illness or at any other time that he needs help. This could be supplied very effectively through the co-operative societies. A pool of relief workers could be attached to each of these societies. Members of the co-operative society paid by the society could go out on call or on contract to help in various ways, including milking. This is a potential for giving several thousand of our people highly lucrative employment. When we see the amount the Government are spending and rightly so, in order to provide jobs, we might ask why some of that money is not spent in getting the jobs we know are available through relief services.
These relief services could employ quite a number of part time neighbours from the small farms. The owner of a small farm which does not provide him with full employment could spend half the week or longer working in a co-operative group carrying out many of those operations. He probably would have other co-operative groups on his farm to carry out such operations as manure spreading or silage making and at the end of the year there would be a balancing up between what was owed to him for his services in the group and what services he got from the group. I am appealing for a 1970 approach to agricultural organisation and a 1970 approach to the development of the co-operative movement. The potential is there if we could only get down to it.
I should like to mention the Agricultural Institute. This institute has done great work since it was set up some ten years ago. Unfortunately there has been a discernible drift towards stifling bureaucracy during the past year. There was general alarm about the extraordinary system which was used by the institute to make appointments in the past year especially in connection with the Moore Park centre when the services of an excellent man who had contributed so much to the dairying industry were not availed of fully because he would not accept where he was being sent without first being told about it. I hope the management of the institute have learned their lesson. I hope they have learned that the greatest asset they had in the past ten years in developing agriculture was their happy relations with both the farming community and the advisory services and I hope that no bureaucracy in Mespil Road will sever these happy relations.
I wish to turn to another point and that is the conflict between the Science Council and the Agricultural Institute. This is something the Minister for Agriculture should see is stopped. As I read it, the Science Council are trying to exercise an authority over the Agricultural Institute, an authority which was never given in law and could never be given in equity or in justice. The Science Council are claiming that they and they alone should be the channel to decide on all research funds whether to the universities or industry or agriculture. Agriculture is not adequately represented on the Science Council because I do not think it was envisaged, when the Science Council was set up, that they would have this preoccupation with agriculture. At the moment the Science Council regard what the Agricultural Institute are doing as research. It is not research. In the main a great part of the work is what might be called specialist advisory services. Another large section of it is development work. I have been studying results obtained in other countries from new practices introduced and running check results to see whether these apply here and I have been doing the necessary adjustments. That is not research; that is genuine and proper development. It is only a small fraction of the work of the Agricultural Institute that could be called research in the sense of new developments and pioneering into the unknown. That is the confusion that exists between the Agricultural Institute and the Science Council. I appeal to the Minister to see that these two institutes operate separately. The Agricultural Institute should continue to function under the 1960 Act as set up by both Houses of the Oireachtas.
I wish to refer now to education. As this year ends we can be anything but happy about this and especially with the prospect of a very disruptive secondary school teachers' strike. So far as we know the secondary teachers appear to have a legitimate grievance with the Department of Education. I propose to ask my colleagues in the NUI panel and the TCD panel that we get together in early January and that we meet both the executive of the Secondary Teachers' Association and the officials of the Department of Education so that we can find out precisely what are the issues. The teachers say that the Department of Education broke their word and are not honouring part of the award that was granted a year ago. We want to know whether or not that is the case. There must be an answer to that and certainly on the outcome of that answer we could do much good if the six of us could investigate that and give, as quickly as possible, our considered judgment on whether this violation occurred or not.
I am disturbed by the general approach of the Department of Education. All the ideas come 2,000 miles across the Atlantic from America. These methods which are based on the so-called full development of the pupil with very little restrictions on him, with no such things as examinations or tests to decide whether he should go on with the system or not are the kernel of the American system. Has the American system of education produced the type of young people and the type of society that we want for Ireland in the 70s? One would not have to travel far in America to get the answer to that question. There is to be found a general cult of violence and a general lack of responsibility and so on. That is not what we want here. The main positive characteristic of the American system which would be worth importing here is carefully ignored by the Department of Education, that is, the sense of local independence that runs through the system where each school district has its committee, its school board, and whereby they have tremendous powers especially with regard to regulating the curriculum and, unfortunately, too much power in hiring or firing the superintendent. Of course they have also to raise local funds to pay for part of that.
We have carefully ignored that point in our approach. Our approach is that it must be the same system whether it be O'Connell Street or Knocknagree. That, of course, is the very antithesis of the American idea of local contribution. I appeal to the Minister to think along these lines. The secondary school system here has been built by the devoted labour of the Christian Brothers and other religious orders. We have reached a new phase. Vocations to the religious orders have decreased; their commitments elsewhere have increased and obviously we are moving into a much fuller system with much greater lay participation which will probably become the dominant one during the next 10 to 20 years. That in itself should not stop us from acknowledging the great debt we owe to those who built up the system. Most of the comments, especially the more virulent and ill-informed ones that one gets from people in their elevated groups, are directed at the system, with all its shortcomings, that existed about 40 years ago. Many of these critics do not seem to have studied the school system since then. All reform and all zeal for development is not confined to the critics or to the development branch of the Department of Education. The real impetus is the people within the system themselves, both lay and cleric. Within the limits of their finances they made wonderful strides. The secondary schools in Cork city today are excellent and are a credit to those who built them. They are based on a system we should be proud of.
Our newest plans call for community services. All that needs is money. Those responsible for the schools in the past never had the money to spend on that kind of activities. The idea of adult education is very fine. There is a need for adult education but so far we have done precious little in this direction. As a gesture of their interest in this the Department of Education might make a realistic grant to University College, Cork. It was UCC who pioneered adult education on a shoestring. Unfortunately, there is a grave lack of confidence in the Department of Education. There is something very much out of step with our times in its approach to consultation. It is far too much the master and slave approach. A document is issued which is supposed to be a working document and we find in the end that the document is practically identical with a previous one. There are no real consultation procedures and this, more than anything else, is the root cause of the present discontent of the teaching profession with their conditions as a whole.
Even looking across the Border to Belfast you will find that those in the Government concerned with education have a deep knowledge of it. They have either worked as secondary teachers or they have been, like Dr. O'Rafferty, the previous Secretary of the Department, people themselves worthy to rank as scholars. It is wrong fundamentally to recruit into the Department of Education people who are not in a position, by virtue of their experience, to command the respect of both the teachers and the academics and that is the root cause of our trouble.
Finally, I come to the universities. There we have had the Government commitment to this question of university education for all. It is easy to make a commitment. But unfortunately the Government are not matching that commitment with the necessary funds. While the numbers in the university system are increasing at the rate of 7 or 8 per cent per annum, the resources available to the universities for the teaching of those students—for the cost of running the universities—are actually decreasing in real value. We are not now spending the same amount per 1,000 students in real terms as we were expending three to four years ago. Yet it was reckoned then that we had half the resources per 1,000 students as were regarded as necessary. The Report of the Commission on Higher Education said so and said that we should rapidly plan to increase the pupil/teacher ratio, then 24 to one, to at least 12 to one. Queen's University, Belfast, have at least two and a half times the resources per 1,000 students as we have. One of the fallacies there is that the Government and the nation cannot afford this open-ended commitment to education and to university education that was made rather flamboyantly by some Ministers in the past. We have to push up entry standards so as actually to decrease numbers. What we need more than anything else is to have a balance drawn up as to how our students leaving secondary school should be fitted into our national life. We do not want all those to become university students nor we do not want all the top brains drawn off at the expense of recruitment to the Civil Service, to our semi-State bodies and to the other walks of national life that drew from the honours leaving certificate in the past. We must ensure that the brain potential is used for the betterment of the nation and that is something we have not faced up to to date, except to recognise that the level of recruitment to the Civil Service and similar bodies has drastically fallen in the past three to four years. That is the impact of the free university education system.
We cannot go hopefully into the 70's on the basis. Therefore, either recruitment to the Civil Service and such organisations must be made more attractive and must present a real alternative to university entrance at leaving certificate level or alternatively, or possibly with that, provision should be made for recruiting a large percentage of those who were formerly recruited from leaving certificate from pass degree level. Only in that way can we keep up the quality of our Civil Service and similar organisations.
Finally, we are still awaiting a Government decision on the future form of the Irish university system. The universities did a great job for the country and, indeed, for the Government, when in the early months of this year, after a series of meetings over four months, they reached unanimous agreement on the form they proposed for the university system of the future, that was, four independent co-operating universities with a proper structure above, both the financial one of the Higher Education Authority and an academic one, the Council of Irish Universities, to ensure that the four were co-ordinated so as to serve the best interests of the nation, and at the same time make the best use of our scarce resources. That is an admirable plan and I cannot understand why the Government are dragging their feet so much, why they have not already seized on the unanimous agreement behind this. Nobody could put up a better plan. There are many features in it that individuals did not like but the test was always: "But what can you put in its place?" Now we have a plan which respects the individuality and the place of all our university system and ensures that we begin the 70's and begin our drive forward with a united effort, the whole basis having been adequately set for co-operation.
In this regard I should like to conclude by paying tribute to the late Donogh O'Malley in that it was his intervention with this merger idea, unworkable as it is, that really developed the co-operation that flowered in the recent agreement. Therefore, without any loss of face or anything else, the Government can accept that as the basis for our development and go ahead into the future and let us hope then that we have heard the last of plans and commissions and that we shall be on the way to putting some real resources at the disposal of the Irish university system. If that is done, the universities will not fail the country in the years ahead.
I should like to deal briefly with the section of the Finance (No. 2) Bill which deals with the termination of deductions for certain taxes which, in other words, provides that for companies income tax will be increased by 8 per cent in the present year. This means, in effect, that for many companies there will be an increase of 16 per cent and for some companies something in excess of that. I am aware, of course, that the Government, in introducing this provision, were faced with the necessity of raising extra taxation and, of course, the raising of taxation is always a difficult matter. No matter from whom you raise tax, they are not going to like it and no matter in what way tax is raised there will be those who will complain that this is the worst possible way and that it will have all kinds of unfortunate results and consequences. I accept that the Government did have to raise tax, that this was one way of doing it, and that it probably was, in all the circumstances, the lesser of many evils, but I have some doubt whether the Government or whether the Minister and his advisers fully realise the consequences or the possible consequences of raising tax in this way. I am not suggesting of course that any change should be made in the situation for this year but what I would ask the Minister to do is to have another look at this provision between now and this time next year and see whether in all the circumstances the taxation that is raised in this way justifies the harm that might be done—in other words to see whether taxation cannot be raised in some other way.
In dealing with this matter we must recognise that this is a capitalistic society, a capitalistic economy. By and large, it is profit which makes such an economy tick. Therefore, the incentive in a capitalistic economy is profit. This may be an unpalatable fact, it may be undesirable but we do have a capitalistic system in this country and there may be many who would prefer some other system but for the moment we must accept that it is a fact of life of a capitalistic society that profit is the incentive and until such time as we change that we must regard profit as being a necessary and a serious matter in the society. There are, of course, other systems. We could change to a socialist system and indeed there are many good arguments in favour of socialism but for the moment at any rate we have not decided to do that and in the socialist system of course you do not have to have profits, the government merely direct what industries should make what and there does not have to be profits as such. However, for the moment we must accept the position, as it is. What must be emphasised and emphasised very strongly is that you cannot have it both ways. You cannot, on the one hand, say we will continue to have a capitalistic society, and, on the other hand, say we will not allow it to work in the normal way.
There are some half-baked socialists in the country who think that you can have it both ways, who say we are not going to abolish the capitalist system but we are going to make damn sure that the industrialists and business men do not make a profit. That cannot work. Unless the system is allowed to work so that reasonable profits are available, the economy will suffer and ultimately break down because any serious effect on the profits which can be earned by businessmen will eventually have a very serious effect on industry, a serious effect on employment, a serious effect on the balance of payments and a very serious effect on the economy generally. What I am concerned about in section 1 of the Finance Bill is whether the increased rate of tax is such as to have a serious effect on the economy. It can, of course, be argued as the Minister would argue that this is merely an increase from 50 to 58 per cent and while it may be an irritant or it may be uncomfortable to have to pay it, it will not have any serious effect. Of course the Minister may well be correct in that argument but I have some doubt whether in fact this extra 8 per cent which of course this year is far more than 8 per cent, is such as not to have a serious effect. In the long run, certainly if it is continued in operation, it could, have a very serious effect on our industry. Industries of all kinds survive on their profits and the ones which are go-ahead and expand not only survive but expand on the profits they earn, on the cash flow which is provided by the retained profits. As well as that cash flow, they sometimes go outside their industry to get extra money by means of extra shares, loans and so on. But by and large successful industry expands on the basis of its retained profits and in so far as this increased taxation will interfere with the amount of retained profits, will make these retained profits less, it is bound to affect the ability of industries not merely to survive but to expand. Anything which will prevent the expansion of industry at the present time is serious. If this tax will interfere seriously with that expansion, it must be regarded as something which needs reconsideration before being continued in the coming year.
The unfortunate fact about this tax is that it is much more likely to affect the go-ahead industries rather than those which have no particular target in view, which merely carry on from year to year, make a comfortable profit, have no ambitions to expand or to employ more people, to export or to do any of the things which, from the point of view of the national economy, are so important. Such industries may have their part to play but it is the industries that are expanding and exporting upon which our national economy depends. It is unfortunate, if these are to be affected adversely. Those industries which are merely plodding along, that have not any great ambition, probably will be able to pay the extra tax because they will not have anything very positive in view of the utilisation of the money in question.
Apart from the tax that this tax will impinge on retained profits, impinge on the availability of cash flow, availability of money for expansion—that is a matter of hard cash—there is the other possibility that this tax will have a psychological effect as a disincentive. The average company pay 50 per cent of their profits in taxation. Many business people consider that handing over half of everything they make to the State is bad enough but when you reach the stage of handing over more than half it is too much. The incentive to sink large sums in expansion is dampened. This extra taxation may have the effect of diminishing the enthusiasm for those who think in terms of expanding, which is important from the State's point of view.
The State will receive money through this taxation but, on the other hand, one must realise that the State pays out large sums of money to industry as an incentive to set up new industries to expand. It is very difficult to assess what the net effect is of the State, on the one hand, paying out large sums to encourage industry to expand and, on the other hand, the State taking in money from the same industries which will reduce expansion. It is impossible to make any accurate calculation of the net result of that but it is possible that the net result will not be the optimum one as far as the State is concerned from the point of view of the value it gets for the money given to industry and the value received from the money it takes from industry.
It has been said by the Minister that this will not have such an important effect on industries which export. Industries which export are mainly the larger industries and they will not feel this so much and in effect we should not bother so much about those industries which have not got the initiative to export. That is true but, on the other hand, not all industries can export. Many of the industries which start with the local market gradually build up to be important and worthwhile export industries. It is true to say that most of the successful industries which export goods have a firm local base. They are industries which had initially a home market and which developed an export trade. The kind of industry which does not have export relief at the moment will be caught before it is able to reach the stage of benefiting from export. It will be unable to get off the ground and reach the stage where it will benefit from the relief which export industries obtain in regard to taxation. We must realise that there are many industries which do not export but which have a very important role to play in the economy, a role which in many ways is just as important as that played by large exporters. These industries produce goods successfully, they produce goods which can compete with those which might come in from abroad and by making it unnecessary to import goods they have much the same effect as if they were an export industry.
There are also industries such as the tourist industry which, from the point of view of the balance of payments, have an effect on the national economy just as if they were exporting goods. Such industries would be penalised under this taxation because they do not get the benefit of export relief. There are many other industries providing essential goods and giving large employment which will feel the effect of this extra taxation. Even though they do not export, these industries play a very important role in the national economy and are entitled to consideration as to the effect of this taxation on their future activity and success.
In the context of our application for membership of the EEC there has been a good deal of discussion about the movement from the land. The Mansholt Plan has produced a lot of useful comment and a good deal of thinking as to the future of this country. If we do go into the Community it is inevitable that a large section of the agricultural community will have to move from agriculture into other occupations. Although there is a difference of opinion as to the extent of that movement from the land, it is generally agreed that agriculture will not continue to afford a suitable standard of living to the number of people who are dependent on it at present. This means that over the next five to ten years a very large number of people will move out of agriculture and will have to be provided for in other ways. "Other ways" boils down to industry.
Again I am suggesting that this change in the corporation profits tax system might have a disincentive effect. I could be wrong about that, I hope I am wrong, but I am suggesting that this is something which should be looked at again and reconsidered by the Minister before this time next year. Possibly it would be feasible to eliminate this taxation arrangement or it might be possible to modify it so as to make some distinction between profits which are retained and ploughed back into the industry and those which are paid out by way of profits to shareholders. Whether it is eliminated or modified I ask the Minister to reconsider the matter during the coming year. I think there is reason to believe that in the long run if this situation is allowed to continue it could have a serious effect on employment, on balance of payments and on the economy generally.
Yesterday I rose on a point of order at the beginning of this debate and asked for the Chair's ruling if it was in conformity with the traditions of this House that one could speak critically of a Minister who was not present. The Chair declined to give a ruling on a hypothetical question and I accepted that decision but the House will appreciate my situation now because in the course of my remarks I intend to speak critically about at least one Minister, maybe the Minister for Finance who was here until 20 minutes ago, and I do not want to be told afterwards that I have broken all the traditions of this House by attacking a man in his absence. I give notice now to the Parliamentary Secretary who is sitting in for the Minister and to the members of his party that they can defend him as best they like and that I should be spared the rebuke made to me last year in very unparliamentary terms by the then Minister for Finance to the effect that I had broken the House's traditions by speaking critically of Ministers not present.
Will the Senator, then, make sure to wait for the Minister's comment on him in his reply?
On the last occasion when we had the debate on the Appropriation Bill it was an ill-tempered debate.
And the Senator went home.
On the last occasion we had a debate on the Appropriation Bill the Leader of the House, Senator Ó Maoláin—I checked up afterwards—was involved in no fewer than 23 interruptions. That is no example to set to other Senators, least of all those who, like myself, were on their second or third day in the House. Not alone did the Leader of the House interrupt 23 times but we had to endure witticisms from the Minister for Finance for ten or 15 minutes. That produced an atmosphere which exasperated people on this side of the House and undoubtedly contributed to an ill-tempered debate. This debate has been peaceful. I might even say it has been boring. Perhaps it is a bad sign for this House that this is so. I feel it indirectly a compliment to myself that the first interruption from that side of the House should have been made during the course of my speech by Senator Ó Maoláin. I am not inviting further interruptions but I should like to say that I do not intend to be intimidated by Senator Ó Maoláin or shouted down by him as I was on the last occasion. I intend to say what I have got to say, but I do not want to be accused afterwards of attacking Ministers behind their backs.
(Interruptions.)
I cannot hear all of you at once.
Surely the Senator will agree that he must have been very much out of step when the Leader of the House interrupted him? So far as the Parliamentary Secretary is concerned who is sitting in for the Minister for Finance, I should like the Senator to know that the Parliamentary Secretary will defend the Minister both here and in the other House and outside.
Certainly, if the Parliamentary Secretary does that it is absolutely topping. The Parliamentary Secretary who was sitting here last year and the Minister ought to have gone to see the Queen. I expressed the view that a certain Minister was not fit for his office, a view which the Taoiseach subsequently shared when he dismissed him. In regard to Senator Ó Maoláin's interruptions, I do not consider them to be an indication that I am out of step. On the contrary, although I have come to regard Senator Ó Maoláin during the year I have known him with, I suppose, something approaching a twisted affection, it seems to me that when I provoke an interruption from Senator Ó Maoláin I am doing my job and doing it well. To the extent that I make them both go to sleep I am not earning my keep in this House.
The amendment to the Appropriation Bill in the name of Senator O'Higgins and myself is one which I want to speak on first. The purpose of it is, as Senators will realise, to draw attention to the failure of the Government to allow this House or the other House to debate specifically the Government's contingency plan, if I could call it that, to invoke the internment measure of the Offences Against the State (Amendment) Act, 1940. My feeling about the Offences Against the State Act and against all such legislation is that it is a disaster if it has to be invoked. Nonetheless, every country has legislation of this kind and has to use it at one time or another. If the Government honestly and genuinely were to find themselves in a situation that they could discharge their duty to keep the peace and to protect the citizens in no other way than by interning people without trial, then the Government would have to do that. Although it is an ugly and hateful expedient and something which must be looked at critically by everybody, principally of course by the Opposition, this party, I believe, if they were convinced that the necessity was there, would not obstruct the Government in any way. Our point of view is that not alone have we not been afforded an opportunity of making up our minds on whether this measure might be necessary but that if it is necessary, that necessity has been brought about by neglect on the part of the Government during the years in regard to the repression of disorder.
I do not wish to raise weals on the back of Senator Ó Maoláin or anybody else on the other side of the House but it seems to me that Fianna Fáil in dealing with disorder are in the weak moral situation of a reformed alcoholic running a public house. He has old associations with the very thing he has to keep an eye on and he is always subject to the temptation, or part of him is, to roll over the brink again.
I can see the Government have a political difficulty. They cannot be too tough on the "patriots." I use "patriots" in inverted commas, which I hope the reporters will record. They cannot be too tough on the "patriots" because from those "patriots" the Government party have traditionally drawn support and this seems to me to be the political reason, although, of course, there are human reasons such as simple neglect of duty and carelessness, why the kind of people who are now apparently presenting the Government with a serious problem have been allowed during the years to get away with murder.
I wish to draw the attention of the House to this. There are the existing powers of the Offences Against the State Act of 1939 which do not require a special proclamation or a special resolution from the Government to come into effect. That is a Fianna Fáil statute which has been in force since 1939. However, I do not want to wrap it round Fianna Fáil because it replaces the Public Safety Act, 1926, passed by Cumann na nGaedheal and that, in turn, replaced and repealed another statute. In other words the Offences Against the State Act is nothing more than the modern representative of a long line of what used to be called coercion Acts going back to 1800 and beyond. This present Fianna Fáil Act contains in section 10 a penalty provision.
There have been references to an unlawful organisation. The IRA are an unlawful organisation. They were so declared by an order of Mr. de Valera's Government made in 1939 and that suppression order is still in force. They are an illegal organisation, yet scarcely a month passes without a document being printed and published emanating, or purporting to emanate, from this organisation and signed by their adjutant general.
I want to make this quite clear. I am not for one moment advocating persecution of a political kind and I quite realise and I entirely acknowledge that a Government or police force should exercise discretion and perhaps, in certain conditions, even leniency in matters of this kind. The Government should not be falling over themselves to prosecute in every little trivial instance that may occur. I am not at all saying that there should be a persecution of some wretched little crowd of fellows who call themselves an army and issue documents signed "Adjutant General." I do not mean that at all. The Government have means at their disposal to weigh up the seriousness of these threats and some of those groups are more serious than others. We know that now. I should like to know when this section was last invoked. I remember the section being invoked and prosecutions being brought under it in the very early 1960s. I certainly cannot remember any such prosecutions in recent years when the threat was really becoming serious.
Section 12 of this Fianna Fáil Offences Against the State Act makes it an offence to possess treasonable or seditious or incriminating documents. I want to know when the Garda were last encouraged to bring a prosecution under this section. I certainly cannot recall any in recent years. I do recall that in the early part of the 1960s prosecutions of this kind were brought at a time when the violence was directed against the north of Ireland and at a time in which very little, or none at all, had occurred here. Now that we have it at our own doorstep, and have had it at our own doorstep for the last four years, these clauses might as well not have been there because they simply have not been used.
Section 15 of this Offences Against the State Act prohibits unauthorised military exercises. It is less than two years, I think, since the people of this country saw on television a guard of honour of men in uniform—not the uniform of the State—draw revolvers and fire a salute at a graveside. Unless my memory is at fault, that gunfire was accompanied by the sight of officers of our Army standing at the salute. That is an outrageous thing which should not have happened. I simply cannot understand how a Government can claim on the one hand to be fulfilling their duties to keep the peace and to protect their people and at the same time permit that kind of thing to continue.
It is only a few short months since a band of armed men walked down O'Connell Street and discharged gunfire outside the GPO. This may seem an old-fashioned thing to say, and no doubt there are people on the other side of the House who will attribute it to my anxiety to make political capital or to some other unworthy motives, but I believe that I speak, when I say this, for the bulk of the people who vote for Fianna Fáil as well: we do not like to see armed men firing guns in our streets. We do not like to see armed men firing guns in our graveyards. We do not like armed men at all, good, bad or indifferent unless they are wearing the uniform of this State and under the discipline of this State. That is a thing which this Government have not got into their heads, or have only very recently got into their heads.
When some members of this party, and in particular Deputy L'Estrange, made a monopoly of complaining about this kind of thing down through the last two or three years they were laughed at and sneered at by the Fianna Fáil Members of the other House and called "alarmists". They were told that they were trying to make capital out of nothing. Now we see where the truth lies. Now we see where the danger lies. Instead of the ordinary law having been applied when it might have been applied and might have done some good, we are told now that the ordinary law is not good enough. It has to be scrapped. The judges, juries and everybody else have to go out the window. In place of that, the internment camp in the Curragh may have to be reopened and men who may be perhaps entirely innocent will be incarcerated. That simply is not good enough.
There is no use in the Fianna Fáil members claiming that I am making political capital out of this. At its lowest I am entitled to do that because that is what the Opposition is there for. I appeal to Members of the other side of the House and to those who may stand behind them politically or otherwise to realise this. The Government, any Government, have a first duty— perhaps even before management of the economy or before anything else—to protect the people under their charge. That cannot be done unless they preserve the peace.
I am not pleading for harsh measures. I am squeamish about most forms of punishment and I would far sooner that it would be somebody else and not myself who would make the arrests and put people on trial. I know others must be squeamish about this too. I am not trying to minimise how disagreeable it must be to take stern measures against people of this kind, but a Government have that duty and if they are too squeamish to perform that duty or if they cannot perform it for political reasons or if they cannot perform it because they have not got the time to think about it, then they have abdicated from not just one of their responsibilities but from their main responsibility to the people.
Section 18 of this Act describes unlawful organisations and defines what an unlawful organisation is. Section 19 provides for the making of suppression orders in regard to unlawful organisations. That is nothing new. There were similar sections in earlier legislation. In the legislation of the Cumann na nGaedhael Government in 1929 there was a very similar section under which, I think, ten organisations were suppressed in 1931. One of the organisations then suppressed was called "Saor Éire". Some of them have never since been heard of. When Fianna Fáil came into office the following year the Act on which these suppression orders depended was suspended. Of course, Fianna Fáil found that they, too, having got into office, had to discharge the duties of office or at least make a show of doing so, and the Act was then promptly revived.
The Act itself was repealed around 1939 and the suppression orders made under it therefore lapsed. A suppression order was made in 1939 in regard to the IRA and it has never since been lifted. It is still there on the books. But it might as well not be there at all for all the use that is being made of it. For all I know there may be other organisations under other names which deserve to be suppressed.
I know that I may be talking like an authoritarian, autocratic sort of person when I say these things but I say them reluctantly. I do not at all believe in trying to suppress people. I think that the object of a State like this is to allow people the maximum freedom, to allow them as much freedom as they possibly can have consonant with the freedom of others. Provided they do not try to bully their neighbours, they should be allowed to do, say and go what and where they like. When a point is reached where we have organisations that do not accept that, organisations that believe their own political convictions are so unquestionable that they entitle them to override everybody else, then organisations like that put themselves outside the law, of this country at any rate, and outside the traditions of this country.
I do not care whether we have a Fianna Fáil Government, a Fine Gael or any other kind of Government, we share, I believe, on all sides of the democratic political world, similar beliefs in this regard. That is why I think it a serious dereliction of duty on the part of this Government that they have been soft with people like that down through the last few years. I am not pleading for harsh measures. I am squeamish about punishment. For example, I am totally opposed to capital punishment in any shape or form. I am squeamish even about jail sentences. I say this without any particular knowledge, but my impression of those organisations is that they are formed by young inexperienced people. It would not require a heavy sentence or the really heavy hand of the law to make them see sense, but something should have been done about them. The Government here have been far too soft with them down through the years ever since, as I said elsewhere, Nelson Pillar was dynamited four years ago. That pillar ought to have been rebuilt stone by stone because it is not the business of an organisation like that to tell the people of Dublin what they should have in their streets and what they should not have.
I say that not out of regard for Nelson—no one cares twopence for Nelson. I do not care who it was. If it had been the O'Connell Monument or the Parnell Monument I would have said exactly the same thing and for the same reason. Instead of doing that, the Government let them get away with it. Nothing would have been a clearer sign to those organisations that this country, having got its democratic freedom, is determined to hold on to it than if the Government had put the same amount of money into restoring the pillar as they subsequently put into dynamiting the remainer of it and paying compensation to the owners of the shops which they half wrecked in the process.
Section 21 of the Offences Against the State Act makes it an offence to be a member of an unlawful organisation. These are all sections which were in force and they are just as much in force today as any section of the Road Traffic Act which prevents people from driving above the speed limit. It requires no debate, no proclamation, no special order of the Government to bring these things into effect. When was there last a prosecution for membership of an unlawful organisation? Such prosecutions were brought in the late 1950s and early 1960s but, since the present Taoiseach took over Government, when has a single prosecution been brought under that section?
I do not want to hammer these people. I believe many of them are young, inexperienced and foolish. But a short taste of the law, properly and fairly applied—and I do not mean military courts but the ordinary law— might bring them nearer to their senses.
What a hope.
The Senator's side should know. Section 25 of this Fianna Fáil Offences Against the State Act empowers a chief superintendent of the Garda or a higher officer to order the closure of a building if he is satisfied that the building is being used, or has been used in any way, for the purpose, direct or indirect, of an unlawful organisation. When was a building last closed in pursuance of that section? There should be someone on the Government side making those points because it is their job primarily. When was that section last used? Can it be that the Garda do not know about premises which are used by unlawful organisations? If they do know, why are they not encouraged to make use of the power which this Act confers on them and which is at present in their hands without another stroke of the pen on the part of the Government, the Taoiseach or anybody else?
Why are these things not done? This is what the ordinary citizens would like to know. It is what we should all like to know. It is not good enough for the Taoiseach to say—he did not say it to the Dáil—that the ordinary resources of the law are insufficient and that he must now use this internment provision which is hateful to people who believe in the kind of democratic system we have and that we have inherited. Let us be fair about it. It is not good enough for them to say that the ordinary resources of the law have failed and that nothing now remains except this hateful expedient of internment on suspicion, without trial. If this Government had been diligent in pursuing, I do not mean prosecuting but in keeping track, could they not have repressed disorder and violence and crime of a political kind over the last few years? They could have put down those bank robberies and the men walking around in uniforms and discharging guns. If they had shown diligence in that, then it might be possible for the Government to say: "We are at the end of the road," or "juries are being intimidated. We cannot get witnesses, we cannot get evidence. The gardaí are up against a stone wall. The only possible way we can keep the peace is by locking up the whole lot of them, everybody who ever had a file in the Special Branch will go in and stay there until we have peace again."
If the Government were to say that, having tried their best under the ordinary law, then it would be hard for a democratic party, and that means hard for this party, to contradict or to oppose them. At it is, everybody in the country must be against them. They are confronted with a situation similar to that which they produced when the Criminal Justice Bill was being debated two or three years ago, which has since been withdrawn.
It ought to have been possible for somebody on the Government side to that effect. But nobody on the Government side says these things, or if it is said it is done in the privacy of the party rooms. We never hear anything of this kind coming from the Government side in public, either in or outside the Houses of the Oireachtas.
The last point I want to make which may be relevant here is the question of wearing uniforms. Here, the State can make a terrible fool of itself if it pursues or prosecutes people too radically: indeed if a policeman is trying to do an impossible job people will take a delight in twisting his tail. Now, it must be an offence to raise a para-military organisation and to clothe that organisation in uniforms. For example, section 264 of the Defence Act of 1954 makes it an offence to wear a colourable imitation of defence forces' uniforms. I shall not pronounce on whether men walking around in black berets and battledress are wearing a "colourable imitation of defence forces' uniforms", but it would be worth a test case. As far as I know, a test case of that kind has never been brought.
That law exists for the protection of every person inside and outside this House. As a citizen, I want to know why I have not got the benefit of that law, and I want to know it on your behalf, Sir, as well, and on behalf of everybody in this House. That law is there for one benefit—it is not there as a weapon of tyranny. I know quite well that the Government—although I disagree with them and dislike them in every possible way and for every possible reason—are not tyrants or dictators. I concede that. Whether the Government may turn into such in the future is a matter we need not embark on now, but I know that they do not intend to tyrannise or to dictate to the people; they feel that if they can jog on and buy their way to the people's hearts they do not need to do anything more severe than that. I acquit the Government at this moment of any intention to behave like tyrants or dictators, but I do not acquit them of the charge of gross neglect of the people's welfare in this absolutely primary matter of the keeping of the peace and of protection of the people.
The Government do not really understand how the people feel about this. I am not trying to make a cheap political point but I know that the Government party have had difficulties during the past six or eight months, and maybe this has deflected them from doing their job. But let me make it absolutely clear that ordinary people in this country will submit to government, even by Fianna Fáil, provided it is a democratically chosen Government, and this Fianna Fáil Government are I concede that. The people will submit to it and will understand and respect the reason why it is there. What they will not submit to is people telling you that the only legitimate organisation in the country is a band of 20 or 30 young men in battledress. They do not like it and they like it still less when those people brandish guns and put on a show of force. The people expect the Government—and I mean any Government—to exert authority not in the interests of the party that form the Government but in the interests of the State itself and in the interests of the people who make up the State. I consider it derisive that this matter should be treated, as it was in the Dáil the other day, of so little importance that for the Opposition to make a fuss about it was described as childish.
To give the converse of that, I think it creditable that the Leader of this House, and whoever else was concerned, apart from Senator O'Higgins, should be able now to give expression to points of view which the other House has not had an opportunity to do. It is disgraceful that the Dáil should be regarded as disentitled—and by that of course I mean the Opposition in the Dáil, because the Government's mind we know—to speak their mind on this issue. It is terrifying that the Government could pretend and could get their Deputies to pretend that the matter was a trivial one. It is not trivial and God help us if we ever get to the stage that the possibility of internment without trial is regarded as something trivial, because the day that happens there will be no practical difference between us and Spain, on the one hand, or Czechoslovakia on the other, depending on how your sympathies may lie. It is not a trivial matter and it is disgraceful that the Government should have treated it as such.
I should now like to say something of a more general kind about the conduct of the Government's affairs, particularly in regard to the responsibility of the Taoiseach as head of the Government and as Leader of the Dáil, and his very special responsibility to maintain our democratic system in some condition of respect with the public. Yesterday, when replying to complaints from this side of the House about the long recess, Senator Ó Maoláin said that the reason why the Dáil had found it difficult to get through their work was Opposition humbugging—that is what he called it. In the copy of the Official Report of the Dáil which I received this morning I find that Deputy Colley, Minister for Finance, said something of a similar kind about the Opposition's performance earlier this year. At column 904 of Volume 250, he is reported as having said:
Both the Fine Gael Party and the Labour Party have consistently held up the business of this House in this session. We know, and Deputies have referred to it on the other side of the House, that there are numerous important items of legislation which should be brought before the House and should be enacted in the interests of the people, legislation which the Government are ready and willing and able to enact. The reason why these legislative measures have not been reached is because of the tactics of the Opposition parties wasting the time of this House.
I will not make a pathetic complaint on behalf of the Opposition parties or on behalf of my own party but I want to say this in regard to the attitude of mind which that discloses on the part of Senator Ó Maoláin and the Minister for Finance, Deputy Colley. Democracy is a tender growth and those who have charge of it in Government for the time being owe it a duty of restraint and of decency, and of fair play and of give and take. They owe, in particular, a duty to understand the job that the Opposition are doing for two reasons: first, because that Opposition, sooner or later, may be called on to form a Government, and secondly, because the Government of today will be the Opposition of the future. If I were a member of Fianna Fáil and if I apprehended leaving office, either next month or next year or in five or ten years' time, I should be very apprehensive at the kind of treatment I would be likely to get from the Government which would succeed me if we were to take as a precedent the way this Government have behaved towards the Opposition. It is not simply because Fianna Fáil ought to keep their stock up with the Opposition and in order that they will have an easy time when they move into Opposition that I say this.
You will wait a long time.
That is exactly the kind of sneer which will be the end of the Fianna Fáil Party. My blood runs cold whenever I hear that kind of Stone Age politics coming from that side of the House.
The Senator should examine his party's conscience——
(Interruptions.)
When I hear people on my own side saying things which are vainglorious, I feel equally upset, but it happens far less frequently unless my feelings are distorting my judgment. When I hear a party like Fianna Fáil—or any party— sneering at their opponents and saying, "You will wait a long time: we own the people, we have them in our pockets and we are going to run off with them," I ask myself if that is not Nemesis—hubris if you like. It is the way they will be brought down sooner or later.
Did you not say before the last election that you would win?
We did.
Was that not hubris— arrogance?
No it was not. It was mistaken prediction.
(Interruptions.)
I cannot hear you all at once. This attitude towards the Opposition, that they are humbugging and wasting time, does not insult me. I know it is Senator Ó Maoláin's job. It seems to be what the people expect from him. I am not personally insulted by it one bit.
I must protest strongly. I have never insulted the Senator nor would I agree that anybody should do so. What I have said surely should not be taken as an insult.
An Leas-Chathaoirleach
The Senator's word must be taken on that point.
I accept that Senator Ó Maoláin did not intend a personal insult when he spoke about humbugging. However, I submit it represents the front which his party feel they have put up. The Minister for Finance, Deputy Colley, in the words I have quoted, disclosed a similar point of view. They cannot treat the Opposition in that way. The Opposition have their own troubles, their own problems.
I am glad the Senator mentioned that.
Those on the opposite side who have been in Opposition should remember that because they will have to face those problems soon enough. When in May of this year the Government failed to have a crisis, Fine Gael supporters whom I met at branch meetings and elsewhere asked, "Why cannot you put them out?" as though it was a simple matter of just walking across the Chamber, in the Dáil or here, and physically ejecting the Government from their seats.
I realise that this seems a bit of a joke, but that kind of expectation should be translated into what the man in the street really feels. He knows quite well there is no question of physically ejecting the Government. We can only muster the number of seats we have won, and no amount of filibustering or other parliamentary tactics will bring the Government down when their supporters walk into the lobby behind them. What the man in the street really means is that when a situation becomes so serious the Government ought, of their own accord, to fall. I know that is optimistic, but it is what is meant by the man in the street.
Business suspended at 6 p.m. and resumed at 7.30 p.m.
Before the interval I embarked on what Members of the House may consider was a lecture about democracy and I certainly do not wish it to appear that I am lecturing the House in any academic way on this subject. Its relevance in this politically disturbed year is obvious. Many people, particularly those on the Opposition side, feel frustrated that because they have fewer seats in either House this prevents them from demonstrating effectively how they feel. This weakens the whole system unless those who are in Government come some of the distance to meet them. It may seem strange if I say that to people on the Government side; it may appear to them that I am making some sort of plea such as "let us be nice to the Opposition". I am not doing that at all. Let there be no holds barred. The Government should understand that they are the custodians of the system for the time being and this may not be for very long. In saying this I am not making any rash predictions and I am not sneering at the other party in regard to their electoral prospects. For the time being they are the custodians of the system which is a delicately poised system and this requires much honesty, restraint and generosity on their part.
The democratic system as it works here, or in any similar country, could be likened to some kind of a game or match in which the Government, simply because they have got a majority are rather like a football team with 15 men playing against another team with only ten. A game of that kind is no fun for anybody unless the rules are adapted or conventions arise which give the team with fewer men a fair go at the ball. If the 15-man team continually rides on the ten-man team as though they have exactly the same number of people against them, the spectators will get bored and will go away and watch some other kind of game.
That simile is not a very elegant one but it is effective enough in these days when we read about the alienation of Parliament from the people. If they are alienated from the Dáil they are 40 times more alienated from this House which is scarcely ever allowed to meet. That is a very serious matter indeed. The Seanad must not be regarded by the people as simply a place in which a Government majority automatically rides down even the most reasonable approaches on the part of the Opposition. If the people become bored, the blame for that must lie with the Government.
Let us take the crisis, or non-crisis, of May. I do not want to make cheap jibes about that crisis. I can appreciate very well that even in a Government which adhere to a tradition every single part of which I reject, there may be honest differences of opinion. Nonetheless in that crisis, or non-crisis, an enormous number of people, notwithstanding the opinion polls gratuitously and superficially conducted by a monthly paper, considered that the Government owed it to them to go back and consult them.
That is what John Costello did in 1951 when his Government ran into trouble. It is not interpreted as that nowadays. The Coalition Government, or the Inter-Party Governments, are now said to have run away from their responsibilities. They did no such thing and anybody who believe that will believe any lie. John Costello went to the country in 1951 because his Government had run into serious trouble—nothing as serious as that Mr. Lynch's Government ran into this year, but serious enough to warrant in his view an appeal to the people for a vote of support. The people did not give it to him and so out he went. In exposing himself to that possibility he was operating the democratic system according to the highest and best traditions.
In 1956 he did not run away from his responsibilities when part of the Coalition split. Two vital members of Clann na Poblachta withdrew their support and put down a motion of no confidence and Mr. Costello did not get a majority. Had he held on to office he would have been doing so in defiance of the ordinary rules of the game. That Taoiseach, although he held office only for two short periods —periods of great difficulty both internally and externally—did inestimable service to Irish democracy. He is an elderly man now and is retired from politics but he will be honoured in the history of Irish democracy even by his opponents.
I do not know if the same will be said of the present Taoiseach in regard to his handling of the situation this year. I firmly believe that the Government should have appealed to the people in a general election this year. It is possible that if Mr. Lynch had gone to the country in June or July of this year, he might have got back. Had he gone to the country and then got back he and his Government would have a moral stance and the democratic system which he operates would enjoy a respect among the people which is conspicuously absent because of his failure to do this.
The situation of an Opposition here is difficult. You must not frustrate an Opposition. Certainly you must fight them if you are in Government—that is part of the game. Fight them, criticise them, laugh at them if you like, if they do things which are foolish or ridiculous, but do not forget that in Government you have all the advantages on your side. In Government you have a Civil Service doing your homework and writing your speeches for you; you have unlimited access to publicity; you have cars to drive you to meetings. All these things are becoming increasingly important year after year as the media concentrate more and more on personalities. This imposes an even greater duty on a democratic Government to respect those who differ from it and not to treat them like children, not to treat their opinions like dirt, not to laugh at them or ride them down. It is important for a Government to exercise respect and restraint and not to frustrate the feelings of those who disagree with them even if they undergo temporary unpopularity as a result.
The reason it is important is that the democratic system depends on people not being frustrated and being given a chance to speak their minds and express their point of view. I am not trying to juggle with figures—I have already conceded in this debate that the Government we have here is a democratically elected Government—I am not going to go back over old ground about the fixing of the electoral boundaries or anything like that.
It is a democratically elected Government; possibly there were some dummy votes; possibly there were cases of impersonation; possibly cases of intimidation or something like that— that might apply to both sides. However, for the 600,000 people who voted for Fianna Fáil last year, 650,000 voted for Fine Gael, plus the Labour Party, and a few more tens of thousands gave their votes to Independents. In other words, even though I do not complain in the slightest about the growing majority which this Government have, they must recognise that they represent a minority point of view.
That is common practice in Western Europe where many Governments are supported by less than 50 per cent of the electorate, but this democratic system which is under such fierce attack these days from both left and right depends on a sense of restraint by a Government. The greater the number of people disagreeing with the Government the more vital it is that that restraint should be exercised. In my submission that restraint not only is not exercised but it is despised and ridiculed when Ministers like Deputy Colley, or people like Senator Ó Maoláin describe the Opposition's efforts to have a serious crisis debated as "humbug" or as wasting the time of one House or the other.
It has already been pointed out that the extent to which Private Members' Business is dealt with either in this House or in the Dáil is most inadequate and I am not going to add further words of condemnation. The amount of time given to Private Members' Business is only one aspect of it. The whole tendency of this Government is secretive, it is to get things away from the people, not just from the people outside the House but even the people inside the House. Discussion is regarded as a waste of time, debate is a formality only to be gone through for the sake of the superficial decencies. The decisions are really made in the Government Departments and perhaps at the Government meetings on Tuesday mornings.
Unfortunately that is not democracy. We know very well that legislation must originate in Government Departments and we know quite well the leading role that Government meetings and dealings within the Government play in our system. However, if you have got a representative system and if you go through the motions of having a Parliament—which costs a lot of money and which represents for better or for worse the people's right to be heard in the decisions which affect themselves —then you must take the consequences of that and exercise restraint and generosity towards those in Opposition. The Government should not gather all things unto themselves; they should not continue the trend which has been seen in the Dáil in recent years of giving as little information as possible and of not answering a question if it can possibly be managed. Another example, is the manner in which semi-State bodies are not subjected to examination.
All these lines of action are antidemocratic and when I say that I am not setting up the repersentative system of democracy on a pedestal. It may be a poor system in many ways but in 1970 the alternative to it is something like Castro. That is the only alternative to it and if we do not want that, then we have got to make our existing system work.
In the Dáil last Friday—Volume 250 of the Official Report, column 832—a Fianna Fáil member said "It is time Parliament asserted itself in some way."
An Leas-Chathaoirleach
I should like to point out to the Senator that it is not customary or orderly to refer to arguments which were made in the other House except possibly in the instance of arguments which were advanced by Ministers and which are replied to in the course of the debate in the Seanad. It is not customary in either House for Members to refer to the debates in the other House.
I would warn the Senator that I was the subject of an onslaught in the Dáil this evening for referring to the other House.
Perhaps it would not be disorderly if I were to recommend to the Members on the other side that they look at Major de Valera's speech of last Friday at column 832 of the Official Report. It will be seen to support very substantially some of the things which I am saying here.
It is not sufficient to say that the Opposition have been ridden down and that the people are being given a sense of frustration. This is politically dangerous; I do not just mean dangerous to Fianna Fáil but dangerous to all of us. In addition to that, the standards which we see here in Government and the standards which we see here in public life are poor, and there is no way of denying it.
In this debate last year I mentioned something that is now perhaps lost in the mists of the past. However, it was stood over at the time by the Taoiseach, namely, the incident involving the then Minister for Justice and a house in Castlebar. I am not going to rake up that incident again but let us be objective about that. That incident was deeply discreditable to any Minister, let alone a Minister for Justice, and there ought to have been some reaction from the Government other than a mere statement by the Taoiseach that he saw nothing wrong with it. Everybody knows that it was wrong and the public will only take so much of that without becoming sick of the whole democratic system which can allow such events to occur and renders it impossible to do anything about it.
I know this will be open to misinterpretation but I think that this country, many of whose citizens experienced sacrifices and did so much work in order to free us from the British, may have made a poor exchange if that is the kind of Government we are going to get. I do believe that is what the Irish Republic was all about in the minds of the people on either side who went out in 1916, or in 1921 or 1922. That was not what they understood by a Republic nor what everybody today understands by it. When I hear people muttering vainglorious words about the Republic all they mean by "Republican" is their right to be more right than anybody else.
Do they ask themselves about ordinary standards of conduct in public life? Is that not a component of a decent Republican and ought they not to give some of their time to that topic as well as to questions about the north of Ireland or the Irish language? These are serious matters not just for the Dáil but for the people.
The people are sick of this conduct and they expect the Opposition to take pitchforks to the Government and physically put them out, which of course cannot be done. That could and would be done with a different kind of Opposition than Fine Gael but this party believe in democracy and in an orderly and lawful way of doing things. Whatever about individual aberrations that is what this party were founded on.
June 18th, 1922 —do not remind me of that lawful way of doing things.
Are we going to get Stone Age politics for ever? Is there going to be no end to such politics in this House or in the other House?
An Leas-Chathaoirleach
I should like to point out to Senators that neither the Stone Age nor 1922 is covered by the Appropriation Bill before us now. I call on Senator Kelly to resume.
I was going to say I would be surprised and disappointed if I did not get help from Senator Ó Maoláin.
An Leas-Chathaoirleach
The Senator should restrain himself from saying that. Will the Senator please continue with the Appropriation Bill?
Another Opposition might get out on to the streets and make a nuisance of itself. It would get far more newspaper space if it did so and far more television coverage. But a responsible Opposition does not operate like that and that imposes an even greater duty on the Government to understand their responsibilities towards those who may disagree with them. I do not know if my remarks will have any effect on the Government. I see a good attendance on the other side of the House. This criticism may run off them like water off a duck's back and, if so, I am wasting the time of the House because nobody on this side will disagree with what I am saying.
The Opposition went into the streets before.
Think of the people.
I am sorry to see the Parliamentary Secretary go because I enjoyed my couple of passages with him. However, I am glad to see the Minister for Finance back because I wish to say something about him. In regard to the matter I have just mentioned, namely, the low standards which are swallowed here and which the people have almost given up expecting the Opposition to be able to do anything about because of the necessities imposed by simple figures, I gave as an instance, although I could produce other instances, the incident in Castlebar. The Minister will have to take my remark personally because it is personal but it is not said in malice.
I remember the Minister for Finance being the subject about three or four years ago of a profile or interview published in The Irish Times conducted, I think by Michael McInerney. The Minister's profile, which was rather oleaginous, quoted the Minister—I will not say word for word—as implying that he did not follow some course of action open to him—I forget whether it was becoming a barrister or something like that—because Pearse would not have liked it. Would Pearse have liked Deputy Moran's constituent being put into a house——
The Senator is quoting incorrectly. He may be quoting the author of the article but I do not think he is quoting the Minister.
I accept that. Perhaps I was wrong to rely entirely on my memory but I remember that that was the impression left with the man who wrote the article. I do not think it dishonourable to use as a criterion for one's public life the hypothetical reactions of a man who gave his life for Ireland. But how can that point of view, which I have to assume is shared by people on both sides of this House, be reconciled with these standards that I have been speaking about? It may only be a small point, but it is a serious one, and ordinary people take a poor view of that kind of behaviour and cannot understand that nothing can be done about it. The Government, as long as they have a majority, are impregnable. That is the long and the short of it.
The truth is that this public cynicism and despair should be just as worrying to Fianna Fáil as it is to the Opposition. The Fianna Fáil Government are in office as a result of a democratic system, but they are riding that system into the ground by not showing the necessary respect for the views of others, either the organised Opposition or the inarticulate majority outside. The cynicism in this country in regard to public life is really dreadful and I am not going to preach to the people about it because I think there is a great deal of substance for it. Not only in regard to jobbery and such matters, but the cynicism in regard to suddenly proclaimed items of national policy is horrifying.
One can, as an example, take the Irish language revival in which so much talk in English has been lavished. Fifty years ago the Irish language revival was able to attract recruits from the Anglo-Irish ascendency. Lords and ladies donned kilts and in the eyes of their own peers made asses of themselves by changing their names into Irish and going around refusing to speak English. What a change has come over that movement now. When one finds a road in an Irish town which has a name suggestive of patriotism, a street or a road named after Tone, Emmett or Pearse, it is almost certain to be a local authority road because no private builder will give a name like that to his road. No private builder will put up a row of suburban houses and call it Connolly Villas. The local authorities do it because that is the line they are supposed to follow. That is why you get Markievicz buildings and Connolly block of flats and so forth, but private people do not do that. It is not enough just to say that it is simple middle-class snobbery, because the middle-class was very heavily involved in the Irish revival 50 years ago. It is not enough to write it down to snobbery. What it must be written down to is disillusionment and sickness at the way that movement has been treated and at the use that has been made of it politically by people who felt it was worth two hoots to them.
That would apply to Trinity today, more than any other place.
Why Trinity?
All the patriots are now wandering around the place as it suits them.
An Leas-Chathaoirleach
If the two Senators would cease their private conversations, Senator Kelly could resume on the Appropriation Bill.
I have taken up a lot of the time of the House but I do not often get a chance to say these things here as this House does not meet very often.
Another thing conducive to cynicism, and justified cynicism, is the fantastic publicity-touting by Ministers, by members of the Government and Parliamentary Secretaries. However it is not simply a question of publicity-touting. It is unworthy and unrepublican for a man to try to get his picture in the paper every day of the week. We do not have paid publicity touts in this party or if we have it has been kept a secret from me. It is unworthy, it is just not the kind of thing the Republic ought to be about. It is not so much the photographs I object to but the fact that every time I see a Minister grinning at somebody handing him a drink it means that the Minister is spending two or three hours at some function in which he has absolutely no interest. He is depriving himself either of time in which to do his job or, equally important, of time in which to relax and get a bit of rest.
I am not being sarcastic when I say this. Ministers must be very heavily worked. I think it is unfair to a Minister or to a Parliamentary Secretary or, for that matter, to a Deputy or a Senator, to expect them to be out every night at various functions, wearing a black tie more often than any other kind of tie. It is unfair and it is a physical strain on them. But Ministers do that because they think that that is the only way in which to keep in with people. Pearse would not have liked this kind of republicanism. If Pearse had lived to this age he would not have been at the Jacob's television awards——
How do you know he would not?
I am as entitled to make hypothesis about him as the Senator is. The Senator's Party have done this to a greater degree than anyone else. I daresay this man would not have done and they are things which, even a bit later than Pearse, men on both sides of Irish politics would have scorned. I regard this as something which is lowering politics and lowering both Government and Opposition —although the Government, of course, get the lion's share of it—in the eyes of the public. The people are sick of this kind of politics. They are sick of little disgraces and little scandals being brushed over. They are sick of big scandals being ridden out by the Government, as though the Opposition were impertinent in asking for a debate. They are tired of Government by publicity, Government by press agent, Government by hand-out. They are tired of these things and they are right to be tired. If that system is perpetuated either by Fianna Fáil or by us if we get into office it is going to bring about the end of parliamentary democracy. There are powerful forces at work in this country and everywhere else in the world; people who do not spend their evenings at receptions, drinking and smoking, who have not got public commitments during the day, who are working away to bring down parliamentary democracy. They will bring it down unless Parliament reforms itself from the inside.
The last topic I wish to raise is one I have mentioned in this House before. It is the final and perhaps greatest reason why the cynicism and public disillusionment of which I speak is so marked. I read in the Irish Times on Monday that a Member of this House, Senator Keery—I am not going to attack him but I am sorry he is not here—had issued a statement calling for a complaints commissioner in the Republic, similar to the Northern Ireland Commissioner for Complaints to deal with the grievances of families who have applied for rehousing by a local authority. He mentions a sense of bitterness which people experience when they find themselves without houses. I do not blame them. This sense of bitterness, Senator Keery feels, springs from two factors. Firstly, the length of time spent on waiting lists, and, secondly, the feeling that some applicants have been unfairly rehoused ahead of others. Senator Keery has recommended that local authorities make every effort to see that housing applicants are kept fully informed about the progress of their cases and are given sufficient information to enable them to see that each case is dealt with strictly on its merits. For example, in the case of allocations made to applicants without reference to the points system, it should be made known that the successful applicant was a key worker or that his application was a priority case. If that is Senator Keery's point of view, what is he doing in Fianna Fáil. Fianna Fáil's attitude all along has been to keep the public in the situation that they are dependent on public representatives to get anything done for them. That system is operated by Fine Gael as well and I presume, by the Labour Party also. We have no option but to do this. I do so myself in a small way. However, it is a degrading and stupid system, and of all the things I have mentioned it is the one which is most calculated to bring this democratic system into disrepute.
There have been occasions which the Government were asked to consider setting up public advice bureaux or the office of an Ombudsman. On the 9th December last Deputy Corish asked the Taoiseach if, in view of the growing complexity of legislation, the Government would undertake to establish citizens' advice bureaux throughout the country, initially in strategic provincial centres. I quote from the Taoiseach's reply at Column 663, Volume 243 of the Official Report for 9th December, 1969:
I consider that the requirements of the public for advice on such matters are adequately met by public representatives, Departments of State, local authorities and various voluntary organisations.
This is the Republic we are talking about.
Mr. Corish: How, for example, does a citizen get advice from a Member of this House or the Seanad when the Dáil and Seanad are in session?
An Taoiseach: A good party organisation would have somebody acting for the person in his own constituency.
The reality of that, as everybody here who does even a little bit of work with his constituents or with his prospective or past constituents will know, is that it maintains the people in a state of dependency and of ignorance. A similar reply was given by the Minister for Transport and Power, Deputy Lenihan, when Deputy Ryan asked him at column 1907, Volume 248, of the Official Report of 23rd July last about the establishment of an Ombudsman. The Minister in the course of his reply, rejecting the idea of an Ombudsman, said the Taoiseach had said that he would not be averse from examining the possibility but the Minister said:
It is pertinent to say we have here a very democratic system in which there is a total availability of local and national representatives, where the people are concerned and the rights are remedied through questions put to the House and in my view there is no strong demand for this sort of institution that has arisen and is working in countries which have not got our strong democratic type of system in which representatives are readily available to the public.
That is not a strong democratic system, that is a system of beggary and serfdom, that people should be dependent on public representatives even to know what their rights are, not alone to get their rights.
I have spoken on this subject before and I feel very strongly about it. This is supposed to be a Republic and one of the things which I understand about a Republic is that it consists of free citizens. When a citizen has to come crawling to a man who is looking for his vote in order to find out what his rights are, not alone get them, it is a denial of the idea of a Republic to my mind, and that again makes me wonder if we have made such a good exchange. Where is the justification in talking about a Republic when these people are being progressively reduced to being serfs?
I do not do a lot of this kind of work but I have to do some. People come to me with the same kind of problems with which they come to every other Senator or Deputy. I go through the motions of writing to Government Departments and the Corporation and the people concerned get the help they needed. They come back to thank me. I try to say: "You are entitled to a health card, and there is no need to thank me." However, I can see if I were to stay at this job for long I would soon slip easily into the attitude of saying: "If you had not come to me you would not have got that card at all." I find it humiliating to find men who are old enough to be my father, who were adults when this Republican struggle was going on in the years 1916 to 1922, thanking me for having obtained something for them that, in fact, is their right. I regard this as slavish and backward and a democracy which enables that kind of system to persist is a democracy which is absolutely doomed.
Let me say this about the hated English. They have not got that system there, or if they have, it is not to the same extent. A British Member of Parliament deals with four times as many people as an Irish Deputy because the ratio of population to Members there is about four times larger than in our country. A British MP thinks he is busy if he deals with 100 constituency questions per week, while there is many a TD and some Senators who feel they are slipping unless they deal with 200 or 300. I regard that system as degrading and the most humiliating fact is that the English do not have it.
I assume the Senator has discussed that with a Member of the British House of Commons, and their attitude when the Ombudsman was brought in?
Certainly. The British attitude towards that Ombudsman was that the Member of Parliament must be preserved in his entitlement to direct access to his constituent and the Ombudsman in Britain.
To serve his constituents?
Yes. The point is that the system in Britain is not nearly as bad as it is here. I do not know what the reason is, but I must assume that the English MP does not encourage people to think that this dependency is important or that they can only get their rights by approaching him. In addition to that, in Britain, virtually every town of any size has a public advice bureau from which people may obtain assistance. There is also a social welfare system in England, as the Minister well knows, compared to which ours is a joke.
Germany is a country which I know fairly well. I find it difficult to explain to a German what the system is here. He does not understand what I am talking about when I explain about people coming along to us.
From what the Senator is saying, it appears he does not know.
I would remind the Senators to address the Chair and I should like to point out to Senator Kelly that it is not appropriate to advocate legislation in this debate.
I am not advocating legislation. I am simply advocating decency and self-respect. It requires no legislation for public representatives to stop codding people that they will not get their rights except via the interference of the public representative. It is only a short step from that kind of patronage, or assuaging of constituents, to jobbery. I have often heard the Taoiseach say, or reported as saying: "You have not got any evidence of corruption or jobbery. Shut up about it." I must confess that I have no evidence of money ever changing hands in this country and I certainly would not hesitate to use the privilege of this House to say so if I had. I have no evidence of anyone taking a bribe but I do know that there is jobbery. In the few years during which I practised at the Bar I could see it operating around me as flagrantly as it possibly could be operated. When I hear the Taoiseach or Ministers piously saying: "Do not believe this stuff. This is all nonsense. This is all untrue." I say to myself. "Why should I make an act of faith in the absence of jobbery when in the only profession in which I ever operated in which jobbery could work it was worked as badly as it could be?" I am not going to name names here because many of the people involved are friends of my own. The people who get State work at the Bar are in no respect intellectually inferior to the people who do not. I am not in any way suggesting that the people's work is given to individuals who are not fit to do it.
Let us assume that about a quarter of the barristers are Fianna Fáil supporters, about a quarter are Fine Gael supporters and the remaining half— there are also a few Labour supporters, I suppose—are politically uninterested. All the State work, with negligible exceptions, falls into the Fianna Fáil quarter. There are some well-known Fianna Fáil barristers who do not get State work and the reasons for this are entirely honourable to themselves. The fact is that in order to get on to the Attorney General's panel, unless you are an expert in some obscure corner of the law which nobody else knows anything about, you have to be either an open or a secret supporter of the Government. I am stating it in broad outline; I hope I am not doing an injustice to individuals but that is the size of the matter.
That is a system which operated here under the British and like many a bad thing it has been continued here after the British left.
(Interruptions.)
Senator Kelly to continue without interruption, please.
The matter of appointing judges is something about which the Fianna Fáil Party should sing pretty dumb. I do not want to become incoherent with rage about it and will not continue——
Acting Chairman
I wish to point out that we cannot have this cross-chat across the floor of the House. I must ask Senators to address the Chair.
I did not mean to raise the matter about appointing judges. It was Senator Garrett who raised it first.
Could the Senator tell me the the name of any judge appointed in the ten years of the Fine Gael Government, or in the six years of the Coalition Government, who was not a member of the Fine Gael Party?
The appointment of judges here has always been a political appointment ever since the British left.
Acting Chairman
The Senator should be allowed to continue without interruption.
The people on that side of the House do not seem to be able to get it into their heads that I am quite willing to debate something in which my own side may take a beating as well. I do not mind one bit raising a subject in which Fine Gael can be criticised. It seems to me to be illuminating about Senator Ó Maoláin that they imagine that I have fallen into a great trap when I raise some subject in which my own party's record is less than immaculate.
I want to bring that point out.
I am just as angry when Fine Gael do this as when your party do it and I will be the same when we get in.
Except that the Senator said in the context he was attacking Fianna Fáil. He was not attacking the system in general.
Acting Chairman
Senator Kelly to continue without interruption.
I am just about to conclude. That system of jobbery at the Bar is a dirty system. There is absolutely no reason why, if a few ten thousand pounds is going from the Attorney-General's Office to prosecute accused persons or to appear on behalf of the people of Ireland in civil proceedings, that money should not be spread around evenly. That is putting it at its lowest, and only from the point of view of barristers' earnings. What is so disgusting about it is that a barrister who may be pulling the devil by the tail, and some of them are, is faced with this situation in his own mind. He realises that if he goes through the motions of making a speech for Fianna Fáil outside a church he may get a prosecutorship.
That seems to me to be disgraceful. The importance of it is this, not so much about the Bar because it is only a corner of life and a fairly obscure corner into which light is not often thrown, that for me at least, it destroys the credibility of any plea that the Taoiseach or the Minister for Finance or any other member of the Government might make about the cleanliness of the Fianna Fáil Government. How can I believe that everything is above board when with my own eyes I can see, or did see when I was in practice and still do see, this operating?
Why talk about Fianna Fáil? Why not talk about the Senator's colleagues at the Bar. I understood that the Bar was above suspicion.
Senator Honan will get a chance and he can blame Fine Gael then.
But the Senator is talking about the Bar.
Acting Chairman
I again wish to point out that we cannot have this cross-talk. Senators must address the Chair. Senator Kelly to continue.
Let us not shop straws about the Coalition or about Fine Gael. The people voted the Fianna Fáil Party in and I am not complaining or whinging about it. I am a democrat and I respect and obey the people. The people voted them in in 1932 and since then they have been there for all but six years. They must carry the praise or blame, according as the case may be, for what they are always talking about as "the quality of Irish life." One cannot open a paper these days without reading about an Irish Minister talking to schoolchildren about this matter. This is the quality of Irish life; this is the reality of it. There is no use in pointing to the short years of the Coalition Government. All my life, except for a couple of years, I have lived under a Fianna Fáil Government. The same goes for Members of this House who are the same age as myself and younger. They have to ask themselves what has come out at the end. What kind of State are we left with in the end? Is this a Republic.
A Republic is not just a matter of flying a flag and making vainglorious statements about the north of Ireland or about Ireland's destiny and inalienable rights and so forth. A Republic is about standards which imply higher pay and decency and self-respect for individual citizens. That is not the kind of Republic we have got. I know quite well there are people on the other side of the House who know in their hearts that I am speaking the truth and who are sick that things are as they are. It is their job in their own party for so long as they are in Government to do something about it. The ordinary people of the country are not necessarily heroes. I do not know whether the people in the country would, in general, spill much blood to preserve parliamentary democracy. Certainly they will fight for their homes and families and, perhaps in a general way, for their country. I have no doubt about that. But I am not at all sure that the Irish people would put up much of a fight for parliamentary democracy as such. We should not be too sure that they will offer much resistance to a system which offers to take its place. I am absolutely unconvinced that the Irish people contain a large majority of people who would go to the barricades for the representative system. If they refused to do it the blame for the resultant disaster must lie on those who have abused, or insufficiently respected, the system and failed to take the chances and the opportunities of operating it properly.
First of all I should like to welcome the contribution of Senator Kelly both before and after tea. Although I do not necessarily agree with many of his remarks I regard his approach and contribution as refreshing and stimulating.
I would like to refer to the situation that existed from the middle of last year onwards in spite of the many criticisms of the Government and of the Taoiseach. The performance of the Government since the last general election, during the very difficult period of 1969 and during the recent period, was very good. Although I would not expect members of the Opposition to accept it, I have found that the view around the country, particularly among young people politically uncommitted, is that the Taoiseach and Government have done a very good job in endeavouring to provide stable and sound government for the country. One should also say at this stage that in relation to occurrences last year in the north, the Civil Rights Movement did succeed in bringing about a breakthrough in Northern Ireland that could not have been achieved in any other way. I refer to it in relation to the reforms that have either been introduced or are being introduced. I am looking at the question from the national point of view of what will be good for our country in the long term. Such development as the disbandment of the B Specials and the disarmament of the RUC are significant and I hope will be mature steps towards the eventual creation of a more normal situation in Ireland. When this is done the introduction of further reforms should help to bring a change of attitudes in that part of the country and, I would hope, will help to reduce the bitterness and the hatred and the fear that has existed there at different levels since 1921 and earlier.
I should also like to say a few words in regard to the nationalists in the northern part of the country. Their main dilemma over the years has been that they themselves could not achieve what the Civil Rights Movement did bring about simply because their perfectly normal and legitimate role in the north tended to make their own position within that area somewhat divisive. That is in the sense that anything they would do, or did, appeared to be purely party political against the administration in power there and over the years it has always been too easy for the Stormont régime to defeat any efforts made by the nationalists simply because they were nationalists and, incidentally, because they were mainly Catholics. For the first time in 50 years there has been in the Twenty-six Counties a much clearer focus on the problems of the two communities in Northern Ireland. People here are beginning to realise that they may have been ignoring the really deep-seated problems of the north and in so ignoring they may have been giving the wrong impression that we in the Republic were on one side in a sectarian fashion. In a sense we may have been allowing ourselves to be seen as a sort of threat that was locking the system in the polarised way that existed in the north until recently.
Referring again to recent events, one of the significant things this year is the fact that the period of almost incredible tension during the months of July and August passed uneventfully in the north. There is great credit due to a large number of people from both sections in the north, particularly to clergymen of many denominations. There is credit due to political parties here in the south and to the Taoiseach. During the period to which Senator Kelly referred I, myself, was beset with the fear of what might happen in the north. There is something here for which we should be grateful.
On the appropriation side reference has been made to the Department of External Affairs on the question of the EEC. Within the brief the Minister is doing a very good job. The feeling has been expressed here that not sufficient information is coming out in regard to the EEC; we have not had sufficient discussion on this. I am not very much in favour of the debate of "for" and "against" that has been going on in some parts of this country, because this is not a formation of opinion. It is simply a taking up of attitudes without being prepared to listen to the different arguments and arriving at some intelligent understanding of what is meant by the EEC. Having studied that particular problem over the past ten years, I am very much in favour of it, but I should like to see more information being filtered through to the people.
I agree with Senator Ryan in the remarks he made regarding the possible disincentives of increased companies tax. I am not in favour of companies that are making profit not paying as much tax as one could get from them, but the incentive side of it is really the important thing in our economy. If people are really putting a drive into industry and into exports they are generating prosperity and providing employment.
Reference has also been made to the effects of the two strikes. There was some criticism made of the Government on this matter. I do not really know what a Government can do in situations of this kind unless one is to do away entirely with freedom to strike, with which none of us will agree. The bank strike, in particular, is an example of the wrong sort of thing that should happen in any community—that a monopoly situation should be used to make demands in a way which could be, and possibly may have been, very damaging to the economy.
There is one aspect of the local government side of things that I should like to refer to, apart from those mentioned by Senator Kelly. There is a tremendous difficulty in relation to getting information about planning applications. I know that there is a Planning Bill that has been delayed but I find that a great deal of one's time is taken up in trying to get information. I wonder if it would be possible to provide some sort of information service at that level. It would at least let the ordinary people know where they stand in relation to applications. I could list quite a number of people who are frustrated because they do not know what is happening and it is difficult to get information for them.
I welcome the acquisition of minesweepers for the defence of fisheries, I am told that this is very badly needed and in reading the cost figures it seems that this is one good deal that has been done. The sooner we have them the better.
I am still concerned about the increases in the public service transport system. I am prepared to admit that quite likely these increases are justified but I should like to know what the increases are based on. As the public owns the transport service here in Dublin they should be given a picture of what is causing these increases which are quite substantial.
I welcome also the change in relation to Trinity College, Dublin. This is a sign of maturity. The matter had been causing a lot of annoyance and worry but now it augurs well for the future.
There is one aspect which has been brought to my attention in recent times which the Minister might give some thought to. It was mentioned already by one of the Senators from the opposite side. I refer to the treatment of first and second offenders. Perhaps the Minister for Justice might consider if it would be possible to arrange a parole system for young persons who are first or second offenders, so that they could attend technical schools or, if possible, they might be able to attend such centres as are being set up by An Chomhairle Oiliúna. The important thing to remember about youngsters who do get into trouble is that this is to a large extent environmental. The conditions in which they normally find themselves in prison are conditions which can only increase the risk of an entire life being spent in an unproductive way. There is one Institution at Shankill and my information is that what is being done there is not interesting and is not equipping young people for any sort of future life. Would the Minister for Justice examine this situation? This is not the sort of thing that you set up a commission for, it is simply a matter that requires a decision from the Minister. It would be well worth trying, particularly in a city like Dublin where teenage problems are increasing as the tempo of life increases.
Still referring to the Department of Justice—as I said last year and said elsewhere during the year—public begging in the streets is still as prevalent as it was. Even as I was coming over here for a meeting this morning at 9.30 I was stopped twice in O'Connell Street. This is the sort of thing that is happening continuously. I am concerned about it from the tourist point of view as it makes a bad impression but I am also concerned about it from the point of view that it is professionalised.
The unfortunate people have to live.
I agree with Senator Kelly that people have to live. My information is that that sort of activity is not necessary. All I have said before in relation to it and I am saying it again is that it is taking place in areas of this city mainly because we do not seem to have enough gardaí to deal with it. I am not suggesting that there should be prosecutions but because it is against the law I am suggesting that if there were a sufficient number of gardaí it would not take place in the areas in question. I do not deny at all what Senator Kelly said but there is such a thing as harassing people in the streets. There is such a thing as professionalised begging, apart from the professionalised selling of raffle tickets for charity.
Senator Kelly mentioned the Irish language. There seems to have been some improvement in this area in the past 12 months. I am speaking as a member of the Irish Language Council. At least an effort has been made to get at some of the sources of the difficulties. I welcome the developing attitude of the Department of Education and the schools towards the use of an easier system of teaching spoken Irish rather than the constant drilling of grammar and so on.
I welcome the Minister's announcement of a radio service for the four Gaeltacht areas. Perhaps when he is replying he might give us an idea of the range of these radios and if they would be available to Dublin. Quite a large number of people in this city would be interested in this. I have seen some criticism of this but I am afraid I do not go along with it. If we have got people in Gaeltacht areas who do know Irish they should be entitled to some service. I noticed a letter in the Press a few days ago criticising this very strongly but I do not agree with the writer of the letter. I do go some way with him when he refers to the idea that if anything is done for the language it will start in the cities and I am inclined to agree with this attitude. It is from the growth centres that you get leadership. I think that it is here in this House and in the other House and perhaps in this city that you will get the good example eventually in relation to our own language, though I am fully behind the Minister in his efforts to provide a means of livelihood in the Gaeltacht. The whole idea if we have any interest in our culture and in our language should be to try to provide a livelihood. This is the thing that mostly concerns the people in the Gaeltacht areas.
There is an amendment before the House and a good deal of time has been given to it in relation to the Taoiseach's announcement regarding internment. Perhaps a lot has been made of this. As I see it there is no internment at the moment and no Act has been brought into operation. I hope it will not be necessary to introduce such a measure as this. If it did become necessary I believe it should be applied only to the very small group referred to who claim that they have the right to rob banks with arms for political motives. Senator Kelly mentioned this question of the right to protest. This Act should at no stage involve any of the ordinary political or protest groups. I am speaking of political protest groups outside this House or to political parties outside this House. We are accustomed to these. Even though in some cases there may be protests against such things as the EEC I would still defend their right to make protest and I should not like to see them in any way being harassed. A living democracy must tolerate all kinds of protest short of the use of arms. What I am getting at here is that I would not like to see any of these people who believe what they are saying, even though I could not go any part of the road with them, being made scapegoats in the event of the authorities being unable to find the culprits if something does happen that makes it necessary for the Government to introduce special regulations. I believe that the statement that was issued last Friday week was issued with the best intention in the world and may achieve its purpose which was to act as a deterrent. If it does achieve that purpose I certainly would congratulate the Taoiseach on it. It takes a great deal of courage to stand up and be counted in that kind of situation and where you have young people who may have been led to believe by others, because of different traditions, that all sorts of things are right, it is important that before the thing gets out of control it should be made quite clear to them that they cannot hope to get away with it through the courts. That is the purpose behind the warning and I hope it succeeds.
I do not entirely agree with Senator O'Higgins in some of the things he had to say yesterday. The Government and the Taoiseach have the right to make a statement in order to prevent something from happening. I do not agree either, and I hope I am not wronging Senator O'Higgins in any way, with his suggestion that during this year the interests of our party were coming before the country. Perhaps I am wrong in this but it was implied anyway in what Senator O'Higgins was saying. I do not expect the members of the Opposition to accept what I might say on it, but let me assure both Senator Kelly and Senator O'Higgins that there are times when one feels that one has a very serious obligation to one's country to provide government. It is not as simple a thing at all as Senator Kelly was suggesting that the Taoiseach and the Government should have gone to the people in June or July. To my mind, and I had to talk on this myself, to have done such a thing would have been completely irresponsible in the situation that existed at that time, and I do not think that the suggestions by some of the people in some of the papers reflecting on some members of our party regarding the way in which they voted, entirely do them credit. It takes great courage sometimes for a man who feels very strongly on an issue to change his mind and it does not mean that he is doing it for selfish motives.
I am not going to hold that the affair can be construed as reflecting nothing but credit on Fianna Fáil from start to finish.
No. I am not suggesting that at all, Senator Kelly. I am merely suggesting that one can be looking all the time at one side only and there can be a second side, there can be two sides.
Sorry to interrupt Senator Brugha on this but the only relevance of this was to refute the idea that the Opposition's part had been what Senator Ó Maoláin called humbugging. We were doing the job we thought we were there to do.
I am not only giving my own opinion, I am giving the opinion of quite a broad number of people who regarded that marathon debate last May which went on for two days and a whole night as being something verging on the irresponsible and certainly a waste of time. However, this is a point of view. It is not necessarily the correct one. In the condition which existed you could have seen it from the point of view of the importance of maintaining stable government. If you come forward to the week before last you find that in two by-elections the attitude of the electors had not changed from June of last year. So perhaps the Government were right.
Senator Kelly could be mistaken also. He was referring to a number of Acts including coercion Acts. I think it can work out in a different way. This idea of putting people in for short sentences can have an entirely different effect on them. There is a danger that young people will see themselves in a patriotic, heroic light. I, myself, dislike the entire business of arrest, charges, trial and so on, or any type of imprisonment, but I think there is always the danger with continued trials of young people who are involved in what appear to them to be patriotic activities, that they will be elevated and get headlines or undue exposure through the modern media. Therefore I do not agree entirely with Senator Kelly's remarks.
It is nothing to the headlines they will get once they are locked up in the Curragh.
It would require something very serious for that to arise. The seriousness of the situation, so far as the vast majority of the people are concerned, would justify the action that the Government might find it necessary to take. I sincerely hope it does not occur, that people will have second thoughts. I also hope that, if internment had to take place, any such place of detention would be open to inspection by the Human Rights Commission at Geneva.
In conclusion, I would like to compliment what is known as the Kilmainham Jail Restoration Society. They have done excellent work voluntarily. Not alone that, but over the past couple of years they have been providing lecture tours for young people from schools. I understand from some of the schools that the lessons in history given to young people visiting Kilmainham Jail have impressed them very much. It might go some distance towards the future raising of the levels to which Senator Kelly refers. This is the sort of activity that should be encouraged because such places as Kilmainham Jail are the well springs of inspiration.
It only affects small children. Once they become adults, they see the whole thing.
Perhaps they hear too much in the homes or maybe what they read or hear through the various media encourages the cynicism to which Senator Kelly refers. Nevertheless I think it is an encouraging development.
To say that the events of the year just past have left a great deal of confusion and uncertainty in the minds of the average Irish man and woman is fair comment. Briefly to run through these events, in the early part of the year the then Minister for Finance announced that an economic crisis existed, and his announcement was followed up quickly by pronouncements and actions by the Government which belied all that he had said in the first instance. This created confusion, so that people did not know whether there was or there was not a crisis. They certainly did know that if there had been a crisis it did not go away in the short period that elapsed between the Minister's statement and the subsequent actions. Shortly after that came the dismissal of prominent Government Ministers on the Taoiseach's suspicion of their involvement in an arms conspiracy. Subsequently these Ministers were cleared by the courts. Yet the Taoiseach allowed his suspicion of complicity to stand. This created more confusion. The average Irish man or woman were worried. They had fears based on lack of information and uncertainty. The onus was on the Government at that time to allay these fears but far from allaying these fears, the Taoiseach in a dramatic announcement on 4th December last threatened to enforce Part II of the Offences Against the State Act.
We, in this party are totally opposed to internment without trial. It is not good enough for the Taoiseach to say that because of some mysterious forces within the State, the ordinary process of law was not sufficient. This is a very far-reaching measure, frightening indeed in its content and impinging on the civil rights and liberties of every man and woman. It is a threat which certainly should not be allowed to hang over the Irish people indefinitely. It is not good enough either for the Taoiseach to say, as reported in today's Evening Press, December 16th, that the threat of kidnapping important people was not something the Government dreamed up. We need a little bit more information than that. What alarms me is when he says: “Until the Government was satisfied”—I do not know if this is quoted properly—“that the threat which they had received on the most reliable information was removed the possibility of introducing Part II of the Act remained.”
This would seem to indicate that this is something we will have to live with for a long time. We are not told by whom the plot was made and we do not know how any government can ever be satisfied that no such threat existed. I do not think the Taoiseach has shown cause for introducing a measure which has caused such fear and concern in the minds of the Irish people who are totally opposed to the idea of internment. Like my colleague, Senator Kennedy, who spoke earlier this evening, I would express the hope that, when this Prices and Incomes Bill is withdrawn which we hope will happen within the next few days, the next action will be to withdraw from the Statute Book this obnoxious Offences Against the State Act.
This debate ranges over the whole spectrum of Government expenditure and certainly it would be futile for any of us at this juncture to try to embark on a full debate on all the services concerned. It is most important that we confine ourselves to those areas of activity with which we have most contact and particularly to those areas about which we feel strongly. In that respect and using that yardstick for myself, I have no hesitation in starting in the field of social welfare because many of the normal services have been neglected, while more political matters have taken up our time during recent months. No section of the community need our help more and no section of the community have suffered more as a result of this neglect than the recipients of social welfare.
One does not know where to begin in criticising this system. It is based on outmoded concepts. Built into it is the conviction that to be poor or disabled or in need is also to be dishonest. I need only bring to Senators' minds something which some of them may not be very familiar with but with which those of us who are involved in local politics are very familiar. This is the free boot scheme. It may be a very small aspect of social welfare but it is one which highlights the whole attitude towards recipients of such aid. Boots are stamped for those people who cannot afford to buy boots for their children. Our repeated requests that parents of those needy children be paid in cash and trusted to spend that money on boots for their children have been denied by successive Ministers for Social Welfare.
In any other scheme of grants or aids to people who are better equipped or better off financially, we depend on them to spend their money on whatever scheme happens to relate to them. But in this sphere of social welfare there is the suspicion that the parents of those children, if entrusted with the money to buy boots, will in fact spend it on some less worthy cause. We have two standards. We have the standard which we apply to what we call the ordinary living wage required to keep the family with a working father or a business father and the other standard which we apply to social welfare recipients. As proof of what I am saying let me take the case of a man who is totally crippled. This man who has a wife but no family is 30 years of age. He has a disability benefit of £6 17s 6d per week. He applied to Cork Health Authority for some supplementary allowance but such are the restrictions imposed on the aid which can be meted out to these people that Cork Health Authority, having considered his case and the hardship involved, decided to pay him an additional 10s per week. Now I ask the Senators in this House would anybody ask a disabled man and his wife to live in 1970 on £7 7s 6d per week? I know that everyone of us here in this House tonight has spent that amount perhaps very often on just one meal. So we do accept two standards. May I add before I leave the case of this man and others like him that for these people there are no schemes for free light, free travel and other facilities which have recently been applied to old age pensioners, and to which the old age pensioners are fully entitled.
We also apply the lower standard to widows. There seems to be a belief that a woman and any number of children can live or can survive on half as much as is required to keep the average family where the father is working. The same overheads exist, indeed they may be greater, because many of the services can be provided by a father of a family from his own industry. There is no question of relating the benefits paids to a widow to what is required with regard to the standard of living and to what is considered a family wage. Again none of the benefits such as free electricity or free travel apply to her. As I am speaking about widows tonight I should like to pay a very special tribute to the Irish Widows' Association who have highlighted the problem and who in the short period they have been in existence have succeeded in making great strides and in bringing considerable relief to their members.
A great deal remains to be done, however. There must, first of all, be the realisation that the rearing and care of children is in itself an important service to the nation and that these people are entitled to any amenities they are given. Instead of that we have mothers of families forced out to work because of the miserable pittance they get. Many of them who are working have payment of these miserable pittances stopped and their plight is desperate.
What I have said about widows and disabled persons applies to all recipients of social welfare. As well as the fact that the allowances they get bear no relation to money values, they have the frustrations of long delays in payment. Increases granted last October are not paid yet. When I say that I do not say it as a criticism of the civil servants who work in the Department of Social Welfare because any of us who has had occasion to make representation to them on behalf of people who come to us for help, find them most courteous and helpful. It would appear that the staff of this Department and of other Departments also are not numerous enough. They are overworked and cannot cope with the large volume of piecemeal type legislation that we are passing to cope with the problems of the people whom the Departments are meant to serve.
I have known delays of up to nine weeks in the payment of disability benefit. People who are known in rural areas are usually given groceries on credit during the waiting period but such delays should not happen in the year 1970. The plight of old age pensioners is much the same. They need more comforts and more help. It costs them more I suppose to run a house because they cannot look after themselves and yet they do not get anything like their due reward for their service to the country when they enjoyed better health. The whole system of social welfare needs to be scrapped. There is no way in which we can reform it. All the taxes which everybody pays must be our insurance against illness and poverty and if any of these misfortunes strikes us, the benefits that we get are our right. This is the attitude we should bring to bear in regard to social welfare recipients. A number of commissions have been set up to deal with the problem. If there is one more commission to be set up I would suggest that it be set up to look into the system of social welfare —to look at it in depth and to bring in for the future a blue print for a more humane, just and equitable system than we have had in the past. All the increases for which this Finance Bill makes provision and other increases outside the Finance Bill such as increases in turnover tax, bus fares, postal rates, have made their impact on the people to whom I am referring and in fact they have weighed more heavily on them and they have been less able to bear them than anybody else.
My first appeal tonight is for social welfare recipients because while we have of necessity been involved all this year with grave national problems, we tend to forget the plight of several of these people who need our help and who should be given all the attention that it is possible to give them.
I will now say a few words on housing. This is another matter about which I have a certain amount of knowledge, a matter with which I come in contact ever day as a member of a local authority. Let me say without hesitation that all members of local authorities must be very frustrated because of the lack of communication between the Department of Local Government and the local authority concerned.
Without going into detail, there are these long delays in sanctions, tenders are turned down because they are regarded as being too high, and there are also rising housing costs. There is the big difficulty of people who are forced to depend on local authorities for their homes but who, if there were some system available to them could in fact build their own homes.
Nowadays we meet young married people who are looking for advice and who are generally looking for some mysterious place from where we can get money for them to pay a monstrous deposit whether they are building a house or buying one. There is the restriction in a country area of £2,700 on loans. Grants total £600, making a total of £3,300. But any house they can buy in any scheme today works out at £4,500 to £5,000 and very often to £6,000. These are reasonably moderate homes, three bedroomed houses. But it leaves a balance of anything from £1,200 up, and these young people recently married have not got £1,200.
We already voted for a loan the repayments on which will work out probably at £6, £7 or £8 a week for them but this problem of the deposit is a monstrous one and we will have to adjust our whole system of aid towards housing if we want these people to help themselves. The result at the moment is that they live in unfit and overcrowded dwellings, they live with parents and in-laws and they are on a queue for local authority housing. Those of us who are associated with that type of activity can see no immediate solution to the problem. For each house that becomes vacant and for each new house that is built, there are three or four applicants. Even in the case of a scheme there will be nowhere near the number of houses for which there are applicants.
This is something we need to take a fresh look at. I do not think what we have done in the past will solve our housing problem. There could be some question of subsidised loans which people could utilise to build their homes. Also, the question of deposit must be looked into and must be cleared up forthwith if we are to meet the needs of the people.
Again with a sense of futility I wish to speak about the people of rural Ireland. Those of us who come from rural Ireland, who mix with people of rural Ireland, are very conscious of their needs and of the fact that they are not getting their share of what there is to share today. Having been involved to some extent in the recent Dublin by-election this fact was brought home to me. I noted several people living in luxury in that area, good luck to them, but it is a standard of living which I know most of the people in the country can never aspire to in their lifetime. It brings home to one the inequitable distribution of what there is to divide in this country. Rural dwellers are without water, without sewerage, without light in many cases, and one asks oneself what has become of all the grandiose schemes to provide them with these facilities. Long before I became involved in public life, there were 10 year plans and five year plans to provide rural dwellers with water on tap and each area was laid out so much one year, so much the following year, and, depending on what sort of plan you were in, if you were unlucky you waited five or six years. We find in our local authority, I am sure we are no exception, there are people who are in the second year, and and count themselves lucky, of that scheme and are still without water. We have millions of pounds worth of schemes lined up for attention, some of them dating back to 1954 and 1955 with no hope whatsoever that we can see of money being made available for them in the near future.
This is a service for which money should be made available in greater measure because these are people who pay their rates, and those rates are becoming a very great burden. While there might be some derating of agricultural land, there are people who are not holders of agricultural land, there are people in villages, there are people in small towns, who are very heavily burdened at the moment. In our area we have quite a headache in this respect. The Health Act alone will be responsible this year for a further increase of 14s 6d for people in Cork county, and 17s 9d for people in Cork city. This is for health alone. Rates certainly have become a burden which most people and especially those who have not had the benefit of any derating whatsoever and whose houses carry heavy valuations and are no source of income to them are finding it almost impossible to meet.
Finally, I shall say a few words on the amount of money being made available for education. None of us begrudges anything that is spent on education and we have all welcomed such extensions as were made in the education facilities during the past few years. I noted in the year under review just one aspect to which I should like to refer—the question of physical education. Down through the years we have all made a point, and I think with some justification, that physical education must go side by side with everything else involved. We felt that our Irish children were very much behind the children of other countries in that respect and it was very disheartening to find that in the year under review only £19,000 was made available for this and only 20 male teachers were trained. At this rate of progress I can see quite some time elapsing before we can bring physical education to all our schools. Maybe I am being unduly pessimistic. Perhaps some better scheme is in the pipeline and we will make up for that in the very near future.
There is also some evidence of cutting back in very recent months. We have, as usual, delay again in sanctioning school building but we also seem to have in recent months a tendency to cut back somewhat on school transport. I have been dwelling to a great extent on people in rural Ireland. School transport has been a blessing to them. They have been loud in their praise of this scheme. Having produced the service and got it off the ground, it would be a pity to cut back on it. As a result of this we have had a number of small children walking distances where it was not necessary for them to walk, and where very often the expense involved was not very great. I hope that the school transport system, inefficient though it was, will be extended still further. There are people still who are on the routes of these buses, who, because of the strict application of the regulations have to walk to school while their neighbours are being transported. We should be a bit more flexible and cater for all children as best we can.
I will conclude by saying that I hope the year ahead will be one in which we will have fewer crises in the first instance, less tension, more prosperity, of course, and a real effort to effect equitable distribution of what wealth we have among all our people.
Sé an tsuim airgid atá luaite anseo ná £462,023,676. Pé tuairmí atá ag éinne mar gheall ar chúrsaí oideachais, cúrsaí caiteachais, nó cúrsaí airgid, is mór an méid airgid é sin, agus tá sé de dhualgas orainne mar Bhaill den Oireachtas féacaint chuige chomh fada agus is féidir go gcaithfear an t-airgead san le h-éifeacht agus le tairbhe.
Ar an gcéad dul síos is mian liom féin labhairt ar chúrsaí oideachais agus níorbh fhearr rud a dhéanfainn ná tosnú le bunoideachas. Ar an gcéad dul síos caithfear an méid seo a rá: Is iontach go mór an dul chun cinn atá déanta le roint blianta anuas maidir leis na háiseanna oideachais atá curtha ar fáil ag an Rialtais d'aos óg na tíre seo.
Tá cuid des na háiseanna sin lochtach fós. Rinne Seanadóir éigin cúrsaí iompair a lua. Ceart go léor. Tá lochtanna le ceartú againn agus tá fadhbanna le réiteach fós. Diaidh ar ndiaidh, tiochfar ar réiteach na bhfadhbanna seo. Ach ní heol dom aon tír san Eoraip, fé láthair ach go h-áirithe, go bhfuil na háiseanna maidir le saoriompar go dtí na meanscoileanna chomh maith is atá in ár dtír féin, agus silím go bhfuil muintir na hÉireann an-bhuíoch den Rialtas a chuir na háiseanna sin ar fáil dóibh.
Anois maidir le bunoideachas tá characlam nua ar tí a theacht isteach ins na scoileanna. Tá sé fé thriail le tamall anuas agus tá sé á chur isteach diaidh ar ndiaidh agus sé an bhunaidhm atá leis an characlam nua san ná seans a thabhairt dos na daltaí fás ó thaobh coirp agus intinn chomh tapaidh is atá ar a gcumas. Bhí am ann nuair a tuigeadh don Roinn agus dos na cigirí comh fáda is d'fhéadfadh duine a dhéanamh amach gur cheart go bhfásfadh na daltaí go léir ins an scoil ar an luas chéanna, go bhfásfadh a n-intinn ach go h-áirithe ar luas áirithe, agus thagadh cigirí isteach agus iad ag súil go mbeadh gach duine ins an rang ar fheabhas ba chuma cén caighdeán intleachta a bheadh aige. Ach ní mar sin do chruthaigh Dia an cine daonna. Thug sé buanna do dhaoine áirithe seachas a chéile. Múinteoirí maithe ar fud na hÉireann, thuigeadar é sin agus thugadar cothram na Féinne do gach dalta faoina gcúram agus do rinneadar iad a chosaint. Buíochas le Dia go bhfuil an lá tagtha anois nuair atá an bun-phrionsabal san aithinte ag an Roinn.
Maidir leis an gcaracham nua ní rachaidh mé isteach ins na mionphointí a bhaineann leis. Tá rúdaí ann atá go han-mhaith ach tá baol ann ar an dtaobh eile, maidir le nithe bunúsacha mar litriú, uimhríocht mheabhrach, táblaí agus scríbhneoireacht, go ndéanfar faillí iontu, mar tá an tuairim tagtha isteach ins an tír anois gur cuma le héinne cén saghas litrithe a bheadh ag duine nó cén saghas scríbhneóireachta a bheadh aige agus gur cuma in Éirinn i dtaobh uimhríochta agus táblaí toisc go bhfuilimíd ag maireachtaint ins an "Computer Age" mar a tugtar air.
Níl aon "computer" agamsa agus ní dóigh liom go bhfuil "computer" ag éinne eile anseo ach oiread. Pé fadhbanna a bhíonn le réiteach agam is im cheann féin a dhéanaim iad a réiteach agus is mar sin a bheidh an scéal go fada an lá. Go hiondual is ceart do gach dalta táblaí agus litriú a fhoghlaim agus iad a bheith ar bharr a mhéire aige nuair a fhágann sé an scoil.
Tá rud eile ag déanamh buartha go mór dom fé láthair agus dá lán de mhúinteoirí mo linne féin agus is é sin na coláistí oiliúna. Ní dóigh liom go bhfuil an caighdéan chomh maith is a bhíodh sé ó thaobh na múinteoirí atá ag teacht as na coláistí oiliúna. Is cuimhin liom na blianta taithneamhacha a chaith mé féin i gColáiste Oiliúna De La Salle agus cuimhneoidh mé go deo ar na blianta sin. Chuaigh an mhúinteoireacht agus an teagasc agus an náisiúntacht a múineadh dúinn i bhfeidhm go mór orm agus ar mo chomrádaithe agus rinneamar ár ndicheall pé rud a fhoghlaimíomar ansin ó thaobh léinn, iompair, tír-ghrádh, a thabhairt do na daltaí faoinár gcurám. Gheibhim anchuid gearán fé láthair, daoine óga ag teacht amach as coláistí oiliúna agus beag-mheas acu ar ár gcultúr agus beag-mheas ag a lán acu ar rudaí tábhachtacha eile. B'fhéidir go bhfuil an leigheas le fáil sa mholadh seo ón Údarás um Árd Oideachas. Seo sliocht as Tuarascáil ar Oiliúnt Muinteóirí— The Higher Education Authority Report on Teacher Training. Foilsíodh é i mí Meán Fómhair na bliana seo agus ar leathanacha 16 agus 17 alt 16, gheibhimíd é seo.
Under present regulations students are required to enter the Primary Teachers' Training Colleges in the year they take their Leaving Certificate. If they do not do so, they may never become primary teachers unless as university graduates they are admitted to the one year Training College course for such. We have been informed by the Training College authorities of their unanimous belief that the teaching profession would greatly benefit if nongraduate mature students could be admitted to training and furthermore that each year they receive applications from such candidates, many of them highly suitable and well qualified who have made a mature decision to enter the teaching profession but under the present regulations find themselves debarred. Having fully considered the matter we have reached the conclusion that arrangements should be made for the entry of a certain number of mature students to the Primary Teachers' Training Colleges. We make this recommendation firstly on educational grounds and secondly because the expanding requirements of the primary school teaching sector, plus the extension of the training course to three years will call for the recruitment of substantially greater numbers of primary teachers....
That, possibly, would be the solution to the problem I have indicated. Certainly, if there is anything we want in this country at the moment it is maturity: maturity as far as the public are concerned, maturity as far as the teaching profession is concerned and, if I may say so, maturity as far as politicians are concerned.
In deference to, possibly, the unexpressed wishes of many here who may not follow what I say if I speak in our own language, I will continue for the moment in English. Referring to primary schools again, especially to the planning section—the Board of Works are somehow implicated here—I have criticism to offer. There has been a tendency for quite a while of people in offices drawing plans for schools and sending them out to school managers down the country who wish to build schools. I have had an instance of such a case recently. A plan came along. The manager was not an architect, neither was the principal teacher in the parish. They assumed the plan would be at least an intelligent effort. The school manager had the plan for a little while but it had to be returned on or before a certain day.
The building of the school began eventually and when it was coming near the final stages they noticed that in every room of the school, which is to accommodate 120 children, including the general purposes room which is normally supposed to be for such things as physical education, music, choirs, et cetera, the height of the ceiling varied from eight feet to eight feet one inch. I can imagine 40, 45 or 50 children in a room with such a low ceiling. Various things such as cloakrooms and toilets were very badly designed. The parish priest got together many of the parents in the parish and they, without any training in architecture or engineering, could easily lay out a far better design for both cloakrooms and toilets. A place circled for infants was put in a spot where it was entirely exposed to a north or a north-easterly breeze. This was stopped in time by the parish priest and the principal who insisted that it be put at the southern side where the children would have a chance of getting sunshine.
The people in charge of the planning and the building of schools should get in contact with the people who would be working in them and discuss the matter with them. They have a far better idea than the man who is sitting down in an office in Dublin and makes out a plan which possibly would suit a particular location, depending on where the school is based. If the Office of Public Works delegated more authority to their district officers it might remedy this because those officers might have the skill to deal with such matters in their own particular areas. I do not want to criticise anybody but we are all interested in getting the best value we can for the money being spent on those things. If a mistake is made at the planning stage it will have to be rectified sooner or later. Usually the cost of rectifying something is far greater than the initial cost if the planning were right.
I wish to raise another point in that connection. Some reference is made in one of the Books of the Bible to the right hand not knowing what the left hand does. Unfortunately, we have still some examples of that. Are the planning section of the Department of Education aware of the introduction of this new curriculum? This new curriculum will require, among other things, a nature corner in each room so that children can bring leaves of trees, flowers, acorns, nuts, specimens of rocks, to form seasonal exhibitions as the year progresses.
Then there is the question of children being trained in what is called guided sculpting. A task is given to them to do, they seek the information themselves from books, encyclopaedias, et cetera, and presses are needed for those books. It is a pity that there is not more communication between those who design these things, whether it be schools or school furniture, and the people who are using them.
So much for primary schools, I think I have dealt with nearly everything I had in mind on this subject, so I shall move along to secondary schools. A fallacy seems to have grown up and which rears its ugly head now and again, that is, the idea of putting education into watertight compartments— primary, secondary and vocational. That is absurd because education is a continuing process from the time we are born until the time we die. Before we are born we are under certain influences, and a lot of research is being done on this at the moment. Because education is a continuous process it should be worked on so that there is no upset when a child moves from one school into the other. As a corollary to that, I meant to make this point. The teaching of a group of children from the age of four to 12 or 13 and the teaching of children from 12 or 13 to 18 is just as difficult and as exacting in one school as it is in another.
What I want to say is that the onus of teaching children who are in primary schools is as great as the onus of teaching children in secondary schools and vice versa, because in a secondary school, though it is fashionable in certain sections to say they teach at a higher level, whatever that means, they teach a higher age group, they go more into depth into various subjects, but they do not require the great skill that is required in primary schools. Skill counts there more than knowledge— possibly knowledge counts in secondary schools more than skill—but the two balance out. I say that now because I hear from time to time mischievous remarks made about the quality of the teaching in primary schools and secondary schools.
I can only hope, and I am sure everyone here hopes, that before very long we will have one teaching association embracing primary teachers, secondary teachers and vocational teachers, because as long as we have three separate groups there is always the danger of class warfare, inter-union warfare, misunderstandings, jealousies, leap-frogging when the question of salaries and emoluments comes up.
I shall say a special word, but I will not go deeply into it now, about schools for mentally handicapped children. I hope that in the years to come the position will improve because if there is anybody in need of help it is the child who is mentally handicapped. Wonderful work has been done by various orders and lay people in developing the minds of those children. Such children can do very useful work because when God created us He did not make us all alike. He gave to some certain gifts and to others certain gifts but there is room for everybody and under present day conditions there is a job for everybody, and if there is not at the moment there will be soon. It does not matter if the intelligence quotient is 120, 100, 80, 60 or even 40.
I have often had queries from abroad about children who for some time attended a school in which I was teaching, asking for a confidential report on a particular young man or young woman. They rarely ask for a detailed observation on their intellectual ability: what they require is a report with regard to character, honesty, punctuality, truthfulness and dependability.
I should like to say a few words about university education. It has been a burning topic for some time, especially in view of the proposed merger between Trinity and UCD and separate universities for Cork and Galway. Estimates were put before us in regard to the increasing number attending universities. It is apparent that these numbers will increase and keep on increasing for many years to come. All this, of course, comes from the fact that secondary education is now available to anybody who wishes to avail of it and more and more people seem to think that a university education is necessary as far as their sons and daughters are concerned.
Entrance to the university is another question. So far, it is as a result of a written examination. I have advocated for quite a while now, and I still deem that my point is valid, that a written examination is not sufficient for entrance to university. Entrance to a training college demands examination plus interview, entrance to the Army calls for a number of examinations plus interview and, entrance to a university demands a written examination. It is not enough of a test because for some reasons children do very badly at examinations. Students who are very brilliant and who, through no fault of their own—through nerves or excitement—answer questions that they were not asked or they omit questions and so do very badly in a vital examination.
It is unfair, therefore, to let everything depend on the results of the leaving certificate or matriculation examination. They should be supplemented by an interview. Many children do very well in these examinations. They enter the university and find after a short time that they are totally and completely unsuited to a university education to the extent that they just cannot fit into university life. The person with one honour or no honour at all might make an excellent university student. That has happened. A good team of four or five experts, including at least one psychologist, on the interview board could in half an hour's interview find out the candidates' relative ability and if they are suited to university life. I hope that some day such a thing will come along, that we will have an entrance to the universities based not alone on a written examination but supplemented by an interview.
Now a few words about vocational and comprehensive schools. Comprehensive schools offer a very wide range of subjects. That is something to be grateful for. The Department and most parents are sensible enough to realise that asking children to specialise too early is a dangerous thing. I heard a joke when I first entered UCC that a professor is a person who knows more and more about less and less. That is a reference to the way university students should turn out. A broad education is absolutely necessary for everybody. He is a better man for not alone knowing his own particular subject but for having a very wide range of interests.
It has been said: "He knows not England who only England knows." Some time ago a remarkable thing happened in England. As a result of an idea introduced by Mr. Harold Wilson in 1963, a university of the air, now called an open university, was taken up by Miss Jenny Lee, then in the Cabinet, and was brought to maturity. The medium of instruction is integrated television-radio-correspondence courses. This open university obtained a Royal Charter in May, 1969, and is now an independent autonomous body awarding its own degree. Its headquarters are in Buckinghamshire and there are 12 regional centres.
I refer to that now because on Wednesday, 22nd July, at the Gresham Hotel in Dublin, there was a very interesting conference at which the Minister for Education was present. The President of St. Patrick's Training College represented Most Reverend J. C. McQuaid, Archbishop of Dublin and also present were various officials of the Department of Education, representatives from the INTO, from Radio Telefís Éireann and some people intimately connected with this open type university in England. Quite a lot of information was given at this conference and, to summarise, this university will award degrees. They have certain courses laid out and a person could take out a BA degree there in three years and if he wanted an honours degree he would spend four years. If he liked to do it in easier stages he could do so—he can extend the time. The university year runs from January to December; tuition takes place during the first ten months, and the setting and marking of examinations and the counselling of students for their next choice of courses occupy November and December. The first four courses, known as foundation courses leading to credits for the BA degree examination, commence in January, 1971. The courses are mathematics, science, the humanities and sociological subjects.
I made reference to that because I think there is a great chance here to ease the pressure in our universities because people attend universities and take out degrees for one or other of these reasons; they require these degrees in order to practise a certain profession or they may like to take out those degrees to improve their own knowledge and understanding. By all means let those who wish to get professional training in medicine, dentistry, law, engineering, arts, teaching, et cetera, go to the Universities of Dublin, Cork or Galway, as the case may be. Many of those people who wish to take out university degrees for their own intellectual and cultural advancement could be channelled into this university known as the open university. That, I think, would considerably ease the pressure on space and accommodation in universities as well as easing the problem of staffing.
I now leave education as such and move along to say a few words about Radio Telefís Éireann. I think everybody is aware of their responsibilities. These have been indicated often enough. In their charter they have a certain responsibility towards the language and towards our own culture and many people complain that they are not fulfilling their obligations as far as these things are concerned. I believe that they are doing their best. There are many difficulties attached to the broadcasting and television service and these difficulties cannot be overcome or sorted out in a very short time.
I have been asked by many people to make this plea—that more music be provided on television and radio, particularly on television. We have the Radio Telefís Éireann Symphony Orchestra. It may not be the best in Europe but I think it is a very fine orchestra. We have got the Radio Telefís Éireann Light Orchestra, which is also a very fine orchestra so far as orchestras go. It is a pity that we do not hear more of them. Listening to a symphony may not be everybody's cup of tea but certainly people should be given the opportunity of getting acquainted with classical music. We have a lot to learn from the continentals as far as these things are concerned. Due to historical reasons many people are unacquainted with classical music but I think they should be given the opportunity to become acquainted with it. It is only by listening to orchestras that people will get acquainted with it and will eventually come to appreciate and to like it. We need not have a symphony concert every week but at least we could have one every month or every three months. Even if we had one twice a year it would be a help. At the moment we do not hear any at all. The same thing applies, even to a more marked degree, regarding the Light Orchestra.
I suppose 99 per cent of the people of this country love—they may not pretend to love it but they do—the music popularly known as Irish traditional music. It is in our very blood and everybody loves it. I understand that there is some disagreement at the moment between the radio authorities and an organisation known as Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann who have an interest in traditional music and promote it. The radio authorities may have a dispute with Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann but there are many other distinct ensembles and individual players throughout the country who could be called in. The people like that kind of music and it is very good for them. There is something about our traditional music that is elevating. There is no sentimentality attached to it and for that reason I would like to plead for more music, be it classical or traditional, on our Radio Telefís Éireann system.
I should also like to refer to—and people have spoken to me about this from time to time—various shows being put on by Radio Telefís Éireann, and television especially. Some of those shows, shall we say, questionable morality and at times they are quite unsuitable so far as children are concerned. Television can get right into our homes. This is something that never happened before and we have not yet got adjusted to it. Before the impact of television in our homes we had to travel out to see various shows. Now they are brought into our homes and they can be switched on by the mere turning of a knob. I believe that any show that is in any way questionable should not be put on until a rather late hour in the night. Apart from these criticisms I think we may give Radio Telefís Éireann a number of bouquets. They certainly have put on splendid programmes, their coverage of matches is splendid and they provide many entertaining and instructive programmes. They deserve commendation for that.
I can never understand why when the television authority was being set up here some arrangement was not made to have the programmes transmitted into the Six County area. The people there are at a dreadful loss in not being able to get Telefís Éireann. I move the adjournment of the debate.
Debate adjourned.
The Seanad adjourned at 10 p.m. until 10.30 a.m. on Thursday, 17th December, 1970.