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Seanad Éireann debate -
Tuesday, 30 Oct 1984

Vol. 105 No. 12

National Economic and Social Plan. Motion (Resumed).

Debate resumed on the following motion:
That Seanad Éireann approves the policies set out in the National Economic and Social Plan —Building on Reality.
—(Senator Dooge.)

I will be brief in order to give other people the opportunity to come in on this important debate on Building on Reality. I should like to refer in particular to the whole question of taxation. There is a great deal of confusion about taxation. The remark was made here this afternoon by one Senator that taxation was not necessary. The Government very positively need a taxation arrangement whereby they collect money on the one hand and make the best use of it on the part of society on the other. The Government effectively would be doing the housekeeping in that context on behalf of all the people of the country.

The other aspect of taxation which is relevant is that there is a gross misunderstanding as to what sector or section of society ought to be paying X, Y or Z. The figure was quoted here this afternoon also about it costing Irish farmers £40 million for the services of accountants. That figure is totally and utterly an exaggeration. The actual figure will be something like £10 or £12 million. It is still a high figure. Fortunately as part of this plan we will not have the need for a good deal of this expenditure, because as people will understand fulltime farmers with fewer than 80 adjusted acres will not have to keep accounts. They will pay tax on their land on the basis of £10 per acre, which will not alter during the lifetime of the plan. There is, however, one important group of farmers which must not be overlooked, those with an excess of 80 adjusted acres who may have borrowing problems. They are not paying income tax now but when a land tax is introduced they will be paying tax and will not be able to set it against income tax. I am very happy that there is no double taxation in the plan. This is a very important dimension.

The point was made that the yield from farmer taxation would be only £80 million. People should take account of the fact that the yield from taxation is based, and has been based, on what was there by way of disposable income. People outside farming do not appreciate that we had three disastrous years in farming in 1979, 1980 and 1981. Things improved in 1982 and in 1983 and the indications for 1984 are something similar. Against this background farmers have borrowed heavily and have a meagre income, much lower than the average industrial wage. I agree that people who have an income tax liability ought to discharge it — there are no two ways about this. However, there is a misunderstanding between the farming sector and the non-farming sector regarding the whole tax area. In urban-rural relations there is a need for better understanding of the other's problems and difficulties. The people in the country, including farmers, do not understand the difficulties of the PAYE sector and the PAYE sector do not understand the difficulties of the farming community. The plan emphasises that taxation will not be increased and is to be stabilised. PAYE workers are paying to the limit of tax. It is encouraging to see as a very prominent point in the taxation part of the plan that there will be stabilisation of income taxation and also that income tax bands will be increased each year of the plan.

There are two areas to which I referred earlier — unemployment and taxation. I am satisfied that this plan, if given the opportunity and the co-operation of all concerned, can achieve results on these two fronts, as well as in other areas. The plan is worthy of support and I hope that the House will give its full support to it when a vote is taken on it tomorrow.

The plan is grey in colour and grey in matter. I was amused at my colleague, Senator Hourigan, when he said that all was well during the period from when the Coalition Government took office two years ago — 1978, 1979 and 1980 were not good years in agriculture. It reminds me of the time a local person qualified as a doctor, his brother had a bicycle shop and when the people came in to get their bicycles fixed he would remark that nobody was dying. That is not the case with agriculture over the last few years. The plan was protected and projected by the media in a very thick, clouded smokescreen in its introduction. Now the people realise that there is nothing at all in the plan to take any corrective measures in the three main areas of unemployment, crime and emigration.

The emigrant ship will not stabilise unemployment. This plan, as most people are aware, was a long awaited one. It is a document which has disappointed me and my colleagues on this side of the House. The plan is designed to secure a political objective, to bring the Government through a serious international crisis and to provide temporary unity within the Coalition Government. There is no job creation in it although this is the one area which our youth look for in the plan to see if there is a green light for the many thousands coming on to the unemployment register every year with third level education. The figure of 200,000 seems to be accepted by the Government. Some targets should be outlined for the reduction of this figure by about 40,000 jobs per year as against the number of people coming on the unemployment register in the same period. In an atmosphere where we have a population explosion, there is no commitment or provision for additional services. Rather the plan is to cut back on the existing services instead of providing schools, health, education and the various other sectors that require additional capital expenditure to cope with the explosion of population that will continue.

There is no capital investment for the IDA who have done such a wonderful job over the past two decades in promoting Ireland abroad and building advance factories. If we have the basis, the advance factory, and the personnel to do promotion work abroad such as we have experiences over the last decade, we will compete in luring industrialists from the States, from Japan and from other areas. We still have the incentive in some counties of a two-thirds remission of rates over a period of ten years to try to bring industrialists to our country. The plan provides no additional capital for the IDA but curtails them by not giving them sufficient money.

There is no rescue package for the small industrialists or businessman, and such people are going to the wall every day. Businesses which have been trading for a long period are closing their doors due to the burden of taxation and other factors. Something must be done to stabilise these traditional small businesses, each of which provides jobs for several people.

The plan contains short-term proposals for setting up people in their own businesses, but I believe such businesses will be short lived. These people are inexperienced juveniles in that field of activity, and I do not believe their enterprises will have any permanency. I compliment the Government on trying to lure these people into self-employment, but I cannot see a future for that type of business. I would be glad if it worked because it would be a breakthrough in providing employment. When one is desperate one reaches for anything. The self-employed and the small employer should be protected in every way.

There are no plans for education. The capital programme for new school building is static and thousands of third level students are coming on the job market yearly, adding to our burden of unemployed. Unfortunately these young people are going abroad where there is no welcome in the employment field. There are no job opportunities in Britain. They are unable to go to the United States and the European Community has not yet identified itself as an area which could offer employment opportunities to our well qualified young people. Emigration to foreign lands where no jobs are available is not an attractive prospect for any young boy or girl. Anybody in public life knows families where four, five or six people are unemployed and they are desperate to get into any type of permanent employment.

There must be taxation reform in order to give confidence to the PAYE worker. Such confidence is now lacking because he or she feels that the high level of PAYE is due to the farmers, the self-employed and those in receipt of social welfare. PAYE workers feel they are being lashed by taxation in order to keep the social welfare system ticking over for their neighbours. Each member of the community would be willing to pay a fair share of taxation if the system were reformed and made fairer. That is not happening, and PAYE workers feel they are not getting their rights.

Cutbacks are often the decision of blind academics who have no practical experience in the political field. It is evident that cutbacks have not worked during the past two years. Academics have a role to play, but experience must be the basis of Government decisions.

There has been a cutback in the number of hospital beds. In counties like my own if you become ill on a Friday, unfortunately you have to wait until Monday to get any hospitalisation. That is the system. My advice is, do not get sick on a Friday——

Do not say that — you can get sick any day.

——but do not get sick on a Friday because there are no facilities. The conveyance of——

That is not true. That is a dangerous thing to say.

Senator O'Toole without interruption, please.

The conveyance of patients to and from institutions is curtailed. The hospital capital building programme has been delayed by the failure of the Department of Health to sanction plans. Now, they ask for an alternative plan and send the plan back to the drawing board to be resubmitted possibly in 1985 or in 1986. Most of the things in this plan are projected for 1986 and 1987. Who can say which party will be in office at that particular time? We will have to wait and see.

As I said, crime and unemployment are the two main problems facing the nation. In spite of the fact that two out of every five houses in the city of Dublin will be broken into this year, there will be no additional garda recruits during the period of this plan. I understand the Garda will be able to replace those who retire but there is no extra Garda recruitment to help curb the additional crime we are facing. No overtime will be sanctioned, no matter how serious the situation is. The Gardaí have to get permission to work overtime and by the time that permission is given by the hierarchy in Dublin Castle, the criminal has flown. That is the present situation. These cutbacks are affecting the serious crime problems in this nation.

May I refer to the Criminal Justice Bill? This legislation is to curb crime and put additional people into our jails, but what we are doing is bringing some of them in the front door and letting somebody else out the rear. There is no capital programme in this plan for expanding or building new jails. We gave £12 million to consultants to prepare plans, but none of the jails is even in the process of being built.

Clondalkin is nearly finished.

I did not know that; that is the first one. We have paid £12 million in consultancy fees, and that is as far as we got. I am glad to hear from Senator FitzGerald that some progress has been made as a result of planning when we were in Government.

(Interruptions.)

I welcome the injection of capital into roads. This was mooted by Deputy Sylvester Barrett in his programme for roads in the eighties. Unfortunately up to now it had not been financed to the extent he envisaged and we are well behind our target. Most Senators are members of county councils and they know roads are breaking up because of a lack of investment and a lack of maintenance of existing roads which have to carry ever increasing tonnage every day. We should have a bigger capital injection to meet this extra tonnage. There have been cutbacks in expenditure on roads over the last number of years and this year there has been a big reduction in the local improvement scheme because of the abolition of the environmental scheme.

What about the airport?

Which one?

Next to crime and unemployment agriculture has a high priority. In my view, anybody under 20 adjusted acres is not a farmer. He is just existing on a non-viable holding. I know many of them in the west who are barely existing and unless they have off-farm employment there is no way a family unit can exist. For that reason they are ruled out. The next category brings in the farmer with between 20 and 80 adjusted acres. He is going to be penalised by the introduction of the £10 per adjusted acre. That would take in the majority of the small farmers in the country and most of them from my area. Senator Hourigan mentioned that he was delighted there was no double taxation. The big farmer with over 80 adjusted acres, with whom I am sure Senator Ferris is not associated——

Do not encourage interruptions.

Fine Gael always protected the bigger farmers. They are again protected under this plan because the land tax can be offset in their income tax returns. They will not be paying the £10 over 80 adjusted acres. Senator Hourigan was right when he said the big land rancher who generally votes Fine Gael from now on will have to pay only one tax, he will not have to pay the £10 adjusted acre tax. That is like turning on a tap, next year the tap will be turned a wee bit further. It is the Government's intention to eventually drown them with taxation in the years that lie ahead. This is only the thin edge of the wedge. Eventually they will be swimming in a taxation pond unable to meet their commitments.

The Senator's supporters will be in it too. Then he will be in right trouble.

(Interruptions.)

There is no western drainage. A point was mentioned in the plan I was not aware of. I understood that the western drainage package came from the EC. Whenever it is abandoned it comes from the EC, but whenever it is to be reintroduced it comes from the Coalition Government. It definitely is an EC western drainage package, we cannot get away from that and its reintroduction will be a decision of the EC, and not as a result of anything in this plan. That is why I challenge that point. This is an EC decision which may come into effect in 1986 or 1987, or it may never be introduced again. But it is in the plan. If it is an EC decision how can the Coalition put it in the plan? The same applies to the western package, the farm modernisation scheme——

—and the River Shannon.

When the arterial drainage scheme was abandoned, we were told it was because of the international crisis, and the financial crisis in the EC. I cannot understand how the Coalition Government can get authority from the EC to introduce these schemes. I do not know why they have it in the plan because it will not be their decision.

With regard to the sum of £7 million extra taxation from farmers for the bovine disease eradication scheme, I heard Senator Ferris saying it would not be carried on for the following year.

It is written in the plan.

I am not so sure about that. It is an additional £7 million on the farmers at present in addition to the £10 per adjusted acre. We have the abolition of the Land Commission when we should be going further afield in the development of agriculture. We do not know what they are going to do with the trained officials or what is going to happen in the future with regard to land mobility. They are going around my area giving out tracts of bog they had in hand and giving out grazing rights on the hills throughout the country. They are rushing to get rid of them before the Land Commission is abolished. They do not know what will happen to them, but I take it they will come back to the Department.

In 1981 or 1982 Fianna Fáil had planned to put £137 million into agriculture and this plan is going to put £73 million into agriculture in 1986. Is that not a retrograde step with the inflation rate we have at the moment? There is a reduction from £137 million to £73 million: that is what this plan thinks of the development of agriculture. Taking into account the decline of money value over the period, it means that the State investment in agriculture over the period of this Government has been cut by three-fifths. The Fianna Fáil four-year plan for agriculture has been dropped. The farm modernisation scheme has been scrapped. The Land Commission is to be abolished. A totally negative attitude dominates. It seems that agriculture is now regarded as incapable of making any worthwhile contribution to our national economic objective and the Government have now written it off.

The Government are going to build a new runway at Dublin airport at a cost of £30 million. Is there another border between the east and the west? The airport in Connacht needs £3,500,000 for its completion and this Government have abandoned it. The airport is needed to develop infrastructure in the west but the Government have rubbed salt in the wound by giving £30 million for a new runway at Dublin. That is an insult to the people in the west of Ireland. I know they do not vote for this Government: they did not vote in the Údarás elections where Fianna Fáil won two out of three and they did not vote in Donegal. However, that is not the treatment that this Coalition Government should dish out to people on the other side of the Shannon. The west is awake, and that was shown recently. It is a disgraceful situation where £30 million is put into an airstrip in Dublin airport while the Connacht regional airport is left unfinished.

I want to refer to the housing construction industry and the £5,000 that is going to lure people out of the happy environment where they have lived for so many years. Even allowing for that amount, in addition to the £1,000 grant and £3,000 mortgage subsidy, where are they going to get the remainder of the money?

They do not qualify for a loan.

They do.

If they increased the ceiling for the SDA loan from £8,000 to £12,000 it would allow a number of people to provide houses of their own design, which many young people would like to do if they had sufficient capital. This idea of vacating houses to put more houses on the local authorities' lists is a complete myth. If there was capital investment in local authority housing it would help the building industry that is just about ticking over. Many of the building contractors are unable to continue because of the lack of schemes. If the ceiling for the SDA loan was raised it would alleviate the problem.

Jack Lynch promised to build houses.

We have heard all about fiscal rectitude for the past two years. For two years the Government have been telling us they were devoting all their energies to putting the public finances right but they have not done so. The foreign debt is over two-and-a-half times what it was three years ago. This document stipulates that the current budget deficit will remain at its present level, namely, about 7.1 per cent of GNP not only for this year but next year as well. On the revised GNP figures published earlier this year, the current budget deficit in 1981 was 7.7 per cent of GNP and on the basis of the decisions in the Government document, in 1985 the current budget deficit will be 7.1 per cent of GNP. That is what fiscal rectitude is about.

I want to come back to fisheries and forestry, to mariculture and the shellfish industry along the west coast. There is nothing in the document about marketing or promoting mariculture or the shellfish industry and there is nothing in it about sea fishing. With regard to afforestation, we had a programme of planting 25,000 acres a year. That has been abandoned, but most of our forests that were planted in the forties and fifties are now maturing. There is no provision made in this plan for the marketing of the timber in our maturing forests. We know what happened in Scarriff where we had a traditional chipboard factory. Thousands of tonnes of this type of material are coming on the market. There is no provision in this plan for marketing them or giving additional employment in that field. Neither is there anything for the shellfish industry or the mariculture industry.

I come now to the food subsidies. The disadvantaged groups, those on lower incomes, those with large families, those living alone, spend a large portion of their total budget on bread, butter and milk. It is an insult to those people to give a reduction of 8p on whiskey and an increase of 8p on a loaf of bread. No rich person would know what I am talking about when I mention a loaf of bread because it does not mean much to rich people. Their loaves come in a different way. They do not see them coming. They do not go to the shop to buy them. They are sent in at the rear. The van drives around the back and the rich person never sees them arriving. An increase of 8p on the loaf of bread may not mean much to a rich man but it means a great deal to the poor man or to the poor housewife who has to rush down the street in the early hours of the morning before the kids go to school to buy that additional loaf which she may not be able to pay for until she sees what is left in her husband's pocket. In 1974 a pint cost 18p. Ritchie Ryan, the then Minister for Finance, doubled the price of the pint from 18p to 36p. That was the first time it caught up with and passed the price of whiskey by 3p. Since then it has jumped to whatever people are paying for it now. I am taking one at the moment myself.

It is important to get that on the record.

(Interruptions.)

An Leas-Chathaoirleach

Senator O'Toole, I appreciate the atmosphere in the Chamber and the good humour, but would you continue on the motion?

I did not know you were here.

An Leas-Chathaoirleach

I am here.

The Taoiseach talks about a just society and the underprivileged. He now proposes to tax child benefit and short term welfare benefits. That is not real concern. The family income supplement was referred to in the 1983 budget. It was mentioned again in the 1984 budget. If they do not introduce it quickly it will probably be abandoned again and it will be talked about again in the 1985 budget. We have not seen it yet. I would like to know how this family income supplement will affect my people in the west. The Taoiseach has just left. I was going to ask him when it will be introduced.

From 1 August.

How could we have confidence in this plan even if it contained achievable targets since, on a number of occasions, the Taoiseach has made U-turns? He promised the housewife £9.60 per week, but never delivered on it. That is only one of the many things this Taoiseach has promised during his time in office. In my part of the country people are becoming very dubious about statistics and the Central Statistics Office.

I would not blame them.

Early this year there was a mistake and £500 million got lost somewhere. I read that in the paper. There was not a word about it after three or four days. It was as if a pittance had been lost. Five hundred million pounds was missing. We do not know where it went, and we have not yet found it in the black hole.

They lost 58,000 tonnes of milk this year. They blamed the people in Bailieboro for that. Of course it came back to statistics and the Department of Agriculture. A figure was put on it by some statisticians and also by the media. I cannot put a figure on what it will cost the farming community or what it will cost this country.

£12 million.

I do not accept Senator Hussey's figure. I think it will cost a lot more. We will have to wait and see.

This plan is a ball of smoke. At a time when we needed good Government and leadership there was a crisis here which has been resolved but the crisis abroad remains with us. Unemployment and crime are problems. We have a further problem of emigration which had been stemmed by good Governments in the past. It is now an accepted fact that 200,000 plus will be the accepted unemployment figure for the period of this plan. For our youth, geared with third level education and looking to us for employment, there is no green light at the end of the tunnel.

Like many others in the State I am disappointed with the plan. Many people awaited the production of the plan in the hope that there would be something in it for them. Alas there was nothing. I do not think the targets — and they are very few — will be achieved during the period in office of this Government. Most of the things that are supposed to be goodies will probably come during the reign of a successive Government which, I am sure, will come from this side of the House.

The most important feature of any economic and social plan is to bring it to full fruition. Its implementation, therefore, becomes, as in this case, not only imperative but also a test as to how the targets were conceived and the use of statistical evidence towards attainment. A plan on paper remains a plan on paper until full implementation. That requires monitoring. It requires watchfulness. Therefore the three year period proposed in the plan will be a period of watching over developments in all the specific areas named and acting accordingly in those areas where attention is required through lack of progress.

I take the three year period as experimental, especially the first year. This will be a test year, and there may be acid tests in there. We should have fairly clear indications as to where we are going inside the first year. On the other hand, assuming that flexibility is accepted — and I believe that it is — amendments or changes may be required as and when the necessity arises. That is what I mean by flexibility, by watchfulness and by monitoring. This presupposes that consultation will, in the circumstances, take place with all concerned — employers' associations, the Irish Congress of Trade Unions and all the social partners involved in the various Government organisations.

No proper appreciation, or indeed examination, of the plan is possible without taking into consideration the economic situation with which this country is now faced. World influences, financial and otherwise, do have a far-reaching effect on economies like ours. The idea that because the plan assumes certain developments externally for its success could be thwarted by this weakness, as these critics call it. That may be so. It is quite possible that external influences could weaken the plan. But it has to be said that we, like other countries, cannot cut ourselves off from these world influences whether we like it or not. These are facts. The plan is based on reality, and that is a reality. We live in a specific type of world and that is part of the reality of accepting that this is how and why and where we live, unless, of course, those who talk of the inherent weaknesses — albeit, in any plan, not only in this one — out of the linkage with external influences have in mind a policy of self-sufficiency, an impossible philosophy in present world conditions.

We have only to look at the USSR to see their dependence on grain imports from the USA and butter from Europe and those satellite communist countries which depend on financial borrowing from western bankers. I say this because the philosophy of self-sufficiency is a main component of communist ideology and propaganda and on the face of it, given the self-sufficiency philosophy even in communist countries where they have complete control and can plan the economy, they cannot cut themselves off from external influences. So much for that argument.

It has been said that the plan is overcautious, not sufficiently radical to overcome our problems, unemployment, tax reduction and equity, development of natural resources and public enterprise. There are, I suggest and I insist, radical measures in the plan consisting of proper interpretation of the political philosophies of both parties to the Coalition. State enterprise gets a magnificent position to develop commercial projects with money applied, the market influence is attended to by substantial grants in aid, financially. In other words you have the perfect solution out of a Coalition Government — an application to a mixed economy.

Regarding unemployment it is quite wrong for this Government, or indeed any Government, to raise our people's expectations to a level where they are not attainable and thus cause avoidable disappointment and frustration. They would be guilty of having conned our people. All our public representatives should not stand for that kind of behaviour. Face the facts, face reality, tell the truth. If we cannot get full employment say so, because anybody who tells the youth of today that they can get full employment is telling a lie and a big lie. It is much better in the field of employment and unemployment to face facts, to spell out reality. This the plan does. It actually becomes workable because it spells out targets that are, in fact, attainable. That is where the over-caution comes from, that is where the modesty is. The plan does not say that we are going to the moon. The plan simply cannot go to the moon, so we are not spelling that out in the plan. It does not claim to bring about full employment. It claims to bring about a measure of alleviation of the unemployment problem and it examines the unemployment problem in fair detail. I shall use the expression "long-term unemployed" because it is the best indication that there is for people who are unemployed for over one year. This is the accepted norm for long-term unemployed. It is worth noting that the OECD Observer in September said this:

While the numbers of the long-term unemployed will fall when unemployment falls, there is a lag; moreover, since unemployment overall is expected to remain at its present level in the OECD area for the next 18 months or so, the short-term look-out for the long-term unemployed is not particularly hopeful.

That is truth by people who face up to reality. The malaise, I contend therefore, is a European one and notwithstanding the advances made out of the recession in the USA and Japan, Europe has failed and is currently examining why the failure, what is wrong in the European economic and social climate that Europe has failed while Japan and the USA have gone ahead. Is it flexibility and the application of technological know-how? Is it the acceptance on the part of workers of redundancy and structural change accompanied by humane efforts at supplying them with worthwhile work projects in their areas especially? Europe will come up with the answers and we will benefit from the answers that Europe will produce.

It is a European problem. I can best indicate it this way. The long-term jobless in France by the end of 1985, as a proportion of the unemployed figures, will be 45 per cent. There is no claim in France for full employment. President Mitterand discovered that when he took the reins of office. The UK account for 40 per cent of the total unemployment figures, Germany 30 per cent. Ours at the moment is 31 per cent. This is facing reality. It is only one indication of the depth and severity of our problem.

The other side of the coin is the undesirability of the lack of work for the young. It has been claimed that the training facilities for youth result, in the main, in training for unemployment. However true this is and in the present climate it is possible to admit that there is an element of truth in it, if not full truth, I favour what is sometimes called speculative training. Speculative training is training without knowing that there will be a job at the end of the line. Even though unemployed the young have acquired some skill and work experience also, which raises their chances of employment. I say that because, having carried my training knowledge from the USA into Northern Ireland, I am one of the founder members of the training and retraining projects in Northern Ireland as a member of the ICTU.

In paragraphs 4.8, 4.9 and 4.10 the plan proposes more effective co-ordination at national and local levels at the behest of the Youth Employment Agency. No one from the YEA can say that this is not a welcome feature of the plan. I am conversant with the co-ordination they are talking about and I know how it will work. It is good, healthy and intelligent. The estimated reduction in all these plans as put forward is 10,000 below the expected end of 1984 level. Note that the plan, while it does not claim full employment, says that we are going forward. We are going ahead. It could possibly take another three or five-year plan to come to fruition, provided that Europe comes up with the answers as to why we did not make the forward progress made in the US and in Japan. I trust — and I hope that there are many people like me even in the Opposition — that these forecasts will work out. I welcome the measures proposed as being the only measures that could be proposed in all the circumstances.

On the question of taxation, a vexatious problem which causes us concern, we have not resolved the problem yet but I am inclined to think that we are on the way to tax stabilisation if not reduction, and eventual equity. I welcome these measures as being consistent with fair play and justice. The only problem in this arena seems to be one of impatience at the speed of application of measures to bring about full and acceptable equity.

People who are looking for radical measures should listen to what I am going to say now. One of the most important proposals in the plan by far is set out in paragraphs 3.61 to 3.67 where we can read a clear and positive development of the new role of State bodies in making a worth-while contribution to the nation, not a new concept but a more positive development to the role of making a contribution to the development of the nation. More positive development is the key. I understand and appreciate the value of State bodies, because for three or four years I was a director of the Irish Sugar Company and I watched with amazement and enthusiasm the extension of the development of the Irish Sugar Company into the whole engineering arena for export mainly. After they had made their own machinery they exported to the continent. In other words, I had that kind of experience in State enterprise. Paragraph 3.63 states:

The National Planning Board has outlined a number of areas in which weaknesses must be tackled if existing State enterprises are to make, as they did before, a significant contribution to Irish economic development.

Here there is not the attitude of "let us eliminate these State enterprises because they are not fulfilling their proper role, they are not making profits and they are not commercial entities". Here are corrective measures proposed, properly so. Some people call it public accountability. It is right and proper if the people who complain about the moderation and the modesty of the plan and its lack of radical measures will read paragraphs 3.68 to 3.71. Here they would see a natural corollary to the new approach to public enterprise. Paragraph 3.68 reads:

The National Development Corporation will be a primary instrument in translating the Government's philosophy and approach to direct State involvement in industry into practice.

Where are the people? Have they read this plan? Have they read that? Have they read about how the cash will be forthcoming to assist these projects to be carried out by the NDC? The NDC were called for for years inside the ICTU, and I presided at some of the meetings. This is radicalism. This is the interpretation of the application of two political philosophies to a mixed economy. I should add that, as in paragraph 3.69: "The Government will be ready to make funds available to the NDC for such projects as and when needed". For the second time my advice to people looking for radical measures is, please to read these paragraphs.

The areas referred to by Senators who have spoken are terribly important, but unless they are underpinned with a basic philosophy like the underpinning that we see — I will come to the private sector — there is little value unless you have a clear idea of where you are going and what you are at. No doubt the NDC will examine the feasibility of industries based on our natural resources. We will probably have a research department to carry out these exercises. It is most gratifying to see these paragraphs referred to in the body of the plan.

Grants are to be given to the firms who can export, provide substitutes for imported goods or supply the needs of exporters. That is in paragraph 2.24. Access to capital for industry, especially venture capital, is contained in paragraph 2.29, and there is an endeavour to reduce industrial costs and bring down inflation rates during the three-year period.

These are all intelligent measures. Any Government would have decided on these. It is not terribly brilliant, but this plan does not claim to be brilliant. It claims to be practical in its application to the areas that require application of this kind of ideas. The important aspect is that in order to finance these schemes and certain projects already referred to, cash provision for industrial grants is being increased by one-third. That is a substantial increase in cash inducement in the private sector.

I have not dealt with many of the other proposals in the plan but merely tried to look at the larger picture against its severe background. To my mind the plan is workable, practicable. All the people concerned, even those who may not like certain aspects of it, should decide that it is in the best interests of the people of Ireland that the plan has unstinted encouragement and assistance.

Having read this document, I must confess that I never saw it as a plan as such. It is not a plan for now or for the future. It is more a set of objectives not spelling out clearly how they were to be attained. The plan, as it is known, has really no clear targets for output, productivity or investment. It was heralded as if it was going to end all the evils and problems of our country. It is now being sold to the party faithful around the country. I am always suspicious of such occurrences, that if something is not going well an effort is made to sell it. Clearly it has not gone down as well as the Government had hoped. I have noticed that there was no discussion with such interested groups as unions, farming organisations or employers. We all remember that in mid-September there was a real fear that the Government might fall but that all changed on 2 October because this plan was introduced as a cosmetic exercise to cement the two main groups in Government. The plan is a statement of aspirations and projections.

Clearly, the most pressing problem we have is that of unemployment. Despite what the last speaker said there is nothing worthwhile in the plan that will create what we know as permanent worthwhile jobs for our young people. There is a reference to grants but it is not spelled out how, when or where those grants will come from. We do not know how much is involved. The summary refers to special action on unemployment and deals with a new scheme for social employment providing part-time jobs for 10,000 long-time unemployed people. Later that summary refers to a new training and placement scheme for the long-term unemployed to give a chance to 2,500 per annum for a six months period each. There will be more training but, at the end of the day, will there be jobs for the people concerned?

It is my opinion that the plan pays mere lip service to this problem and is not remotely concerned with investment that may have the effect of creating jobs. I would not be surprised if at the end of the period of the plan almost 250,000 people would be out of work rather than the country being in a better position as suggested by the plan.

Many people will be surprised that a plan of this nature, described by the last speaker as radical, has been welcomed by the FUE, the CII and the main farming groups. That leads me to suggest that the plan could best be described as a bosses plan. The Tánaiste made the point that no interest group must be allowed stand in the way of the implementation of the provisions of the plan but I should like to know what he had in mind. I suggest that he may be referring to those who suffer most, those who are ill, the poor, those in receipt of social welfare benefits and the ordinary wage-earner — they are becoming fewer daily.

With regard to the construction industry I should like to point out that when Fianna Fáil were in Government that industry did very well. The Taoiseach at the Ard Fheis told his supporters that the Government were wiping the dust off the JCBs left idle by Fianna Fáil but the fact is that employment in that sector since 1981 when the first Coalition Government took power is at an all-time low. That industry was never so depressed and there was never such a lack of confidence by the private sector. The plan does not attempt to show how private sector activity in that industry can be revived.

There are many dubious assumptions on which the plan may succeed or fail. For example, there is the assumption that there will be a fall in US interest rates and there is an assumption that there will be a fall in the value of the dollar. It is obvious that the Government are hoping that there will not be a further recession in the US but economists in that country are saying that they expect a further recession in 1986, in the middle of the life of the plan. What will the position be in regard to the plan if that happens? There is also an assumption in the plan that the public sector will accept the level of income increase mentioned. I must point out that during the week the public service unions announced that they were seeking an increase of 15 per cent. Consequently, the assumptions in the plan are dubious, to say the least and nobody is in a position to say that they will be successful.

The area of health is vital to our people but the plan shows that over the next three years there will be a 5 per cent cut in real terms on the current side for Health and that the figure will be increased on the capital side. I welcome the mention in the plan of prevention in the area of health care. Deputy Haughey, when Minister for Health, in the late seventies, pursued that area with great success and I am pleased that the Minister for Health is doing likewise. However, I was disappointed to read of the enthusiasm with which Deputy Desmond greeted the plan. According to his first statement 3,000 jobs will be lost in the health area. It seems to me that there is a lack of commitment to health right across the board by the Government. All health boards, irrespective of their political beliefs, have expressed grave concern about the cutbacks. The only positive thing in the plan about health is the measles vaccination programme but that is not enough. Each village, town and city will suffer from the effects of the cutbacks.

In Athlone 14 months ago the Minister for Health announced that we were to get an orthopaedic unit in St. Vincent's Hospital there, but now the local health board has been told that to get this facility they will have to make cutbacks in other areas. In spite of the fact that we got a firm public commitment by the Minister that there would be an orthopaedic unit in that hospital it appears that that facility will not be provided. I hope I am wrong but I do not think so. I was a super optimist when the Minister made the statement in the town but I am not too happy now.

Members of health boards throughout the country have criticised the plan and pointed out that it will affect their services, hospital routine, ambulance services and so on. I do not have to itemise the services that will be affected because they are well known. I do not wish to sound dramatic but I am convinced that as a result of the cutbacks during the period of the plan people will die.

The area of social welfare is vague in the plan. What we have all now clearly noticed is that there is to be a tax on child benefits and on short term welfare benefits. What kind of concern is this on the part of the Labour component of this Government for the poor and underprivileged?

The part of the plan which has surprised and annoyed many people is that relating to the extension of the drinking hours which has been deplored, left, right and centre by the Press, churchmen and politicians generally. An extra hour's drinking on a Sunday evening would be sufficient, but the extensions envisaged in this plan have clearly gone out of hand. Last week we had the An Foras Forbartha report dealing with car accidents in which they expressed proper concern that these new moves will not improve the figures they reported in this area last week. I might repeat that, in dealing with this important matter, there was no consultation with publicans or the unions representing their staff. Nor do I think for one moment it will do anything to improve the tourist trade. I regard it as a retrograde step. Even the most hardened boozer would say — and I have met many of them — we have sufficient hours of drinking; we do not need any more.

There has been notice of a reduction in the price of whiskey while at the same time an increase announced in the ordinary basic food prices for the poor and under-privileged. Any Government that allows food prices to increase while the price of whiskey is to be reduced I would suggest have not their priorities in order. Obviously the whole attitude to drinking would be influenced by education, parents and example generally. But, in my opinion, the single, greatest influence would be concern shown on the part of the Government and Government leaders which, regrettably, appears to be absent.

The question of farm tax in this plan is coupled with the financing of local authorities. Many people are not sure what will happen vis-à-vis the Land Commission. We have been told it is to be abolished. Yet, in this plan, we are told they have an important role to play. Reading the plan we are aware that the granting of relief on agricultural land will be reduced by the amount of farm taxation collected. The plan further makes the point that legislation in regard to farm tax will provide for a right of appeal against the adjusted acreage determined and for a system of review. Having mentioned the Land Commission and this right of appeal, we are aware that it took Griffith from 1852 to 1865 to create what became effectively the poor law system in this country. In the counties of Longford and Westmeath the Land Commission still possess something like 7,000 acres with which to deal. If there is the right of appeal available to everybody, naturally everybody will accept that right. This means it could take five to ten years before this scheme that we hoped and thought would be ready for implementation in 1986 is initiated. In that regard there is no specific detail as to what will be the amount of the tax involved, that it would be, perhaps, £15 in two years' time or, perhaps, £20 in four years' time. Who decides this? For example, will it be an executive function of the county manager in the same way as it was with regard to service charges? As the House will be aware, members of local authorities might decide on a rate of, for example, £50 for a service charge but, if the relevant manager says he wants £75, he will get it because it is his executive function. One must ask: will the same apply in this case? At the end of the day will it be the manager who will say: I am not taking £10, I want £15 this year and £20 the year thereafter? This has not been spelled out. It is something that must be dealt with.

Like previous speakers I welcome the roads programme for local authorities, which appears to me to be an extension of the Fianna Fáil plan for roads for the eighties. Whenever the farm tax comes on stream, any other support grants from the Government will be eliminated. Last year it was miserly in real terms, constituting something like 0.8 per cent. There have been no discussions with regard to this matter with any local authority bodies, with, say, the municipal authorities or the General Council of County Councils.

This plan will cause many people many problems, in particular our poor and under-privileged in a very real, positive way. The poor will be severely hit from almost every angle. There will be imposed on them increases in taxes and rents. Rents of local authority housing have been another feature of this plan which illustrates the lack of concern on the part of this Government for the poor. Obviously I would welcome the £5,000 grant to a tenant of a local authority house on vacating that house to buy or build another. But the elimination of repairs of local authority houses is to be deplored. The plan accepts that many tenants of local authority houses are either unemployed or in receipt of social welfare. Yet it is contended that the rents must be raised progressively to a level more commensurate with the actual cost of local authority housing, again constituting a tax imposed on the poor, social welfare recipient or under-privileged. It is obvious to me that the Government want to ease the demand on them of capital amounts to local authorities, that they want to totally eliminate the building of local authority houses. That would be a retrograde step.

The plan is riddled with new taxes, rents, higher rents, the reduction of local authority house maintenance, more charges for services, food subsidies being abolished, hospital services cutbacks and so on, not a plan to be welcomed by the poor or under-privileged who I believe will suffer very severely from its implementation.

I should like to take up the opening words of Senator Fallon when he spoke of this as not being a plan ahead but rather a set of objectives relating to the years 1985 to 1987. If the Senator looked at Tables 7-1 and 7-2, the one dealing with current supply services expenditure by Ministerial Group and the other, the Public Capital Programme 1984 to 1987 he will have seen nothing but a revelation in terms of planning for the future. Never before in the history of documents or plans produced by Government have we been given figures analysed on a Department-by-Department basis, giving projections of spending by those Departments and groups over the lifespan of the plan 1985-1987. That is a very great step forward in relation to the next three years. It takes, to some extent, the kind of excitement that goes on annually in relation to the preparation of the budget and to the statement by the Minister for Finance in relation to the budget out of conjecture. It gives to the people a much clearer picture of what is ahead, and that is to be welcomed in these difficult times.

I am fairly confident that this plan, Building on Reality, is a serious and well researched document. I need not recall to every Member of this House, though it may be necessary to remind some, that the Government approached this plan by first of all appointing the National Planning Board and receiving their report and analysing in detail the recommendations of the National Planning Board. It published an industrial policy earlier this year in relation to the activities of the IDA, SFADCo, CTT and other agencies that are involved. It sought to produce the programme for action in education which spelt out the picture as far as the Minister and the Department of Education are concerned.

What this plan has done is to give confidence to people that not alone has it been published but in its publication we have a plan which has been analysed and researched properly. It is on the table and is a production that should stand the test of time. In the atmosphere in which this Government had to handle the plan, an atmosphere in which the unemployment position has disimproved by 40,000 since 1980, in a period when the serious balance of payments deficit still is with us, it is heartening that the Government, and the EEC as announced last night, predict a growth of about 2½ per cent in each of the next three years. This has been exceeded this year but in the next three years if we can confidently expect growth of that order it is something that will give a fair number of people a stimulus in the future and a fair degree of optimism not alone towards the economy in general but towards employment in particular.

There are a number of matters I would like to refer to in particular. The first is the measure which the Government got under way in the last year, the Employment Incentive Scheme, which already in 1984 has brought 3,500 people off the unemployment register and into the private industrial sector in new worth-while projects. The plan predicts that in the period of the plan some 30,000 will be employed in this area bringing to life a whole range of service industry jobs. This has been the kind of development we have seen elsewhere. Senator McGonagle spoke earlier of the OECD Report of September last which highlighted this kind of development occurring all over the world, certainly in the United States and Japan. Here we have 3,500 immediately taking up the incentive offered by the Government in this area which is likely to produce 30,000 jobs over the next three years.

All of us here are public representatives, most of us are members of local authorities and we know the position in regard to long term unemployment. We know the effects on people, skilled people, people who have worked hard, not the others in society who have been attempting to cream off as much as they can but the people who have been industrious and hard working over the years, who have to face the unemployment problem and not be able to return to work. The Taoiseach said in his opening address on the plan that it is a conservative estimate of the numbers he would hope to see involved in environmental works in different parts of Ireland, in the towns and cities. In Dublin city it is very good news to hear that the 10,000 now without work, some of them would be available to do the kind of work that has been done recently by another scheme which is of a similar kind. But to face seriously the issue of the long term unemployed, to give them part time jobs, to give the resources to the local authorities to get these people to work, are things we very much welcome.

A number of Senators placed emphasis on the road construction programme. The fact that the increase in the plan is a 52 per cent improvement in grant aid in this area, the actual figure being £53 million with a 10 per cent increase in activity, is worth stressing, given Senator O'Toole's remarks earlier that the local authorities employ 4,600, mainly men in road construction. They are to be augmented by a varying figure of the order of 5,000 in the years ahead in relation to this programme. It is good to see that we are taking seriously the need to provide for road construction of the future to deal with by-passing towns, to ease congestion in city areas and the ever-increasing need to provide a good safe road system.

While on roads, I will enter a caution relating to public transport. All Governments over the last ten years have not faced up to the need to deal with the great problems of CIE, but this Government have done so. I am heartened by the decision. I was one of the members of Dublin City Council along with the present Minister for Labour who originally tabled a resolution about six or seven years ago in relation to the need to establish a Dublin Transport Authority. That now is being established.

On page 63 of the plan we talk about the new Dublin Transport Authority and the need for legislation, which will be before the Oireachtas shortly, which will have a key role in the planning and operation of Dublin transport resources. It will be responsible for traffic management in the Dublin area and become part of the reformed local government structure when proposals for reform are being implemented. It is not sufficiently realised by those Members of this House and indeed the other House who are not in touch daily with the difficulties in Dublin city the degree of bungling and difficulty that every one of us in public life in Dublin faces in relation to transport. We have, for example, in Dublin Corporation some three departments handling the transport area — the building of roads, the management of traffic and the planning of the city generally. We have three Departments of State involved. We have the Garda Síochána, we have Córas Iompair Éireann, we have so many organisations which need to be brought together with some element of cohesion by the people in the public area who are using the transport system, using our roads, being concerned about local safety measures and who should be allowed in in a representative fashion to argue the toss in relation to one proposal or another, or at least to have their public representatives there in a co-ordinated way. It is very good news that we have now got to the stage of legislation on this.

I welcome also the plan to provide a separate company for the provincial bus service. My only area of doubt about reform measures in relation to CIE is on page 62, dealing with rail, which states that a package of measures would be implemented on the passenger rail side and that will not affect the existing carriage replacement programme. It will mean that there will be no substantial investment in railways and that there will be strict cash limits on other expenditure. My concern here would be that although I am very glad the Government have faced up to a priority in relation to either roads or railways, the emphasis obviously is to be on roads in the future. In this plan I hope we will have the understanding of the Government, and that the company to be set up to manage the rail system will have the support of both Houses of the Oireachtas, and this House in particular, in relation to ensuring that the rail system is kept in good order and that we do not allow the sort of thing which happened to our rail system back in the fifties to be incorporated into this retrenchment programme. I hope we will sustain our rail links as they exist and that we will, to the extent that it is possible, ensure that moneys are provided to support the rail programme albeit on the basis of keeping them alive rather than developing them on the lines of the DART system in Dublin city. When the economy is more buoyant I hope the rail system will not have been impeded in any serious way by the plans which are well constructed and understood as of now.

Another area which will be heralded as a major step forward is the commitment in the plan to move the resources and emphasis in relation to industry towards marketing and new technology areas. In this regard it is tremendous to see the allocation of money going to Córas Tráchtála in the next few years. The importance of exports is paramount to the country's future. There is need to give the export performance of CTT a much greater hold in the public mind and to have it understood that in better marketing and design and in a better feedback from our export market lies the best future for the country. In doing this the Government are going along the right lines.

I should like to ask the Minister who will be responding to this debate to deal with the fact that of the total of Irish exports 46 per cent are bought in the United Kingdom, 29 per cent by the Dutch and only 11 per cent by West Germans. I should like Córas Tráchtála to develop marketing centres in Europe. I hope their plans will include availability of personnel for the smaller company in Europe, related to some form of percentage deal for the sales they are able to undertake successfully on behalf of companies whose products are very much to the forefront. Presumably those products will result in a feedback through CTT to the producer and be very useful towards the development of that product, its design, presentation and so on.

In relation to housing, there are a number of areas in the plan which are very worthwhile and encouraging. One that is worth emphasising is the £5,000 grant for tenants of local authority houses who buy a private dwelling. In many urban areas — this certainly applies to Dublin — there are areas which are exclusively local authority areas and other areas which are exclusively private. This grant will encourage people who are tenants or tenant purchasers to move out of what are traditional local authority areas and move into a private area. This will allow not just for mobility in housing but for a much greater mix of housing. Already this scheme is showing great promise. There is a lot of interest in it and I hope that it will have the effect which is intended. It is not intended to move away from building local authority houses. The programme provides for building 6,000 of these per year and hopes that as a result of the £5,000 grant, 3,000 houses from existing stock will be available for reletting.

On page 114 of the plan the question of the management and letting of local authority housing is dealt with. The plan suggests that the local authority statutory provisions be reviewed to ensure that the needs of particular categories of persons, such as the homeless, the aged, the disabled, the travellers and single parent families, will get due priority in the formulation of building programmes and the allocation of tenancies. One category that seems to get very little attention in the drawing up of plans by local authorities, and it is one which has got a lot of attention recently in Dublin, is the small non-expanding family. In the plans of local authorities and of the National Building Agency this particular category is often overlooked. Predominantly housing seems to be built for families who will occupy three and four-bedroomed houses. I examined statistics from last year in relation to the building programme of Dublin Corporation, which is the largest local authority in the country and builds 1,500 houses. Some 72 of those were built for the families of the size which I have been describing. Very few houses, cottages or facilities of any kind are built for the small family which consists of one child, very often an adult child. I am emphasising this point outside of the area of building maisonettes for the elderly, which is a separate programme altogether.

There is also in the area of housing an item dealing with the refurbishing of houses for private renting. This programme, dealing with houses in multiple occupation, is a farseeing one. Throughout our towns and cities — and it is not just because of the existence until recently of the Rent Restrictions Act — over shops and buildings which are very well situated and soundly constructed, there are large areas of space, unoccupied and unused, which could be used to very good effect. It is good to see the extension of the type of incentive under section 23 of the Finance Bill, dealing with the building of purpose built flats, to include the refurbishing of buildings in multiple occupation. This is to ensure that these buildings, which are often situated in central points in towns and in areas which are architecturally important and have a great deal of life ahead of them, can be used to rehouse people.

I have dealt with a number of areas in the plan which are pertinent to the future. The plan is well constructed, analysed and researched. It is a plan that will give a great deal of heart to people. Many people said it could have been produced months earlier but it was delayed because of the degree of attention and long hours the Cabinet gave to it. This will bear fruit in the end when the Government face their turn at the polls in some three years hence.

I am glad to be afforded the opportunity to comment on this plan. At the outset, let me state in all sincerity that when this Government announced they were preparing a national plan which they said would be geared specifically towards certain aims and objectives we were hopeful that at least they had finally come to their senses and had given recognition to the fact that this nation of ours was at a crisis point, that something needed to be done and done very urgently. We had hoped that the warnings and the pleas of the various trade unions, of the Confederation of Irish Industry, of the National Vintners Association, of the Hoteliers Federation of Ireland, of the IFA, of the ICMSA and of all the other national bodies who had been endeavouring in the past two years, and especially in the past 12 months, to alert this Government, and the Taoiseach and the Minister for Finance in particular, to the real problem that exists had been taken note of. We all looked forward at least with some enthusiasm to some type of positive action that could or would be taken. If it was positive and constructive this action should and could be taken with the cooperation of all the organisations and indeed with the labour force, both employed and unemployed.

We all recognised that any action taken would of necessity have to be immediate and with clear definition. The plan before us fails completely in every respect to justify or fulfil any of our hopes, vague as they may have been among some of us. Those of us who have memories of the performances of Coalition Governments in the past will realise that this plan reflects in every true sense the general background within the Coalition Government. It was against this background that this plan was devised, compiled and concocted, a background of confusion and distrust, not alone among Fine Gael and Labour, but also among the people who supported these parties and who put their trust in them in the last General Election. The plan was introduced with a fanfare of trumpets. The entire exercise now seems to have achieved what I would consider its main objective, that is, in some way to bring a slowing down to the rift within the parties in Government and in some way to try to placate the backbenchers, especially within the Labour Party.

I would say that the Taoiseach was quite right when he stated that the plan was prepared under most unfavourable conditions. The country in general is fully aware of that. Having read the plan, having listened to some of the debate on it and again reflecting on the state of the economy, the unemployment problems and the social problems, I am amazed that people who are supposed to be in full touch with reality can endorse such a document.

Reality is one of the first words mentioned in the plan. However, I can think of many aspects of the plan that will result in great hardship. With regard to trade, industry and unemployment the plan is presumptuous in the extreme. At the same time it is sending out clear signals to other areas, signals which should be the cause of great concern to many.

Those of us who have so much in common with the small farmer have been concerned with the problems he has had of income tax demands, the aftermath of the removal of rates and to many the announcement of the imposition of a land tax that seems to many to be very minimal and easy to administer. This proposal is welcomed by many people but when they look in depth into this plan they will ask who is to pay this tax. Who is going to pay the extra 100 per cent that is to be generated from this tax? It will be this very small farmer that we are all so concerned about but what is to happen to the money after it has been collected? This is a matter of concern to those of us who are members of local authorities. Nobody here can give me the answer but if this plan is implemented I am convinced that time will prove me right in what I believe will be the procedure. When the local authorities collect this money the rates support grant will be dropped not just in accordance with the amounts collected but to a even lower level. Local authorities will be told by the Minister to reimburse themselves by way of increases in local authority charges, whether for land tax, refuse collection or water rates or by way of other measures yet to be designed or decided on.

That is the future facing the local authorities. The Government, particularly the Minister for Finance, can surely be accused of passing the buck to the local authorities. I regret that the Taoiseach is not here as I would like to put to him that he and the Minister for Finance are ordering the local authorities to become self-financing, irrespective of the hardships that will be created by the withdrawal of the rates support grants which have been fully augmented by increases in the VAT rates over the past number of years, especially in the last five or six years.

We were promised local government reform. Is this what the Government sees as local government reform that was promised? Were the local elections postposned in 1984 so as to have the rates support grant pushed down to a minimum and the local authorities' charges pushed to a maximum? If that is the case I certainly hope that this Government will get their answer if and when the local elections are held in 1985, if they are held at all.

Building on Reality is a national plan but there is not a mention of cross-Border co-operation or development. What has this plan to offer in the way of cross-Border developments? If the Government were serious in producing a national plan which is supposed to look at least three years ahead, they must at least give some thought to the whole of Ireland. It is apparent that the Government are resigned to the fact that the north eastern part of the country is no longer worthy of consideration. It cannot be termed a national plan. It poses the question of all the hopes and aspirations of the allIreland forum which have been abandoned at this stage. Some thought should have been given to the enormous cost of Border maintenance where both forces are costing the British and Irish Governments hundreds of millions of pounds annually to maintain an artificial boundary thrust upon us against the wishes of the vast majority of the people of Ireland. I read in the paper recently that we prefer to spend hundreds of millions of pounds preparing plans to build new jails when we should be facing up to the reality as to why these jails are necessary in the first place.

The local problems besetting this country are a cause of grave concern to many people. There has been a 4 per cent cut in the health service over the past two years, which has stretched the health service to the limit. I see that there is to be a further 4 per cent cut. The Government must look into the health service and see where these cuts are taking place because there are areas which cannot bear the strain any longer. There is a development and expansion programme with regard to the building of new hospitals and providing new facilities, but even in these areas there are cuts and have been for the past two years. They have caused serious problems in many areas and have divided constituencies in two. At the end of the day we must ask if we will get a better service than was there previously. I doubt it. The health services is an area where we must have goodwill, good working relationships, good staff and facilities. I am very concerned with the halting of progress in regard to providing services for the mentally handicapped. I come from an area where we have no facilities for adult mentally handicapped people. We have space, we have the goodwill but we have not got the staff because, in the interests of economy staff cannot be provided to look after these people. If the Government are concerned about the welfare of the nation they should look into this area and realise that there is a need to provide services in the areas where we have a moral responsibility to cater for the less well off sections of the community. We should use our conscience, make exceptions to the rule and provide staffing levels to provide a service. I have been harping on this for a few years now.

Debate adjourned.
The Seanad adjourned at 10 p.m. until 10.30 a.m. on Wednesday, 31 October 1984.
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