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.