I want to ask the Minister for Finance one question on a matter of explanation. The Minister made a remark to Deputy Fagan about not insuring against a certain contingency. I should like to know what the Minister means by that remark.
Imposition of Duties (Confirmation of Order) Bill, 1936—Committee and Final Stages.
Question proposed: "That Section 1 stand part of the Bill."
Oh, well, that was—
It is not fair for the Minister for Finance to sneer at a farmer's loss of a valuable animal. I think it is the nastiest think he has done in this House and he has done many nasty things in his time.
The Minister must know that, owing to the economic war, I was unable to pay that insurance for another week.
We will discuss that on the Vote for the Department for Agriculture.
I did not think the Minister would gloat over my loss.
Section 1 proposes to confirm Emergency (Imposition of Duty) Order, No. 97. We have got very little information from the Minister for Finance as to what exactly is going to happen under this Bill but one thing of which we were informed by the Government press is that quotas for cattle, horses, sheep, and so on will be fixed from time to time in accordance with the extent of the trade between the two countries. I asked the Minister yesterday for information with regard to the items dealt with here—coal, cement, electrical goods, sugar goods and iron goods. I asked him what was the amount of the special anti-British duties that would be operating before 19th February and what were the anti-British duties that would operate after that, so that the House, in passing this Order, might be able to compare how the duties that would stand against British goods now would compare with the duties standing against other goods. The Minister told us yesterday that he had not had time to get the information.
From the beginning of this month, a deputation has been spending time discussing with the British what they are going to admit with reduced duties here and parcelling out these items against others with a view to getting an export trade for agricultural goods. He is not able to tell the House to-day, when asking them to pass this Order how the British rates are going to compare with the rates against other imports of these particular goods, or, how generally, they are going to compare now with what they were before 19th February. It is a most astounding way to treat a matter which the Minister would persuade us was important. Neither was he able to tell us what were the annual imports of any of these items or what the annual imports were expected to be. I should like to ask the Minister if he has any explanation to offer to the House for appearing before the House in such an uninformed way to deal with the Bill which he thinks is of importance and which the Government press, at any rate, has told us is going to dictate the number of horses, cattle and other agricultural produce that are going to be exported from time to time.
There is one other point I want to raise. I want, if I can, now and for ever, to scotch a falsehood that has been rolling around this country. It is the falsehood that there was a secret agreement. A good lie takes a lot of catching up. I heard the President of the Executive Council here to-day say that an agreement was made by the ex-President of the Executive Council to which no reference was made in this House for nine years after it was made. Does any Deputy challenge the statement that the President said that to-day?
I should like to see the exact words, too.
The President said to-day that an agreement was made, which he brought into this House— a dirty scrap of paper, falling to pieces—and that that agreement had lain secret without reference being made to it for nine years.
Without its terms being disclosed, which is quite a different thing.
At column 2499, volume 3 of the Dáil Debates——
Deputy Costello has already dealt with that.
I am going to read it again and every time the secret agreement is named, I am going to stand up and read this column again because it is the only way to nail an infamous falsehood.
Get it on a gramophone record.
The same as the lies you repeat.
I can warn the Vice-President that this is going to be repeated so often as the falsehood about a secret agreement is repeated.
And I am giving you an easy way—get it on a gramophone record.
I wish to cast no such aspersion on the Vice-President's veracity. The ex-President there said:
"The actual sum due to pay the annuities is much greater than the sum which comes in. At the recent negotiations which took place in England——"
Those are the negotiations which are described as secret negotiations to which no reference was ever made in this House. It was out of those negotiations that the agreement to pass the land annuities over to Great Britain was come to in virtue of what the then Executive Council believed, and rightly believed, in my opinion, to be the proper situation.
"—— we came to a provisional arrangement which binds us, or in which we accepted liability for the payment of a certain sum pending a settlement regarding the major question."
It goes on with the paragraph read by the Minister for Education here to-day and by Deputy Costello. The rest of the paragraph was read in extenso.
Why the objection to publish?
That can be dealt with on another occasion and, I hope, will be. It has been repeatedly said in this country that there was secret negotiation and that there was a secret agreement.
It was marked "secret."
There is no vestige of truth, good, bad or indifferent in that. That agreement was brought before the Dáil, was fully investigated in the Dáil, was subsequently referred to on several occasions and was fully endorsed by the Dáil. It is quite open to anybody to asperse the merits of that agreement now. It is very easy to asperse in 1936 the financial merits of an agreement made in 1924. If the Fianna Fáil Party would wake up to commonsense and approach this problem from the point of view that this agreement was made on behalf of the Irish Executive Council about the same time that Mr. Baldwin was making his debt funding arrangement in Washington on behalf of the British Cabinet, we might make some headway towards a settlement but so long as our own Government tries to asperse the honour and the reputation of their predecessors in office by suggesting that they concealed or held back from the people something which it was their duty not to conceal, we can make no headway. It is because they are satisfied to pursue that campaign of villification of men who built up the institutions of the State, institutions that the Party opposite now enjoy to the full, that they have brought this country to the catastrophic conditions which we are now experiencing.
Has the Minister no answer to give to the questions which were put to him?
I do not wish to impose on the House. I understood the Opposition were good enough to agree that we should have all the stages of the Bill to-night. I am allowing Deputy Dillon to have the last word.
This only shows the attitude with which the Executive Council approach their business. Why cannot we be told in respect to articles imported here from Great Britain, the import of which is going to dictate the number of cattle, horses, etc., that are going to be exported from here to Great Britain, what the duties on these articles will be after the 9th of February?
On yesterday afternoon, I gave the Deputy an answer to the question which he has now asked me.
You said you did not know.
I said I would communicate with the Deputy in writing as soon as I had the information. If the Deputy will put down a question for next week, I shall give him all the information I have at my disposal. There is a numerous list of articles involved. One thing that is clear from my statement yesterday is that over and above the duties which were imposed on imported articles whatever the country of origin, articles of British origin were carrying in addition a penal duty of 20 per cent. That, as was quite clearly stated, has been reduced in view of the recent arrangement to 10 per cent. I cannot supply all the details which are very numerous at the moment as at this time of the year the staff of the Revenue Commissioners are very busy, but as soon as the information is available I shall furnish it to him. We shall, no doubt, have Deputy Dillon on the Central Fund Bill, again stating that the agreement of February, 1923, was not a secret agreement and that its terms were not concealed from the Irish people.
Rubbish.
I should like to ask the Minister a question not on the alleged secret agreement of 1923, but on the agreement of February, 1936. A third of our requirements of cement is going to be allowed in on a reduction of 10 per cent. in the duty. That will still leave another 10 per cent. duty, and I should like to know whether that is in substitution for, or is an addition to, the flat rate of tariff on cement in general? I should like to know from the Minister has he no duty to his constituents? Is he not aware that there are millions of tons of shale deposits in his constituency in and around Skerries? Is he not aware that some of the best limestone in the country is to be found around Skerries at Milverton quarries? Is he not aware that there are rich deposits of gypsum at Shercock in County Cavan?
All will be ready within a year.
I think it is a couple of years since a Cement Bill was rushed through the House and we were told that we were going to have cement in the morning. What has happened that?
And we were going to have turf for our fires.
It is seldom we get as good a "bag" as we have here this evening. It is seldom we have as good game. We have the Minister for Local Government, a very charming man when he gives us statistics about housing, but here is our principal essential import in the matter of housing. The consumption of cement in this country last year was in the neighbourhood of 336,000 tons, all of which was imported from the Continent except a trifle of some 14,000 tons. Towards the end of the year, the continental people fixed a price for this country, and why would they not? They said: "We have the Irish market to ourselves. These fellows have been talking about the manufacture of cement, but they have pigeon-holed the Act, and why should not we get any price we like for our cement when the market is there for us?" Consequently the price of cement was raised on the 1st of January by 6/- per ton.
This pact gives the continental people two-thirds of the market and one-third of the market to the British people. I should like to know what price we are going to pay the British for the cement they supply? I know that, although I am asking the question, I shall get no answer because the slip-shod way in which this agreement has been prepared is far worse than the conduct alleged by the President here on several occasions in the case of the tattered agreement that he used to exhibit to us. He must have put it into preservatives because he only produced a copy of it to-day. What price are we going to pay to the British for the 112,000 tons of cement which we are taking from them? Is it not the price that they will charge us?
Dr. Ryan
Certainly.
We guarantee that market to them, and if we do not give them the whole of it they will want to know the reason why. After we have imported two-thirds of our requirements from the Continent, we cannot import any more. We must import the rest from Great Britain at Britain's price. Deputy Mulcahy raised a very pertinent question as to the number of cattle that we shall be allowed to export under this scheme. How many extra cattle will we be allowed to export under this scheme? I have asked that question both as a parliamentary question and on Second Reading. The President, in a long speech lasting nearly two hours, never touched on the vital matters in this alleged pact. The Minister for Finance never mentioned the pact once. We should like to know something about the details of this pact. How many cattle are we to get to England? Has there been any suggestion as to the price of cattle by weight or otherwise, or any suggestion as to the price of the commodities that we are to import in lieu of the cattle? None. We give a quota to them. We guarantee it; pound for pound they will take out cattle but they dictate the price of the cattle. We have nothing else to send them. They dictate the price also at which they will send over these commodities.
Does the Deputy intend to allow this Bill to go through all its stages to-night.
I shall have finished in a moment. I should like to know exactly what we are doing. I have asked these questions several times. I have taxed the patience and indulgence of the Chair almost to breaking point to try to get it in.
A Deputy
You often did that before.
I often did that before and the Chair was very patient with me to allow me to get away with it this time, but these interruptions are only delaying me. I put this question now to the President—and he has my sympathy on unfortunately hauling down the flag—is it an integral part of the coal-cattle pact that Britain will receive £4 5s. 0d. per head on our cattle?
Apparently the Deputy cannot read.
If not, how does this £4 5s. 0d. arise? Is not the ratification of this pact by the Dáil an acknowledgment of Britain's right to collect the disputed moneys? What is there now left to dispute about? What case did Britain make for this levy and on what basis was it collected?
Dr. Ryan
The Deputy made the case for them already.
I never made the case and I never pretended to make a case for them. However, this is the Committee Stage and it is late at night.
The Deputy is making a Second Reading speech.
That is why I do not want to answer the interruption. On one occasion, when all those Deputies on the Fianna Fáil Benches were colleagues of mine in that Party, I proposed that we should withhold the land annuities, that we should come in here and vote against their payment by this House. You would not come in then. I can produce the documents to prove that. You are the greatest imposters and hypocrites that ever saw the light of day. I think those questions of mine should be answered. The President and all his Ministers are here now and these questions should be answered.
If the Bill is to be put through all its stages to-night, all these questions cannot be answered.
They will be answered hereafter.
I shall answer them on platforms throughout the country.
Section 1 put and agreed to.
With your permission, Sir, I should like to ask the Minister one question as to whether he will——
Give him the Bill now.
This is a very important matter because our unfortunate constituents have been driven to desperation by the policy of the present Government——
I appeal to Deputy O'Leary to postpone his question until to-morrow morning. I have no doubt special facilities will be provided for him to-morrow to put his question. The Minister wants the Bill to-night and we have given an absolute undertaking to convenience him.
Very well; if I will get the opportunity to-morrow?
After all, if the Government are prepared to answer Deputy O'Leary's question, there is no reason why, with the permission of the House, an opportunity would not be given now to answer it.
The House cannot sit after 11 o'clock.
Section 2 and the Title put and agreed to.
Bill reported without amendment.
Question—"That the Bill be received for final consideration"—put and agreed to.
Question proposed: "That the Bill do now pass."
I object to the Bill getting its Fifth Reading until the Minister answers my question.
The Bill can stand over for eight months as far as the Government is concerned. If Deputy O'Leary and others wish to deprive the farmers of its benefit——
There are still some minutes left and that would give time to the Minister to answer Deputy O'Leary's question.
All this manoeuvring on the part of the Opposition is not good enough, in view of the undertaking given.
There is no manoeuvring at all, it is simply a matter of justice and I want to bring it home to the minds of the people. I should like to ask the Minister for Finance if he is prepared to call off the "flying squad" until such time as he investigates the conditions which he is imposing on the unfortunate tenants in this country. Last Monday the "flying squad" visited my village, which is in the Gaeltacht. Deputy Corkery knows all about the conditions there. There was one man in the parish whose annuity was £4 14s. 10d., and he had to bring two in-calf heifers to the fair. To give you an idea of the kind of cattle they were he sold one of them for £5 15s. 0d. and he was offered £5 for the other. In the meantime, the "flying squad" came along and this man had to go to a certain person, a friend of his, and to borrow money to meet the demand of the "flying squad." This man lives on the side of the main road between Ballyvourney and Killarney, and a Kerry cattle dealer who was passing by asked him to sell the two heifers he had at home. Now I ask Deputies to consider what this pact is going to cost that unfortunate man in the matter of these four heifers alone. This Bill is going to impose a tax of £4 5s. 0d. on each of those heifers so that the unfortunate man will have to pay on the four a sum of £17. That is what he is losing. That is what he is paying on four cattle and it is in the same proportion he will have to pay on everything else he produces for sale. That is how these poor people are being taxed in order to maintain the policy over which the Minister for Finance stands.
Question put and declared carried.
I want to be recorded as voting against this Bill.
And I want to be recorded as voting against it.
In opposing this Bill we are fighting against highway robbery.
I also want to be taken as voting against the passage of the Bill. I want my name to be recorded as voting against it.
Bill certified as a Money Bill under Article 35 of the Constitution.
The Dáil adjourned at 11 p.m. until 10.30 a.m. on Friday morning, 28th February.