There is one thing nobody on this side can object to, and that is the faith which Fianna Fáil Deputies have in their leaders. Deputy Kelly is satisfied that the lot of the unemployed is going to be all right. His faith in the creative genius of the Parliamentary Secretary tells him that the unemployed are in perfectly safe hands and the outlook for them in the future is particularly bright. What justification has the Deputy for saying that? The Deputy and his colleagues should be apologising to the unemployed of this country. They are the Deputies who went before the unemployed five years ago, and told them that they had considered the whole question of unemployment here, that they had planned how they would put those men at work, that that plan had been tested by men who knew how to test it and found completely watertight, and that, in the words of the Minister for Industry and Commerce, with a few of the important industries, they would put so many men into employment that there would not be enough idle hands in the country. The President told us that if there was a Christian Government in power in this country, we would have no unemployment. The President told us that we had a solution for the unemployment problem such as no other country in the world had. The Minister for Industry and Commerce, speaking in his own constituency in York Street in 1932, said that within twelve months of the Fianna Fáil Government coming into office, there would be no unemployed in this country. Those are the Deputies who come here after five years in office and tell us that the plan is in operation, but that the full effects of it will not be seen for a couple of years. That is not what you told the people in 1932 or 1933.
The plan is in operation. What has made the biggest impression on the numbers of unemployed in this country since Fianna Fáil came into office? The numbers of workers, young men and women, who have fled from the country to Great Britain—at least 80,000 in four and a half years. The Deputy talks about the industrial revival and the Minister claimed three years ago that there were over 300 factories started in the country. At that rate of progress, I suppose there must be 900 new factories started now; but, notwithstanding that, notwithstanding the fall in population and notwithstanding the operation of the period orders which deem thousands of people to be at work, whether they are at work or not, they have never yet been able to bring the figure below 90,000, although, in the last 12 months, over 28,000 boys and girls left this country through Saorstát ports, not to talk of those who went from Derry and Belfast.
Deputies talk about unemployment. We are told that the unemployed are safe in the hands of the Parliamentary Secretary. The creative genius who is in charge of the unemployed is the man who said in this House that anybody on this side who would stand between the unemployed man and a wage of 21/- per week would be torn limb from limb. To such straits has the Fianna Fáil policy brought the workmen of this country that, in the opinion of the Parliamentary Secretary, if anybody dared to stand between them and the wage of 21/- per week, they would be torn limb from limb. In these circumstances, we are told by the Minister for Finance that the country is prosperous, that the signs of prosperity are everywhere around us. The fact that thousands of our best citizens are fleeing from a country supposed to be prosperous is the most devastating commentary that could be made upon that statement in the Budget.
Deputy Kelly talks about maintenance. He says that if the Government did not provide work, they provided maintenance. They provide 6/- per week for single men—less than 1/- per day. Does the Deputy contend that that is sufficient to maintain any human being in this country? They provide 12/6 for a man with a wife and from four to ten children in a rural area or in a town with a population of less than 7,000. Does the Deputy contend that, with the cost of living soaring, as it has been soaring for the last three years, it is possible for a man to maintain himself, his wife and children on 12/6 per week? Is the Deputy aware that the stone of flour, which could be bought by that workman or by his wife three years ago for 1/6, is to-day costing from 3/- to 3/2—an increase of more than 100 per cent.? Would the Parliamentary Secretary or the Deputy tell the House how many stones of flour would be consumed by the ordinary family living in the country in a week if they could afford the purchase? Will the Deputy or the Parliamentary Secretary agree with me that a married man with a family of five would use four stones of flour per week, if they could afford it, in those households in which the bread is baked at home? Whereas that flour could be purchased for 6/- three or three and a half years ago, to-day it is costing from 12/- to 12/6. I should like some of the Deputies to try maintenance for a week on the rates which they, apparently, consider enough for these men. Has the Parliamentary Secretary any conception of the increase which has taken place in the prices even of the necessaries of life for the last two or three years? Those prices are still soaring. The relief given in the Budget to-day will mean very little to the people concerned.
The Deputy says that the rotation scheme has proved to be fundamentally sound. It is the most fundamentally unsound scheme, from every point of view, that was ever started in this country. Has the Parliamentary Secretary considered what the married man getting four days' work receives at the end of the week to maintain himself and his family? He receives 16/-, less insurance. That is under a scheme that is fundamentally sound! A single man receives 12/-, less insurance. Even under the schemes that are run by, or with the co-operation of, the local authorities, there is not a great deal of difference. For three days' work a man in my own county receives 13/7 net, and for four days' work 18/7. The first charge on this sum of 13/7 or 18/7 in the case of men living in urban areas is from 3/6 to 5/- for rent. Having paid that rent under a scheme which the Parliamentary Secretary has described as "fundamentally sound," what is left to buy flour at 3/2 per stone and butter at 1/5 per lb.? We need not talk about meat now because, so far as the unemployed are concerned and so far as a good many of the employed workers are concerned, meat is beyond them. They cannot afford to buy it. Deputies ought to face up to the realities of the situation. I am satisfied that Deputy Kelly knows what the position is quite well. Notwithstanding all the industries established, notwithstanding all the extra tillage which is claimed, notwithstanding all the moneys borrowed by local authorities, notwithstanding all the experiments made by the Parliamentary Secretary, notwithstanding all the efforts of the Committee over which he presided for nearly three years, we are faced with the position that, in a country with a falling population, with from 70,000 to 90,000 of our boys and girls gone to Britain in five years, with thousands laid off and deemed to be at work under period orders, with hundreds of claims suspended from day to day for investigation, and with all the other subterfuges, you still have 93,000 persons signing the register. In face of that and in spite of the fact that the young people are going to Britain in thousands, the Parliamentary Secretary, after sitting on novel schemes for three years, confesses that he was unable to spend the money voted by this House last year, of which local authorities had to find practically one-third. That is dealing with unemployment in a serious way! I attended a meeting in my own town on Monday night, and one of the matters under discussion was this flight to England. One unemployed man asked who could blame the people for going to England, and indicated that, if they had their fare, thousands more would go. Deputies know that that is quite true. Neither Deputy Kelly nor any other Deputy can get up and truthfully say that there is any plan in the possession of this Government which is going to solve unemployment. Their major policy is cutting across the solution of the unemployment problem. Whatever efforts are made by one Minister to provide employment are being offset by the general policy of the Government. Those are the facts. Deputies cannot deny them.
Deputies, I am sure, will admit that when the Unemployment Assistance Act was passed through this House the rates of benefit provided under it were, God knows, small enough. Will any Deputy on any side of the House contend that the rates which are the same to-day will purchase anything like the same amount of food as that rate would purchase when the Act was passed in 1933? Not a single Deputy would contend that. I ask Deputies to face up to those facts and not to try to talk along the lines travelled by Deputy J.P. Kelly. Deputy Kelly has not succeeded in deceiving anybody who is dealing with this unemployment question, except perhaps himself. With all respect to the Deputy, I do not really believe that he himself believed what he was saying when he said he had absolute faith in the genius of the Parliamentary Secretary to deal with unemployment. I do not believe it for a moment, because the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance has not given any cause to prove to any Deputy in this House or to show the country why anyone could have any faith in his ever doing anything towards solving the unemployment question in this country.
I ask Deputy J.P. Kelly and the Parliamentary Secretary to say here and now whether the plans which we were told about in 1932 ever did exist? If they did exist let them be produced to this House and to the country. If that plan does not exist, Deputies on the Government side ought to admit that they succeeded in deceiving many sections of the community in 1932 and 1933. Many sections of the community have suffered as a result of that deception. But there is no section of the community that has suffered more —and, as far as I can see, are likely to continue to suffer—than those who are looking for employment and cannot get it. We heard £15,000,000 mentioned. Deputy J.P. Kelly thinks that conditions have improved as far as employment in this country is concerned. I wonder does he really think so? I wonder does any member on the opposite side of the House believe that? I wonder is there any member of the Labour Party who believe it? I do not believe there is, because the members of the Labour Party are fairly close down to what the position is. Many Deputies on the Fianna Fáil Benches are as close down to what the position is as we on these benches are. A great many of them are in as close touch with the workers and with the poor as we are. When they meet the people day after day in their constituencies they must know the extraordinary position to which the unemployed have been reduced. I want to say this frankly—and it is not anything to be proud of—that to my own knowledge in my own town, which is a typical provincial town in this country, I have seen greater poverty and more widespread poverty during the last winter than I ever saw in my own time. I have confirmation of this statement from the officers of the St. Vincent de Paul Society. These are the facts.
Unlike the Deputies on the opposite benches, I never did say that it was an easy matter to find work for every unemployed person in this country. I never said so. If it were so easy a matter, then every country in the world would have work for the people looking for it. The difference between myself and my colleagues on this side and Deputies on the opposite benches is this—that we never attempted to deceive the unemployed into believing that we could provide work for every man and woman in the country by simply waving the magic wand of Fianna Fáil over them. Deputies on the opposite side told us that they were going to start factories in every village and cross-roads within 12 months after the general election in 1932 and 1933. I do not expect any Government to do impossibilities. But that is exactly what Deputies on the Government side of the House told the people in 1932 and 1933 they were going to do. That is what the President himself said. That is what the Minister for Industry and Commerce and every member of the Party and follower of the Party through the country told the people they were going to do. Now, having failed to do these things, they still want to bluster and pretend that they have succeeded. The fact is they have not succeeded and they know they have not. The result of the activities of the Party opposite over the last five years has not been to reduce unemployment in this country but to increase it. Every person in the country knows that. There is no Deputy living down the country who does not know it. I would go so far as to say there is no Deputy here in Dublin who does not know it. There are very few Deputies, and I am glad to say very few of the unemployed, who now believe that there is any hope of the Party opposite providing employment for the unemployed.
I confess I have not the same faith in the creative genius of the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance as Deputy J.P. Kelly has, nor do I believe in that sympathetic regard for the unemployed which Deputy Kelly attributes to him. I am only judging the Parliamentary Secretary by his record in dealing with unemployment. I am judging him by the standards he would set for the unemployed and by his statements in this House and his actions outside the House. We have had his standard of 21/- a week. Just imagine the Parliamentary Secretary believing that unemployment was so bad in this country that if any man dared to stand between an unemployed man and this wage of 21/- a week, he would be torn limb from limb. If that is the position the unemployed must be reduced to a terrible state indeed.
Deputies will remember the wages that were originally fixed for the Shannon scheme in Limerick. Some Deputies here gave us outside support for the stand we took up at that time. There was a time when these Deputies would not stand for a minimum wage of 32/- a week. Now they are standing for and supporting a wage of 21/- a week. I invite anyone to say whether there is any comparison as to the amount of food which could be purchased at that time £ for £, and the amount that can be purchased to-day. Deputies themselves know quite well that what could be purchased for 14/- four or five years ago would to-day cost £1. The Parliamentary Secretary may smile, but that is the reason why to-day in his own constituency in Cork there are 1,300 men on strike. That is the reason why there are to-day in Dublin 12,000 men on strike. It is because the cost of living is soaring, and the wages are chasing after the cost of living. That is a fact and the Parliamentary Secretary knows it is a fact.
Every Deputy here who knows anything about actual conditions and who has any knowledge whatever of the workers and of trade union conditions knows that the soaring cost of living is the main justification for the demands which are being made by trade unions in this country for increased wages to-day. If the cost of living is driven up wages must follow. Men must live. That is all right for those who are in employment and who have sufficient sense to be members of trade unions. They can band themselves together as one man, and when they have a just cause they can throw not only the full strength of their unions, but the full weight of public opinion behind them. But it is different in the case of those who are unemployed. Some of those have got no work during the last four or five years except very casual work. These men are not banded together in any organisation, and they cannot make their case and their fight as one man. I invite Deputies on the opposite side to go down and tell the people who are trying to maintain themselves either on rotation work or on unemployment assistance that they are well able to do it and that the rotation scheme is fundamentally sound. I say that it is the most fundamentally unsound scheme that was ever started in this country.