When the House adjourned on the last occasion, I was about to direct the attention of the Minister for Finance to the very serious deterioration in the economic position of persons who have got to subsist on the low level of income which is provided for them in the social services. In particular I should like to call the attention of the Minister to the basic fact that there has been a very substantial increase in the cost of living in the past two years, an increase which, measured by the narrowest possible criterion, is over 30 per cent. Of course the prices of a large number of commodities have increased by very much more than 30 per cent. I took occasion recently to examine certain price levels which were reported to the Grangegorman Mental Hospital Committee and to ascertain what percentage increase there was in the price of these commodities over the 1939 level. Although the Grangegorman Mental Hospital Committee can buy commodities by the ton and cloth by the 1,000 yards, the percentage increase in that case, notwithstanding the favourable buying conditions available to an institution buying on such a large scale, was very substantially higher than that indicated by the level ascertainable under the Departmental cost-of-living index figure. If we start off, therefore, with an acceptance of the fact that the cost of living has increased by over 30 per cent. in the past two years—that fact cannot be challenged because the statement is based on official information—we find that persons such as old age pensioners who enjoy a maximum pension of 10/- per week are to-day expected to exist on that 10/- per week notwithstanding the very substantial increase in the cost of living over the past two years. If we take the case of unemployment assistance recipients, we find that in the rural areas and the small towns the maximum rate of benefit provided for a man, wife and any number of children over five is 14/- per week, out of which that man is obliged to pay rent and to purchase food, clothing and all those other commodities which are essential to a civilised existence.
I think it needs very little imagination on the part of any member of the House to realise the economic degradation to which that person has been reduced by being compelled to provide for himself, his wife and family of growing children on an income of 14/- a week. It is not possible, even adopting the communal methods of feeding, to provide food alone for a single soldier in the Army at 14/- a week. Yet our concepts of Christianity are so warped that we expect a man to provide for himself, his wife and five or six children on a sum of 14/- a week at the present level of prices. Those who have to depend on the inordinately low rates of benefit provided under the non-contributory section of the Widows' and Orphans' Pensions Act are similarly in a desperate plight. Pensions in such cases are subjected to a means test. The means test entails that any income which the widow has is taken into consideration in assessing her claim for a pension and pensions have been awarded under the non-contributory section of the Act as low as 1/- per week. The maximum pension in a rural area is 5/-. To imagine that these people can exist on pensions of such a low standard, particularly in view of the fact that the cost of living has risen so rapidly, is to expect them to do the impossible. Similarly our national health insurance benefits have not kept pace with the movement of prices. We have devised national health insurance legislation, which does not make provision for health, and certainly is not worthy of the title of national. There again our sick people, and these may include a man, his wife and a number of children, are compelled to exist on a maximum benefit of 15/- per week.
Now, I think the Minister is not wholly removed from realities. I think the Minister has some knowledge of the conditions of life and of living in this city and in this country, and I should like to put to him this question: How does he expect the people who are living on 10/- a week, the people who are living on 14/- a week, or the people who are living on 15/- a week, to be able to manage even the most frugal existence in present circumstances? If you take the case of a man with a wife and six children living on unemployment assistance—and that, probably, is the worst case of all— surely, the plight of that man must be desperate to-day? This Budget has treated industrial companies in a very generous way, by permitting them to pay 9 per cent. in dividends, and, possibly, as in one case I have quoted, dividends of 14 per cent, and it seems extraordinary that a Government that can treat a wealthy section of the community in that way could not arrange for an increase in benefits for those who are living below the poverty line of existence to-day. My complaint against this Budget is that it assumes that these people are in the same position as they were in, in pre-war days. We are spending close on £9,000,000 on the Army to-day, whereas we spent less than £2,000,000, pre-war. We realise that the State needs, apparently, to spend £9,000,000 on the Army to-day, but if it is necessary to spend additional money on the Army because of the changed circumstances and the changed times, I confess to an inability to understand the complacency which enables us to treat old age pensioners, widows and orphans, unemployment assistance and national health insurance recipients in the same way as if their economic position had not been seriously disturbed by the rapid rise in prices during the past two years.
I should like to say to the Minister that he would have found a very considerable volume of support in this House, and even outside this House, among people with a broad, understanding mind in social problems, if he had come to the House in connection with this Budget and said that he realised that that section of the community were suffering very severe hardships because of the rise in prices, and if he made some effort to relieve the real destitution from which these people are suffering to-day. The Minister, however, is prepared, apparently, to push their complaints on one side and to ignore their demand for the application of a remedy to their economic position. The Minister cannot do that for ever, and he ought to realise, as I am sure some of the members of his Party realise, that there is growing indignation throughout the country at the failure of the Government to utilise the powers which reside within them to organise the resources of the country in a way that would ensure the maximum protection for the weakest and most helpless sections of the community. I happened to get a letter to-day from Donegal, the county that used to believe at one time that a passport to Paradise was to be got by voting for Fianna Fáil. Some people there are disillusioned now, and this is one of them. This man writes to me and says:—
"I have taken the liberty of writing to you. The people here are sick of Fianna Fáil and are most anxious to have a change. We all supported Fianna Fáil, but now they are found out. The food problem is a disgrace to any Government. The position here is desperate. Every day one sees children and women running to the shops for a loaf or a quarter stone of flour, only to be told that there is none. Some families are living entirely on potatoes, and when the seed is taken from the existing supply of potatoes, what will these families do? I can give you here the names of families who are hungry, very hungry, who have neither bread nor potatoes. No one ever thought things could be so bad. If complaints are made to the Department of Supplies, there is no answer. The parish councils are ignored, and all the time tea is sold at 17/- and £1 per lb. in the little village here. What is the use of tea if we cannot get bread?"
He goes on then to say:—
"There is the grave problem here of emigration to the Six Counties, and people say that the Government in Dublin is winking at it. We do not know, but the fact is that passports have been issued by the Guards, and practically all the boys and young men of this part of Tirconnail are going to County Fermanagh, Belfast, etc., where the British and Americans are building seaplane bases, aerodromes, etc. ‘Put down more wheat' cries the Government. How could that be done here? It was next to impossible to get anyone to work here this spring—all gone to the Six Counties. Just think of the irony of it—young Republicans running away from Donegal, shouting. ‘England will feed us and pay us well; Fianna Fáil starved us.' A desperate situation truly!"
There is a letter from one disillusioned supporter of the Fianna Fáil Government, who voted for the Government, apparently, at the last election, believing that a Fianna Fáil vote was a passport to some kind of economic EI Dorado. He now finds that people cannot get bread or flour up there, and he sees the young Republicans of Donegal, as he says, fleeing to the Six Counties to make scaplane bases, and aerodromes for the British and Americans because they know that they will get good employment and wages there but will get none here. That is the situation which, with their eyes wide open, the Government are condoning, and taking no steps whatever to remedy it. This Budget is a Stay-as-you-are Budget, but conditions are not staying as they are, nor are prices staying as they are, and economic conditions are seriously deteriorating. Yet, in a time like that, the Minister passes over on the country a Budget which, in fact, shows no appreciation whatever of the changed times or of the changed circumstances and shows no appreciation whatever of the necessity for dealing vigorously with these problems which, to-day more than ever, require the exercise of a vigour and a revolutionary strain of thought which are not shown in the Budget which the Minister has introduced.
I see only one way of dealing with that situation, and the main way of dealing with it is to put idle men and women into employment in order to create wealth. The only way in which they can be put into employment, and given a passport to food, to clothing and to shelter, is by the issue of credits on the part of the State to finance their wealth-creating activities. I see no answer to a demand of that kind, and I have heard no explanation from the Minister as to why it is not possible for the State to say to every idle man and woman in this country, and every adolescent as well: "We will put you into employment and provide the wherewithal to finance you against the provision of the goods you are creating, whether these goods are immediately consumable or whether they mean the creation of new national assets of a capital kind." Other countries have found it necessary to realise that the financial policies they pursued in peace times gave them such appallingly poor results that these financial policies could not be relied upon in times of war. These other countries, however, have issued credits, not for peace purposes or for productive purposes, not for the creation of wealth and of new capital assets, but for the purpose of financing implements of destruction which have no productive value and which, in the course of the years, will be completely obsolescent.
Is it not reasonable, if other countries can adopt a financial policy of that kind, to urge on the Government that we ought to issue some type of Governmental credits to finance a policy of putting men and women into work instead of, as we are to-day, sentencing them to the emigrant ship, or sending them from Donegal into Fermanagh and the rest of the Six Counties to make seaplane bases, and then doing the most insane financial thing of all, though it is understandable in the circumstances, permitting them to get a demand on Irish productivity and on Irish food on coupons which are produced elsewhere, and which, although they create nothing whatever, enable the holders to purchase these goods. I do not know that it is much use appealing to this Minister or to this Government radically to alter the basis of its financial policy, but I think the Minister and the Government might very well study the advantages to be gained from a policy of expanding State credits to meet economic needs, and from a scientific adjustment of exchange rates to give our people a price level for goods produced here, so as to give them an adequate remuneration for the creation of wealth and the creation of food in their own country.
My complaint against this Budget, and against the Government generally, is that it is clinging with a tenacity that is worthy of a better cause to old-fashioned methods which offer no solution whatever of the economic difficulties which a beleaguered country like ours finds itself confronted with to-day. There appears to be no definite plan. One cannot discern in this Budget, or in any of the previous Budgets, the particular direction in which the Government want to travel. At one time there was the policy of the imposition of tariffs and of quotas to keep out foreign goods, as if by doing that we were building up here a huge reservoir of goods which made it unnecessary to import the commodities which were being offered to us. Then we saw, when we came to examine the reservoir of goods, that it was almost dry. Now we have a complete reversal of that policy. We have a reduction in tariffs and a withdrawal of quotas and import restrictions, with a plea to almost anybody in the world to give us the goods which, if we had planned and thought in time, would be available here either from our own handicrafts or by the utilisation of our foreign assets to ensure the storage of sufficient goods to see us through the war period.
This Budget is a drift-on Budget. If Mr. Wilkins Micawber actually existed he would find in this Budget something after his own heart. It is a Budget of "wait for something to turn up", but in present circumstances, when people are demanding that some vigorous steps should be taken to deal with their economic difficulties, and when there should be some plan to prevent the impending economic crash, a Budget which merely offers them a policy of drift-on and hope for something to turn up, is one which will not commend itself to the people of this country. It will commend itself less to them as the winter approaches and our difficulties are intensified enormously. I know, of course, that there are difficulties to be surmounted here, very real and very practical difficulties, but I do not think there is an absence of either good-will or of co-operation, on the part of all Parties in the House, towards an endeavour to find an agreed solution for these problems. We could have avoided many of these difficulties if, having set up the Department of Supplies in 1938, we accepted as a basic factor that the job of that Department of Supplies was to make sure that supplies would be available in the event of war. Instead, the Department of Supplies at that time apparently went into an economic trance and indulged in a period of mooning. We have never been able to discover what that Department did in the year that ended with the outbreak of war in September, 1939. But, even when the war broke in 1939, and when one would have imagined that a European armageddon would have shaken the shadow Department of Supplies and induced it even then to realise that something would have to be done and done quickly, and that something would have to be done while supplies were available, we found it still in its trance, showing no disposition whatever to awaken from the slumber that enshrouded it.
Even after the outbreak of war in 1939, we could have bought supplies from a large number of countries during the best part of the following 12 months. We could have bought shipping because there was an abundance of it available. We have £300,000,000 worth of assets in Britain which are now frozen. We could have utilised these assets at that time for the purpose of purchasing the goods which we now need and cannot get. The Department of Supplies did nothing whatever to direct a commercial movement to ensure the transport to this country of the commodities which it knew perfectly well could not be produced here, and could not be imported here when the area of war extended. I think that the Department of Supplies has more to answer for to the people of this country for its complete mismanagement of the whole supply position than all the other Departments of State, even if one were to multiply all their failings by 1,000, because we then had abundant opportunities of getting the goods which we wanted. Instead, we kept our money invested in a foreign country and saw it depreciate rapidly. The assets that we have in that country are now frozen. As I said on a previous occasion, the £300,000,000 which we have in British investments would not to-day buy the people of this country a dozen cocoanuts, but they could have bought us timber, coal, petrol, tea, shipping, if the Government were only willing to utilise the powers they were given to exchange these assets for the goods which our people required.
I suppose it looks like a wake to express regret now that these opportunities were missed with such classic incompetence, but missed they were. The position of our people to-day is that they have got to try to make the best of the difficulties confronting them. Even still some effort ought to be made to steady the ship. It ought not to be allowed to drift on without direction and without a rudder. Some effort ought still to be made to steady it in some direction calculated to yield benefit to our people. As I say, I believe there is an abundance of co-operation available in this country, in the economic field, for a sensible economic policy. The Government have got it generously in respect of defence. Unanimity has been maintained on the defence front for a policy of strict neutrality. I think the Government might very well have got that also on the economic front if they had only thought and planned in time; if they had only realised that there were other Parties in the State which could make a contribution to the solution of our economic difficulties.
Even now, faced as we are with problems of which it will be extremely difficult to find solutions, I think there is still time to devise a national plan for the provision of work for our people by an expansion of State credits. I think it is still possible to whip up sufficient energy in the economic and agricultural fields to harness the enthusiasm and the energies of our people for warding off the worst effects of the war which is raging all around us.
If the Government will only avail of the existence in the country of a measure of co-operation and understanding and not treat it as the Minister for Supplies does in some of these puerile ebullitions of his, as sabotage, then some effort might be made to save our people from the hardship and suffering which is the result of the Government's insistence on pursuing methods which in peace-time were worthless and the utilisation of which at present is nothing short of criminal. If the Government, even at this stage, are prepared to adopt a bold and vigorous policy based on some plan in some agreed direction, I think the national enthusiasm of our people. if mobilised, can render a very substantial national contribution to a policy of that kind. But, if the Government fail to evolve a policy which will arouse the enthusiasm of our people and fail to act with courage and energy in the economic field, instead of creating a pall of despair, then there seems to be no hope that we can avoid the disasters which at present are staring us in the face.
I want to close by making one brief reference to our supply position. In existing circumstances, many of the goods which we require can only be imported by us from Britain. We send to Britain a very considerable quantity of goods, more goods than she sends to us. Britain, presumably, wants these goods, because, apparently, she finds it advantageous to send trade representatives here to try to arrange for their export from this country. We want many of the goods which Britain has or which Britain has access to and which, if the British were willing, could be relayed to this country where they are not actually in British hands. Is there any loss of national dignity or national prestige in sending the Minister for Supplies over to Britain and telling the British people that we cannot continue to give them £3,000,000 worth of goods in exchange for £2,000,000 worth and a credit note for £1,000,000? Is there anything wrong with the Minister for Supplies saying to the British Government: "Our people do not want a credit note for £1,000,000"? We see that these credit notes are of no use to us in present circumstances. The £300,000,000 worth of them which we have at present are all frozen in Britain and will buy us nothing. Is there any objection from any standpoint, either a Fianna Fáil standpoint or an Irish standpoint, in saying to the British Government that we desire to trade with them on a barter basis? In other words, if we are going to give them £3,000,000 worth of goods, we ought to get back from them no less than £3,000,000 worth of goods.
Of course if you continue the present one-way trade of exporting to Britain more goods than Britain sends us, it is only a short time until a lot of our resources will have been exported to Britain, and instead of getting capital goods back for our exports in the form of machinery and raw materials for agricultural machinery and other capital assets, we will have denuded ourselves of capital assets and of wealth and we will have stored for us in the Bank of England credits which after the war may be quite worthless. We sent the Minister for the Co-ordination of Defensive Measures to the American Continent and kept him there for a substantial time and gave him a good canter over the whole continent. Is there any objection to putting the Minister for Supplies in an aeroplane at Collinstown, telling him that in two hours' time he will arrive in London, and to go there and negotiate with the British people and say to them that we want a trade agreement on a barter basis so as to ensure that we will not continue to export goods to Britain while getting from Britain a very inadequate return?
We have not been able to get from the Government any declaration that the British are hostile in the matter of supplying goods. If they are hostile, let us hear that. If they are hostile, why keep giving them goods for credits? If they are not hostile, what is the reason for not sending the Minister for Supplies or somebody else on behalf of the Government to London to negotiate with the British people and put there a case which can be put? There is no infringement there whatever of our neutrality in that respect. Sweden has a trade agreement that is implemented. Its operation is reviewed from time to time and it is available for Deputies from Swedish official sources. Turkey, another neutral, has a trade agreement both with Germany and Britain and it operates normally and does not infringe Turkish neutrality. Switzerland has a trade agreement both with Germany and Italy, and Switzerland maintains her neutrality. Why can we not make a trade agreement while maintaining our neutrality in the same way as these countries have done? No real effort, it appears to me, has been made in that direction. Any negotiations carried on with Britain have been carried on by civil servants. I do not doubt their ability; I do not doubt their whole-hearted desire to do the best they can; but, in our circumstances to-day, it is a very unwise policy to send light weight civil servants to try to negotiate with British civil servants as the basis of a trade agreement involving this country. The sensible course of action to adopt would be to send a delegation of Ministers to London and to tell the British people that we are giving them goods and at least that we want goods back in exchange; and in any case, over and above a barter arrangement, we have to insist that the assets which we have in Britain are not frozen by Britain as they are frozen to-day.
I should like to hear the Minister say what national objection could be urged against a policy or an arrangement of that kind. Regarding it purely as an ad hoc arrangement, I do not think that a mission of that kind would be doomed to failure. Even if it were, we would then know what the real position is. So far we are left in doubt as to whether the British are refusing to give us goods in exchange for our goods. We must assume, in the absence of any declaration of that kind from the Ministerial Benches, that Britain is not so hostile and that in fact goods are available there except that we, for our part, have not been able to insist upon getting equality with Britain in the matter of exports to that country. I hope the Minister in his reply will advert to the supply position in respect to our exports to Britain, and I hope it will be possible for the Minister to announce that whatever kind of difficulties may have existed in the past in the matter of sending a delegation to Britain for the purpose of discussing a mutual trade agreement, he realises now that that type of punctilio ought not to be allowed to stand between the goods which our people require and the intense suffering which will arise if some effort is not made to relieve the supply position.
