I have received notice that the following matters will be raised on the Vote on Account: the cost of administration, the cost of living, production, emigration, and the question of production of food and fuel, with special reference to prices, profits and wages.
Committee on Finance. - Vote on Account, 1947-48.
The Dáil, according to order, went into Committee on Finance, to consider a Vote on Account for the year ending 31st March, 1948.
An tAire Airgeadais (Proinnsias Mac Aodhagáin)
Tairgim:
Go ndeonfar suim nach mó ná £17,681,000 i gcuntas chun nó mar chabhair chun íoctha na Muirear a thiocfas chun bheith iníoctha i rith na bliana dar críoch an 31ú lá de Mhárta, 1948, i gcóir seirbhísí poiblí áirithe, eadhon:
That a sum not exceeding £17,681,000 be granted on account for or towards defraying the Charges that will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1948, for certain public services, namely:
|
£ |
||
|
1 |
President's Establishment |
1,600 |
|
2 |
Houses of the Oireachtas |
48,500 |
|
3 |
Department of the Taoiseach |
6,200 |
|
4 |
Comptroller and AuditorGeneral |
9,700 |
|
5 |
Office of the Minister for Finance |
32,500 |
|
6 |
Office of the Revenue Commissioners |
410,000 |
|
7 |
Old Age Pensions |
1,260,000 |
|
8 |
Management of Government Stocks |
22,000 |
|
9 |
Office of Public Works |
64,000 |
|
10 |
Public Works and Buildings |
343,000 |
|
11 |
Employment and Emergency Schemes |
400,000 |
|
12 |
State Laboratory |
4,200 |
|
13 |
Civil Service Commission |
13,600 |
|
14 |
Irish Tourist Board |
15,000 |
|
15 |
Commissions and Special Inquiries |
2,600 |
|
16 |
Superannuation and Retired Allowances |
220,000 |
|
17 |
Rates on Government Property |
60,000 |
|
18 |
Secret Service |
5,000 |
|
19 |
Expenses under the Electoral Act and the Juries Act |
Nil |
|
20 |
Miscellaneous Expenses |
5,000 |
|
21 |
Stationery and Printing |
75,000 |
|
22 |
Valuation and Boundary Survey |
15,200 |
|
23 |
Ordnance Survey |
15,000 |
|
24 |
Supplementary Agricultural Grants |
850,000 |
|
25 |
Law Charges |
31,600 |
|
26 |
Universities and Colleges |
140,500 |
|
27 |
Widows' and Orphans' Pensions |
150,000 |
|
28 |
Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies |
20,000 |
|
29 |
Agriculture |
508,000 |
|
30 |
Agricultural Produce Subsidies |
325,000 |
|
31 |
Fisheries |
18,300 |
|
32 |
Office of the Minister for Justice |
21,750 |
|
33 |
Garda Síochána |
998,000 |
|
34 |
Prisons |
51,600 |
|
35 |
District Court |
19,900 |
|
36 |
Circuit Court |
28,400 |
|
37 |
Supreme Court and High Court of Justice |
23,500 |
|
38 |
Land Registry and Registry of Deeds |
21,300 |
|
39 |
Public Record Office |
2,330 |
|
40 |
Charitable Donations and Bequests |
1,490 |
|
41 |
Local Government |
276,000 |
|
42 |
General Register Office |
5,470 |
|
43 |
Dundrum Asylum |
8,500 |
|
44 |
National Health Insurance |
114,000 |
|
45 |
Office of the Minister for Education |
87,000 |
|
46 |
Primary Education |
2,000,000 |
|
47 |
Secondary Education |
180,000 |
|
48 |
Technical Instruction |
192,000 |
|
49 |
Science and Art |
29,600 |
|
50 |
Reformatory and Industrial Schools |
70,000 |
|
51 |
National Gallery |
4,670 |
|
52 |
Lands |
640,000 |
|
53 |
Forestry |
80,360 |
|
54 |
Gaeltacht Services |
16,000 |
|
55 |
Industry and Commerce |
1,640,000 |
|
56 |
Aviation and Meteorological Services |
470,000 |
|
57 |
Children's Allowances |
732,000 |
|
58 |
Transport and Marine Services |
45,500 |
|
59 |
Unemployment Insurance and Unemployment Assistance |
212,000 |
|
60 |
Industrial and Commercial Property Registration Office |
5,700 |
|
61 |
Posts and Telegraphs |
1,122,000 |
|
62 |
Wireless Broadcasting |
109,000 |
|
63 |
Defence |
1,473,000 |
|
64 |
Army Pensions |
252,000 |
|
65 |
External Affairs |
49,500 |
|
66 |
Office of the Minister for Social Welfare |
226,000 |
|
67 |
Miscellaneous Social Welfare Services |
67,200 |
|
68 |
Food and Supplementary Allowances |
372,500 |
|
69 |
Damage to Property (Neutrality) Compensation |
4,800 |
|
70 |
Personal Inquiries (Civilians) Compensation |
830 |
|
71 |
Health |
205,000 |
|
72 |
Alleviation of Distress |
750,000 |
|
73 |
Repayment of Trade Loans Advances |
Nil |
|
TOTAL |
£17,681,000 |
|
Is ar éigin is gá a mhíniú do na Teachtaí nách fuláir Vóta i gCuntas a thógaint chun costais na Seirbhísí Soláthair a sheasamh faid a bheidh na Meastacháin á scrúdú, ina gceann agus ina gceann ag an Dáil. De ghnáth, tógann an scrúdú seo an chuid is mó den cheithre mí tosaigh den bhliain airgeadais, agus ag deireadh na tréimhse sin ritear an tAcht Leithreasa. Dá réir sin, ní hiarrtar sa Vóta i gCuntas ach an méid airgid atá riachtanach chun na Seirbhísí Soláthair a choimeád ar siúl go dtí deireadh mí lúil—sé sin, timpeall trian de chostas bhliantiúl na Seirbhísí sin.
£17,681,000 atá ag teastáil uainn sa Vóta i gCuntas i mbliana; tá mioneolas ar an suim sin le fáil sa Pháipeár Bhán a scaipeadh ar na Teachtaí, agus sa tairgsint atá ar hiar na hOibre.
Is é an t-iomlán atá uainn le haghaidh Seirbhísí Soláthair na bliana airgeadais seo chugainn ná £52,092,343, suim atá £3,405,257 níos lú ná an soláthar iomlán a rinneadh don bhliain seo agus na Meastacháin Bhreise agus Nua a áireamh i gcóir na bliana seo. Is é méid na Meastachán breise agus Nua ná £7,731,172. Mar sin, má fágtar Meastacháin Breise na bliana so as an áireamh, is mó de £4,325,915. Meastacháin na bliana seo cúgainn ná Meastacháin na bliana seo.
Is é an chúis is mó atá leis an laghdú ar chostas na Seirbhísí Soláthair ná gan aon tsoláthar a bheith á dhéanamh sa bhliain seo chúgainn don Chiste Forbartha Idirlinne. Cuireadh £5,000,000 ar fáil don Chiste sin sa bhliain atá anois againn.
It is scarcely necessary to explain to Deputies that a Vote on Account is necessary to enable the Supply Services to be carried on while the individual Estimates are being discussed in detail by the Dáil. These discussions occupy the greater part of the first four months of each financial year as a rule, and are followed by the enactment of the Appropriation Act. It is the practice, therefore, to provide only sufficient moneys by way of Vote on Account to enable the various Supply Services to be carried on up to the 31st July, approximately.
The various items comprising the Vote on Account of £17,681,000 are set out in the White Paper which has been circulated to Deputies and in the motion on the Order Paper. In most cases approximately one-third of the total net Estimate for the year is required.
The total net sum required for the Supply Services for the coming financial year is £52,092,343—a decrease of £3,405,257 on the net provision of £55,497,600 for the current year. This latter sum includes all the Additional and Supplementary Estimates passed during 1946-47 and these amount to £7,731,172. Accordingly, if the total of the Supplementary Estimates for the current year were excluded, there would be an increase of £4,325,000, approximately, in the Estimate for 1947-48 as compared to 1946-47.
The decrease of roughly £3,500,000 as compared to the Estimates for 1946-47 (including Additional and Supplementary Estimates for that year) is mainly due to the absence from the 1947-48 Estimates of any provision for the Transition Development Fund, for which £5,000,000 was provided in the current year. There is also a decrease of £1,500,000 in the provision for alleviation of distress and a reduction of £700,000 in the amount required for Defence. These and other decreases are partially offset by substantial increases in certain Votes, e.g., Supplementary Agricultural Grants, £250,000; Agriculture, £530,000; Garda Síochána, £260,000; Primary Education, £880,000; Technical Instruction, £130,000; Aviation and Meteorological Services, £570,000; Posts and Telegraphs, £428,000. A major factor contributing to the increases referred to and to those on other Votes is the necessity of providing for the substantial increases in remuneration recently granted to civil servants, members of the Army and Garda Síochána, primary and secondary school teachers, etc.
As compared with the 1946-47 Estimates, including Supplementaries, the Estimates for 1947-48 show increases on 54 Estimates with decreases on 16, while three show no change. A feature of the 1947-48 volume is the appearance therein for the first time of Estimates for the new Departments of Health and Social Welfare, which, however, consist almost entirely of provisions transferred from other Votes.
The Minister has pointed out that, as usual, the Minister for Finance had to ask for a Vote on Account at this period of the year for one-third of the amount required for the Supply Services. The sum asked for is £17,681,000, representing a third of the sum that appears in the Book of Estimates for Supply Services, £52,092,343. I think it is most dishonest of a Minister for Finance to come into this House and to compare two figure which are not comparable. We are in the habit, year after year, of having that done here—the expenditure of last year compared with the Estimate for the present year. The Minister should be able to give the House an assurance that there will be no Supplementary Estimate during the year, that the various Departments are capable of accurate estimation, and that whatever is asked for in the Book of Estimates will complete the bill. We know from experience that that is not so. We got the same figures compared last year and we were told last year that the amount asked for was down—in fact it was up by £6,000. Since that time Supplementary Estimates have been introduced here for a sum of £7,130,172. To get an appreciation of the trend of the cost of administration here we can only compare figures which are comparable. The figures which must be compared are the figures which were asked for last year on the Estimates and the figure which is now asked in the present Book of Estimates—which represent an increase of £4,325,915—so instead of having a reduction of something over £3,000,000 for the Supply Services, as the Minister suggested, there is, in fact, an increased figure of £4,325,000, notwithstanding the fact—which the Minister stressed—that out of the Estimates for last year there has disappeared a sum of £5,000,000 on Transition Development Fund and a sum of £1,500,000 for the alleviation of distress. A sum of £6,500,000 has disappeared there notwithstanding the fact that the sum asked for, representing one-third of the total amount required for Supply Services, is up by £4,325,000.
But to get a real appreciation of what the cost of administration in this country actually is and how it affects the community we must add to that a central fund of £5,500,000 and a sum round about £5,000,000 for Supplementary Estimates. In the case of local government, I think we can surely put down a sum of £10,000,000 for the present financial year and that makes a total cost of £72,500,000 to administer central and local services in this country.
Where did the Deputy get the £10,000,000?
Well it was over £9,000,000 for last year and certainly they are up.
But it is in the Estimates.
What is it for?
The cost of local government.
The cost of local rates.
Oh! I am sorry. I thought you were referring to the Department of Local Government.
The Minister should think again before he suggests that. I say that this sum of money has to be found by the people who are engaged in real production in this country. According to the Census, 1,300,000 persons are engaged in profitable employment but the numbers that are engaged in real production in this country are something approximating 800,000 people. The remainder are engaged in distributive, clerical and similar services so that the number of men and women who are engaged in producing real wealth for the community is approximately 800,000. I submit that in the last analysis the cost of administration in this country must come out of the pool of production which is provided by these persons who are engaged in production and I want to point out to the House that this burden amounts to close on £100 per head of the people who are engaged in real production in this country. Then we hear some people wondering why the wages and income-tax of this country are so low.
This elaborate, costly, extravagant, top-heavy administrative machine run on the grand imperial scale is the main contributory factor to the high cost of living and the low incomes in our country. It is a dead-weight burden on industry and it is a deterrent and a brake on production. One can understand what it really means to our people when we contemplate the circumstances in which they live, the economic stress, destitution and poverty that are bound to result from it. This ever-soaring curve of taxation, in contrast to the falling curve of production, has created for this country, in my opinion, a national economic problem of the first magnitude. The Minister's predecessor, in dealing with this matter in his last Budget, warned this House of the urgent importance of reducing the burden of taxation so that a fillip and an incentive would be given to enterprise. The warnings of the Minister's predecessor have been ignored: I suppose they are looked upon as the empty vapourings of a diseased mind. It seems extraordinary that the Government is still piling on more and more taxation on the country in face of falling production, in spite of the effect it has on production and in spite of the seriousness of the situation in regard to our productive capacity and in spite of the reduction in the number of people who are engaged in productive work. The Taoiseach, I suppose, must have his cosmic physics and his advanced studies and all these trappings which indicate the importance of his high office. We can have airports and luxury hotels and all the other things which really mean nothing from a national income point of view, and yet the most important national work of all has been ignored and neglected—the work of expanding our productive capacity.
It seems strange when we go back a few years and think of what has happened. Before we had self-government in this country there was a very violent agitation about the cost of British administration here and the Childers Commission was set up, which determined that the cost of administration was a burden on the country—it was £12,000,000—and indicated that this community at that time was overtaxed. Then when we got self-government the people on the Opposition Benches agitated against the high cost of administration here; they said that this country was being run on an empire scale and that it was a burden beyond the capacity of the people to bear and that they were going to reduce taxation by £2,000,000.
Instead of that, they have given us an ever-growing spiral. There has not been one year that has been an exception to that rule in their whole 15 years of administration. Taking one item alone, the amount of money that accrues to the Minister for Finance in ad valorem duty on imports, it amounted to £15,000,000 in the first nine months of this financial year. If we add to that wholesaler's and retailers' margins which must be taken off before those goods reach the consumers, that figure of £15,000,000 would amount approximately to £21,000,000
In this country, before Fianna Fáil came into power, the cost of Government was approximately equal to the amount now taken from the people in the form of ad valorem duties for the first nine months of this financial year. There is a long step between the cost of administration that was so much complained of by Fianna Fáil at that time and the elaborate machinery that they have now provided. I submit it is top-heavy machinery, out of all proportion to the capacity or the requirements of this country. There appears to be no concern for the people who have to foot the bill. When Fianna Fáil were aspiring to office they told the people they had a plan that would provide wonderful things for them. As a matter of fact, the plan was worked out in detail—industrial development, agricultural expansion, and the self-sufficiency policy that was going to be operated would be so successful that we would have to bring back our people from America and other countries to man our industries here, that our own people would not be sufficient to provide the man-power necessary for that development.
What have we got from the arch planners of the Fianna Fáil Party? We have a grossly extravagant administrative machine. In contrast with that we have a falling production. The major part of our export trade has completely disappeared. Butter has gone. Our people have to exist on a weekly two-ounce ration. Bacon has completely disappeared. In so far as bacon for our own people is concerned, it has become a luxury. Eggs form only a small portion of what our export in eggs was 15 years ago. As regards cattle, we have boasted about our live stock. We feel proud of our live stock, our capacity to produce good animals. Our export in live stock has fallen from 800,000 to 450,000.
The third significant achievement of Fianna Fáil has been a heavy emigration list and an internal movement of population from rural places to the cities and towns. That is what Fianna Fáil has done for this country. Emigration from rural Ireland has created a very serious national problem. There have been two flights from this country, one after the Famine and the second one under the administration of Fianna Fáil.
There was a book published last year on national income and expenditure; it was in the form of a White Paper prepared by the Department of Finance. It gives us a lot of very useful information on the question of national income and its distribution. We can definitely relate it to the movement of our population. On page 37 we can see how our production has been affected. During the war period, during the most favourable period for a food-producing country, because food is the first munition of war, agricultural output fell from £50.8 million to £47.3 million, measured on the value at 1938 prices.
That was the gross; the net value went up from £41.1 million to £43.2 million.
It went up a very little. I am sure the Minister feels that that is something to be proud of.
It is not a fall, anyway.
We are told sometimes by the Taoiseach that it is odious to compare the results achieved here with what has been achieved in other countries, such as Denmark and New Zealand. It is odious because there is no favourable comparison. I suppose we would not hesitate to make a comparison if we were keeping in step, or had effected an improvement on what has been achieved in other countries. But the comparison is odious when it shows to our shame that we have fallen back very considerably behind what has been done in other countries. The Minister knows that very well. There is no use in trying to claim that on the net income there is a miserable increase from £41.1 million to £43.2 million. There is no use in feeling that there is something to boast about.
I did not say that.
You were trying to. Our agricultural output at 1944 prices was valued at £97.3 million and the industrial output at £41.6 million. I suggest that one of the reasons why there is a movement of our people from the rural areas, not merely out of the country but towards the big cities and towns, is because the distribution of the national wealth is not equitable. If we look at the diagram which shows how the national income is distributed, we will see that the agricultural community gets 35 per cent. and the rest of the community gets 65 per cent. Agriculture in 1944 contributed £97.3 million as against £41.6 million from industry. That means that the industrial population in the distributive services are getting far more for the services they give to the community than the people engaged in primary production, the people who provide the most essential service of all, the production of human requirements.
Because life is much easier under those conditions in the cities and towns the trend for our people is to those places. There is no use arguing that it is the better amenities in the towns and cities, the pictures and other amusements, that attract them. The fact is that the income is substantially better and as regards the people who give the most essential service to the community, their incomes are depressed.
From 1932 to 1938, there was a reduction in the total number engaged in agriculture of 42,000 and according to this White Paper from 1938 to 1944, there was a further reduction of 11,000, making a total of 53,000 people who have left agriculture. When we talk about production—and production is vitally important now—we must remember that the first essential to production is man power. We cannot have production if our man power disappears and we are allowing that to happen. The Taoiseach at Mallow on Sunday last pointed out the very dangerous situation that exists. It is true that the climatic conditions that have obtained in recent weeks have delayed farming operations very considerably. The Taoiseach was right in saying that a very dangerous situation exists in that regard but I think his speech was absolutely futile when he contented himself with merely pointing out the conditions which existed. He made no attempt to be constructive or useful or to suggest something that might help materially, so far as the primary producers are concerned. So far as organisation or leadership to assist farmers in dealing with this national problem is concerned, it has been completely absent for a long time.
It has been said that the comparisons are odious but we cannot help looking across the water to see what was done there under great difficulties, when Britain was fighting a life and death struggle for her very existence, when her shores were blockaded all round and when she had to face up to the task of winning the maximum production from the land. At that time, the pride of her men were in the army and she was dependent on a number of decrepit old men and on the women's land army. Yet she was able to increase agricultural production by 70 per cent. During the same period ours fell by 10 per cent. according to the figures given by the Minister's predecessor. Britain did not depend on individual effort as we did. There was tremendous organisation and initiative there and all responsible Departments ensured that everything that was necessary to the individual was supplied. So far as it was humanly and physically possible for the responsible Minister and his Department to supply everything that was necessary for those engaged in production, that was done. The tremendous organisation, leadership and co-operation that were put into their efforts got them results. Our production here has fallen through lack of leadership, through lack of that drive and necessary initiative to produce. There has been no co-operation, good, bad or indifferent by the Department of Agriculture or so far as any constructive thought on this whole problem of production is concerned. So far as utilising the brains and capacity of the available man power and providing them with the necessary leadership was concerned there was complete failure on the part of the Government. Everything was left to individual effort. The people were told: "You must produce the crops which are necessary for the people's survival. If you say you have not tools, the provision of tool is not our job; the provision of raw material is not our responsibility, you have got to carry out our compulsory Orders no matter what your difficulties are."
The same situation exists to-day. There is a crisis so far as production is concerned and the Department of Agriculture and the Minister are inert. They are utterly incapable of providing essential organisation. A question was asked to-day by Deputy Cogan about the number of tractors available. Britain during the emergency ensured that every tractor available operated 100 per cent. of its capacity. When there was not sufficient work for it on one farm, it was transferred to another farm. The organisation there was such as to ensure that the maximum results were got from every piece of machinery in the country. The organisation was so detailed in its application to the problem that the utmost production was ensured. The Taoiseach says that there is a dangerous situation in the immediate problems that confront us but I think there are problems which are growing which are even more serious than the immediate problems. The extra national effort that the agricultural community are willing to put into the job, and their desire to make use of every hour of good weather that comes in the next few weeks, will ensure, if the people can be organised to the maximum, that the work will be done. If Providence gives us a good spring, a good May especially, provides us with a good key month, we might still have a wonderful harvest. The primary producer is always an optimist, no matter what may be said about him. People who listen to farmers here may say that they are always whining but, in my opinion, they are confirmed optimists and they have an infinite fund of patience. They will wait and wait until conditions are right and then they go to their jobs. I think that all they require is the necessary incentive.
There are, however, problems of a long-term nature which, in their way, are greater than the more immediate and urgent problems of which the Taoiseach spoke. He expressed the view that there was a very dangerous situation and left it at that, apparently hoping that the people would be very good boys. So far as himself and his Minister were concerned, he apparently considered they had done their duty to the community when they made that statement. So far as any organisation, help or assistance from the responsible Minister and the Department was concerned, they apparently did not feel they were called upon to make any contribution.
What is our position going to be so far as the importation of essential requirements is concerned in the future? What is happening in the world to-day? We know that there are certain conditions attached to the Washington loan. We know that so far as foreign exchange and conversion into the hard currencies are concerned, we were facilitated and that we had no difficulty. As a matter of fact, from the time Lease-Lend came into operation and under the loan agreement, we have taken out of the dollar pool somewhere between 70,000,000 and 90,000,000 and we have contributed to that pool a figure of approximately only 15,000,000. We know from views expressed by statesmen on these matters on the other side, that the loan is running out very rapidly. Is it not time for us to examine the position to see what is going to happen? Where are we going to secure the foreign exchange so essential to us when the present facilities are gone? Britain was advised by the United States that she must have financial talks with all sterling countries with a view to having sterling assets written down, to ease the burden so far as Britain was concerned. We have it reported that conversations have taken place in Egypt on this matter and Britain has suggested that the currency of that country should be backed by its own securities, thus relieving British currency to that extent. It would be very helpful to Britain if that were arranged.
We are due to have talks on this matter very soon and if there are any difficulties we must remember that Great Britain herself to-day is denying her own people supplies in order to export goods for exchange purposes. We can scarcely expect that they are going to give this country facilities which they are denying to their own people. If we are a sensible people and look ahead, taking a long-term view of these matters, looking at the problem in perspective, we must face up to a situation where we may be limited in that essential foreign exchange. We must remember that for five years before the war our adverse trade balance ranged from £17,000,000 to £21,000,000. The average was £19,000,000. We must remember that there is a falling off in capital formation here, as indicated by the White Paper on National Income. We must bear in mind the huge amount of our capital requirements for the rehabilitation of industry, rolling-stock and road transport.
Our requirement of capital goods, leaving out altogether consumer goods, is going to be substantially higher than it was for some years before the war. If our exports have declined, how are we to bridge the gap if a limitation is put on the use of our sterling assets? Will we have to deny our people the commodities that we regard as essential to-day in order to increase our lists of exports? It is a sad commentary on events here that a country whose dairying industry was at one time the finest in the world, capable of exporting £3,000,000 worth of butter, is now able to provide only a two-ounce ration of butter for our people.
The Taoiseach told the people of Mallow that he asked the new Minister for Agriculture, Mr. Smith—to use his own words—had he any observations to make on the dairying industry, and whatever he said was of such an alarming character that I think he was afraid to tell the people of Mallow about it. Yesterday, the Minister for Agriculture, Mr. Smith, behaved in a rather extraordinary fashion at the Dairy Congress. He wants time to turn the problems of dairying over in his mind, to contemplate them and to satisfy himself that he is doing the right thing and taking the right steps. One would imagine that the Minister for Agriculture, Mr. Smith, had not thought about these problems of dairying at all until he became Minister. That is rather a weak excuse, in my opinion, for a man who comes from rural Ireland. One would expect that, long before he was chosen to look after the primary industry in this country, he would have some ideas in this matter, that, possibly, he would have read something of what has been achieved and the methods adopted in other countries.
The Taoiseach said they must be guided by experts. I do not believe that we are accepting any advice from experts or that in fact we are consulting experts or, if we are consulting experts, that we are consulting the right experts. An armchair expert is not always to be regarded as the best expert in matters of production. I do not want to reflect on professional men or on technicians. I have great admiration for many of the people we have here but, if we are searching for advice, we cannot ignore the people who have practical experience over long years. We had one expert who gave advice some 15 years ago on this matter, and it was ignored.
The late Minister for Agriculture, Mr. Paddy Hogan, speaking from these benches, warned the then Minister for Agriculture, Dr. Ryan, that we had a biological problem here. With your permission, Sir, I propose to read what Deputy Hogan said at that time. I quote from Volume 44 of the Official Report, column 991, of the 3rd November, 1932. He was dealing with details of agriculture, and he said:—
"If I might mention one detail in connection with their administration it is this. I believe that the Live Stock Breeding Act improved the quality of the cattle in this country, generally, very much indeed, and by live stock I mean not only the cattle, but pigs. I believe that our cattle were approaching something like perfection and our pigs very near it. The pigs are very good indeed in this country. Just before I left office, however, I was coming to the conclusion, and my experience since then has strengthened that conclusion, that the Live Stock Breeding Act, as it is operating, is operating against the dairy cow and in favour of the beef animal. I think, if it is operated as it is being operated at present, without making some attempt to encourage milk as against beef, that in a comparatively short time you may find yourself with magnificent looking cows, very fine cattle and pigs, but that it will be extremely hard to get a good milking dairy cow in this country. The Act is operated in this way: There are licensing shows in practically every parish twice a year—in spring and in autumn. The animals are inspected there entirely on view. That is to say, pedigree or other qualities are not taken into account, and they are inspected as they would be on their appearance or, in other words, on beef. That is bound to give an advantage to the animal that is bred from beef animals, and it is undoubtedly working out in that way. While the quality of our cattle and live stock, generally, is being improved from the point of view of beef and bacon, there is no doubt about it that we are gradually breeding out milk. That is a very serious problem for the Department of Agriculture. I confess myself that I do not see a way out of it at the moment. I do not think that cowtesting associations will remedy it, but I am satisfied that some way out will have to be found; otherwise the milking qualities of our dairy cows will deteriorate and deteriorate very gravely."
Deputy Paddy Hogan, 15 years ago, foresaw what has occurred in this country to-day.
We have been told, in reply to this problem, from the Government Benches that our milking herds have not fallen, that we have 1,250,000 cows, approximately what we had ten or 15 years ago. That is absolutely true but I venture to express the opinion that I would prefer to see it merely a number problem. If the cow population had declined in number it would be quite easy to create numbers in two, three or four years, but there is a biological problem here to which no attention has been paid and which has never been examined. The Government were warned by a man who knew something about it and who took a deep interest in dairying and pig production, who was responsible for the Live Stock Breeding Act. That Act had been in operation for a short period at the time and he saw the way it was being administered would detrimentally affect dairying and the production of the right type of dairy animal. He realised that the single dairy bull, that we tolerated and approved and talked about, was not the sort of animal that would help the basic industry of agriculture, dairying. That advice has been completely ignored. Deputy Hogan explained at the time that we had bull shows to select animals for breeding purposes, that they were selected on conformation only, their qualities for milk production being completely disregarded. The expert, because Deputy Hogan was an expert, who took a very deep interest in the dairying industry, thought it was his duty to warm his successor that the matter was urgent and that an examination should be made into the whole question. Fifteen years have been allowed to elapse because we were so concerned with wheat production and devoted so much of our attention to it that we completely forgot that the basis of our whole economy is live stock and that the keystone of that industry is the dairying industry. That neglect has precipitated a problem for us that is not easy of solution. It is not the only branch of industry that has been neglected. Shakespeare said that the evils which men do live after them. I venture to prophesy that the evils of Fianna Fáil with regard to the primary industry of this country will live for long years after them. The economy that evolved in this country through evolution and the experience of practical men was based on sound foundations and was upset by the intervention of a political group and that will not be corrected over-night. Problems of this sort are serious and the Government and the responsible Ministers have neglected them.
I submit that there is a biological problem there that ought to be properly examined. There is a feeding problem and there is also a labour problem. The feeding problem so far as dairy stock is concerned has been solved in Finland by the A.I.V. process. The man responsible for that lectured here a few months ago at the Royal Dublin Society premises. I did not notice any member of the Government at that lecture. It was a most interesting lecture and one in which we should take a very special interest. Our capacity to produce grass, our climatic conditions and the similarity of conditions make it a matter to which we should attend. The wide variation in dairy produce in this country in the grass season as compared with the winter months shows that we have completely neglected winter dairying.
Then there is the question of labour which has been dealt with in this House many times. The difficulty in securing labour for milking cows is that the work is not attractive. That industry cannot afford to pay higher wages. While we would be all very glad to see higher wages paid, there is no hope of increasing wages in agriculture until we get the terms of trade more in favour of the farmer. If we study the terms of trade in this White Paper on National Income and Expenditure we shall begin to get some appreciation of the problem. Those people who have lived on the primary industry in this country have, in a rather extraordinary fashion, conveyed the impression to the general community that the agricultural community are doing well and have done well out of the emergency. This White Paper gives the lie very clearly to that. If we turn to Table 15, page 43, we see the price index numbers. Taking the base as 100 in 1938, the cost of living in 1944 was 170; the wholesale price index number was 198; import price number, 219; export price number, 212; agricultural price number, 187. The agricultural price number is the lowest on the list. The others have soared higher than the agricultural price index number.
That is incorrect from the Deputy's figures.
It is correct according to this. If the Minister says that, then this White Paper is wrong.
I am looking at page 43 and the Deputy read a figure of 187 for the agricultural price index number. The cost of living only went from 100 to 170.
The wholesale price index number was 198; the import price number, 219; the export price number 212, and the agricultural price number, 187. If you turn to Table 19, it will give you some idea of the trend in wages. The rate of wages in transportable goods was 124.3 and the earnings 127.1. For other industries, building, etc., it was 115.2; for agriculture, 147.7 and for transport, 131.8. The trend of trade there is against agriculture, as I pointed out, and the increase of wages has been relatively higher in agriculture. We cannot expect to solve this problem by merely pegging down the price of milk to the dairy industry and expect to produce as much with higher costs. The dairying industry has a very high labour content and the Minister ought to know that it cannot be done. The matter is an urgent one and, if we want to solve the problem, we must face up to the realities of the situation.
There is a sum of £975,000 provided as subsidies for the coming year for the dairying industry. There is a famous industrial journal here that always tries to convey the impression that these subsidies benefit only the producer. That is not correct. If the agricultural community are expected to produce cheap butter and to accept a price of 1/- per gallon for milk, certainly it is not logical to suggest that the subsidy that pegs down the price of butter to a very low level is in the interest of the producer. It is in the interest of the consumer. The price of milk in Northern Ireland is 3/2, and that is an extraordinary change from the price of milk in the creamery districts here, namely, 1/-. That also has a very important bearing on this whole question of butter for our people. It is not good enough for the responsible Minister to side-step this matter by offering the excuse that he is a new Minister, that his Department knows nothing about it, and that he wants time to think about it. The problem has gone on for a long time and the Minister is aware that he has responsible officials who are conversant with the matter. The matter ought to be solved in the interest of the community and not let the industry decline further with very disastrous effects on other branches of agriculture.
In relation to my argument about cattle, I pointed out that our cattle exports have fallen from 800,000 to 450,000. A short time ago, the responsible Minister came here and told us that the farming community should be very glad that he had now provided them with a market for 25,000 cattle. The alternative market which we have now for cattle in this country is the Irish taxpayer. We are to export these animals to Palestine. That is not a profitable undertaking for this country. However, I am not against helping the distressed conditions in Europe but I do want the Minister for Finance and the Government to make it perfectly clear to the people who are producing those animals that the country has to pay for the 25,000 and that it is not an alternative market. I feel that nothing has been done here and that the time is most opportune to ensure that we have a long-term market for our maximum item of export—live stock. I believe, under the new conditions which are operating in Great Britain and which must operate in Great Britain by reason of the fact that she has been thrown back on her own resources, by reason of the fact that her export market is bound to be restricted because of the developments which have taken place in other countries and by reason of the fact that they have to pay attention to their agricultural economy, that this country has an opportunity of getting a favourable deal so far as live stock is concerned. I am particularly keen that our live-stock interests in both these islands should be properly unified and integrated. The trade has been established by natural development. The suitable conditions which we have here for the production of first-class animals of the store type—suitable for finishing on the other side—is an opportunity that ought to be utilised and that has not been utilised. It seems extraordinary that Great Britain, with all her dollar difficulties, has to go to America for beef and beef animals and that the opportunities for development and expansion here are ignored. No matter what excuses have been offered in regard to the failure last summer after the Food and Agriculture Organisation Conference at Copenhagen— whatever talks occurred in London did not prove very fruitful.
I feel that the approach was wrong. I feel that the people on the other side have not the appreciation they should have of our capacity to produce and expand what they urgently require. The fact that we are in a position to produce what is most suitable for their particular agricultural programme which is being envisaged for the future, and which indicates what the position will be when the world gets over its cereal difficulty—and that will be got over in the very near future—surely ought to make this Government realise that we have to face up to this problem; that they have the responsibility of looking after this country; that there will be no use moaning and groaning in a couple of years' time when we find that we have not the exchange for our necessary imports. This is the time to look forward; this is the time to plan the development and the opportunity for the conditions that will encourage expansion here. There is nothing being done about it.
With regard to eggs and poultry, the Minister for Agriculture, Deputy Ryan, entered into an agreement with Great Britain on eggs: a favourable agreement to my mind. The agreement secures a favourable price on condition that we secure in this particular year an expansion, which is not a very big matter, in our production. There is no effort being made to bridge that gap. If we continue to wait we are not going to fill that contract and that will affect the price that we are going to get for eggs. Is it possible that we are going to do business on this basis? Is it possible that the Ministers are ignoring the fact and that we are going to fall down on our job?: that we are going to let this industry decay until our old competitors become rehabilitated and get back into the market? Surely there is a great opportunity for us to get hold of a market that is there if we only put our backs into it with the confidence that we are pursuing a policy which is in our own interests and in the national interest?
With regard to the land of this country, I understand, according to the rather rough survey which has been made under the compulsory tillage Order, that we have something between 9,000,000 and 10,000,000 acres of arable land. I would venture to suggest that at least 6,000,000 acres of that land are very seriously depressed, so far as fertility is concerned, and that nothing whatever is being done about it. We are simply ignoring the big problem that is there and which is bound to hamper production. Is it possible that this country is going to continue on the downward trend all the time? —that the only thing Fianna Fáil can give this country is, year after year, a more expensive bill, and that they are going to ignore completely our capacity to produce wealth for the country and our capacity to produce decent standards. Every Party in this House took a keen interest in the National Drainage Bill which was introduced here. One of the reasons why we have less than 10,000,000 acres of arable land is that every year more and more acres are becoming swamped and more and more acres are reverting to the wild; that the arable land we possess is being reduced and that we are ignoring the matter. We would prefer to look after airports and "put the Shannon on the map", as a Fianna Fáil Deputy told us a short time ago, and we would prefer to build luxury hotels, and we would prefer to have cosmic physics and advanced studies and all those other grand things, so that when the people in other countries read about it they will make up their minds that the progress in Éire under the Fianna Fáil Administration must be marvellous: that we can afford those very expensive luxuries. But the real problems that are here are the problems that must be tackled. The hard and difficult road to prosperity, that is, the expansion of our productive capacity and the production of real wealth for our people, is being neglected and ignored. Can we wonder, when we find conditions as they are to-day? This country has failed to keep step with the progress that has been made in other countries.
Having regard to the scientific development which has taken place in the last 30 or 40 years our production to-day is worse than it was 30 or 40 years ago. I suppose the Minister for Finance would attempt to defend what has been done by his administration, the successes that have been achieved. He might turn his mind to the failures that have resulted from maladministration and ineptitude by the Ministers responsible for looking after primary production here in this country. I have suggested that the burden taxation, the high cost of administration, is the main contributory factor to the high cost of living.
The spread between the consumer and the producer is out of all proportion to the services given to the people engaged in distribution here. I am not saying that that refers to everyone engaged in distribution. I had this experience this morning in reference to the poultry industry. I was anxious to get a hover and I priced a hover in two shops in the city. In one shop the price of a 150-egg hover was £8 10s., and in the second shop the price was £6 8s. for the same type of hover. That is what we are up against.
When we talk about the difficulties in that respect, this is my experience, too, and it refers to the Minister for Industry and Commerce and his policy regarding industrial development. I had occasion a couple of months ago to buy two manure sprongs. I intended to put out manure and plough it into the land. I was getting five or six fellows on the job. I bought two sprongs and paid 21/6 for them, 10/9 each. I remember when I could buy a first-class sprong for 1/6; they were costing that when I was a young fellow. Under the industrial development plan of Fianna Fáil they are costing the agricultural community 10/9 each. The grains of the sprong were like a piece of wire. I had to bring them back the next day and I told the shopkeeper to send them to the manufacturer with my compliments. I had a notion of bringing them to Dáil Eireann to demonstrate to the Minister the sort of wire they were putting into the tools that the people engaged in agriculture are expected to use. If we are to be hampered in that way, if our machines are obsolete in design, it is bound to affect our capacity to compete with people who get first-class equipment in other countries.
I do not want the Minister or anyone else to get the impression that I am against industrial development. I am in favour of it, but, if we are to develop industry on a monopoly basis here, we ought to ensure that the goods produced are of good quality and are sold at a reasonable price. I am not blaming the agricultural community for what has happened. It is due to the circumstances in which we live, the policy in operation and the failure of the Department to give leadership and service to the people engaged in primary production.
The people in Mallow were told by the Taoiseach that all the Government could do was to consult experts. I know experts in this country, agricultural scientists, who had the temerity to be critical and they have been penalised because of that.
It occurred elsewhere, too.
These fellows have been silent ever since. Any expert in this country, no matter what his views are. no matter how he has studied the agricultural economic problem, if his ideas run contrary to the political policy of Fianna Fáil, of the Government, is a foolish man if he opens his mouth, particularly if he is a civil servant or is engaged in any other State service. The fact is that such a man is afraid to open his mouth. Every young man in this country who is a scientist, who has a degree in agriculture, if his ideas run contrary to the Fianna Fáil ideas, will get a clout on the head for it if he ventures to express his views. That is a well-known fact.
I asked a young man who does research work to provide me with some figures. He promised to send them to me. I was a fool to expect them, because that chap no doubt said to himself: "Deputy Hughes may use these figures in Dáil Eireann and if they are identified with me there is no hope of getting promotion and that is the end of it." Is it not a shocking state of affairs that the knowledge and experience of experts and the study they have made of national problems are ignored and are not utilised when the political policy is operating?
The Department of Agriculture had a proud record for many years and laid the foundations solidly and well of an efficient agriculture, bearing in mind the ability of this country to produce certain goods. To-day it is absolutely inflexible and, so far as its services are concerned, it is worthless. If the Minister wants any suggestion as to where he can economise, I suggest the Government should scrap the Department of Agriculture so far as giving service to our primary industry is concerned. When I say that I do not want to reflect on any official in the Department. They are very decent men, most courteous men, anxious to give any information.
But are they muzzled? Are they afraid to speak to an Opposition Deputy about national problems in which we ought to be interested? Are they afraid to offend or to be critical of Government policy? Have we created a situation when a great many people have not the moral courage to say that the Government are wrong? That applies not merely to the Civil Service, but to people in business, because the quota and inspectorial system and other things are there and these form such a powerful weapon in the hands of the Government that people in business are afraid they might be penalised if they venture to be critical. That is the sort of freedom we enjoy; that is the freedom that was won for this country 25 years ago; that is democracy, according to the Fianna Fáil standard.
We have huge problems here. We have a low output per man per acre. We have failed to utilise scientific knowledge and research in the way they utilise them in other countries. We have failed to utilise our own nationals who have brains and capacity and ability and ample scientific knowledge to provide solutions for our problems. We have pursued in a pig-headed way this Fianna Fáil plan that was to provide a Utopia for this country. The Fianna Fáil plan has created a second flight from the country. One was in the Famine years and the other was under Taoiseach de Valera.
It is time we faced the realities of our position, before we have an economic crisis. It is time to stop the type of humbug that appears in these Estimates. There are figures here for the Department of Defence which are absurd in our circumstances and which cannot be justified. There are many other figures as well and we will get an opportunity of looking into them later. The Minister must face his responsibility and see that the burden is fitted to the back that has to bear it.
The Minister for Local Government boasts about the wonderful social services costing £12,000,000 that have been provided here. Is not the huge amount that we must provide for social services an indication of an increase in the number of helpless poor who have to depend on State assistance of one form or another? The increased demand for hospitals and other institutions is a definite indication of an increase in sickness and disease, in malnutrition and ill health, all due to lack of the nutritional diet so essential to good health. It is an extraordinary paradox to occur in a food-producing country. That is the record of Fianna Fáil. That is their achievement; that is the plan, and that is what the arch-planners have produced. They have wrecked our primary industry and are feeling ashamed of it. If they have any shame the best thing they can do is to get out, and to let somebody who knows something about these matters attempt to deal with them.
During my period of membership of this House, now close on 25 years, I know of no occasion during a fairly long period when members of this group failed to advocate and support increased taxation when the necessity for doing so was clearly proved. I want to take advantage on this occasion to say that on some occasions we rightly pointed out that it was not good Government policy to raise taxation for unnecessary or wasteful services. I should like to say now, in the circumstances of the world that we see around us, and the position of the majority of our people, the proposal brought before the House by the Minister for Finance is nothing short of a brazen proposal. During the discussion on the first Budget introduced after the Fianna Fáil Party came into this Assembly in 1928-29, we had some interesting suggestions made by some of the people who are now in power. The 1928-29 Budget included a sum of £4,315,000 for Central Fund Services, the total amount asked for then being £26,890,000.
On that occasion Deputy de Valera, as he was then, who is now the Taoiseach, suggested reductions amounting to £1,800,000. He did that after plenty of suggestions had been put forward. Strange as it may appear, the sum now asked for by his own Minister for Finance, 19 years afterwards, is approximately £65,000,000, if we take local and national services into consideration. The present Book of Estimates asks us to approve of raising the necessary taxation to find £52,092,000, and on top of that we will have the usual £4,000,000 or £5,000,000 for Services paid out of the Central Fund, with £7,000,000— perhaps a smaller sum this year—for Supplementary Estimates, as well as £8,000,000 or £9,000,000—not less than £8,000,000—for local rates.
I invite the Minister if he can justify the demand for increased taxation on the ground either of increased production or the higher standard of living of the community as a whole. I invite him to deal with the question in his reply, and to justify the demand for that excessive figure at this critical period of our history. Deputy de Valera, as he was then, spoke here on April 26, 1928, the first occasion he had of doing so on the introduction of a Budget. He suggested a reduction in the small bill presented at the time of £1,800,000. He was invited by the President at that time to indicate the items which made up the figure of £1,800,000. I am referring to what was said at columns 478-479 of volume 23 of the Dáil Debates on April 26th, 1928.
With reference to the Vote on Account?
With reference to the subject we are now discussing.
The Vote on Account?
Yes. I assume the Vote on Account is directly related to the Budget, and that I can quote from any remarks that were made on the occasion if you will permit me. They are very interesting in relation to this debate.
I only asked if the Deputy was quite confident that these remarks were made in a discussion on the Vote on Account.
They were made on the Financial Motion in the Budget.
A different thing. You are only asked here for £17,000,000.
That sum is nearly as big as the sum asked for in 1928-29. If you will permit me, Sir, I shall relate what I am going to quote to matters of which I gave notice in connection with this discussion. Deputy de Valera said:
"Very well, let us keep to the bigger items. We hold that with a proper national policy it would be possible, well within this year, to reduce the cost of the Army by £800,000."
In the Estimates for this year we are asked to provide £5,000,000 for the armed services, including military service pensions.
You are not asked for it in the Vote now before us.
There is more than £1,000,000 asked for it in the Estimate now presented by the Minister for Finance.
That is what we are discussing.
Am I to be allowed in reason to try to relate what I am quoting to the case I am making on the general discussion this evening?
The Deputy will have an opportunity when a similar Vote arises.
I shall certainly exercise my right.
When it is right.
I would not attempt to challenge the ruling of the Chair, but I do not like to be interrupted when I am trying to make a reasonable case to relate what I am quoting to points of which I gave notice.
I am sorry to have to point out to the Deputy that he is trying to discuss on a Vote on Account the full Estimates for the year.
We are discussing the Vote on Account which, in itself, means that we are discussing Government expenditure on a number of Departments. Would it not be admissible briefly to quote references by a Deputy to expenditure in the past?
Twenty years ago.
Years do not matter in Parliament. It is the same Parliament. If this is ruled out of order, it is the end of debate.
I am quoting something that was said 20 years ago. Is it that you are objecting to that or that I am out of order?
The Deputy may continue. I do not relish the tone of the question that has been put.
The Taoiseach, who was then Deputy de Valera, went on to say:—
"We believe that it would be possible to reduce the Civic Guard Vote by a sum that would amount to £500,000."
That, he said, would bring down provision for that particular year by £1,070,000.
"We believe that in the Civil Service, by reorganisation, we could get the same service at a cost that would enable us to diminish the amount by something close on £500,000. It may be asked: can you give us examples of the services where things of that kind could be done?"
The Taoiseach then goes on in column 481 to make this statement:—
"Again if we look at the Supply Services we find that we have the Board of Works, the Stationery Office, the Stores Office of the General Post Office, and the Purchasing Section of the Local Government Department, all working independently and separately. Does anybody doubt that if these were properly co-ordinated there would not be a considerable saving of staff? ... Let us get back to other directions. Let us begin with the Governor-General. If £8,000, as we were told yesterday, can put the horse-breeding industry on its feet, £28,000 can do a lot."
The Taoiseach went on to say that it was a shame to spend £28,000 on the Governor-General's establishment. He called for the abolition of the Seanad which, he said, would effect a saving of £34,000 and a reduction in the membership of this House which would also effect a considerable saving. Boiled down, the saving indicated by the Taoiseach, Deputy de Valera at the time, in the first speech he delivered on the Budget on the 26th of April, 1928, would reduce the Budget bill of £26,800,000 by the figure of £1,800,000. We still, however, have to provide for almost all the services mentioned at that time by Deputy de Valera.
We have 10,000 more civil servants to-day than we had in 1928 and with the exception of the Department of Education, the cost of the Civil Service, namely £6,000,000, is the highest in the list of services which we have to provide for this year. The Department of the Governor-General was abolished but we have a Presidential establishment which is costing £52,000 a year as compared with £28,000, the cost of the Governor-General's establishment in 1928. We have the Seanad, which the Taoiseach would have abolished at the time if he had the power, now costing us much more than it did at that period. There is no use in quoting from all the other speeches made on that very historic occasion, speeches delivered one after another by Deputies MacEntee, Boland, Lemass, Fahy, all of the same kind, ridiculing the excessive expenditure that was called for in the Budget of 1928. We are now living in a period where we have to provide for exactly double the amount.
I should like to hear the Minister for Finance relating and justifying the amount he is now asking the people to provide to the increased production, if any, that has taken place in the intervening period. If the demand made by the Minister for Finance in the proposals submitted to the House to-day were to be related to the increases in our bank deposits, there might be some justification for making a demand for such a high figure, but nobody in this House, not even the Minister for Finance, would say that the extraordinary increase in bank deposits even since 1938, is any fair indication of an increase in the prosperity of the community as a whole. According to the latest returns published by the banking institutions, with the approval of the Minister for Finance I presume, the deposit, current and other accounts for 1946 rose to the unprecedented figure of £351,903,883, which is £178,495,763 higher than the corresponding figure for 1938. During the same period, advances and bills discounted came to a total of £94,900,000 odd which is only an increase of about £9,000,000 over the corresponding figure for 1938.
I am not an expert in figures but I was trained in the accounts branch of a transport company. I worked there for a number of years and I know how easy it is to take figures and balance sheets and mislead people by wangling with figures. Here is a figure which I will ask any man who understands anything about accounts, profit or loss accounts or otherwise, to try to explain. Notwithstanding the fact that there was an increase of £178,000,000 in the amount of deposits dealt with by the eight joint stock banks, and an increase of £9,000,000 in advances and on bills discounted, there was nevertheless a loss in working in the same period of £77,513 as compared with 1938. I think there must be some hidden resources in regard to which other figures can be found. I find, however, from a publication published a few weeks ago by the joint stock banks that although there was a huge increase in the amount of money which they handled, that is deposits, advances, and bills discounted, there was nevertheless a considerable loss in working, as compared with 1938.
Mr. Corish
It is put down as depreciation.
I will admit that if the increase in bank deposits was in any way to be taken as a fair indication of the general position of the people of the country there might be some justification for increasing the demand made by the Minister on this occasion. I wonder could the Minister indicate to the House—nobody else can, should he decline to do so—what portion of that huge increase in deposits between 1938 and 1946 came from the agricultural community as distinct from the commercial section of the community or the industrialists, as we know them here? I should be interested to know what percentage of the increased deposits came from the agricultural community because if one is to judge by what one hears and sees round the country there is certainly no great prosperity to-day amongst the agricultural community, whether farmers who work their land by family labour or farmers who employ workers.
Looking through the figures, so far as one can find accurate figures in the Estimates, and taking into consideration the number of people who are unemployed in the country and the number of persons employed on low wages, we find roughly 500,000 citizens of our small population living on small pensions, old age pensions, widows' and orphans' pensions, children's allowances—some of the people in receipt of children's allowances may not be the poorest in the country—national health insurance, unemployment benefit, unemployment assistance and low wages. Roughly 500,000 of our people are trying to live on low State pensions or low wages which are quite insufficient to enable them to purchase the necessaries of life. I take that position as a monument to private enterprise. I laughed on a number of occasions during the last few months when I read not one but several speeches made by the Minister for Industry and Commerce at dinners and luncheons, telling the people of the country that he was tied as tightly as anybody could be to private enterprise, and that he was not going to have anything more to do with the policy of nationalisation or socialisation of our industries. Now, he is making these statements in view of the fact that several of our key industries are carried on under a semi-State system of control. The electricity supply of the country is under a form of State control. The transport industry, both internal and shipping, is under State control. The turf industry is under State control or is run by State-established institutions, set up with the approval of this House. But, some time ago, when Deputy Coogan mentioned the desirability of bringing the coal resources of the country under a system of State control the Minister for Industry and Commerce rebuked him and said he, would have nothing whatever to do with it.
What are the figures? This House is asked this year, in this Book of Estimates, to provide a sum of £2,086,200 for the development of the peat industry and for subsidising prices in regard to the turf that is produced in the turf areas and sold in our principal cities. For mineral exploration and development there is a small sum of £67,090 provided in the Estimates. I make this case: If there is a good case, and I say there is, and I support the Government policy in this matter, for the control of the peat industry by the Government or by an institution set up by the Government, there is surely a reasonable case to be made for bringing the mineral resources of the country under a system of State control.
I would like to take advantage of this opportunity to ask the Minister for Finance or the Minister for Industry and Commerce if he takes part in the discussion, to give us some reason why the flour-milling industry has not been brought under State control. I am aware that only a few years ago a proposal to bring the flour-milling industry under State control was seriously discussed between members of trade union organisations and the Minister for Industry and Commerce. I should like to know the reason why that proposal was turned down. I dislike the idea of providing such a huge sum as we are asked to provide in these Estimates for a few private flour millers in order to make millionaires of them. There is no doubt about it—I know one or two of them—these people are boasting to their friends throughout this country about the huge sums they have made since this Government came into office. This year, in these Estimates, we are providing a sum of £2,211,000 to give them a little bit more to get them over the hard times in which we are living. Any industry that gets a big subsidy at the expense of the taxpayers, with the goodwill or approval of this House, in my opinion, should be under a strict form of Government or national control. I think a very good case was made for State control of the flour-milling industry and I would like to hear the reason why we are still asked to subsidise private flour millers to the extent that we are asked to do it in the account that is now presented by the Minister for Finance.
The position of the country at the moment, in the rural areas particularly, is certainly precarious. There is a good deal to be said in support of the claim that Deputy Hughes makes for a reversal of Government policy in the matter of assistance to the agricultural industry. There is something radically wrong with the rural areas when we have all these people trying to get from the country to the cities or towns or, worse still, in such large numbers as they have been going during the past few years, to another country.
I often think—Deputy Hughes does not seem to agree—that the course lies in the desire of the rising generation for the brighter life of cities and towns but I am sure that hundreds, perhaps thousands, of these people who came to our cities and towns during the past few years have been sadly disillusioned by the position in which they found themselves after being here for some time, seeking employment and being unable to get it.
Something must be done by the Government. Some change of policy must be effected in order to induce the farmers' sons and daughters and the labourers to remain on the land and to build up the basic industry of the country. Unless something revolutionary in that direction is done in the near future we will be worse off at the end of another 12 months than we are to-day. I do not blame this Government for the blizzard or for the bad weather that we have experienced for the last six to 12 months. I agree with the Government policy in regard to compulsory tillage. We of this small group here were accused, and properly accused, by a big section of the rural community of giving such slavish support to this Government as we did during the economic war period. But I think the money provided in these Estimates is going in the wrong direction. Something must be done to enable the farming community to persuade their family friends to remain on the land or to assist them to get agricultural labourers to operate their farms. I know of areas in my constituency, especially those surrounded by bogs, where bog development is being carried out, where it has been found impossible during the busy season of the year to get agricultural labourers at any price.
We know perfectly well—the Minister knows it better than I or anybody else in the House—that the decline in the dairying industry is due to the fact that the rising generation of agricultural labourers and others will not do the work that was done by such people 25 or 30 years ago. They will not do it because they are not paid a sufficiently remunerative wage to enable them to remain on the land. The average agricultural labourer in my constituency during the turf-cutting season is not prepared to work for a farmer at the existing low rates of wages because he can go into the local turf bog or a turf bog near his place of residence and cut turf for sale and thus make a far better living for himself and his dependants than he could possibly make by working for a local farmer.
That situation will have to be faced up to. The farmer must be put in a position to secure the necessary labour, either family labour, which a lot of them have if sons and daughters remain with them, or the local agricultural labour at a decent cash wage.
I am suggesting to the Minister for Finance that if subsidies are justified— and subsidies can be justified in exceptional circumstances and must be provided—of so many millions for the flour millers of this country, for the industrialists—through the protection which they are given—then some form of increased subsidy will have to be provided for the farmers or some form of financial assistance will have to be given to enable them to pay a decent minimum rate of wages to their agricultural labourers. A few years ago we were described as lunatics when we asked for a minimum rate of wages of £3 per week for road workers, agricultural labourers and other rural workers. To-day could the Minister for Finance—and he is himself a farmer— tell the House that £3 a week is an excessive rate of wages for an agricultural labourer under existing circumstances, especially the agricultural labourer who is also a married man and who has to support a family? Every citizen in receipt of £3 or £4 a week is putting that money into circulation in the interests of the community and very few of them can ever hope to save anything out of that minimum rate of wages of £3 per week. I suggest the Government should seriously consider the proposal to subsidise the farmers on the condition that they will pay to their agricultural labourers a decent minimum rate of wages. The Minister may say that it would be impossible to operate such a subsidy. The Minister has got ample assistance at his disposal in order to devise a system capable of being operated to provide subsidies for farmers on the sole condition that they will pay a certain minimum rate of wages to their labourers.
I think, too, the farmer should be assisted by the provision of cheap money. I think there is a feeling on the Government side of the House that very few good farmers are in need of financial assistance for the carrying on of their ordinary farming activities. The Minister has set a good line and I fully appreciate that coming from the Minister. Shortly after being made Minister for Finance he has brought about a reduction in the rate of interest to 2½ per cent. to enable certain local authorities to carry out certain work. Where outside of this country would bankers get the rates of interest which they are getting here to-day from unfortunate farmers who are obliged to borrow money for the purpose of enabling them to carry on their farming activities? The rate of interest payable by the farmers for loans is higher than that in any other country in the world to-day.
I read a statement recently made by the Chancellor of the Exchequer in the British House of Commons, where he said that the standardisation of the interest rates for local loans and Government loans during the coming financial year will mean a saving of £600,000,000 in Great Britain. That standardisation is fixed at 2½ per cent. If all that money were set aside for the purpose of reducing income tax it would mean that income tax in Great Britain to-day could be brought down from 9/- to 4/- in the £. That statement was made by Mr. Dalton on the Second Reading of the recent Transport Bill in the British House of Commons. It only goes to show the huge saving that could be effected if the Government and the Minister for Finance would take courage and tell the bankers that they would no longer be permitted to suck the life-blood of the community. That is what the bankers have been doing for a long time and that is what they have been permitted freely to do.
I suggest that the farmers can be provided with cheaper money and they should also be assisted by the provision of cheaper transport over the railway system and the road system of this country. The transport system is under semi-State control. The farmers are dependent upon it for their raw materials and the transportation of their agricultural produce.
Last week I read a notice in the paper, issued on behalf of Córas Iompair Eireann, in which they said that in view of the existing circumstances they would have to make application to the proper Government Department to get sanction to increase their rates by 20 per cent. Last July this concern was foolish enough to reduce its rates. I do not know for what reason. They are now asking the Government to sanction an increase of 20 per cent. I trust that the Government Department concerned will not allow Córas Iompair Eireann to increase the rates on fertilisers and the other raw materials for the agricultural community. If there is necessity for an increased rate that rate should be imposed upon the people who pay for the carriage of luxury articles, upon the tourists who travel over the transport system and so on. In New Zealand, in Australia, in Great Britain and in most progressive countries in the world the agricultural community gets specially reduced rates on the transport system of the country. I think the same should be done here, particularly as in this country the transport system is under State supervision and State control.
Deputy Hughes referred to the precarious position of the dairying industry. I do not know what defence can be made by the Minister or his colleagues for the present precarious position of that industry. I suspect that some of the farmers have gone out of that industry because they are not getting an economic price for their milk. The last Government and the present Government provided subsidies over a long period of years for the purpose of propping up the dairy industry. That is a most important industry from the point of view of employment and food production. That subsidy is justifiable in any case from a policy point of view for the purpose of maintaining the industry, and I think that a sufficient sum of money should be made available in order to enable those who supply milk to the creameries to get an economic price for their milk. If that were done the farmers would not be so anxious to get out of the industry and we would to-day have a decent ration of butter. If the present position continues, with the bad weather we have been experiencing for the past 12 months, this time next year there will be no butter ration.
There is grave need for immediate assistance of some kind to revive the dairying industry of this country. Otherwise it will die out. In my own constituency I have on every occasion encouraged and advocated the establishment of creameries. I am sorry to say that some of the people who started creameries are now getting out of them. Some action must be taken to encourage the farmers to retain their association with dairying and to encourage them in their own interests to get into the co-operative movement. I would like to have heard Deputy Hughes further as to what he thinks of the co-operative movement. I think a live co-operative movement is a vital necessity to enable the farmers to purchase their raw materials without availing of the services of the middleman. It is the middlemen who are sucking the life-blood out of the agricultural community to-day. There are too many middlemen engaged in the distribution of the agricultural produce of the country and they are getting much more out of that than is the producer.
I am now making a demand on the Government to take all the necessary steps to see that the agricultural labourers and the rural workers are given a minimum rate of wages of £3 per week. That is a matter for the Government. The Government have a majority. If they agree with that policy then it is their duty to establish the machinery to put such a system into operation in relation to the farming community.
We are asked in this Book of Estimates also to provide a big sum of money this year again for the carrying on of the new company called Bord na Móna. That is extremely desirable in present circumstances. I think it was obvious to everybody at the end of last year that there would be a shortage of turf in this country between the months of January and April this year. It is true, of course, that the shocking weather conditions made it impossible to get a good deal of the turf that was cut last year off the bogs. I know of many bogs in my constituency where half the turf cut last year is still lying there. It will be a fairly difficult job to get the bogs cleared of that turf in time to enable turf-cutting operations to begin for the coming season.
When we provide such a huge sum for the development of the turf industry, I think it is only right that the Minister should be fully satisfied that the organisation for the provision of turf is on a sound basis. I do not like to see Bord na Móna operating in a limited way and cutting turf in certain parts of the country and the county councils doing another job, not as well as Bord na Móna. I should like to see the whole of the turf production organisation under one central authority. I do not think turf production is a job for the county councils. It should never have been given to them. The job should have been taken on by Bord na Móna, or the Turf Board which preceded it. In that way there would be no wasteful expenditure in connection with the production and distribution of turf. County councillors in every part of the country will tell you that the present bad state of the roads is due to the fact that road workers were taken off their normal work of road maintenance and put to work on the bogs at a period of the year when road maintenance work could be carried on in a fairly efficient way. If the people employed by the county councils have to continue cutting turf in the turf-cutting counties, then Bord na Móna should take them over and pay them decent wages and the county councils should employ other people for road maintenance work.
I think there is a good deal of wasteful expenditure in the present patch-work system of having a portion of the turf provided by Bord na Móna, a portion by the county councils, and another portion by private producers. The whole system of turf production and distribu- tion should be under one central authority and there should be a much more efficient system of administration. There is a great deal of wasteful expenditure on the collection and delivery of turf. Some people engaged in the transport of turf to the cities have been making a good thing out of it at the expense of the consumer. In any case, far too high a percentage of the price paid for turf is covered by the cost of distribution, and I think the cost of transport is excessive.
I should like if the Minister could explain the necessity for the increased subsidy of £242,000 for fuel this year in view of the fact that there is a far smaller tonnage of turf being brought into the cities than in the previous year. The price of turf to the consumer was reduced. There is a reduced quantity of turf being brought into the cities and towns during the year, but still we are asked to provide an increase of almost £250,000 for the purpose of subsidising the price of fuel in Dublin and other places.
I should like to encourage the Minister to persuade his colleague, the Minister for Industry and Commerce, to consider favourably the question of providing generous rations for the people engaged in turf production, for agricultural labourers and other workers, including working farmers, who are engaged in the provision of food and fuel. It is desirable that we should do what is being done in Great Britain. As most Deputies know, even the road workers employed by county councils have to travel long distances to their work. Everybody knows that the people engaged in turf production have to travel exceptionally long distances and engage in very laborious work during the day. I am sure that the people in the cities and towns, who have to look to the rural community for the provision of food and fuel, would not grudge an additional ration during the turf-cutting season and the busy period of the year for the farmers, for the people who are called upon to produce sufficient food and fuel. I should like the Minister to use his good offices with his colleague, the Minister for Industry and Commerce, for the purpose of trying to persuade him to meet that general demand.
Some of the previous speakers referred to production costs. Considering the period we have passed through, that is a very important matter. There is no doubt that during the war period production costs increased in agriculture and in industry. Unless this discussion is to be absolutely valueless, we should see how those production costs can be reduced. There can be nothing approaching normality either in industry or in agriculture until the raw materials which these industries require are distributed in a proper way. There is nothing that will cause distress and unemployment more quickly than faulty distribution. We have got something like that on the other side when the whole industrial production in England has been brought to a stop by the lack of coal. Now how can we over here best guard our own interests and production? I take it that production, which comes from power, is composed of coal, turf, petrol and water, which generates electricity: any one of those will help productivity. At the present time, we have got a situation in which the Government tell us no coal, or very little, is coming in from the other side. We cannot improve that situation and we are thrown back on our own resources.
Now, of course, during the war period an effort has been made to speed up the production of turf. We are well aware that while some people have managed to get fairly dry turf others have got very wet turf, but turf, coal and petrol all mean production. The extraordinary thing has been that during the war period we have been comparatively well supplied with petrol as compared with coal. I do not think there is any doubt about that and if the supplies of petrol to this country had been reduced a major disaster would have overtaken this country. A short time ago the Government gave a practical monopoly of haulage to Córas Iompair Eireann. Of course they have been overtaken by supplies of coal which nobody suggests they have got; they are in a very bad position. I would like to ask this House to bring a certain amount of realism to bear on the present situation. At the present time this country is trying to get out of the war period and to pass into the post-war period and, as I have said before, the first requirement is supplies. Now supplies are very scarce and very hard to come by and they can practically only be supplied—I am referring to native production—on the amount of these supplies that are brought in. They can only be brought in from England—from the British Isles or from overseas. Now what is the position of supplies which are available in England at the present time? We are all aware that goods over there are in short supply and that opportunities are available from time to time to people in this country to get supplies of raw materials or materials. Now if at the present time anybody outside the port of Dublin and a couple of other places wishes to order goods from the other side the railway company just do not take them: they say, "We cannot forward these goods." The whole of the interior of Ireland except for priority goods is cut off. Now that means that the goods are lost to this country because nobody would suggest that—with the present hunger for goods all over the world which may have become available somewhere on the other side for supply to a person in the Midlands of Ireland—those goods are cold-storaged or put on one side in packages. They are simply handed out to somebody else and the supply is lost.
Now if goods come in here from overseas and they are not on the priority list of Córas Iompair Eireann they are simply not forwarded. Of course, nobody suggests that Córas Iompair Eireann can double their present capacity or I suppose quadruple it if they would want to, but I am sure the Minister in replying will probably say: "Well, what do you suggest? Are we to leave the people without food and the necessities which we have tabulated in a table which roughly corresponds with the degree of necessity of the community for those particular stores?" I would like to refer to the fact that during the crisis turf was brought up to Dublin by turf lorries and those turf lorries went back empty. I would like to ask the Minister, and through him the Government, what is the sense of having one-way traffic. Imagine a conversation something like this occurring with a person from another country. The foreigner might ask the driver of an empty turf lorry: "When you went up to Dublin do you know that you passed the Quays or some other place where there was a lorry-load of goods which is badly needed in your own district waiting for distribution?" And the lorry owner or his driver would answer: "I am just as well aware of that as you are, and in fact a great deal better, but the law of the land prevents my lifting those goods."
That increases the cost of transport and of turf.
Well, I am glad you have realised that elementary proposition because one-way traffic is a great deal dearer than two-way traffic. Now remember you might almost describe the present situation as dog in the manger. If Córas Iompair Eireann cannot lift the goods and they will not let the turf lorry man lift it, what is the position?
Their own lorries are doing that.
Now during the last few days somebody in the Government wakened up to the fact that there was a desperate fuel crisis in this country. Now I know the Minister for Industry and Commerce——
Wakened up to the fact that we sometimes have winter.
Well, I suppose we have had a winter this year if we never had one before and, of course, there is nothing to prevent a similar occurrence next year but I was going to say that the Minister for Industry and Commerce proceeded to explain, personally I did not understand it but perhaps the Minister could enlighten me as to what the explanation was, but it amounted to this, that the more turf that was left on the bogs the better we were up here; that some tens of thousands of tons of turf which were left in the bogs as a result of the hauliers' strike were really a blessing in disguise and were helping to alleviate the fuel crisis in this city. I do not quite understand that, and perhaps the Minister will explain it.
I was saying that somebody in the Government woke up to the fact that there had been a very severe winter, that people in Dublin, poor and well-to-do alike, were actually suffering from loss of fuel, and they got a brain wave and I think there was an Order that all restrictions on the cartage of firewood should be withdrawn. I think I am right in saying that some credit has been taken by the Government for that brain-wave and for the alleviation of the crisis. But it did not solve the problem which had been produced by that action. I suggest to the Minister that a wonderful advance in reality would be made if somebody could get another brain-wave and think of why there should be, as Deputy Davin has said, one-way traffic; why you should not take off the shackles that are on the licensed hauliers and say to them: "Now you are free; you can drag stuff up and down the country."
There might have been some excuse for that when Córas Iompair Eireann could function. I am not going to go into the very thorny problem as between the railways company and the lorries. I will not say the railways company are knocked out, because they are doing their best on priority goods, but nobody thinks that for months to come they will be able to do any more than handle priority goods. What is the sense of keeping up a dog-in-the-manger attitude in which the railways company are knocked out? Thank God, there is a relatively ample supply of petrol. I know plenty of people, including myself, who would like a lot more, but the petrol situation at the present time appears to be such that those who have got petrol and lorries are only bursting to lift goods that they are not now allowed to lift. Deputy Davin referred to turf on the bogs that had not been brought up.
Everybody knows that.
Tell me this, now, because you could enlighten me in regard to it, is there a road anywhere near where that turf is?
Some of the roads are bad.
I want to bring out the fact that it appears as if there are lorries waiting to be employed by people like Deputy Davin who want turf lifted. If only somebody would introduce those people to Deputy Davin or to the hauliers, I think we would have made a real contribution to the discussion on one subject alone, namely, fuel.
Who will drain the bogs —take the water off the bogs?
You must remember the turf lorry is not a duck. All yesterday we spent discussing questions about procedure and I see a Bill on the Paper to-day about another thing that seems to my mind to smack very much the same way, about something that could really be discussed at some other time, or left to settle itself. What I am getting down to is that some of the people are up against the realities of life. They found that goods are available for a fleeting moment on the other side and will not be shipped to them as they cannot be taken off the quay to the railway, because the railways company is doing a dog-in-the-manager on the lorries. Is that the position we have arrived at in the present century, a position in which in all the shipping companies and in all the railway stations in England, there are lists of goods that they will not take for Ireland? So far as overseas shipments are concerned, it will only be a very short space of time until the Port and Docks Board say: "Look here, there is enough stuff on the quays; there are no more ships coming here, boys, until that is lifted". Will the Minister and the Government take the shackles off the hauliers and stop this infernal nonsense?
One would be inclined to sympathise with the Minister in the rather tough job he has to face in presenting such a bill to this House and to the people in view of the incompetence which his Government have revealed over a period of 15 years, and particularly over the past few months. The Minister, I am sure, would be highly indignant if any Deputy were to hurl bricks at him because of the failure to provide people with fuel during the past difficult months. He would be very indignant if people were to blame him for the failure in supplies of essential foodstuffs, particularly bread. He might say, and I expect he will say, that those things were due to circumstances outside the Government's control, but for 15 years Ministers, individually and collectively, have been cashing in upon good things which were merely good fortune for this country and which were also outside the Government's control. They have been cashing in consistently on the goodness of Divine Providence, on the goodness of the Providence that kept us out of the war and that enabled us to have rather agreeable neighbours who saw that we were not completely deprived of essential supplies during the war period.
Having cashed in on the goodness of Divine Providence for so long, I think the Government will have to put up with any criticism, any justifiable criticism, which is directed against them for their failure to provide for such times as when Providence is not so kind. Those times have come upon the Government and upon the country during the past 12 months. Notwithstanding the enormously expanded Governmental Departments and the enormous amount of money which has been collected from the people to maintain those Departments, the Government have shown themselves absolutely incompetent to foresee or to provide for any ordinary circumstances which anyone would expect, first, the conditions to be expected after a colossal war and, secondly, the abnormal weather conditions, particularly when the indications that this weather was coming were clear for a long period.
Notice has been given to the Government that the necessity to provide for increased production will be raised in this debate. Deputies have referred to various aspects of the question. The first aspect of increased production which must be faced is the urgent necessity of ensuring food supplies for the coming year. Owing to abnormal weather conditions, at least three months which would, in the ordinary course, be devoted to preparing land for ploughing and sowing a considerable proportion of this year's crops, have been lost. We are now compelled to crowd into one month the work of four months, the busiest period of the year on the land. That is a problem which cannot be ignored. It cannot be glossed over. There is no use in Ministers coming in here later, if there is a disastrous failure of spring sowing this year, and saying: "It is easy to be wise after the event." There are still a few weeks during which the work of ploughing and sowing crops must be undertaken. We ought to have some indication that the Government are fully alive to the gravity of the position.
Last year at the eleventh hour, when the harvest was almost lost, urgent appeals were made to the general public to assist at harvest work, and some sort of organisation was set up to give assistance. Is any organisation being provided by the Government now to ensure that every available man and every available implement will be working full time upon the land when conditions permit? I think I represent a constituency which has suffered more severely than any other in Ireland as a result of the abnormal weather conditions of the past few months. I say that only a very small percentage of the land required for cropping has been even ploughed. It may be that there are areas which have not suffered so severely, where frost and snow did not persist as long as it did in County Wicklow. It should be the first duty of the Government to find out where agricultural implements and tractors are most urgently required and also where there may be a sufficiency of such machines.
In this matter, as in connection with the harvest, we must be prepared to divert agricultural machinery to other occupations for a month or two. We must also be prepared to divert labour from other industries and occupations to the work of getting crops sown. There are large numbers of people in State employment, in forestry, on the roads and in other forms of public work, and wherever necessary these men should be directed to assist at agricultural work. The need is fundamental. It is well that it should be brought to the notice of Ministers so that they cannot come in here later on and say that they were not warned of the dangers facing the nation. There is no use in the Government proceeding along the lines they followed for the past 15 years. There is no use in continuing a policy of drift, a policy of allowing matters to take their course, and then simply trying to save what they can from the wreck. Somebody must resolutely plan for the nation's future if it is to survive.
The British Government recently issued an Economic Survey for 1947. It is a sort of economic budget, setting out the nation's income, its resources and its potentialities, as well as its most urgent needs. We have no evidence of any such economic planning on the part of our Government. We have no evidence of any serious determination on the part of the Government to ensure that this nation will not drift to disaster in the difficult years that lie ahead. It is a very significant thing that the British people, after having struggled through the most terrible war that any nation was ever involved in, are now resolutely planning to build a stronger and a better nation.
One important fact that stands out above all others in this economic Budget that the British recently published is that the British Government are not prepared to allow the country to sink down into the position of a third, fourth or fifth-rate nation. Notwithstanding the tremendous problem which they have to face in feeding and supporting 45,000,000 people out of a comparatively small island, they are not willing to take the easy way out, as our Government has consistently taken the easy way out, of allowing emigration to solve their problem.
I am not an economist or do not claim to be an expert on such matters but I have no doubt that the British Government could solve many of its most pressing economic problems by encouraging a large section of the British people to go abroad. By so doing, they would certainly have less people to support out of the resources of their nation but that would mean their becoming a much weaker and much smaller nation. In this country, we have a Government who claim to be ultra-patriotic, to be full of a great sense of nationality, to be always planning for a greater Irish nation and yet they are prepared, and quite happy, to allow this nation to be bled white by emigration, to sink down to a much lower and much weaker position than that in which they found it.
Emigration has persisted right through all the years that Fianna Fáil has been in office. It has been one of the marked characteristics, one of the marked achievements of the Fianna Fáil Government that they have succeeded in driving many of the very best and ablest of our young men and women out of the country. They have no ambition to alter that state of affairs. They have no ambition whatever to build a bigger and stronger nation here. They are not inspired by the same ideals as those who govern Great Britain. They do not care whether this nation sinks lower and still lower in the scale of physical and economic strength so long as they can by-pass the difficult problems that face them and hold on to office. The people who rule Great Britain may not be brilliant, they may not be very able but at least they have a sense of direction. At least they are not going to let their country drift, if they can avoid it. They are not prepared to drive a section of the people to the emigrant ship in order to get over economic difficulties. On the contrary, they are inviting and encouraging young men and young women from other nations to help them in building up a stronger and better nation, inviting and encouraging young men and young women from other countries to achieve the very purpose which they have in mind and they are ably assisted by the wonderful national Government we have here.
Every facility is given to enable the emigrant ship to collect the best of our manhood. We have the Irish Press publishing advertisements calling on young women to go to work in the factories of Great Britain. That in the organ of our nationally - minded, patriotic Government!
Then we have the incompetence of the Government which has so lowered the scale of living, which has provided so few opportunities for our young people, that they have nowhere to turn their eyes except to the advertisement columns of the Irish Press which offers them inducements to get employment outside Ireland. That is the way in which our Government, after 15 years of experience of government, are facing up to our national problems.
A study of our resources, our economic, our agricultural and our man-power resources, is urgently necessary and that study must be followed by a determined effort to ensure that the industries and occupations which are essential to the very life of this nation should be given the fullest possible encouragement. In their White Paper, the British Government stated that it was not their intention to direct or to compel labour into any particular occupation. It was their intention to induce workers to take up whatever particular work was in the best national interest. That is the only conceivable policy which a democratically-minded Government could adopt, namely, not to drive, coerce, or compel workers into any particular line of production but to induce them by offering reasonable remuneration. If it is necessary to increase food supplies—and everybody realises that it is necessary to increase and expand food supplies—we ought not have the position in which the Minister for Agriculture is only just beginning to consider the question of what is reasonable remuneration for those engaged in the dairying industry. Surely the Government ought to know by now what constitutes a fair return to those engaged in agriculture and ought to make a reasonable effort to see that they get it.
When Deputy Hughes was referring to the agricultural price index, the Minister, by way of interruption, sought to make the point that the agricultural price index has increased since 1938 somewhat more than the cost-of-living index figure. He ignored the fact that the cost-of-living index figure was 62 points higher than the agricultural price index figure in 1938 and that to-day agricultural prices stand at 120 per cent. above the 1914 figure, the basic year for the cost-of-living index figure, whereas the cost-of-living figure is 195 per cent. above the 1914 figure.
Thus it will be seen that, since 1914, agricultural prices have not increased in proportion to the price of other commodities which are included in the calculation of the cost-of-living index figure.
Since the matter comes under the control of the Minister for Finance, I take this occasion to protest against the fact that whereas the official cost-of-living index figure is based on 1914, the basis for the agricultural price index has been shifted to 1938, which has the effect of making the farmers appear to have a considerable advantage. If the two figures are to be compared, the same basic year should be taken in respect of both of them. That is ordinary common sense.
It will be acknowledged that many of the services for which this enormous sum of money is required are considerably in excess of what is absolutely necessary. All Government Departments have been expanded. The number of officials has been steadily increased. Sooner or later we will have to face up to a consideration of whether the number is justifiable or not. It is very natural and very easy for the head of a Department to say: "I cannot manage this Department without so many officials". The farmer may feel that he cannot manage his farm without a certain number of employees, but economic conditions force him to carry on with considerably less than the number that is necessary. There ought to be some economic factor operating to compel the Government to manage with less than the number of public officials that they persist in employing. The really essential industries of this country, particularly those producing food and fuel, are undermanned and understaffed while the unproductive occupations are over-staffed. Economic planning should seek to reduce the number of people engaged in unproductive work and at the same time to increase the number engaged in productive work. Economic planning should seek to reduce the amount of goods consumed in unessential work and to increase at the same time the amount consumed in essential work. That is absolutely essential for the preservation of the nation in the difficult years ahead. That condition of affairs cannot be brought about or should not be brought about by any form of compulsion. That policy can be achieved by intelligent understanding of the needs of the nation and intelligent cooperation between Government Departments and private enterprise.
Deputy Dockrell appealed to the Government to take the shackles off the licensed hauliers. Every fair-minded Deputy will sympathise with that appeal. I think, however, that it is necessary to go further than that. The shackles upon the licensed haulier, the private lorry-owner and private enterprise generally prevented fuel from being brought into the city when it was urgently needed. Some of the shackles were removed when the situation became absolutely desperate a week or two ago. Not only should we take the shackles off the licensed haulier but we should take the shackles off the private lorry-owner. Any man who can purchase a lorry and put it on the road and operate it according to the rules of the road should be free to ply for hire and help in the transport and distribution of commodities. In my opinion it was a crime ever to have interfered with the liberty of the citizen to purchase and work for hire a private lorry. The nation has suffered as a result of that policy of shackling private individuals in the interests of big monopolies and the nation will continue to suffer. We want the widest possible measure of freedom for every energetic and enterprising man who is prepared to engage in production, manufacture, or transport, and to engage in it in his own way. The function of the State is, by wise and prudent inducement, to encourage private enterprise along the lines most urgently essential for the life of the nation. But the whole policy of the Government has been to discourage private enterprise from doing those things which are so urgently necessary. Only yesterday I raised the question as to whether the Government would be prepared to consider the abnormal situation which has arisen due to recent blizzards which have destroyed on many farms almost the entire stock. I asked if the Government would be prepared to consider any schemes for assisting these producers to get back into production. The Minister for Agriculture said that he could not consider anything of the kind.
Now, the people who are struggling to carry on production in this country are entitled to reasonable encouragement and to reasonable assistance from the State. They should have no reason to expect to be hampered and obstructed in their efforts to provide the food and the fuel which the nation requires. They should have no reason to expect that they would be insulted, as the dairy farmers were insulted yesterday by the Minister for Agriculture, when he said that they were making extravagant demands on the Government and on the community. The farmer has no intention of making any extravagant demands either on the Government or on the community, but the farmer is entitled to demand simple justice.
I notice that the general standard of agricultural prices in Great Britain was raised during the last few weeks. That step-up was taken because the Government there realised that the cost of production in the industry had been inflated as a result of various adverse conditions and that it was now necessary to meet the producer in a reasonable way. Here we have the Government digging in their heels and saying they will resist any such claims.
Finally, it may be suggested by the Minister that the enormous bill which the taxpayer is called upon to bear and the enormous contribution which we are being asked here to-day to meet is due to the fact that the Government has been so kind and so generous to the weaker and poorer sections of the community. In this connection I would like to make a comparison. In 1932, when the Government took office, the amount voted for old age pensions was £2,700,000. That was 12½ per cent. of the total amount demanded in the Supply Estimates. This year the amount voted for old age pensions is £3,700,000, which represents only 7 per cent. of the total. We thus find that the poorer and weaker sections of the community have been placed in a more disadvantageous position as compared with 1932 when the Government first took office. The value of money has gone down to practically half what it was in 1932. The inflation which has taken place since then has been deliberately exploited by the Government to place this poorest and weakest section of the community in a much worse position than they were in 1932, notwithstanding the fact that the Government's predecessors were reducing up and down the country for reducing the old age pensions by 1/-. There are more old age pensioners than there were in 1932.
As a result of the lowering of the value of money we have the position where the old age pensioners now are reduced by almost 5/- per week. That is one small example of the way in which figures have been manipulated to ensure that a chosen few in this country will prosper while, in the main, the hardest worked and poorest sections of the community are in an infinitely worse condition than they have ever been since the State was established. No one can dispute that fact. The agricultural workers, the small farmer trying to make a living out of his holding, the old age pensioner, and the poor of every class find themselves in an absolutely desperate position at the present time. They have neither enough food nor fuel, nor have they any money wherewith to purchase the clothing they require. That appalling condition of poverty is amply demonstrated by the rush towards the various offices which have been set up to help people out of this country.
It is frequently and truly said that the standard of living of our people depends upon the volume of production within the country. The volume of production, of course, depends upon the manner in which the producers are treated. If those two facts can be borne in mind by the Government and if they can be hammered home into the brain of the Minister for Finance and acted upon, then there may be some hope for the country. But as long as we have a position in which the fundamental factors upon which our entire economic existence depends are completely ignored, and the only thing that is considered is manoeuvring for support in a hundred small futile ways, then, as long as that position remains, there is no future for this country except to drift like a rudderless ship to complete disaster.
Sir, the problems confronting this country at the present time are in many respects similar to the problems confronting other countries and, in particular, to those confronting our nearest neighbour, Great Britain, with certain essential differences. In Great Britain, due to the heavy tax on their material strength during the war, they now find themselves with greatly depleted resources; and, as a result of man-power shortage, they are confronted with greatly depleted labour forces to develop and produce essential commodities. Here we find ourselves in a different position but to a certain extent there are similarities. We find ourselves with certain national industries, in particular agriculture, largely undeveloped. We have an agricultural potential which has been for a long number of years not merely undeveloped, but to a large extent neglected. As a result of the compulsory tillage scheme, we have, discovered that a large area of this country which was formerly held to be arable land is not arable and that the area of arable land is far smaller than was originally calculated. We now find ourselves with an arable acreage ranging between nine and ten millions.
Faced with that situation so far as agriculture is concerned, it is obvious that certain essential and necessary steps should be taken at the earliest possible moment. Owing to the continuous cropping during the war years and the continuation of that cropping now, quite a considerable proportion of the arable land is in a serious condition of infertility and undernourishment as a result of the shortage of manures. It is necessary for us to endeavour to procure in as large a quantity as possible all the available supplies of artificial manures which our soil surveys have shown are essential if we are to increase productivity. Due to the decrease in the feeding of live stock during the war and to the fact that farmers, as a result of the intensive tillage, were obliged to produce more cereals for sale and fewer stall-fed cattle and less feeding stuffs for cattle, there is not available and has not been available during the emergency sufficient farmyard manure.
It is, therefore, obvious, owing to the lack of artificial fertilisers and of ordinary farmyard manure, that the vast majority of farmers want cheap manures made available for them immediately. So far as the Government have at their disposal means whereby manures can be secured abroad, it is the duty and the responsibility of the Government to see that these manures are made available at as cheap a cost as possible. So far as there is any tax or tariff on any imports of essential raw materials for agriculture, whether artificial manures or machinery, or anything essential for the manufacture of machinery here, it should be withdrawn. I do not suggest that any industrialist who is producing agricultural machinery should find himself up against severe competition with an inflow of cheaper machinery from outside. But, unless we realise that agriculture can only carry the very minimum burden, that no burden over and above the bare essential costs must be placed on agriculture, we shall never develop agriculture to the degree necessary for our needs.
The first essential then is a rapid expansion of agricultural productivity and coupled with that we must have a rapid expansion of industries which are suited to this country, either because we are in a position to produce the necessary raw materials here, or because we can secure cheaply and in sufficient quantities supplies of the essential raw materials abroad. Industries which depend on the importation of supplies, which are carrying a tariff here, and which as a result put up the costs of the commodities, should be, if not discouraged, given the minimum assistance. Our industries have had a considerable time now to get on their feet. While there are exceptional cases and while exceptional cases may arise in the future, most of the industries have had a chance of developing. So far as circumstances here are similar to those outside, it ought not to be necessary to assist these industries by unduly high tariffs or unduly severe quota restrictions. Any industry which is vital and which produces a commodity which we cannot get either in sufficient quantity or as good quality elsewhere should be assisted to the maximum extent. But we should endeavour to ensure that all commodities produced here and which find their way into the hands of farmers or into some channel which leads to agricultural production should be made available at the very lowest cost and with the very minimum burden as far as the farmers are concerned.
We have a considerable amount of undeveloped resources in this country. We have a very great need, not merely for increased productivity, but increased man power both in agriculture and in industry, but particularly in industry. With certain exceptions, it is possible that agriculture cannot absorb many more people. But there is one branch of the industry which can absorb many more people. The dairying industry seems to be diminishing, not merely as regards the numbers employed, but so far as its capacity to produce anything like our needs is concerned. The industry is in a position to absorb more men both in cattle management and the general operations of dairying.
As regards our secondary industries, the effect of the emergency has been to place industrialists in general in a bad position. Plant is worn out, equipment is obsolete or obsolescent and deficient. Many types of machinery which produced to the maximum extent at the beginning of the emergency have now become worn out. Unless we can procure new machinery or parts to repair existing machinery, our capacity to produce efficiently and on a sufficiently large scale will be greatly hindered. So far as the Government can assist industrialists to procure abroad supplies of essential equipment and plant, it is their duty and responsibility to assist industry in that way as far as they can. In connection with that, I would like to deal for a moment with the effect of taxation on industry. If taxation is so framed that industrialists are obliged to pay over and above whatever is granted as profit in taxes to the Government then there are two results likely to follow. One that the available surplus will not be ploughed back into the industry, will not be invested in new plant or machinery or will not be distributed among the employees. Anything which tends to withdraw from industry available surplus profit which could be employed in increasing the capacity of that industry either by securing new machinery or new technique, or, on the other hand, by encouraging the employees by distributing amongst them the surplus profits is to be deplored and the abolition of the excess corporation profits tax last year I think will have and must have in the future desirable and beneficial results.
But any tax which places on industrialists an obligation to pay over and above whatever surplus could be ploughed back or could be distributed amongst the employees will withdraw the incentive and the capacity which inevitably would be there if that surplus money was made available to the industrialists in general. Of course it would be undesirable that industrialists should make profits which bore no relation either to the production of their industrial concerns or to the capital invested. Everyone agrees that there must be a fair margin of profit but anything above a fair margin of profit—a sufficient sum to re-equip the industry and a fair proportion to the employees in the industry—should be paid in taxation to the State. But allowing for a fair profit to the industrialist himself, a sufficient sum to be placed in reserve, to be reinvested on new equipment or plant and a sum which the industrialist can distribute amongst the employees, anything above that should be collected and made available to the State.
Might I remind the Deputy that taxation is not discussed on this Vote? He will have full scope on the Budget debate.
Yes, Sir, I am only dealing with it en passant. In addition, every incentive to make available here commodities which the Government can procure by contacts outside should be given. It is the responsibility of the Government to see that these necessary and essential requirements should be made available. I think that everyone now realises that any country which attempts to depend entirely on its own production, particularly any country situated such as we are in comparison with other countries, with our comparatively limited resources, must inevitably have a lower standard of living. Now we can farm here, by making available from outside fertilisers and feeding stuffs, a far larger area of land than if we attempt to exist on our own fertilisers and our own production of feeding stuffs. I think the myth is long blown that we should not import essential manures and that we should not import certain feeding stuffs, and for that reason I wish to suggest to the Government that at the present time maize is available. The quantities that have been imported are relatively negligible and the attempts which the Government have made to secure imports of maize and manures do not give rise to the view that the Government is exploring to the full the available supplies. If we had at the present time sufficient quantities of manures and of maize we could produce on a larger scale. We could farm in fact a larger area. At the present time we should make every effort to integrate our agricultural policy and our agricultural production with the policy which the British Government has recently laid down in its White Paper. If Great Britain is going in for a live-stock policy, then it is in our interests to produce live stock to sell to them. We can do that by securing abroad essential feeding stuffs and feeding live stock here that we could not in present circumstances feed in view of the obligation on us to produce sufficient wheat and cereals to provide ourselves with bread.
That being so, we have of necessity had a reduction in the production of other feeding stuffs with a consequent reduction in the number of stall-fed cattle. Some of this may be more appropriate to the Agriculture Estimate, but it is one long and wide arm of our national economy and, in fact, at the present time it is the only arm of our national economy which gives this country an exportable commodity which will bring in anything like a sufficient sum of money. For that reason, we should strain every effort and, if necessary, seek now a modification or an expansion of the 1938 Agreement with Great Britain and secure for the future that all differential pricings in operation upon the export from here to England will be abolished and that we will get the maximum benefit out of the present position, when we can export a surplus of cattle. In addition, an immediate requirement is that all available surplus cattle should be exported now. Every Deputy is familiar with the circumstances which the weather has produced and the shortage of fodder all over the country. The fact is that in practically every area of the country farmers are endeavouring to eke out available supplies of fodder. If we are to sell cattle before they deteriorate, we should seek a modification or a cancellation or an improvement of the 1938 Agreement in order that we can sell our surplus cattle on the best financial terms to Great Britain. It is a strange fact that all during the war and even since the end of the war, the British have existed on a very small meat ration, that that meat ration has, despite the desire and every effort to seek an improvement, remained almost the same, and at the same time they have sought to secure exports of cattle from as far away as America and the Argentine while we here at their door are in a position to export cattle. Not merely would that benefit Great Britain but it would materially benefit ourselves. On the face of that situation, we should endeavour to improve the terms of the 1938 Agreement.
I want to refer for a moment to the relationship and to the co-operation which will be necessary, and which must be forthcoming if this country is to surmount the present difficult circumstances and the serious situation which inevitably will develop here if increased production and increased supply of goods are not made available as quickly as possible.
We have in this country a shortage of houses, a shortage of skilled tradesmen to build houses and, of course, a shortage of certain essential materials necessary for the houses. But the most acute shortage in the building trade is the shortage of skilled tradesmen. We see that in England there is a shortage of labour of every type, a regular vacuum for labour, and as recently as last month the President of the British Board of Trade said that that vaccum would continue for a number of years and, as far as he could see, any available imports of labour which Britain could procure from the Continent or here would not greatly lessen the incidence of the shortage of labour.
If that situation continues, and apparently all expert opinion over there thinks it will, it is obvious the present trend here, the rising incidence of emigration, may continue, and it is essential we should see what steps will meet that position. We should seek the co-operation not merely of industrialists or builders but of the trade unions, because no matter how we may discuss this problem or what motives we may assign for the rising trend in emigration, and no matter how we may play down the relative positions of the people who emigrate—their relative financial or personal positions as a result of emigrating to England—the fact is that with all the disabilities, with all the restrictions and with all the burdens placed on our people over there, or on the people who are living in England, our people continue to emigrate, our skilled tradesmen continue to emigrate, and our workers, whom we need in every branch of our national life, continue to emigrate.
We should endeavour to secure the co-operation and assistance of all sections of the community to see what measures may be taken to reduce the present trend and to make available here the skilled tradesmen who are necessary for the building industry and for many other industrial concerns. We ought to establish, if the establishment of such would improve the position, consultative councils in industry between the industrialists and the employees. Unless we can secure the fullest co-operation between the owners of the industry and the workers and secure maximum satisfaction amongst all workers in industry, then we will not get here an increased output or a sufficient number of skilled tradesmen in industry.
It is necessary that wages and prices should be examined. Wage levels have recently, in many different aspects of our national life, shown an increase. Certain sections of the community have, after a long time of waiting for an increase, received it, but if increases are to be of any benefit to the recipients and, ultimately, to the community, the first thing we should do is to see that no increase to any workers, and particularly large classes of workers producing an essential commodity, will result in an increase in the price of that commodity. It is a sound policy and a sound factor in economic practice and experience that as regards any increase in wages which results in an increase in prices, while it may be a temporary benefit or an improvement in the conditions of the particular worker, ultimately that increase, which has resulted in an increased price being charged for the commodity manufactured, is reflected in the cost of living and comes back to the actual recipient of the wage increase.
We should first see what wages can be stabilised at the present level, what wage increases can be granted without resulting in an increase in the price of the commodity or restricting the available surplus which might be essential or which could be ploughed back into the industry. The first essential is to see that no increase in wages will result in an increase in prices. After that the workers are entitled to whatever increase is necessary to bring their wages to a level sufficient to enable them to secure for themselves and their families essential commodities in sufficient supply, considering the present increase in prices.
If we are to secure a position in which there will be co-operation between industrialists and those employed in industry, it is essential that both sections of the industry should realise that in present circumstances anyone who attempts to exploit a personal interest or his own sectional interest merely comes to the stage in which he can hold up a section or a concern to ransom. That is not good national policy and such a policy will inevitably react unfavourably on the section responsible. If we can secure among industrialists and employees in industry a fair understanding that unless there is co-operation and consultation and a realisation on the part of the industrialists that the worker has rights which he is entitled to expect will be honoured, and the workers appreciate that there are difficulties which beset industrialists and employers generally which formerly did not impede industrial expansion or a furtherance of beneficial conditions, then we can never secure here that maximum capacity which cordial relations and a satisfactory system operating between the employer and employee would ensure. We should aim at increased production and generally stable industrial conditions.
It is necessary to consider what are the causes which have resulted in putting a premium on houses. The first and obvious conclusion is that there is a shortage, that very little building took place during the war. All during that time more and more people required houses. Those who had accommodation before the war wanted increased accommodation and those who did not want accommodation prior to 1939 came into the market looking for houses. As a result, it was necessary to continue the Rent Restrictions Act and while it is essential that that Act should be operated, it is a logical conclusion—and it has been proven over and over again—that the Rent Restrictions Act operates to reduce the number of houses available for letting. As regards those who let houses, the moment they get possession at the end of a tenancy they are, as a result of the Act, obliged to sell the house and, because of the fact that houses at present are making greatly increased prices, householders throughout the country, the moment they get possession of a house, proceed to sell it.
I think it is essential that we should establish a fair rent tribunal, but that is a matter for further consideration. The fact that houses are in short supply and that the price of land has gone up considerably, particularly in Dublin City and County, has placed obligations and burdens on house builders far greater than any they had to face before.
It has resulted in considerably increased costs of houses now being built. If any new tax is to be imposed, or if any new tax merits consideration, it is a tax on speculation on land in and around Dublin, which is needed for further development and for the provision of houses either by private builders or by local authorities. Land being bought all around the city is making vastly increased prices, not merely over those prevailing in 1939, but over prices paid two or three years ago. The rapid increase in the cost of land around Dublin City and County has been phenomenal in the last few years. I suggest that the Minister might well consider a form of taxation which would prevent speculation in land, and that he should have it on a basis which would oblige those who buy land to pay a higher tax when they keep a parcel of it for a short time, and then sell at a greatly enhanced profit, and on the other hand have a diminishing or differential tax on those who buy land and decide to develop it. That may be a matter for consideration later on, when we come to consider taxation, but it is one which at the present time must of necessity have some relation to this Vote, and have some pertinence in any consideration of national problems.
In view of the fact that we have at present a serious shortage of food, but vastly increased purchasing power available, we should endeavour to see what steps are desirable to limit purchasing power until we can produce anything like a sufficiency of goods. I have here the Central Bank Bulletin for January, 1946, showing the total monetary circulation to be £46,427,000. The amount in circulation in December, 1943, was £36,059,000 so that in a few years there was an increase of almost £10,000,000. Anybody who moves around either in the city or the country realises that there has been no commensurate increased supply of goods. Consequently, we have a situation developing in which there is available far more purchasing power than there was a few years ago, but a negligible improvement in the supply of goods, in fact in many commodities, the shortage is greater than that which existed in 1943. Any measures which the Government can take to reduce the available monetary supply should be adopted. Until we can produce sufficient goods it is in our interests to reduce the monetary supply.
It is necessary to consider what luxury expenditure has been a contributing factor towards aggravating the supply of notes here in the last few years, and particularly in the past two years. It was reasonable to expect, with the end of the war, that goods should flow more freely and that there would have been a larger output of different classes of commodities which were in short supply. Experience has shown that taking everything into consideration, there are less goods available now, particularly so far as food is concerned, than were available a couple of years ago. At the same time, the latest publication of the Central Bank shows that monetary circulation has considerably increased. It is essential that we should endeavour to reduce the monetary circulation by whatever means are available. It is one of the serious contributing factors to the present high cost of living, and to the fact, by and large, that the high cost of living is showing, if anything, a tendency to go up instead of go down. We should endeavour to reduce all luxury expenditure and to diminish the numbers of people coming here who spend sterling.
Tourists have lately been very much in the public eye, and considerable comment is being devoted in letters and otherwise in the Press to the effect tourists have here. I take the figure which the Tourist Association published in a recent circular to local authorities, in which they estimated that the amount of money spent by tourists here last year was in the region of £10,000,000. That is an astonishingly high figure, particularly when we consider that pre-war it represents approximately the value of our live-stock exports. Of course, values have changed very much since, and a comparison of that kind may not be of particular value now. It shows, however, the extent an influx of tourists has on our monetary circulation. Tourists from the sterling area are at present no advantage to this country. No matter how we look at the matter they are a disadvantage.
Arguments will probably be advanced that tourists are good for trade, that it is desirable to encourage visitors, and that it is essential to build up goodwill with tourists who may come here now as well as in the future. I think it is obvious in present world conditions, so far as we can see into the future, that anybody who can afford to do so will take a holiday, but it is not necessary or advisable to build up goodwill here for tourists from the sterling area. Tourists from America and from hard currency countries are desirable. Tourists who bring in hard currency would greatly benefit our position. Tourists from the sterling area have aggravated it, and there is no use in attempting to minimise it.
The present monetary circulation as well as being aggravated by tourists also affects the food situation. No matter how we may look at the matter an influx of tourists must inevitably reduce the amount of essential commodities of which we are in short supply. Anything that tends to encourage the circulation of more sterling will not have beneficial results at the present time. While we do not want to restrict by prohibitive measures tourists, certainly a drive to encourage them from the sterling area is not now in the national interests, and is not wise or sound national policy. To do so would aggravate an already aggravated situation, by increasing the sterling circulation when goods are in short supply.
I would suggest that we should endeavour to secure tourists from America or from any of the hard currency countries. If these people come in here, inevitably the same result will accrue from the point of view of absorbing whatever supplies of food may be available as if we had tourists from the sterling area but nevertheless the results must be beneficial. The advantages will outweigh the disadvantages by making available here supplies of currency for the purchase of commodities which we have not at present and which are going to be increasingly difficult to secure.
That brings me to the point of what commodities we can make available for hard currency countries in sufficiently large quantities to bring us an immediate benefit from the point of view of exchange. Two items which readily come to mind are whiskey and bloodstock. Everything that we can do to export whiskey to America should be done. Every step should be taken by the Government to facilitate the provision of the necessary raw materials for distillers so that we can extend whatever markets we have for whiskey in America. In addition any assistance which the Government can provide, if necessary by making representations to the American, or any other Government possessing hard currency, should be forthcoming to facilitate the export of bloodstock to these countries. There has been a large trade in steeplechasers between this country and England. The same trade does not exist between this country and America. The people of America are principally interested in flat-racers and we should endeavour to procure as large a trade as possible with America in flat-racers so that we can procure essential supplies of hard currency. I would suggest that any facilities or assistance which can be given or that any propaganda which it is in the power of the Government to carry on with the object of influencing America on this matter, should be forthcoming. Unless we can obtain essential supplies of hard currency by either or both of those means, we shall find it difficult in future to secure supplies of essential commodities from these countries, commodities which we may not be able to get from any country in the sterling area while the present shortage exists.
Before concluding I should like to suggest that no matter how one considers the present position in the country, no matter what colour glasses one wears in viewing it, the situation is grave, one which will call for a maximum effort by everyone. We have noticed announcements recently that the Fianna Fáil Party are celebrating their 21st birthday. These celebrations have been going on all over the country and, I suppose, the latchkey is going to be given to some of the "boys" who are now over 21. Some of them stayed out late before they attained the age of 21 but I suppose they will all fall into line to secure whatever benefits their majority may give them.
They have not come to the use of reason yet.
I have here a publication giving the results of the census taken in this country in 1946. It may be significant that the colour of the cover is red because, so far as the position of the country is concerned, it shows a red light. It reveals a situation of which nobody can be proud, a situation the responsibility for which even members of Fianna Fáil, themselves, must realise rests on their shoulders. We find that our population declined between 1936 and 1946. by 14,968 or .05 per cent. In the previous census period, that is from 1926 to 1936, we find that the decline in the population was only .01 per cent., so that there is an increase of .04 per cent. as between 1936 and 1946 as compared with 1926-1936. It is no matter of congratulation for anyone that such a situation exists, and that we have an ever-present emigration problem. It is no help to the solution of that problem to say that we are a roving people, that we wish to go abroad or that circumstances abroad are better than here at home. Whatever the position or whatever the cause, the fact is that people are emigrating. They are continuing to go every day. The decline in population has been greater under the Fianna Fáil administration than under any other period of native Government. I am not attempting, and have no desire even to appear as an apologist for their predecessors, but it is of interest to note that the decline in population has been greater under the Fianna Fáil administration than under that of their predecessors.
The fact that the decline has been accentuated imposes a responsibility on the community, and particularly on Parliament, to see that it is arrested or wiped out and to ascertain how we can maintain the maximum number of people either in agriculture or industry, the maximum number of people which it is possible to absorb in some type of productive work and the maximum number of families for which we can afford a proper standard of living. That brings me to the conclusion that so far the Government have shown no coherent plan for dealing with this whole problem. There seems to be nobody in the Government, or group of Ministers, in fact I think no Minister, who gives any thought to matters of national concern. The whole consideration is to apply petty palliatives to try to keep as many with you as you can, to try to avoid taking any unpopular measures, to try to secure the maximum political advantage out of any measure that may be adopted. This country is greater, bigger and more important than any political Party. The rights of the people are paramount to those of any political Party, now or in the future. Fianna Fáil, if they have never done anything else, will certainly do something to their credit now, if they realise that they have been long enough in office, that they have for too long inflicted a burden upon this country and that now that they have attained their majority they should do something constructive. They should endeavour to enable the people to remain at home in Ireland. They should once and for all see what steps are essential to formulate a national plan which will enable the people of this country to exist on a decent standard of living in Ireland, without being forced to seek a livelihood elsewhere. That being so, is not it obvious that a small national economic advisory council should be set up, composed of experts, who will advise and plan and examine matters on a national scale and who will have available to them all the information which Government Departments have and which is available to Ministers at the present time, so that we can get some coherent picture of our position and some coherent national plan which will attempt to minimise the financial and national stagnation which is at present evident and which shows every sign of increasing in severity?
The Government should set up a council of people free from administrative duties, free from the necessity of dealing with day-to-day administrative matters. We have in this country, and have been fortunate to have, very many highly-competent and highlyexperienced and patriotic civil servants who have done the best they can, but a civil servant who is involved in the administration of a Department cannot plan or consider, free from the restrictions and personal responsibility he has for a Department, the matters which somebody should be considering so far as the national position is concerned. It is obvious that no Minister is considering them. It is obvious that no Minister is capable of considering them and, so far, the Government have failed lamentably to give evidence that they are alive to the problem or awake to the difficulties and seriousness of the situation.
It is vital that we should get some national plan or some advice from economists. The Fianna Fáil plan has been one of trial and error. We proceed and when we find the errors we endeavour to take remedies, but the remedies come too late and the error has got too big a start and the ill-thought-out and ill-considered, unsound policies are now bearing fruit. We see a reduction in the number of people in the country coincident with a rise in the weight of the administrative machine of over 10,000 civil servants in the last 15 or ten years and that rise is continuing. There is an increase in the number of Ministers, in the number of officials and an over-all increase in the cost of administration of the State, for less and less people. There is not a scintilla of evidence that an effort is being made to grapple with the problem or that it is even realised amongst members of the Government that that situation exists, and that it calls for the best in the community and that it is only by a spirit of co-operation, through Government, agriculture, industry, employers and labour that this country can surmount the immediate difficulties and those of the coming spring and summer and of a number of years ahead, and can establish and maintain its right to selfgovernment and to declare its ability —which we believe we have—and which we have ever propounded to the world we have—to govern ourselves better than anyone else.
It is certainly no matter for congratulation, but one which gives rise to the most serious consideration, that at the present time the population of this country is the lowest in our history. If I may be pardoned for parodying Goldsmith's lines, I would say:—
"Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey,
Where aliens accumulate, and natives decay."
To this country for the last five or six years aliens have come and have prospered. No effort has been made to prevent them coming. No effort is being made to facilitate Irish people in comparison with the efforts and facilities that have been afforded to these people. Ireland is here for the Irish and the Irish people are entitled to the first benefits before anyone from abroad. That being so, it devolves on the Government and on this House to take every measure within our capacity and our means to see that an effort greater than has been made before—it must be greater to meet a greater danger—will be made to surmount the difficulties this year and in the years that lie ahead.
Tá cupla rudaí agam le rá i dtaobh na bportach. I want to direct the attention of the Minister for Finance to the question of the bogs. In view of the present national position there must be a new approach to this question. Heretofore, when representations were made about bog roads and drains the question of the number of unemployed in the particular district was taken into account, and if there were not sufficient unemployed men in the area the scheme was rejected or the local people were referred to the rural improvements scheme under which they would have to contribute the maximum 25 per cent. Now that turf has become all-important as the national fuel, that provision must be waived. Take a town like Mullingar. During the war, a great number of shopkeepers, tradesmen, and others cut turf on the bogs in the vicinity for their own use. The roads deteriorated and were not maintained and these people went out of production. For the last two or three years they have bought their turf from the national pool, with the result that less turf went to the cities. If these roads are put in order now and if people are urged to produce turf they will go back into production and there will be more turf for Dublin, Cork and the bigger towns. My contention, therefore, is that the question of the number of unemployed in the area should be disregarded and the county council should recruit every man available to repair the roads and to maintain the drains.
In the work immediately ahead, in respect of bogs, in particular, there must be a national effort. The Government must make war on the labour exchanges and against the work-shy people who register there. I had a recent experience. In the recent blizzard I got in touch with the county surveyor when we were snowed up in my constituency and I got the authority from him and the county manager to tell the ganger to go out with groups of men to clear the roads and make way for the bread van. I speak without exaggeration and from personal experience. One of the days that we were snowed up was the day on which the unemployment assistance was being paid out. A number of the men came along and said: "All these men have no unemployment assistance. There is no bread coming to the locality; why not get them to clear the roads?" I asked them: "Are you prepared to go?" They said, "We are." I got the authority but, when the ganger went out, these people who were shouting for bread and shouting about unemployment assistance were not to be got. They disappeared until the roads were clear and they are probably signing on for the dole again.
They are made up with that, these unfortunate men that you are talking about.
Unfortunate men— dodgers.
Find work for them.
They would not be tolerated in England or in any other country. This nation will not go ahead if the Deputy is standing over that kind of thing because, no matter what wages you give them, they will not work. They have to be driven to work.
Is that what you say about these unfortunate men?
The Deputy speaking must not be interrupted.
On a point of order——
I am in order. The Deputy can use it what way he likes in my constituency. He can take it down verbatim and repeat it at every corner. These men should be put in groups and brought out to work. I know that gangers do not want a horde of them because that would not accomplish anything, but they should be put at work here and there and made do something in this emergency. That would mean a national saving and some little work would be done.
Drainage of bogs is very important. Drainage of bogs will want to be done effectively and well. There are several bogs in my county where, if there was more effective and deeper drainage—I mention in particular the bog which runs along from Rathluirc through Tyrrellspass and on through Rochfortbridge and Kinnegad to Miltownpass— thousands of tons of valuable turf would be made available.
Deputy Cosgrave spoke about the number of tourists coming in from the sterling area here and he mentioned what little asset they are. I agree with him. I notice from the daily Press that Gormanston is now to be taken over and developed. A town is going to be built there for English tourists, with a church and play grounds and so on. I think if you took a vote of the people of County Meath nine-tenths of them would vote against that development. They do not want it. They see no benefit in it. It is, too, against the national policy to bring these people in here when you are trying to Gaelicise the country. Something might be said for it if you were bringing in American tourists with dollars.
I listened to part of Deputy Hughes's speech to-day as to the development of our cattle trade with England. I think that is a direction in which we ought to proceed very carefully. We are sending cattle every week to England and we are getting paper money in exchange. We are not getting a single bucket of coal from them or a piece of steel. I think the Government would be well advised in looking to Belgium. Belgium is now buying our cattle. Perhaps we could get steel there in exchange. Holland is taking our cattle. It might be possible for us to secure dairying machinery there. We might be able to get timber for our houses from Norway.
I think quite candidly the British Empire is finished. I have no regrets about that. I think the wonderful British Empire, about which we have heard so much, is now a greater asset theoretically than it is in reality. The time has come when we should look towards the Continent in an effort to develop our markets there and to increase the ones we have. Certainly we should export only to those countries that will give us something in return. They have earmarked 1,150,000 tons of coal for the Six Counties. That statement was made by a British Minister the other day. They have said nothing about giving anything to us. That being so, I do not think we should go out of our way to look for markets in Britain and we should not be worrying about our markets there.
Deputy Cosgrave also dealt with the housing question. This may be peculiar to North Westmeath, but in the last month or five weeks I find a great number of skilled tradesmen have returned from England and are looking for work at home. In particular there are carpenters, some masons and some bricklayers. Their return may be due to the weather but they have said that, if they can get work at home, they will not return to Britain under any conditions. I can give their names if necessary. At the present moment there is no work for them in Westmeath because there is some crux in regard to housing. The question of arbitrating over the price of sites is holding up the actual work there at the moment. I expect that the difficulties which exist will be overcome. I speak with a certain amount of ignorance when I say that I think the Government should give complete priority to municipal and county council houses. I daresay they are doing that at the present time but I think the private speculator should, if necessary, be stopped altogether from building houses if he is interfering in any way with the building of labourers' cottages or houses in the urban areas. I hope that the whole House will co-operate in making war on the work-shy in this country through the labour exchanges.
A Leas-Chinn Comhairle, facing up to this debate for an instalment for the largest sum of money that was ever asked for from the tax-payers of this country in the history of the country—either in the history of the country under an Irish administration or under a foreign administration —there should be some attention paid by Government, even if it is only lip-service, to the conditions that exist throughout the country and to the conditions under which those people live who will be asked to subscribe their hard-earned money to keep in office a Government spending that money at a greater rate than £1,000,000 a week. That is a staggering sum for a tiny little portion of a very small island— an amazing, crazy demand on a counttry made up, in the main, of rather poor or very poor people.
I would ask the Deputies, before gaily prancing behind the ring of a bell and making this unjust extortion from the pockets of the people, to realise that in the last 15 years the whole trend and the whole incidence of taxation in this country have been altered. Heretofore, when this country was run on modest lines, commensurate with the wealth of the people, the cost of running the country was considerably less than half the figure demanded to-night. That cost was got from a few and a very few channels— from excise duties on such goods as tobacco, whiskey, and luxury articles, and from income-tax. The policy of indirect taxation was not tolerated. Shortly after the change of Government we had, in addition to those sources of revenue, a new plan to rake in more money, a plan of taxes on every second or every four out of five articles that the people use. That meant that the taxation levied was no longer levied only on the wealthy as heretofore but was levied off the very poorest person in the poorest domicile in the land. It was levied on the purchases of the person trying to eke out an existence on an old age pension. I mention that in order to call attention to the fact that, when we are resisting excessive taxation demands to-day, we are appealing to the Government to spare from the heavy weight of taxation the very poorest people in the land.
Everyone of us knows that to-day, small and all as this country is, there are two Irelands which are very dissimilar. There is the Ireland seen in the fashionable quarters in the City of Dublin; the Ireland of lavish expenditure; the Ireland of ostentation; the Ireland of expensive banquets, of imposing balls, of restaurants where it would be nothing to be charged a couple of pounds for a comparatively simple meal, of the night life and the "stiff-front" existence that eclipses the greatest ostentation and glamour of Hollywood. That is one Ireland. That is the Ireland in which Ministers seem to live and in which their mentality is stimulated; an Ireland of immense wealth, an Ireland of extraordinary and unprecedented extravagance, an Ireland where money does not matter.
The other Ireland is the Ireland of the grief-stricken household where the sons and daughters have gone over to the land of the Saxon to earn a few pounds to send back to keep their parents in some degree of reasonable comfort; the Ireland where people are dreading the tread of the tax-gatherer's foot; the Ireland where people are living in fear of eviction; the Ireland of hungry stomachs; the Ireland where, with the tumbling value of money, with the mounting, bounding costs of the necessaries of life even in middle-class households, there is hunger to the extent of not getting as much as the family would like to eat. That is the Ireland which we should consider, because that is the Ireland of the masses. The other is the Ireland of the classes, the minority, the increased wealth of the country, the increased deposits, and the extravagant life of Dublin. Where does that wealth come from? It is the increased wealth of about 10 per cent. of the people who were immensely wealthy even before that new flow of wealth; money rolling in to such an extent that it cannot be counted or controlled or checked; money rolling into the big business syndicate; money rolling in to the big industrialists. Money rolling in from where? From the pockets of the masses, because of the absolute and complete failure of the Government to control prices or to exercise any brake or control on the cost of living.
Now our national expenditure is to be based and modelled on that spectacular, extravagant régime that we see in fashionable and wealthy circles. Money is easily got by law. Money is easily got if you have only to ask 78 people to follow the tinkle of a bell without consideration as to whose pocket it is to come out of or how hard the people will find it to provide the money that is demanded from the taxpayer directly and indirectly. What is the justification for demanding for the running of this country £30,000,000 per year more than it cost to run this country before the present gentlemen took over the responsibility? Is there £30,000,000 more value per year given to the people? Are we so much better off that 3,000,000 people, including every infant, every pauper, jail-bird, lunatic and poor person in the country, can conveniently cough up £30,000,000 per year more than they were asked to cough up when the gentlemen opposite were stamping through the country and saying that the tax-gatherer was a vampire sucking the life out of the people, that the country in these days was run on the extravagant lines of the a great imperial Power? We had the Minister for Finance and his leader, the Taoiseach, shedding crocodile tears about the tyrants who extracted £21,000,000 per year from this little country. We had the weeping and the wailing about the poverty in the country and the rate of emigration as it then was and we had them appealing to decent, honest, simple, poor people to give them a chance and they would stop all that nonsensical extravagance and reduce taxation.
Were they sincere then? Did they know what they were talking about? Were they a band of fools who did not understand public finance, or were they a band of rogues who thoroughly understood public finance but considered that the only important thing was to get votes? Whether they were rogues or fools, the fact is that the rogues or the fools now require £30,000,000 per year more to administer this portion of this little island with considerably fewer people than lived in the island before their time. Is there any evidence in this demand that is being made on the taxpayers of any desire to better the lot of the people? Is there any evidence of constructive thought or of any plan to keep people at home? Is there any evidence of any desire to find employment in order to stem the haemorrhage of emigration? A glance at the demands made and where the increases are, will answer that question. Where are the millions of increased moneys going? Look down that list and compare it with last year, compare it with 1938, or with 1932, when they demanded that taxation should be reduced. Every single Minister's office—I am not talking about the work done in these offices— has considerably more civil servants at has considerably higher cost. The extravagant, mad régime, they called it in 1932, built on vast imperial lines, when they wanted it reduced.
In every single one of their own offices there are far more civil servants —a total of approximately 10,000 more civil servants than assisted their predecessors in office. Ten thousand more civil servants! That is a vast army of officials, a vast army of clerks, typists, officials, administering this country with less people than were there before. There are in every one of those Departments hundreds of thousands of pounds more money required. The Revenue Commissioners. the tax gatherers—that one Department alone whose business it is to get money out of the pockets of the people, are costing approximately £250,000 more. Science and art, cosmic physics, transport for Ministers, grander cars, dearer cars, newer cars, more Ministers —three more Ministers and three more Ministries than we had even a year ago. Counting Ministers and Parliamentary Secretaries there are six or seven more Ministers and Parliamentary Secretaries than we had under the régime of our predecessors. Courts, our new navy, meteorological services, marine service, external legations, broadcasting, Irish Tourist Board, Civil Service Commission, Courts of Justice—every Court, Circuit, High and Supreme—those are the things that are costing more money, not only more money this year than last year but vastly more money than the people were asked for 15 years ago. We turn to the other side. We turn to the old age pensioner. With the value of money halved, with the seven, eight or ten shillings only able to purchase half as much as it did before, we see with this vastly increased expenditure the same sum down for the widows, the same sum for the old age pensioner——
As 15 years ago.
As last year. Considerably less in purchasing power than 15 years ago. Deputy Allen and the Minister for Finance roared themselves hoarse up and down this country when 1/- was taken off the old age pension to pay for the damage done by themselves and their colleagues. They came along and in fact and in practice took 5/- off every old age pensioner.
We were hard up that time.
Not a word about it and no suggestion of an increase, but plenty more money for Ministries, £3,000,000 more for the Army, £500,000 more for the police, £1,000,000 more for civil servants—all these new crazy ventures that we are engaged in, plenty of money for all those things but no money for the very poorest people in the country. Now if that amount of money is going to be voted, then I want to see some provision made in it for the poorest people and the weakest people. We have that extraordinary state of conditions here in this country. Is there any explanation to be given by the Minister for Finance as to why the word "economy" has completely gone out of the Government vocabulary? Who or where is the brake that used to be applied to Departmental expenditure? Is it just sufficient for those associated with the Government to ask in order to receive? Is there no watchdog in the Department of Finance? Is there nobody trying to keep down expenses? Is there nobody trying to ensure that some value is given for the extortionate sums demanded from the people? The Minister knows and anybody with any sense of the value of money knows that every householder in this country, except the 10 per cent. that are making money hand over fist, the comparatively wealthy, reasonably comfortable, or below that level, down to the level of actual destitution, had necessarily to curtail his or her expenditure by 30 or 40 per cent. The appeal made to the people by the head of the Government at the beginning of the war was to tighten their belts, to curb their expenditure, to limit their demands, to reduce their purchases, and one of his Government members ensured that that would have to be done by a standstill wage Order. They ensured that, as far as the Government could do it, the income or the wage of every soul in this country would remain fixed in face of rising tax demands and rising prices, so that their expenditure of necessity had to be cut.
Is there any evidence of any attempt to practise what they preached? Is there any evidence of any attempt to apply the same rule of conduct to themselves as they apply to others? Do they ever say we are asking every individual in the nation to curb his expenditure, to live on a less lavish scale, to give up luxury in their houses, even to give up comfort and to live harder and closer and at the same time we will do likewise; we will curb Government expenditure, we will reduce taxation, we will limit the number of officials and assistants and secretaries and clerks that each one of us requires to do our job of work? No, but the ordinary individual had to live on a lower standard; he had to curb his expenditure while the Government demands, the Government pomp, the Government extravagance went up and up every single year.
I asked at the beginning which Ireland is the Government living in—the Ireland of extravagance or the Ireland of difficulty, even of destitution and squalor. When we see in the Book of Estimates, when we see in the proposed works all kinds of expensive attractions to bring more and more visitors and tourists into the land, when we see plans, immense, elaborate spectacular plans for the building and construction of vast luxury hotels, when we see the splash and cost and expense of some of the affairs that are being run, not only in this State but by this State, when we see in our Book of Estimates huge sums for extra-classy uniforms for soldiers, when we see proposals for an Army to cost £3,000,000 to £3,500,000, more than sufficed the country in pre-war years and far more than sufficed our requirements under the previous administration, is it not reasonable to ask, or to think, how much good could be done, in any town or village or back lane that any of us are acquainted with, for such a sum as £3,000,000 a year? When we recollect some of the houses we visit, the houses we see in the course of our work where, even with hard work the inmates are not getting sufficient food, because the money is not able to buy sufficient, and when we see decent, upright, hardworking people, never idle, but living in such circumstances that they cannot provide enough for their families because of their meagre wages or the bounding, increasing costs of every commodity they have to buy, would it not enrage anybody to be faced with this demand for extravagant régime by Government?
Why do we want an Army four times as expensive as we had 15 years ago, or eight years ago? We have made it clear that our policy is to keep out of any war that comes. Our Army is being used for spectacular purposes. The only big, organised, non-productive force in any country is an army. We want an Army for the purpose for which we wanted it before; we want an Army to come to the assistance of the civil power; we want an Army for the ordinary purpose of a State ceremonial. The Army that did us for years before this Government took over, in size and cost, the Army that did us in 1937 and 1938, would still do us to-day, but yet the Department of Defence insist that their notions must keep abreast of the notions of every other Government Department. They must look for more. "All you have to do is to look for it and you will get it; we have the votes and we will get you the money; the mugs outside will be made pay up." Is that a reasonable policy?
What about all the Departmental post-war planning sections that we were told, in 1940, were working overtime to bring our people a Utopia the minute the war was over? What has become of all these plans? What is the result of all these plans? As far as I can see, the result of all these plans is that we are going backwards, backwards in butter, in fuel, in prosperity and in our distributive machinery. I can see complete bankruptcy of plans to meet any situation. This country has existed mainly on turf for a considerable number of years, city, town and country. Has there been any planning or any organisation or any improvement on the kind of hurriedly got together, higgledy-piggledy turf-carrying service that there was years ago? Is there any better system, or are there any better results? We have the same old hop, step and carryon.
As Deputy Dockrell pointed out, lorries come up here laden with turf and lorries go back to every village and town empty; goods accumulating one on top of the other in the various stores in Dublin for people in those villages and towns; the railway company not able to handle them, and empty turf lorries not allowed to carry them. If there was one ounce of brain between the whole group of men drawing immense salaries as Government Ministers, at least they would adjust their mentalities to an emergency situation and use any expedient to tide us over the emergency period. I do not say there are not brains there, but the brains are not being directed to the work of the nation. Ministers have been there too long; they have got fed up with the job; they have got fat, elderly and lazy and they have got casual. They did live close to the people—there is no doubt about it—and they did consider the people in their early days, but the gulf between the north and south of this country is not one whit as deep or as wide as the gulf that exists at the moment between the Government and the people of this country.
There is no evidence in that immense demand, for a sum never before heard of from the pockets of the people, that there is any appreciation of the difficulties under which the people of this country have to live. We did not fight any war. Their only alibi for this great demand is that right through Europe and across the Channel budgets are enormously big. But those countries went through seven years of the greatest and most terrible war that ever afflicted mankind. Those countries were shattered and devastated. Every home and industry, every road and every rail track in those countries, were burst into smithereens. There was nothing left but devastation, and the work of reconstruction, the work of compensating—all that immense work had to be faced in those countries and their budgets were big.
Is that any reason why we have to keep in step? We had nothing to do for the past seven years but mind our own business; we had nothing to do for the past seven years but to make provision for the time when the war would be over, when we could get supplies. What provision did we make and what is the result? Less and less of everything; not a trade agreement made between this Government and any Government in the wide world. Every other Government, big countries and little countries, white, yellow and black, all were busy before the last shot was fired. Busy at what? Meeting other Governments, making trade agreements, making arrangements with regard to supplies, with regard to imports and exports; not making trade agreements to supply goods and get paper money—Deputy Kennedy deplores getting paper money These other countries were making firm, long-term trade agreements for goods against goods. Did we make one with any country in the world? We continued to sell our cattle for pound notes. We could not even make a coal-cattle pact, like that which was made during the economic war. We could not make an arrangement to get materials in and materials out. We waited until the whole pool of supplies was absorbed by other countries. Our Ministers were dancing from one Fianna Fáil Club to another, then back for a banquet in Dublin, then down to another Fianna Fáil meeting, and back to a dinner with some wealthy group of industrialists, and so on. The merry-go-round went on and the business of the country was neglected all the time.
Here is a demand unprecedented and so far undefended at the end of this debate. Not one Minister or extreme back bencher would venture to utter a word in defence of the demand being made on the taxpayers. That is only a sample of what is going on for years. With all this expenditure, and with all the planning, what is the result? What have we got to show for the millions of pounds per annum demanded in peace and war by these gentlemen as against what was required by their predecessors? What is the result? People crying out for houses, people either completely homeless or being crammed like sardines into houses already overcrowded; sick people without hospital beds, tuberculous people up and down the country without any institutional provision being made for them, increasing squalor, increasing destitution, boys and girls going out of the country as rapidly as they get leave to do so, leaving behind comparatively empty homes to mourn them. That is the result. That is the fructification of the rosy promises of 15 years ago. These are some of the results of the immense demands that were made year after year on taxpayers.
But, of course, we have something to show. We have luxury hotels. We have far more expense, pomp and ceremony attached to every Minister, every one of whom travels in a car-de-luxe irrespective of the price. We have a greater number of Ministers, we have endowed Science and the Arts, we have started a Navy, we have a magnificent Army, we have Blue Hussars and we have Cosmic Physics. There is the result of 16 years of insane, extravagant administration.
Now the largest bill ever presented to this House is presented confidently, in the knowledge that if it was ten times as large, twenty times as large, or if it were going to cripple, bend and bankrupt everyone in this land, it would go through at the ringing of the bell. That is all that is required to get money, to ring the bell and the boys will march. Their job is not to question but to obey; their job is not to obey their constituents or to consider them, but to obey and consider the particular Minister that makes a demand.
The country has been pauperised, it has been demoralised, it has been debased, and there is no institution in any part that has been more demoralised and more debased than this Parliament. Parliament has become a farce. This building is not a place for examination and deliberation. It is not a place where things are decided according to merit, according to justice, according to the strength of the case made or the answers given. It is many years since we heard any case being made from the opposite benches for any demands. The fashion now is to amble in, to make the demand, to throw it at the people for a Bill or a piece of legislation, whatever it may be, to listen to everything said and, at the earliest possible point, ring the bell. Then before anybody knows even what the legislation is about, what the demand was for, the amount or what it was proposed to do within the amount, long before anything is known of the circumstances, one thing is known, and that is that a vote will be taken when the bell rings at the end of the debate.
I would like very much to agree with Deputy O'Higgins, that we should consider and decide this question on the merits, but I do not think the Deputy was sincere when he made that plea, considering some of the low tactics he descended to here this evening. I have read recently in some very despicable journals attacks on Ministers about going to banquets and dinners. I did not think Deputy O'Higgins would attempt such conduct. He did. I do not think he honestly thinks it to be very much harm, but I suppose he thinks it might get him a few votes.
I think it was in relation to the atmosphere.
I suppose Deputy O'Higgins does not go to dinners or banquets. He does not go to entertainments, but puts on sackcloth and ashes for the sake of the poor people. I never heard such low tactics. I did not expect them from Deputy O'Higgins and I will not refer to them further.
I heard them from every Minister over there a few years ago.
Did the Deputy hear them from me?
I heard them up and down the country.
Carry on.
I heard Ministers saying that.
I do not think you ever heard me saying it.
I heard other Ministers. I did not mean to say that I heard the present Minister, but I heard other Ministers. I meant the Ministerial Party as a whole.
What about winning and dining in London?
Order!
We heard talk about a bill for £30,000,000. Deputy O'Higgins talked about the Votes on Account in 1930-31 and 1947-48 and compared the two. The only thing he ignored was the social services then and the social services in 1947-48. These could not bear comparison with the 1931-32 position, because the social services were not there at all in 1931-32.
I did not even refer to the social services of any year.
The Deputy talked about the old age pensioners.
Incidentally, I did not refer to the Votes.
I know that it was incidental, because it will not suit his argument to compare 1930-31 with 1947-48. That is the point. I think Deputy O'Higgins talked of grinding poor men who had to pay taxes. How are taxes principally raised at the moment? When the Opposition Party was in office in 1931-32 there was a tax on sugar. There is no tax on any article of food now.
We have no sugar.
For Deputy Keating's benefit, I wish to say that we produced our own sugar for the last six or seven years.
We grew it before then.
A very small amount.
We were denounced for growing it.
We grew all the sugar we needed during the war and there was no tax on it.
Is it the civil war or economic war you mean?
If Deputies want to go over the civil war, or the economic war we can talk about these things too.
The people outside want something done for them. Let us hear what you propose.
Deputies should refrain from interrupting the Minister.
He asked for it and he will get it.
Deputy Keating says I am asking for it because I am saying something that does not suit his Party. I say that when we came into office in 1932 there was a tax on sugar.
You started the economic war.
There is the cry from the Opposition Bench—that we started the economic war—from a Party that never during that whole time put a scintilla of the blame on the British Government but always on us.
We had a far better time under them.
When we came into office in 1932 there was a tax on sugar. There is no tax on any food item now. On the other hand, there are subsidies paid on some foods. The position is reversed actually from levying a tax on food to giving a subsidy on food and some of the items now included in the Estimates are due to that.
Six pounds of bread for a working man in the week!
We would have no bread if you had your way, with your 21,000 acres of wheat.
The taxes last year—I suppose they are going to be on the same pattern during the coming year— were derived from three main sources —income, alcoholic beverages and tobacco. Practically all the taxes are derived from these three sources.
What about customs?
I say practically the whole taxation of the country, over 75 per cent. of the taxes, come from these three items.
Are not customs taxes on the people too?
If the Deputy would try to listen to me, I shall come to that. I had to listen to a lot of balderdash, if you like. I said, and I repeat, that practically the whole taxation of the country comes from three sources—income, alcoholic beverages and tobacco. I think I was using a proper expression in saying "practically all", if I am right to the extent of 80 per cent.
How much comes from customs?
I do not know but I say that it is very small in comparison with the other items.
Perhaps the Minister for Finance will tell you.
This debate cannot be carried by way of cross-examination of the Minister. So far the Opposition have spoken for four and a half hours, and I do not think there was any serious interruption of their speeches. They should extend the same courtesy to the Minister.
Deputy O'Higgins pleaded for somebody to come in and defend this Vote. I was answering the call to defend the Book of Estimates that we are discussing and I should like to get some opportunity of going ahead with that defence. I say that these are the three sources from which taxation comes. We have not put a tax on the poor man's food. We have not put a tax on necessaries of any kind, unless it can be contended that tobacco is a necessary. It is regarded as practically a necessary, I admit, by many working people. Still it has always been regarded, both here and in every other country, as an article that might justly bear some tax.
Clothes are necessaries.
I do not know if clothes are taxed at the moment. I am not saying definitely that they are not but I do not think they are.
From the 1st of January to the 31st March——
I must ask the Deputy not to interrupt the Minister further. It is unfair. Deputies should try to assist me to keep order.
I say as far as I know that clothes are not taxed at the moment. We shall leave it at that and the Minister for Finance can give us the exact information when he comes to reply. I have made a few notes out of the Book of Estimates and have compared it with the Book of Estimates for 1931-32. It is very useful to have that book for 1931-32 in view of the statements made by Opposition Deputies. I picked out some of the items which would account for a great part of the £30,000,000 difference.
There is, for instance, an item of £4,924,000 for industry and commerce and of that sum, over £4,000,000 goes for subsidies on food, fuel and production of turf. That could be withdrawn if the House were unanimously in favour of reducing taxation by £4,000,000. It is quite obvious, if it were withdrawn, that the price of bread would be higher and the price of turf in the non-turf areas would be higher. The people would pay £4,000,000 in that way instead of paying it by way of taxation. Another item I see here is one of £1,250,000 for employment schemes. I remember when Deputy Morrissey was over there from 1927 to 1931 and every year he joined in the debate asking the then Government to provide something for employment schemes. They were very reluctant to do so. They gave £140,000 in 1931-32 against a figure in the present Estimates of £1,250,000.
And with what results?
We did not get any results from them anyway. The Deputy's pleading when he was in opposition to the Fine Gael Party before 1931-32 was of no use.
You provided for them by sending them to England.
Maybe he has more influence with that Party now. Another item is the relief of agricultural rates. In the present Estimates, a sum of £2,550,989 is provided for that purpose and the sum provided in the Estimates 1931-32 was £559,000—a difference of £2,000,000. Another Department on which a considerable amount is spent is the Department of Education. Taking the three branches, primary, secondary, and technical education, this year the proposed expenditure is £6,700,000 as against a provision of £4,200,000 in 1931-32.
Are we getting any better value?
I shall deal with that in a few moments. There is another item in regard to which all Deputies were very enthusiastic at one time though they may not be so enthusiastic now, that is the alleviation of distress in Europe. For that a sum of £1,500,000 is being provided. So far as this Party is concerned we mean to stick to that. Let other Deputies who have been blowing hot and cold turn the other way if they wish and try to secure the few votes that they think they may get down the country by taking such a course.
We do not all do that.
I admit the Deputy did not do it.
I am one of those who opposed it and I am proud of it.
Deputy Flanagan did—the best weather cock in the country.
Feed our own people first.
Mr. Brennan
Nobody minds you.
Taking the items I mentioned, there is first of all £4,000,000 provided for Industry and Commerce. I do not know if any Deputy would suggest that that £4,000,000 should go out and that the price of bread should go up by 1d. or 2d. per lb. and that the price of turf should go up by the 10/- per ton which was taken off it in the last Budget or more than that—but that is £4,000,000 anyway. Taking that £4,000,000, there is £1,100,000 difference for Relief of Distress; £2,000,000 difference in the Agricultural Grant—does anybody want to take that away and let the farmers pay their rates? £2,500,000 difference in Education and £1,500,000 Alleviation of Distress in Europe, which makes a total of over £11,250,000.
Deputy Morrissey asked have we got anything better for that Education Vote? I did not include the Office of the Minister for Education in that. I took primary education, secondary education, technical education, where practically the whole amount goes to the teachers, whether they are primary teachers, secondary teachers or technical education teachers. Deputy Morrissey and those opposite were very anxious last year that the teachers should get a bigger salary but now, when they are turning to what they regard as the ignorant people down the country who cannot see through things, they think they can attack us here for putting in an Estimate like this for raising taxation for paying the teachers and others, while they will maintain, if they are down the country, at the crossroads, that the teachers should get even more than they are getting at the moment.
You would not think my simple question would make the Minister so angry.
I am not angry at all.
I am glad to hear it.
I am only pointing out the inconsistency, the continued inconsistency for the last 15 years, of the Party opposite. Eleven and a quarter million pounds are accounted for by the items I have mentioned and I only took the Votes in which there is millions of difference. If I were to take the hundreds of thousands, I could point out that there was £100,000 spent on free milk. I did not bother about that.
Do not mention milk.
Does anybody think that we should stop that system of free milk to the women and children of Dublin and elsewhere? That is another £100,000 that I did not bother about. I did not trouble about the hundreds of thousands stuck here and there. I took £11,250,000 out of £30,000,000 and now I am going to take another £6,000,000. Deputy O'Higgins was sailing on nicely, comparing what we spent in 1931-32 and in 1947-48, until he came to the old age pensions. He looked at the Estimate and he said we have cut them down. I was astounded, because I knew that we were paying £1,000,000 more than was paid in 1931-32, but what he meant by cutting down was that we cut them down this year as compared with last year.
No. You cut them down in purchasing power. I said that very distinctly.
He dropped his comparison with 1931-32 immediately when he came to old age pensions. We are spending £1,000,000 more than in 1931-32.
And they are buying £1,000,000 less.
It is £1,000,000 more, anyway.
You will hear a lot more about that.
We will hear Deputy O'Higgins's answer about this— £150,000 more for widows and orphans. What is his reply?
You will hear that.
The reply is the same.
The same reply will not do because they got nothing in 1931-32 and therefore they are getting £150,000 more as well as the supplementary scheme they have themselves. So that, even if the widow with orphan is getting only 1/- a week now, she is better off than she was under the Cumann na nGaedheal Government because she never got anything from them at all.
Mr. Corish
Comparison is not much consolation for a widow.
No. It is not much consolation for the Opposition anyway.
Wait and see.
You spent some money wisely.
We spent some money well?
Wisely.
Yes. The Deputy might have said that when he was making his speech.
You spent a terrible lot unwisely.
He emphasised that there was £30,000,000 thrown away. In fact, he said, we got less value out of this £52,000,000 than they got out of the £22,000,000 when they were in office.
Hear, hear!
Order! I do not think the Deputy was interrupted.
We will take another item —milk for children, £105,000, against nothing. At any rate, when we take this list of social services—old age pensions, widows' and orphans' pensions, unemployment assistance, national health insurance, children's allowances, and so on—that are set out in the Vote for Social Welfare, we get a total of £9,281,000 actually paid out, apart from what the Department costs. That compares with a sum paid out by the Cumann na nGaedheal Government in 1931-32 of £3,238,000. In fact we are paying out three times as much. I presume Deputy Morrissey, when he comes to reply, will say they got as good value in 1931-32.
Is the Minister saying they are three times better off?
Three times as much money.
And their requirements are three times as much.
They are getting three times as much money now and if Deputies want to argue on the other side that people require more money now than in 1931-32, well then there is justification for an increase in the Estimate if we have to pay out more on social services and all the other items I have mentioned. If you take the items I have mentioned—as I said, the big spots in the other Estimates— and this £6,000,000 extra in social services, we have reached a figure of £17,250,000 out of this £30,000,000 and I think no Deputy would advocate that there should be any curtailment in the amount that is given out in any of the items amounting to that £17,250,000.
If by taking the Votes where we can find a million or two that it is necessary to pay now and by putting those millions together, we get £17,250,000, surely, if we had the industry to go through the other Votes and find the hundreds of thousands, the quarter millions and half millions that are also very well spent, you will probably go a long way to account for this £30,000,000—not the whole way.
You might as well attend to the £3,000,000 or £4,000,000 extra on the Army if you are only taking the big figures.
I am leaving the Army aside, if you do not mind, for a minute. I will come to that, too, if the Deputy would like. I said that would cover a great part of this £30,000,000 that is asked for here over and above what was asked for in 1931-32. Deputies talk in their denunciatory way of a spendthrift Government, an extravagant Government, raising £52,000,000 where they did with £22,000,000, and so on, without waiting to think or waiting to see if there was any necessity whatever for this increased taxation or the increased services that are there now compared with 1931-32. I do not think Deputy O'Higgins is living up to his own advice, when he advised us on this side to put reason into the debate, to defend our action and to discuss the whole thing in a reasonable and an intelligent way. It is not an intelligent thing to denounce people for being extravagant and so on, without examining in the slightest what the expenditure is for.
I gave quite a litany. You have not referred to any of the items I gave you.
The Army is a controversial subject.
And Cosmic Physics and the Navy.
Take one at a time. The Army is a controversial question. I can quite imagine a person on the Opposition Bench or on this bench holding very seriously that it is a waste to spend money on the Army. I can equally imagine people holding sincerely that it is a very good insurance for the freedom of this country to have an Army that can be a nucleus, with a volunteer reserve, and so on, in case of danger in time to come. It is all right to say that it is wasteful and extravagant and so on to spend so much on the Army. I say I can imagine a person being sincere in that. I give Deputy O'Higgins credit, if you like, for being sincere in that he does not think so much money should be spent on the Army. After all, in 1931-32 there was £1,400,000 spent on the Army. That is one-third of what is being spent now. If the total amount spent in 1931-32, is not much more than one-third of what is being asked for in this Estimate here then, comparatively speaking, the Cumann na nGaedheal Government had the same idea as we have about the Army.
And you thought one million and a quarter was too much.
We may have thought that. Some of us may have thought that.
You said you did.
Some of us have thought that. In that case we have just changed places.
It is three times as much now.
And the Minister says that is only equal to one-third.
I say that comparatively speaking the sum is not very different. I admit it is a bit different.
That is a very interesting admission.
It is interesting and it will be quoted.
If you quote me correctly, I shall not mind.
It will be quoted out of the Record.
What I do not like is having a twist put on it. Now, the Navy is a very useful arm to have here. When I was Minister for Agriculture I was very anxious to have a small Navy here to afford some protection to our fisheries. That is one good function which it will perform. There are smuggling and other things in which it can assist too, and the Navy can be trained to do whatever it can do in time of war.
Cosmic physics was mentioned by the Deputy. Why was all this fuss made, I wonder, about cosmic physics? I thought the Deputies of this House, especially Deputies like Deputy O'Higgins, would naturally welcome any attempt made here in the interests of the cultural development of our country or the cultural standing of the country abroad. The sum is merely a matter of a few thousand pounds. It is not a very big sum. I am afraid the Deputy is more interested in a few stray votes in Laoighis-Offaly than he is in the culture of the country, and that he believed, when voting against cosmic physics and making all the fuss about the money spent on it, that that was going to stand to him in the next election. I do not think it is to the credit of a Party like Fine Gael that they should fall back on petty devices of that kind in an effort to keep a few seats.
It was culture got the Government in.
Probably it was.
And culture will get them out the next time.
I want to tell the Deputies of this House that they do not know half the story yet. Before Easter I hope to come to this House and ask it for another £2,000,000, so that it will be not only £52,000,000 but £54,000,000. I think I am safe in saying that when I come before this House with these proposals the Deputies on the Opposition Benches will say that I should have asked for more. They make a fuss now about the £30,000,000 because it is a good argument to talk about extravagance and they can write about it in the various papers which support the Opposition throughout the country. But when I come to ask for this £2,000,000 they will then begin to talk about how unsympathetic the Government is to the old age pensioners, to the widow and the orphan, and to all these other people, and they will say that we should give them much more than we propose to give them now. Perhaps it would be better to have the whole picture now. I am going to ask you for this £2,000,000 so that I can give more to these people.
It is about time you realised it.
Is not that what I have just said?
You would not think of saving it somewhere or by economising in some way.
Perhaps the Deputy could point out the way.
I pointed out quite a number. "There are none so deaf as those who will not hear."
The Minister must be allowed to speak without a running commentary.
The Minister invited me to make some suggestion.
When I was put in charge of the Department of Social Welfare some time ago I was asked whether it would be possible to increase the benefits to these people. I said then that I hoped to co-ordinate all these schemes. Now, after a few weeks of examining into this matter, I find that such co-ordination would take a full 12 months and I am afraid that that would be too long to wait. Realising that was the position, I told the Government that it would take me 12 months to do this. They said that they were prepared to ask the Dáil for £2,000,000 as an interim scheme so that the people in receipt of these various social service benefits would not have to wait.
Deputy O'Leary asked about national health. I will take it first. Under national health a man gets 15/- a week and a woman gets 12/- a week for ordinary sickness benefit. It is proposed to increase that by 50 per cent. and to give the man another 7/6 per week and the woman another 6/- a week, bringing them up to 22/6 and 18/- respectively. In the case of disablement—as Deputies know, that is where a person is ill for a long period and where there is no hope of recovery or no hope of their returning to work— under the disablement scheme at the present time men and women both get 7/6 a week. That will be raised in the case of the man by another 7/6 to 15/- and in the case of the woman by another 6/- to 13/-.
How is a man in receipt of £3 a week in wages and with a family of six or eight children to exist on 22/6 a week if he falls ill? Does not the Minister realise that it is when a man is ill he requires more?
Will the Deputy permit me to speak? I quite realise that a man cannot exist on sickness benefit and it is not intended that he should. All these social schemes are to help the people when they are in difficulties —to help them in their old age, to help them when they are widowed, to help them when they are sick and unemployed. They must out of their own resources do something for themselves as well.
What resources would an old age pensioner have?
I would like to point out to the Deputies here that if we were to provide £2 10s. 0d. a week for those who are sick and unemployed and a couple of pounds a week for old age pensioners the bill before this Dáil would be, not £50,000,000, but something in the region of £250,000,000. It could not be done.
Take the case——
The Minister must be allowed to make his speech.
It is an extraordinary time which the Minister chose to make it.
May I point out to the Minister——
The Minister is in possession and he does not want to give way.
I often heard Deputies complaining that Ministers do not make their announcements in the Dáil.
I did not say anything about that. I said it is a rather extraordinary procedure that the Minister should choose this time to make it.
Deputies complain no matter how it is done.
The Minister will hear all I have to say on that.
Deputies must give the Minister a chance to speak. There has been constant interruption and I shall have to take serious notice of it.
People on disablement benefit at present in the cities and towns are getting food vouchers. These food vouchers will be discontinued. Male recipients of unemployment benefit at present are getting 15/-. That will be increased by 7/6. Women are getting 12/-, which will be increased by 6/-. Boys are getting 7/6 which will be increased by 4/-. Girls are getting 6/-, which will be increased by 3/-. In regard to unemployment assistance benefit, food vouchers are given in some of these cases. They will be discontinued and will be replaced in all cases by 2/6 a week in respect of each voucher. Then, when the cash is made up in that way, any case which is less than 50 per cent. over the maximum pre-war rate will then be increased to that level. There is a long involved table with regard to unemployment assistance which it would be impossible to explain in detail.
Old age pensions and blind pensions will be increased by a flat rate of 2/6 a week. Pensioners in urban areas will continue to be entitled to the food vouchers which they have been receiving up to this. These food vouchers are valued at 2/6 per week. That will mean that the old age pensioners in the towns and cities will be getting 5/- per week more than in 1939. In the rural areas, the same rule will hold with regard to the public assistance authorities as holds at the moment; that is, that wherever they grant extra relief they will be recouped 75 per cent. of their expenditure in that way.
You are also retaining the relieving officer as the disburser of that?
He must always be retained. As regards widows and orphans, the food vouchers in the urban areas are to be discontinued and replaced at the rate of 2/6 a week for each voucher. The same thing will apply in their case as to the public assistance recipients, that is, that when the food voucher is replaced by cash, the income of the widow will be brought up as near as possible to 50 per cent. over 1939. I say as near as possible because we must remember that we do not take account of pennies and half-pennies.
Does that only apply to non-contributory cases?
Both to contributory and non-contributory cases. With regard to the method of doing this, the national health insurance part of it will be dealt with by the National Health Insurance Society by supplying it with the cash that will make it possible for it to pay the extra money. The same thing will be done in connection with unemployment insurance and assistance and the widows' and orphans' fund. In other words, it is not intended that the funds shall be in any way depleted owing to the increase which is being given. The money will come from the Exchequer and the total cost is something over £2,000,000—about £2,100,000.
Are you removing the means test?
No. Deputies who are raising questions like the means test and matters of that kind should remember what I said in the beginning. I want to see that all these social services are co-ordinated, revised and improved as far as we can possibly do it. The means test, of course, will come into consideration and many other things of that kind. But that big job of re-organising and co-ordinating all the social services will take probably about 12 months. This is merely an interim relief to these people until we have the complete scheme ready. I hope anyway, whether there is a contributory scheme or not, it may be possible at the end of 12 months to do very much better for some of these people. For instance, where you have a contributory scheme for national health insurance or unemployment insurance or widows' and orphans' benefit, we may do better than is done here, but that will only be when the contributory scheme is ready to be put into operation. I hope that we may be able to do something also in the way of introducing a contributory scheme for old age pensioners. If we do, of course the old age pensions will be increased considerably. But I do not think that in the interim period between this and 12 months hence we can do better than we are doing here by giving this £2,100,000 from the Exchequer to improve them for the time being.
Does the Minister intend to reduce the qualifying age for the old age pension to 65?
Eventually I hope we will.
Will it be in this scheme?
Under a contributory scheme, yes. Deputies will have to keep in mind, of course, that to give a very much better old age pension and to give it at a lower age, say, 65, and also to improve these other schemes like national health and unemployment assistance will mean a very big contribution whenever the scheme comes along. It will not be a one-sided matter. The contribution will have to be increased considerably.
People are dying in the snow.
There is no objection from the Chair, nor, I am sure, from the Minister to questions asking for information, but interruptions and comments are a different matter.
I do not know if I made it plain that food vouchers are given at present to old age pensioners and dependents, to widows and their dependents, to unemployment assistance and unemployment insurance recipients and their dependents and to people who are on disability benefit, but not to those on sickness benefit. The food vouchers are being discontinued and replaced by cash in all cases except in the case of old age pensioners. It was felt that in the case of old age pensioners it might be very difficult for them to go and look for food at present and that it is better to continue the present scheme at least for some time. If matters improve with regard to the supplies of the three articles which come under the food scheme, namely, milk, butter and bread, I may come back to the Dáil in three or six months' time and say that we are replacing the vouchers by cash.
I hope you will.
I should have said that the cheap fuel scheme will be continued.
I move to report progress.
Progress reported; the Committee to sit again to-morrow.