Léim ar aghaidh chuig an bpríomhábhar
Gnáthamharc

Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Tuesday, 31 May 1949

Vol. 115 No. 16

Committee on Finance. - Vote 55—Industry and Commerce (Resumed).

Debate resumed on the following motion:—
That the Estimate be referred back for reconsideration.

Major de Valera

I indicated last week that I should like to discuss with the Minister two problems specifically related to his Department and I think I was at some pains to point out that I should like to approach these matters objectively, realising that problems exist, and I hope that my remarks will be taken in that spirit. The first matter is the vexed matter of the cost of living. As a Deputy representing a city constituency, I am naturally interested in that problem, and in the particular aspect of it from the point of view of the city dweller. It is a problem which is felt acutely by the city dweller because we have always to remember that the average inhabitant of the city is forced strictly to live on the money available to him at any particular time. If he cannot meet his living costs out of that money, he must go without essentials.

It is, I think, slightly different in the rural areas where there is rather more elasticity. The fact that food is produced in rural areas means that no matter how hard pressed the rural dweller is, he will manage to find food, but, in many strata of the city population, if they have not got the money there and then when required to buy the food, they must go without it. The only way in which they can get essentials is by paying money for them, and if the money they have at any particular time is inadequate for their needs, they must, as I say, go without essentials.

It is from that point of view that one sees how severly a rising cost of living strikes the city dweller, and particularly if the cost of such essentials as clothing, food, accommodation and transport rises, so that the total amount of money to be found for these necessaries exceeds the amount available through wages or other remuneration, then the city dweller must go without some of these essentials. Unfortunately, from the point of view of a unified debate on this matter, some of these matters do not directly concern the Minister who is in charge of this Vote—notably the question of accommodation, but I am afraid that we cannot completely divorce that aspect from any other aspect, and I must refer to it in passing, at any rate, in order to give a balanced picture.

What is the actual situation? The actual situation is that, after the rapid rises of 1947, the rises which mainly affected the city dweller in the increase in the cost of living and notably in the cost of foodstuffs, the wages and remuneration of the city dweller did not go up in proportion. Two Governments have been successful in holding the total cost of living round about the figure it reached in August, 1947, but they have been unable to do better. The cost of accommodation has gone up, and has gone up in an oblique kind of way. It has gone up largely owing to the fact that rates have gone up, apart from certain increases in rents, which have been unavoidable. The real addition to the cost of accommodation has been the rise in rates, which affects everybody in the city, practically without exception, as I have mentioned on previous occasions. It is a matter which does not concern the Minister, but I must bring it in here because the cost of accommodation having risen, it means that there is less money left, after accommodation has been paid for, to meet the cost of essentials in other regards, so that we must take it into account.

Therefore, when the cost of living is represented by the index for all items —about the only consistent set of figures I can find or on which we can argue on common ground—the first fact that strikes me in regard to the city dweller is that the cost of living, all items, stands still, but he has actually less money to meet it in so far as the increased cost of accommodation is taking out of his resources a greater amount than was taken at that date. On the other hand, in many cases there will be wage increases to offset that. It is a matter of calculation in individual classes, may be in individual cases, to see what the relative position is.

A similar case holds in regard to transport. The cost of transport has now risen in Dublin and that is a serious matter, particularly for dwellers on the outskirts. In Crumlin, and in fact all the suburban areas, the cost of transport has gone up and, therefore, again there is something more coming out of the available resources to meet the cost of living as represented by the general index. I am precluded generally from drawing a definite conclusion in the matter by virtue of the fact that, as against that adverse situation from the citizen's point of view, we must in fairness equate increases in wages which have undoubtedly taken place in the same period. Probably what one will find is that, on that approach, some people will be worse off and some, perhaps, a little better off but very few very much better off.

I could develop that line, but the net lesson to be learned or the net problem arising out of it is that the cost of living in this city is still at an emergency value, so to speak. It is at a value which it attained in the post-war inflationary phase and is to that extent abnormal. As against that, there is no great, if any, increase in the resources of the citizen to meet that cost. Such increases as they have received in actual wages and remuneration have been largely offset by increases in the cost of accommodation, transport and similar things. Therefore, logically, we are led to the conclusion that the cost of living in this city is still at an emergency level and that, in spite of favourable trends representing a return to more peaceful economic conditions, the cost of living has remained obstinately at this high level. I think I have stated the matter as fairly and as objectively as I can, and that the Minister must agree with me that that is the position.

If we are agreed on that, the next thing is, how can the problem be tackled? In some regards we know that certain remedies are available. One of these, in the short term view at any rate, is the remedy of subsidy. That remedy was eminently successful in 1947. It held the inflationary rise in prices and, in fact, stabilised the cost of living at a value under very adverse conditions indeed. Now that we are facing conditions that are easier in other regards and that the State is relieved of the necessity for finding excess subsidies in the matter of flour and fuel, it seems to me that the moneys which automatically become available because of those favourable factors could be diverted to control some other costs.

Another remedy is, of course, increased production, but before I deal with that I should like to deal with the question of these costs. Let us take food alone. With regard to the essential staple food, bread and flour, our position is that the price of the ordinary bread, not the white flour, remains the same to the consumer, that is, to the bulk of the population. As far as the consumer is concerned, I understand there is no change. On the other hand. On the Exchequer side, because of a favourable change in the purchasing position, the State is able to save something over, I think, £3,500,000 in regard to food subsidies as a whole and a substantial amount in regard to flour. But, the point is that the citizen is getting no benefit. In fact, it works out the other way. The Government has resorted to a device whereby flour of a certain extraction can be sold unsubsidised and, of course, at a higher price. As pointed out previously, there are certain objections to that course. There are objections about which I think the Labour Party, if it were not tied to the Coalition, would be very vocal indeed. But, quite apart from that, this must represent an increase in the cost of living to the average citizen, in some small degree at any rate.

Take the case of confectionery. Many a poor person, many a person who would not be considered poor, but who, in fact, is taking the brunt of the present economic situation, namely, the so-called black-coated, white-collar worker, needs some confectionery and is entitled to a certain amount of it and, in fact, purchases a certain amount. If the provision necessitating the use of white unsubsidised flour in confectionery is going to have the effect of putting up the price of that commodity, then there is a further increase in his actual living costs, a further real increase, notwithstanding the fact that, apparently, it will not show in these index figures. I mentioned in a previous debate that on one occasion I asked for some buns in a restaurant. I broke them and found they were white. I asked the price and found they were ½d. dearer than I was accustomed to pay for the same article up to the time the white flour was introduced. Just to test things, I asked the waitress to bring me some buns made with the standard flour which is subsidised. The waitress told me that they had not got them. In other words, I was forced either to take that bun and pay the higher price or go without. In other words, it was perfectly obvious that even at that stage the whole theory of the unsubsidised white flour scheme was falling to the ground; that, in fact, it was being forced to some extent on certain citizens who were not in what one might call the luxury class and that— notwithstanding what one might argue the legal position to be—the factual position was that they were forced to take it at somewhat increased prices. Now, it appears to me that a provision making it mandatory to use subsidised flour and confectionery is going to bring the legal position, so to speak, into line with the factual one. The net result is that, even though in a small degree, it must represent a rise in the cost of living. What can the Minister do about it? For my part, I should like to ask him why it is necessary, at this stage, when the market from which we are buying the flour is becoming more favourable to us— when, apparently, through a favourable trend in the price at which wheat can be bought which enables us to make a saving and to have money available in other directions, money which otherwise would, of necessity, go on the subsidy as heretofore—to aggravate the existing position by such a device which, apparently so far, is not being of very great benefit to the Exchequer, and which, in fact, as I have indicated, represents an increase actually in the cost of wheaten products to the consumer by and large?

The Deputy, I suppose, is aware that flour and wheaten meal subsidies have been transferred to the Department of Agriculture?

Major de Valera

Yes, but the point is that the cost of living is here and I want to move on, if the Chair will permit me, to deal with another matter.

The Chair will certainly permit the Deputy to move on.

Major de Valera

My only reason for labouring the point is so that we might have the whole picture.

I do not mind the Deputy introducing the point, but he seems to be going into it deeply.

Major de Valera

It is a question that I should like to have answered from the general point of view, not merely from the local Ministerial point of view. On moving on from that, it is obvious that, combining the two things, there is a considerable sum of money available to the Exchequer on the saving on these food and fuel subsidies. Can we find any indication that it has been turned to account in reducing the cost of living in other regards?

Moving from those which are essential in considering the city dweller's problem, we come to what is perhaps the most aggravated question of all— meat. I have dealt with the preliminaries in some detail in order to show that the savings on these fuel and food subsidies have apparently not been transferred or absorbed by any provision going to reduce the cost of living either in regard to accommodation, wheaten foodstuffs—which, I suppose, would be our main staple foodstuffs— transport or anything like that. Where are we in connection with the meat situation? I think the Minister practically challenged some of us to raise that matter again and, in the conventional phrase of public speakers, I have pleasure in accepting the challenge. What was the position and what is the position? Again, before discussing this problem let us get our facts right. Coming back to the official figures I find that, on the whole, taking the prices published in the Trade Journal for December, 1947, the percentage decreases at mid-November, 1947, with mid-August, 1947, in regard to beef and mutton generally were substantial. In other words, at the time when the Fianna Fáil Government introduced its unpopular Budget and made an attack on this cost-of-living index with a view to holding it at any rate, they were not only successful in holding it in matters which they directly subsidised but, apparently, from whatever the cause, there is at that same period a very substantial reduction in the price of meat shown in November of 1947 as compared with August, 1947. The reference is page 147 of the Trade Journal. It is hardly necessary to read it.

The Deputy, I take it, is referring to fresh meat?

Major de Valera

Beef and mutton. There is a big decrease there.

That is because the prices of fresh meat were brought under control in November, 1947.

Major de Valera

I accept that, but it is more favourable to my argument——

That is the explanation.

Major de Valera

Yes, and it is more favourable to my argument if I were arguing from the point of view that we were better than you.

I might argue that it was a pity it was not done a few years earlier.

Major de Valera

The Minister might, but the fact is that it was done. However, I have been trying to look at the Minister's problem as fairly as I can—so I do not want to go on that line.

I appreciate that.

Major de Valera

Here you had a substantial decrease and, as we are on the argumentative trend——

Major de Valera

Are you not? All right. It was just a little remark the Minister made in the course of the debate the last evening, more or less insinuating a certain blame on Deputy Lemass. I think that there is the answer from Deputy Lemass. However, that is beside the point at the moment. In November, 1947, the price of meat was controlled. If one looks —I have them all here—through the succeeding issues of the bulletin, to date, one finds a creeping rise, let me put it that way, as from that time, but I think I am warranted in saying that at the present moment, for that beef and mutton again, the prices are comparable with the pre-controlled prices.

But, in any event, the fact is that, whether large or small, in practically every item there has been an increase in the cost of meat to the city dweller since that date. That, in itself, is to some extent serious because the city dweller should get a certain ration of meat. If the price of meat rises, where there are no corresponding decreases in the cost of living otherwise, the only way that the particular city dweller whom I have in mind can make do is by cutting down his consumption. That, in fact, is, I think, what is happening. I think it is a sad reflection on our economy that here we are in this country—in a country as a whole producing the finest meat and exporting the finest cattle and meat that one could wish for—and, notwithstanding the fact that here at home we are producing such a prime commodity, the figure in regard to costs is such as to tend to a reduction in the consumption of that commodity by our people in the cities. I know that we criticised a foreign Government at the time of the famine for sending wheat out of the country when our people were starving. We were very indignant. There is no comparison in degree, I admit, but essentially there is a certain comparison between that and the situation where we produce the best meat in this country and our city population are constrained because of the price of the commodity to consume less. Is it not possible by some method to give our own people a reasonable benefit from the production of such a high-class commodity?

But, the matter is a little bit more complex than that because of the butchers' problem. This has been going on for a long time and, so far as I understand it, it is this: that once the price of cattle in the market rises above a certain value then it becomes uneconomic for the butchers to sell at the controlled prices. Roughly speaking, I understand that is the problem. I have heard figures given for what is, so to speak, the critical value for the price of cattle, but the actual value is not material for the argument. The point is that here you have a certain natural conflict between the interest of your own consumers and the interests of your own producers. As the Minister very rightly said: "If I do not give the farmers the price, what are you going to do about it, or, if the farmers get the price outside, are you going to make them sell at less at home?"

Admittedly, that problem is there, but the fact that it is there does not mean that we should not face it, particularly having regard to this other fact—that the effect of simply saying "no" to the butchers is that the butchers are tempted to purchase inferior meat and the result to the city consumer for whom I am pleading is that not only is the quantity restricted because of the price, but the quality is restricted and is, apparently, deteriorating because of the butchers' problem.

When I am arguing this with the Minister, I should like him to understand that it is not to argue the butchers' case I am approaching it, but to argue the case of the non-vocal citizen who is suffering from the conflicting interests of our producers and our butchers at the moment. In fact, the consumer, I am told, is very often getting inferior meat, sometimes even at higher than the controlled prices, and there are allegations—it is as impossible for me to check them as it is practically impossible for the Minister —that there are cases where, because of the convention of including non-consumable portions of the animal and that kind of thing, the consumers are not actually getting value to the nominal value they are obtaining, and are, in addition, getting a very inferior quality. It is that aspect of it which makes it so serious.

Is it sufficient, therefore, to say "no" to the butchers? Obviously it is not. You may succeed in holding down the nominal value of the meat, but the indirect effects on the average citizen are too serious just to leave the matter at that. If, on the other hand, you are going to ensure quality, at any rate it must be such an economic proposition to the butcher that there will be some competition and that competition will put up the quality. Again, I am looking at this from the consumers' point of view. I am purposefully taking a hostile attitude to the butchers in this matter, but I am not to be considered as being essentially hostile to them. In order that we can go as far as we can to see what the nature of the matter is in that direction, I am purposefully taking what I might call a hostile attitude to the butchers. But, if the quality is going to improve, some competition is necessary, and competition can only occur where there is some profit being made. It is not enough simply to assume that the butcher is making a profit.

I have a report here of a prosecution for a sale beyond the controlled price. As usual, the butcher pleaded that butchers had to buy at prices which were not controlled and sometimes had to sell at a loss. I think that is undeniable. The reason I am adverting to this report is that the person in charge of the prosecution, who apparently represented the State and the Minister, dismissed the matter by saying that that was no defence, that no man stayed in business for the love of it, that the butcher would not stay in business if he were not making a profit and that was the end of it. That approach to the issue is altogether too offhand. If that representation made on behalf of the Minister means anything, it seems to me that it is far too summary a dismissal of this problem. It may be quite true, as that solicitor said, that a butcher will not stay in business if he is not making a profit. But, if the butcher has been in business, is he not entitled to continue in business, or are you going to contemplate wiping him out? The trouble is that if you put him in such straits, the profit will be made at the expense of the consumers in just the way I have outlined, so that a summary dismissal of the problem solves nothing.

That is the problem. Fundamentally it arises from the fact that the favourable price position to the farmer and the meat producer is in fact an unfavourable situation to the consumer. What is the Minister to do about it? One suggestion I have mentioned is the money which has been saved already. The Exchequer should be in a position to deal with these matters. They were forced to find certain moneys for subsidies a year ago which need not now be found and, therefore, should be considered available. Can nothing be done in that regard to provide a reasonable subsidy for cattle to the home producer? That is one possible matter for examination. There are possibly other matters which will arise on it. But the point I want to stress is that this meat situation represents a serious factor in the cost-of-living problem for the average city dweller. This is not merely to be regarded, so to speak, as a price dispute with the butcher. It is a problem that should be tackled. Something more should be done about it than merely saying "no" to the butcher. It may be that the ultimate answer may still involve keeping the price at the same controlled level to the consumer. Whatever the case may be it is a problem that needs examination and co-ordination in all its aspects. If it cannot be directly tackled in the way I suggest or in any other way, then surely some indirect method of approach should not be beyond the ingenuity of the Government.

Looking at the cost-of-living index as a whole we find this position. From November, 1947, when things were stabilised until the present day the cost of living for all items has shown a slight increase. It has risen steadily from 97 in November, 1947, to, we will say, 99. It is a small increase. It rose in regard to food but the general food index now indicates that it is approximately where it was in November, 1947. In regard to light and fuel, it is the one place where the index is slightly lower than in November, 1947, but it rose sharply during 1948 to 103 and then declined gradually to the present moment. However, that favourable trend is completely offset by the fact that the index for clothing has increased progressively from 100 to 103 Deputy Michael O'Higgins quoted figures published by the Minister of the reduction of costs and it did seem on a cursory examination of these figures that certain reductions in prices of clothing had taken place since this Government came into office. On the other hand, the official statistics show clearly that in the case of clothing, more so than in the case of food or fuel and light, there has been a progressive rise since the Government came into office. Frankly, I have not studied how that came about but I take it that we must accept the figures in the official journal. I think I have said enough to show that the cost of living remains a problem. It has, in fact, been a problem since the end of the war. It has not been greatly alleviated by the increase in wages as most people who studied the problem foresaw. As is usual when it is a race between prices and wages, the prices always seem to win.

Not in the last 12 months.

Major de Valera

They usually seem to win in the long run.

Not in the last 12 months.

Notice taken that 20 Deputies were not present; House counted and 20 Deputies being present,

Major de Valera

The Minister will appreciate that I am not taking the attitude that you promised to reduce the cost of living and did not do it. I see the difficulties that are there. I think we saw them for quite a long time. I am specifically pleading now for the city population. The final remark I wish to make on the subject is that the problem is still showing a hard core. Having regard to the fact that the cost of certain imported items is decreasing, is there no device by which we can actually reduce the cost to the consumer in the city? I should like to hear what the Minister has to say on that matter.

Another question affecting the city population is that of employment. That, of course, is tied up with the cost of living and also in regard to the amount of money the State has to pay. The position in the city in regard to certain types of workers is not altogether satisfactory. Notwithstanding the fact that more employment is becoming available, that more numbers are being employed—I think the figures show that progressively over a number of years now there are more employed than there were, in certain regards—the unemployment figure has also gone up during 1948. I cannot speak for the last period as the figures are not available. That is the cause of restriction in purchasing power in the city. There are also restrictions on the circulation of money.

I want to refer to the question of transport which is a very vexed one from the Dublin point of view. Many people have the feeling that Dublin is being asked to pay an undue portion as its share of the transport costs of the country as a whole. We have more to learn from the Government on the question of transport but in the meantime I should like to mention this fact. When the Dublin transport undertaking was independent it apparently could be an economic proposition. Recently there has been an increase in Dublin fare charges which represents a serious increase in the cost of living and it seems that there is no great reciprocal benefit to the city, if any.

Generally, one has the feeling in the Minister's approach to this matter that he is now attempting to take a reasonable attitude to the development of industry and commerce but that he was for a period handicapped by the statements and threats of spokesmen of his own Party which brought about a lack of confidence in manufacturers and a certain lack of confidence even amongst labour. I think we can say now that that phase should be over.

Might I ask if it would be in order to move the Adjournment of the Dáil if the members do not come in and take part?

The motion is not accepted. There is not a quorum.

Notice taken that 20 Deputies were not present; House counted, and 20 Deputies being present,

Major de Valera

Having dealt with the two particular items that were of particular concern to the city, I would like now to refer to a general one. It deals more with the future than with the present. I should like to hear from the Minister, in his reply, what his Department is doing, or can do, in regard to our general defence problem. Before the last war, even from 1936 onwards, when there was an immediate effort being made in the realms of the Department of Defence, at any rate, to prepare for the war, we had singularly little appreciation of our defence needs, of co-ordinating and preparing our resources of raw materials and commodities, of emergency plans for transport, power and so forth. These were the things which were overlooked and, in fact, for which we made very inadequate preparation. We were fortunate, as has often been pointed out, in this, that at that time we got time to face our problems. We were fortunate in that. The war situation developed gradually as far as we were concerned, and the deterioration from the economic position was sufficiently gradual to enable us to face it. The fact is, however, that it would be very unwise to bank on the happening of such favourable events in a future emergency. therefore, the lesson in the economic sphere, particularly for the Minister for Industry and Commerce, is very similar to that to be learned by the Government in regard to defence matters as a whole: that we cannot wait until the emergency situation is upon us to prepare for it. If we do, we run the very serious risk that our economy cannot stand it if the strain becomes suddenly acute without the favourable circumstances that we had on the last occasion.

In that regard, I should like to refer briefly to some of these matters. There is the question of power. Power production, of course, is fundamental for industry and, to a large extent, your success in industry will depend on your capacity to produce power, and to provide it economically. Schemes are under way for the development of our resources in that regard. I think they should be hurried forward with all speed because they are a priority both in peace time and from the emergency point of view. In that regard, too, there is a certain dispersal. One of the great dangers on the last occasion was the fact that you had only Ardnacrusha and the Pigeon House. That was all we had with regard to power in the country at that time. The situation will not be so serious in the future. I commend to the Minister's attention that, in planning such undertakings, the defence needs should be taken into account, particularly with regard to proper regional dispersal in the planning of distribution lines, and that the possible requirements of defence are one that should be considered. I think it is necessary that I should say that here because the experience in the past was that that phase of the picture was completely ignored. There was an excuse until we had actual experience, and in that connection I am not seeking to blame the two Governments that went before for that; but the fact is that, having had that experience and having had the providential escape that we had in the past, I think we should now learn the lesson so that there will be no excuse for falling down on that in the future.

Following from that, there is the question of certain basic industries, notably of an engineering nature. Again, our experience during the emergency was that we were completely deficient in anything that required elaborate or even ordinary mechanical engineering technique in the working of steel and metal, even though efforts were made at that time to get the steel mills going at Haul-bowline. We were completely dependent on outside resources, and we just could not do anything. I know from my own personal knowledge that, on occasions when we needed steel, we had to make-do with very inferior articles at a very enhanced cost. Now, I understand that industry is there and is to be developed. I think it should be, even though it may involve some cost to us. A case is to be made for it from the defence point of view alone.

I would ask the Minister in this regard that, in planning such industries, due regard should be had to their possible rôle in the case of an emergency. It is a pity, from that point of view, that certain heavy shops have been lost to us, particularly in regard to aircraft—the Lockheed factory and the Leland factory. It is not so much from the point of view of what they were actually designed themselves primarily to deal with, but the fact is that if you have well-equipped workshops in operation, with technicians who have experience in the handling of tools, then the number of things to which they can be turned are very much larger than the specific objects for which they were maintained in peacetime. Were it not for the Great Southern Railways workshops at Inchicore, and for other firms that were fairly well equipped, firms dealing principally with transport, the Defence Forces would not have been able to get certain essential material which they required in 1941 and 1942. These industries were available for turning to face emergency problems, so that from the defence point of view it is a mistake to regard a workshop or an engineering industry of that nature purely from the point of view for which it is specifically there in peacetime. It has emergency potentialities, which are very much greater and which should logically be taken into account.

Passing from these industries, we have our ordinary industries. They, too, have a certain emergency use. They will be useful in emergency and, particularly, they will be able to cope with the initial crisis of an emergency only in proportion to the degree to which a plan has been prepared and to the degree to which it has been foreseen that they will play a part. The trouble is that in industry as in anything else, if you do not foresee what may come and make certain provisions, chaos may very easily result. It is for that reason also that I would like the Minister to take cognisance of our defence problem in relation to industry.

It goes without saying that the whole supply position is one of permanent importance and cannot be overlooked in regard to an emergency, both in relation to raw materials and the commodities available. We as much as any other country—and perhaps more so— are dependent on outside supplies. Therefore, as long as there is a critical situation—and the present situation is critical enough—we should always carry certain reserve supplies, even though that involves a certain cost. That cost may be written off as an insurance, just as we maintain our Defence Forces as an insurance. The point is that without adequate provision in this regard within the sphere of the Minister for Industry and Commerce, it is idle and foolish to spend money on defence in other regards. The two must go together.

Before the last war the co-ordination between his Department and other Departments on defence problems was insufficient. There was insufficient preparation all round for that emergency. I think we should always keep the possibility of an emergency at the back of our minds, particularly in the present set-up all over the world. That being so, I would like to direct attention to the need of the Minister considering his defence problem actively and to have due regard to other aspects.

I could, perhaps, elaborate more on that, but the difficulty is that what may be the Minister's sphere in time of war is not his sphere in time of peace; but he should have no hesitation in justifying these workshops, engineering undertakings and other methods of power production from the defence point of view as well as from the general economic point of view, and I think many of us would support him in that attitude.

Transport is another matter which I omitted to mention and it is fundamental in any defence picture. It is fundamental from the point of view of Defence Forces, civil evacuation and supplies. Next to power production properly dispersed, the proper organisation of transport services is paramount. Therefore, when dealing with the transport problem the possibility of an emergency situation should not be overlooked. I have dealt with that at some length because I feel we cannot afford to ignore defence problems. For the moment the temper of the newspapers—it boils down to nothing more than that—seems to show an easing of the situation in the West. But balance that against the situation in the East and look at the picture all over and you will find very little consolation, very little hope that the international situation is going to be any better than the indications heretofore have shown.

In other words, there is still acute danger, and while such danger lasts it is obviously our duty, in the light of the lessons to be learned from the last emergency, to take suitable precautionary measures of preparation, even though many of them may be nothing more than the working out of a plan to take effect immediately the necessity arises. But, in order to have any effective plan, we must be in a better position than we were before the last emergency. Hence, the organisation of power, of certain industries and the organisation of workshops where certain engineering operations will be carried out and the organisation of transport and other matters must be looked after.

I should like to make a brief reference to the chemical industry. I am quite conscious that in this matter even the Minister's predecessors were not successful, and I am quite conscious that there are economic difficulties. On the other hand, we in this country consume of necessity a high proportion of chemicals. As regards nitrate alone, our agricultural industry needs a certain supply. A certain amount of phosphates and other chemicals are used more and more in modern life. Practically all the chemicals which we use have to be brought in from outside, ultimately at any rate.

I think there is a case for considering, both from the defence angle and our internal angle, the establishment of a chemical factory, if only in a limited degree. If it could be done, we should establish a nitrate industry and hinge the whole thing around the production of fertilisers with a view to maintaining the fertility of our land, putting back into it what we take out of it. That, probably, would be the most rational approach, and if you found your industry around that you will probably get the best results. But there are other possibilities, and a start can be made from any angle. Though much talk has been going on about this matter there seem to be very few concrete steps taken. Firms have come in to carry out certain chemical operations during past years, but if one examines them closely one will find they were usually subsidiary operations. They depend on certain imported chemicals already made and they are really secondary processes. One effort was made with success during the war to supply one industry here. It is about the only large-scale experiment that was carried out here so far as I know. In dealing with that the Minister will have certain interests to cope with, but we have talked about the matter for so long I think it is now time we did something about it.

Aside from all these matters which I have mentioned, there is one little query for the Minister with regard to this Industrial Authority. The Minister has set up a body but we have not yet seen any legislation dealing with that body or any proposals about it. I do not quite understand the delay. Why could the proposals not have been put before us in concrete form before now? Surely we ought to have them within a very short space of time. We were, after all, able to rush through the Courts of Justice Bill in a matter of two days. If the Minister has his mind made up and if the Government know where they are going and the matter is sufficiently definite to warrant the appointment of personnel there should be no insuperable difficulty in presenting proposals to the House.

There is another matter of which the Minister may need to take cognisance. I am referring to the Control of Manufactures Act. Here, again, we have a subtle change in historical circumstances. From 1932 onwards when we were attempting to establish industries in this country the position was that industrialists in England and elsewhere were definitely not interested. In fact the majority of them had hostile interests in the main. The difficulty with which the Government was faced at that time was to imbue our own people with a sufficient degree of confidence to inspire them to engage in industry and at the same time encourage people from outside to bring in capital. The Control of Manufactures Act was passed in order to preserve ownership and control of those industries in the hands of Irish nationals.

Up to the outbreak of war there was no real danger of our industries falling into foreign hands except for the sake of closing them up. They proved lucrative to those who had sponsored them and, because of that fact, the chance of closing them up was nil. Up to that time, therefore, the present Act was quite adequate and there was no problem. But the situation has now suddenly changed. We have, first of all, the general strategic situation that people now like a greater degree of dispersal. Economically, we came out of the war situation rather favourably placed. There are other reasons which suggest to the outsider that it might not be a bad idea to come in here. As evidence of that, I can cite the purchase, or attempt to purchase, much of our property by people outside this country. To some extent that effort was blocked by the imposition of the stamp duty. My fear at the moment is that outsiders may try to get control of some of our industries. In fact, some of them have attempted to do so. I myself have one specific case in mind. Possibly the Minister is aware of it also. In the case I have in mind it seems to me that there was a complete evasion of the Control of Manufactures Act. An industry which had been set up and developed under completely Irish control found itself in difficulty with a corresponding industry of the same nature on the other side of the Channel. The corresponding industry enjoyed reciprocal trading relations and thereby got the benefit of certain foreign markets. There were not available to the Irish industry. The factory here manufactured stuff for the factory across the water and that was exported to, say, Northern Europe with the name of the factory across the water advertised on the goods manufactured here. I will give the Minister full particulars in private if he wishes to have them. Naturally, I do not want to mention names here. That certainly was not a very favourable circumstance, but following on that position it appears that somebody was used here in the capacity of a "stooge"—a gentleman whose name featured on another occasion. A legal device was adopted by which control of this particular industry now lies in the hands of a foreign concern. Now the home industry is doing its share and obtaining a certain return, but that return is got in such a way that no goodwill can be established.

It seems to me, having regard to these facts, that the Minister may have to consider some amendment to the Act. If necessary, he can take power into his own hands to deal with such a situation. So long as our nationals are getting some benefit and the results of the industry are accruing to the nation, apparently the situation is all right. But the position is fraught with danger. I do not think the danger of closing down is too serious since the Minister can always take the matter into his own hands. From the point of view of the development of that industry and from the point of view of general policy the situation is an undesirable one. It is particularly important that our manufacturers should remain completely independent. I know they have been criticised by certain people in this House. I know that a lot has been said about the excess profits they are alleged to have made. I think a good deal of that criticism was unfounded. These people took a risk in establishing these industries. They put their money into them. They put their energies and their abilities into them and in very many cases they did a service to the country. They did a service to the people for whom they provided employment. These industrialists and their employees are creditors of the community. The establishment of these industries and their building up was done by our own nationals largely under their own steam. The preservation of their independence is to my mind a matter of some importance. If they lose their independence there will be danger of the subordination of the interests of this country to the interests of some outside concern. The Minister may not know the specific case I have in mind. I shall be only too pleased to give him full particulars if he is not already aware of it. The question, therefore, in the net, is whether it is necessary to adjust the Control of Manufactures Act or whether, in fact, the Minister thinks he has through his own officers or in his own Department sufficient control of such a situation. For my part, I think that if I were to hear of a similar occurrence in, say, another industry I would feel bound, as a matter of public duty, to raise the matter specifically here in this House.

These are, I think, the main questions arising on this Vote. As I started, I should like to end by appealing to the Minister on behalf of those city dwellers who are in the position I mentioned earlier, to ask him if some relief cannot be given to them in regard to this obstinate problem of the cost of living, particularly where from their point of view this meat problem cannot be solved, so that the families and the classes which I have mentioned can get back to the day when they can have good Irish beef and mutton on as many days of the week as they like without regarding it as a luxury.

I should first of all like to congratulate the Minister on what I consider to be the very successful conduct of his Department during the last 12 months. That success I think is most eloquently reflected in the figures which he has given with regard to the percentage of the rise in production in the country compared with a number of different years. In the course of my remarks, I wish to draw the Minister's attention to certain matters which I consider relevant in connection with industrial activities in this country and if I express myself in what might be considered terms of criticism, I should like to point out that it is merely friendly criticism from an angle outside that of a Ministerial Department.

I believe that we have in this country a very good future for industry. There are a number of factors which help towards that future and one is something that has impressed me very much in regard to matters which I have had to bring to the notice of the Department and of the Minister during the past few months. I refer to the attitude of the workers, in my constituency at all events—and I think it is general throughout the country—towards industry generally. Whenever an industry was in danger of stopping or slowing down, there was intense anxiety on the part of the workers concerned, as on the part of the employer, to keep that industry going and going on a firm basis. I have found also that there has been a very good spirit of co-operation between employers and workers in this regard.

In our approach to industry in this country I think we need a certain—I shall not say a rigid—plan and a certain amount of planning. I believe that is essential because of the peculiar background and origin of Irish industry generally. In most big industrial countries the manufactures for which they are famous came into existence for historical, geographical, geological and other reasons, but we in this country went through a period when we were ruled by an alien Government and when any attempt to take part in the industrial development of either the 18th or the 19th century was severely frowned on if such an attempt interfered with industry in England or Scotland. Therefore, when we came to get control of our own affairs, we were entirely dependent, with the exception of certain industries such as brewing, bacon curing, etc.—it is unnecessary to go through the whole list—for most of the goods consumed here on countries abroad. Leaving that aside altogether, since the last war, the world has entered on a new phase and when we consider that as recently as last week one heavy importing country of the world, namely, South Africa, closed down altogether on imports, we can readily appreciate that one must make one's plans entirely in terms of the conditions of the middle of this century with regard to the development and growth of industry generally. We have in this country a future which depends, I think, upon certain well-laid plans, and for the benefit of the Minister and the House I should like to give my views, for what they are worth, upon the general situation as regards industrial planning.

I think we should base our plans first of all upon industries in which we can use the raw materials available at home. We have of course a large number of industries based upon that principle but we have not gone by any means the whole way. I had occasion on the Estimate for Fisheries to refer to the canning of fish but that is only one item. In addition we ought to concentrate upon industries for which portion of the raw materials is produced here. In any case, in any industry that is fostered here, we should have regard to the fact that a large part of the products in the way of food, clothing, etc., are suitable for home consumption. Many other articles will find an outlet in the very big market we have at the present time in connection with the housing drive. In addition, we must not lose sight of the fact that under any general long term plan, we must run our industries in such a way that portion of the manufactured products is available for export to a suitable market. The reason for that is two-fold. Firstly, we must have goods to earn dollars and hard currency. That is the way the world is set up at the present time. Secondly, and I think this is rather important, we must have goods to fill the empty bottoms of our mercantile marine. That should be a very important link in our commercial and industrial activity. We must bring about a state of affairs so that when our ships go to fetch goods they take goods with them.

We must bear that very strongly in mind. I think those are the main considerations with which we should plan our industry in this country, but there are certain weaknesses which we must not disregard. There are two sources of weakness—really both arise out of the same thing—and I think the Taoiseach, in his speech in the chamber of commerce in Waterford the other day, referred to it, that is, the investment of Irish money in Irish industry. The sources of weakness which I see are, first of all, by no means enough credit is available in the country at the present moment for use in industry. The reason for that is that credit here is not controlled by the Government. Credit is controlled by joint stock banks acting through their joint committees, and if the joint stock banks say tomorrow: "We will raise credit by 5 per cent. or lower credit by 5 per cent. in comparison with what it is at the present time," it will have an immediate repercussion on Irish industry. But there is worse than that. The difficulties Irish industry and life in this country generally have to contend with are not confined to absence of credit only, but to the fact that credit is controlled from outside our shores. When the Taoiseach said the other day in the chamber of commerce in Waterford that sufficient money was not invested in Irish industry, it is due to the fact that a number of our banks are operated from London. They hold their meetings in London and they are manned by a certain number of directors, some of whom have no residence in this country and others of whom visit this country once in two years. The investments and savings of Irish farmers at the present time are being used to finance industries that could be in competition with our own.

What has that got to do with the Estimate?

I will pass from that. I was pointing out a source of weakness to industry in this country.

I believe that the Minister has a proper approach to industrial production in this country. I have followed very carefully the speeches he has made, both up and down the country and in this House, and I feel perfectly satisfied that he is fully alive to the importance of the various matters that go to build up Irish industry and also to the dangers which exist and which stand in its path.

I would like to mention mineral development. Mineral development has now entered a different phase in the world. I understand that there were certain mining activities in this country in the past when lead, for example, was at a very much lower price than it is at present. I understand that the price of lead is now something like ten or 20 times what it was before the war. I would like to see not so much exploration as development taking place in the old workings which were abandoned 50 or 60 years ago due entirely to the cost of the mined ore at that particular time.

In regard to industrial research, I feel that a great deal has not come out of it yet. With the enormous increase in the number of articles which come under the heading of plastics, one would imagine that it could have been ascertained whether plastics could be developed in this country out of different raw materials. This question was brought home to me here in this House when, in answer to some Deputy, a Minister—I think it was the Minister for Agriculture—stated that foreign timber had to be used in the manufacture of egg boxes. It strikes me that the Industrial Research Department could surely take up the question of whether there would not be some very easy simple method of treating Irish timber so that it could be used for the simple business of making egg boxes. It seems to me that that is something they could undertake and I was very surprised, indeed, to hear that Irish timber was not suitable for the manufacture of egg boxes. After all, they are not a very difficult article to manufacture.

Transport: the Minister knows that I probably differ slightly with him on the question of the use of the lorry. I know that there are arguments for and against the use of the private lorry which has come to be known as "the plate". I have very strong views indeed on the proposition that the collection of and distribution of goods in rural districts should to a large extent be left in the hands of private enterprise. It is, I think, for the benefit of trade, industry and production that every small producer, whether a farmer's wife with a dozen eggs or a man with a load of pigs for the factory, should be in a position of pressing a button, if it is in the city, and, in the country, of sending word to a neighbour: "Will you have your lorry in my yard at 4 or 5 or 6 o'clock tomorrow morning to take goods to the nearest railhead or wharf?" You cannot do that with Córas Iompair Éireann and you will never be able to do it with Córas Iompair Éireann. If you change the name of Córas Iompair Éireann a dozen times over and reorganise it into something else, you will never get that. If the people living in rural districts know that a suitable conveyance will be available at their door at the time arranged by themselves to suit themselves to take goods to railhead or wharf they will produce more. There has been a great deal of talk here in this House about co-operation between farmers in rural communities. What better co-operation can you have than the knowledge that there are one or two lorries with a plate in your parish and that they are going to co-operate to take your goods out of the district to where they will earn money and bring other goods back into the district? I do not believe that that type of service by private enterprise will do the central transport authority a bit of harm. On the contrary, it will do it a great deal of good and bring to certain districts an increased amount of goods traffic.

There is another question in regard to transport and I think this affects all services of a semi-government character in this country such as the Electricity Supply Board. There is a kind of idea that the people down the country do not count as much as people living in the city. I want to give an example here in this House of the mentality which exists in Córas Iompair Éireann with regard to the country. Córas Iompair Éireann has a monopoly for carrying passengers with, I think, one or two exceptions here and there. At all events, it has a monopoly in Wexford. There is a district roughly south of New Ross which is bounded on one side by the sea and on the other by a river. It is a well populated and industrious district and those people are as much entitled to transport as the person living in Rathmines, Terenure or Crumlin. In the ordinary course of events an agitation grew up that a bus should be supplied to bring people into New Ross for marketing and so on and out again. I had certain distinct evidence that there would be plenty of passengers for that particular bus. Why did we not get it? Not on the grounds that there were not sufficient passengers, not on the grounds that it would not pay, but we were told to reconstruct our roads and when we had done that we would get a bus. I want to say here, as representing a rural constituency, that it is a great piece of, I will not say impertinence, but wrong appreciation of their function for a company which has a monopoly of the transport of passengers in this country to say: "You make your roads right and we will get you a bus." I say in answer: "There are our roads and we could run a bus as we are entitled to and it is up to you to make a bus to fit our roads." That very same week, the tramlines were being torn up in Dublin on the Dartry and Terenure routes, in order that the people in Dartry and Terenure would have an efficient bus service; and there is always an outery if there is a bus short or if there are not enough buses on all routes. There you have a district in County Wexford, inhabited by brother Irishmen, and until they have reorganised their roads this great company will not give them a bus to travel in.

Regarding marine services, I often wondered when we started our merchant fleet—I think we started it very much too late, and that we should not have waited for the world war to commence—why we did not get a few tankers. We consume a big quantity of oil of various kinds and other countries have tankers. A tanker, if it has supplied the needs of its own country, will always get a job of work to do carrying oil to some other country. It came to my notice recently that one of our ships, I think it was the Irish Rose, which is on the Scandinavian route, goes over to Ardrossan to fuel and loses both fuel value and hours of time for which money is being paid out. It seems to me that, with the rise of the mercantile fleet and the fact that oil seems to be the coming fuel for motor boats, it is strange that we have not got a suitable oil depot in this country. I was very surprised to hear we had not. I acquired the information quite accidentally in the course of conversation with a friend who had been on a trip recently to Sweden. I discovered that the boat had to go out to Sweden to get goods to bring back here —principally timber and wood pulp— and that there were very little goods going out with the exception of some canned meat and so on. We have something for which the Swedes are crying out and are importing from Scotland at present. Possibly we could not supply it yet, but it is an item of industry which could be looked into. Apparently, one learns as one goes along. The Swedes require vast quantities of powdered lime for various manufactures and they have none in their own country. This boat could take such a cargo, as the Swedes are getting the lime from Scotland at present.

Turning to our tourist trade, I hope I will not be charged with a moral criminal offence on the spot when I suggest that, for the purpose of attracting tourists, our tourist resorts should take some example from the continental resorts. This country is full of people who are fond of a bet on a horse. I cannot see any difference between the roulette table and a bet on a horse and if, in our various resorts, we had municipal casinos with roulette tables, I believe that the tired businessman with a good wad of notes in his pocket would be attracted here just as soon as to the Belgian or French coast, to Monte Carlo and such places. I understand that, for some reason or another, the game of chance with the little ball and coloured numbers is frowned on, but I cannot see any difference between it and the Irish Sweep, or a little bet on a racehorse.

After he came back from the United States, the Minister referred to the point I am making now. In connection with planning in all countries at the present day, the English are very keen on their export trade and the Americans are very keen on building up in Europe an economy that will give them some place in which to sell their goods. We could take advantage of that position and there could be fitted into the picture a suggestion that came from the Minister. The Americans might be interested in furthering some industries in this country suitable to their own particular economy in Europe. I do not mean that the control of such an industry should pass into American hands, but I think the Americans could make use of their money in this country in connection with their programme of economic development.

In conclusion, my experience throughout the length and breadth of this country, wherever I go, has been that the people realise that the Minister for Industry and Commerce has taken over, particularly in view of the recent war, a very difficult and comprehensive Department. I am told everywhere that the method and manner in which he is running that Department has met with the complete approval of the majority of the citizens of this country.

I have no objection to offer to the last remark of Deputy Esmonde about the Minister's administration, but I think we are entitled to criticise generally the policy of the Government, which, in my opinion, has had disastrous effects on some parts of the country. The Minister did not say a whole lot about employment, but he did make one statement to indicate that the numbers in employment in the production of transportable goods were the highest on record. That statement, as it stands, is quite true, but, if we look back over a number of years and compare the progressive increase since the end of the war with the increase following the coming into office of this Government, the fact that the figure for 1948 is the highest is not in itself any cause for complacency.

Taking the figures in the Irish Trade Journal for March, 1949, in the group of industries which represent 80 per cent. of the employment in the production of transportable goods, we find that, for the six months' period from September, 1945, to March, 1946, there was an increase of 6½ per cent. in the numbers of persons employed; in the next six months' period, from March, 1946, to September, 1946, there was an increase of 4½ per cent.; from September, 1946, to March, 1947, there was an increase of 3 per cent.; from March, 1947, to September, 1947, a further increase of 3 per cent.; and in the period ending March, 1948, which more or less coincides with the time Fianna Fáil went out of office, there was a still further increase of 3¼ per cent. For the first six months of the change, the increase was only ½ per cent. In other words, there was an average increase over the five half years I have mentioned of 4 per cent., but, when the change of Government took place, the increase was only ½ per cent.

That is a fact of which the Minister and the Government particularly must take notice, because it shows a trend. The figure for September, 1948, was 92,000 odd, and, while it is the largest, in actual fact, it would be still larger if the trend which had set in 1945, when capital goods became more or less available, had been continued. It is that trend, shown by the figures published by his own Department, that I want to bring to the notice of the Minister. These figures, according to the Trade Journal, are the employment figures for the group of industries which represent 80 per cent. of employment in the production of transportable goods.

The constituency I represent is very interested in this question of employment. It has lost, in great part, the emergency employments which it had during the war. Turf was the principal employment and we have had sufficient discussion of the turf industry, so that I do not propose to say very much about it now. The industry generally must be of primary interest to those poorer agricultural areas which have to rely on means of making a livelihood other than agricultural pursuits. The change of policy in relation to matters which gave employment in the poorer areas during the emergency produced a peculiar result in my constituency. I asked the Minister for Social Welfare to give me the comparative figures of unemployment, that is, of those on the register, in November, 1947, and November, 1948, and I find that for my constituency, which would be represented by the figures supplied by the three offices, Galway, Oughterard and Clifden, the figures in 1948 were less than those in 1947. I find also, however, that the amount paid out in 1948 was larger than the amount paid out in 1947 in unemployment assistance.

These figures would appear to be contradictory, but I see the meaning of them straightway. What happened was that, as soon as the turf industry ceased, the young unmarried men, all those who had no domestic ties or responsibilities, cleared out almost en masse and these are the people who received the small amounts of unemployment assistance. The numbers must have fallen considerably, there fore, as is verified by this official reply from the Minister; but the increase in the amount paid out is accounted for by the fact that more people with dependents, more married men, who cannot so easily leave their small patches of land and go to England, came on the register and these are the class who received the largest amounts. That is a state of affairs about which we cannot be too complacent.

With regard to the operation of the employment periods, I do not know whether or not I have correctly interpreted the figures which the Minister's Department supplied, but it seems to me that there is a bigger drop in the number of unemployment assistance recipients at the commencement of the first employment period, which applies to people who have means, than there is when the second employment period comes into operation, the time when the men without means or dependents go off the register, or are no longer entitled to unemployment assistance. The reason I mention that is that the Minister recently made a speech in Westport in which he referred to the large numbers of people on the register who would not take employment. I put a question down to-day asking the Tánaiste for information on that matter, and, strange, to say, the Tánaiste, who is the Minister in charge of Social Welfare, was unable to give me the information. I wanted to find out the numbers of those without means or dependents who were offered employment since the end of the employment periods last year and the number who had refused, and it seems very strange to me that the Department was unable to supply the figures.

The Minister for Industry and Commerce is not responsible for that.

I know he is not, but it is a matter to which you, Sir, and the Minister might allow me to make a passing reference.

I have allowed the Deputy to make a passing reference, but clearly it is a matter for the Minister for Social Welfare, whose Estimate will come before the House.

I agree it is, but, in any event, I would ask the Minister for Industry and Commerce to examine his own statement again or, if he has figures of those who were offered employment in public schemes and have refused it, I would like the Minister for Industry and Commerce to examine the question in relation to the two classes of people to whom I have referred, those who have some means and those who have neither means nor dependents.

There is no good in speaking to the Minister for Industry and Commerce on that matter. He has nothing whatever to do with it.

All right. I will leave it. I welcome the Minister's reference, although it was rather short, to the tourist industry. The figures which he gave of the value of the industry to this country for 1948 must have surprised a great many people. I think he put it at £30,000,000. He warned us that he regards that as a peak figure and that it is not likely to be repeated. I want to say to the Minister in that connection that, in my opinion, the Government's general attitude towards this question of the tourist industry, and particularly to the activities of the Tourist Board, will ensure that it will not be repeated. I understand that one of the first economies made when the Government came in was the closing down of the Tourist Association office in New York.

That is not so.

Was it not closed down?

No; it is still in operation.

Were the grants for it reduced?

The office is still open and operating as it was before the change of Government.

While I was waiting my turn to speak I read some references made by Deputy Lehane to this question of tourists and he trotted out an argument that was very common during the emergency up to the time that Fianna Fáil went out, that people who made easy money in England and elsewhere could come in and eat up our supplies of rationed goods and that, in return, we got a whole lot of printed paper money that was of no value to us. As soon as the war ended and goods became available, all that accumulated paper money which we were led to believe was of no value was converted into a pretty large supply of capital equipment and goods for this country and we see the result of that action on the part of the Minister's predecessor and the effect it has had on employment in these figures in the Trade Journal. Then we were criticised for having spent these external assets too rapidly. Because the trade balance was unfavourable to the extent of £90,000,000 in one year, we were criticised as dissipating the foreign assets which we had accumulated through tourists eating our rationed goods here and through exports to the British market. We cannot have it both ways. Either foreign credits are of some value or they should not be accumulated and, if the Minister holds the view that they ought not to be accumulated, then he ought to put into effect the indication of policy with regard to the tourist industry which he gave when he first came in.

On this side of the House we believe that anything he can do to encourage the tourist industry should be done and, for that reason, I must criticise the decision of the Government with regard to the hotels. I do not ask that these hotels or any other undertaking that is costing money should be carried on for a long period at a loss but I do maintain that the hotels set up by the Tourist Board have not got a fair trial. I really have only one of them in mind, the hotel in my constituency. From the very day it was set up, there was a continuous campaign of denunciation of these hotels. One argument was that they would compete with private hotels and another was that they would induce people from other countries who had a lot of money, which possibly was got in a doubtful manner, to come here and enjoy themselves at the expense of the Irish poor. That campaign, in any event, has depressed the hotel industry in my constituency and at least one other important hotel has been put on the market as a direct consequence, in my opinion, of this campaign.

In Connemara, where the Minister, the Government and previous Governments found it very difficult to find employment and means of distributing money amongst the people, tourism meant a certain increase in the standard of living and if two of the important hotels in the place close down it will definitely put a damper on the tourist industry in the area. If a district has the reputation of having good hotels in it people will be attracted to that place because they will be sure of decent accommodation. Tourists like to have a number of first-class hotels in a district and they like a change. All down the years we have seen tourists going from one district to another. That applies particularly to anglers. They like to spend a while in each place.

There would be very few Irish anglers at Ballinahinch. None of us could spend £40 a week.

The only comment I have to make on that is that this is the first time in my memory that an Irish angler was able to fish at Ballinahinch. It was the only time he was able to buy permission.

He would want to be a very wealthy man.

I think my answer to the Deputy's remark is good enough.

It is not. £4 a day would be too much for the Irish angler.

No matter what the length of your purse was, you could not fish in Ballinahinch until the Irish Tourist Board took it over, unless you were persona grata with the people who occupied these places and they did not usually have very many Irish people in their coterie of friends. As a matter of fact, one of the main objections of that class to the Irish Tourist Board having these places is that they have not got the same perquisites in the way of free fishing that they used to have as a result of their acquaintance with the occupiers of these places. They used to get fishing practically free. They can fish now at Ballinahinch but they have to pay the price and they have to employ a gillie. Employment of a gillie has been insisted on by the management of that hotel. In that way the Tourist Board showed that they would not allow people who could pay to get out of their obligation to the people of the locality who were, I think I can safely say, the prime consideration of the Tourist Board. The first consideration of the Tourist Board was that employment would be given in those places, and in Ballinahinch they gave a pretty decent livelihood to about 50 people. In my own knowledge, one employee, who was a porter or in some occupation of that kind, after one season banked a very considerable sum of money, much more than he would have been able to send home if he had spent two years in England.

It is because of things of that sort that have come to my knowledge that I feel so strongly about the attitude of the Government in regard to Ballinahinch. Surely to goodness, if the Government had to reduce the standard of living in a place like Connemara as much as they did by closing down the turf industry and by reducing the employment schemes the following winter, they should not have followed up that policy so inexorably by hitting on the head everything that had been established there in recent years to bring some little comfort into the lives of the people. It is the same with regard to everything that was established in those areas. If every congested area has been treated in the same way an West Galway nobody can escape the conclusion that this Government has a bias against those areas. Take the attitude of the Minister for Agriculture on the question of the tomato houses as just one other instance. I would appeal to the Minister to keep Ballinahinch going for another year, in any event, and let us see if it will not offer some hope of coming reasonably near paying its way by the end of that time. I would also make another request to the Minister in connection with Ballinahinch. There are large properties outside the hotel itself. I should like him to find out for me and, indeed, for his own information, to what extent the loss that has been sustained in the operation of that hotel has been sustained in the management of the property other than the hotel. I should also like him to inquire into the expenditure—he gave me a figure recently—for the equipping and the furnishing of the place. While I am defending the Tourist Board's decision to set up that hotel, I think there was not sufficiently close supervision in the early stages of its development. Having said that, I shall say no more about it.

I desire to draw the particular attention of the Minister to Galway Harbour. The Minister knows that there is an application in his Department from the Galway Harbour Commissioners for the past year and a half— I think since about October or November, 1947. Galway Harbour is in the position that it cannot hope to make much revenue from post-war traffic unless it can improve the capacity of the harbour to accommodate larger ships. One stage of the works has been carried out, as the Minister knows, at a fairly high cost. But, whatever its magnitude, it would have been three times as great if it had been done since the war. They were fortunate in having it carried out before the war. The cost of it was financed entirely out of local resources—the revenue of the harbour itself and a guarantee by the Galway County Council and the Galway Corporation. Galway County Council contributes a sum equivalent to a rate of 4d. in the £ and the corporation contribute a sum produced by a rate of 1/- in the £. Under the Galway Harbour Act the works must be completed within the time laid down. Then years was the time laid down, with a possible extension of a further ten years. The previous Minister agreed to extend the time for a further ten years. The further ten years will have been completed by the year 1955. The position is that, if the second stage of the works has not been completed by that time, the Galway Harbour Board is precluded by the Act from undertaking that second stage of the works unless the surplus of revenue of the dock, without the aid of the rates, will be sufficient to finance such works—having cleared up the loan charges which they are liable to pay at the present time and a deficit of £12,000 in their revenue account which they have accumulated. Unless this State steps in, Galway Harbour will be in the position in which it has accumulated a huge debt which it cannot clear and the docks will not have been adapted to use for post-war traffic. Between the two stages it is in a half-finished State and a sum of £370,000 has been estimated as being necessary to complete the work. I know that the last Government intended and I understand from the Minister that the present Government intends to formulate some kind of a national harbour policy. The quicker that policy is formulated and put into effect the better.

I would ask that the very special position of Galway Harbour be taken into account. I know that the provisions of the 1939 Act can always be amended and improved by a further Act, but the Galway Harbour Commissioners have to deal with the position as they find it. They are being tied up if they cannot get this second stage of the work, which is absolutely necessary, completed by 1955. The principal dock is not at all suitable for the type of boat which is now employed in the cargo-carrying service. We have a deep dock, the Dun Aengus dock, which is a small dock and which is quite deep enough for the average-sized boat. That dock has to be connected with the commercial dock. Plans have been submitted to the Department and unless that connection between these two docks is made neither the commercial dock nor the Dun Aengus dock will be of any advantage to the Galway Harbour Commissioners— rather will they be a liability. Further, the old dock main gates into the commercial dock will have to be removed at a cost of from £20,000 to £25,000. If something is not done soon these old dock gates will collapse, and in that event the commercial dock cannot be used by any type of boat. That is a matter of great urgency and of great importance to Galway. I hope that the Minister will see that the application of the Galway Harbour Commissioners, which is there for the last one and a half years, will be attended to and that some communication will be sent to the harbour commissioners indicating what the Government proposes to do.

I wonder if the Minister will be able to give us any information as to what progress the Industrial Research Council has made or if it is investigating the use of seaweed for the production of yarn. I understand this was undertaken in England during the war and that our Industrial Research Council was associated with the work. I believe the yarn has been produced, but whether or not it can be produced on a commercial scale is another matter. I was told that it was tried out and found to dissolve in water and that somebody hit on the idea of weaving it into some other fabric and that, on the fabric being washed out, the seaweed dissolved in the water, the result being a much finer woollen fabric than it was possible to get by any other means. If such a yarn were produced I imagine we would be able to compete successfully with the very fine yarns imported from Italy and France. It is a development which would be of first-class importance to our poor areas if it takes definite shape. I should like the Minister to give us any information he can on the matter when concluding the debate.

I should also like to find out—possibly it would be more appropriate on the Vote for External Affairs—what is the result of the trade agreement made with France, particularly in regard to the export of woollen textiles. The trade agreement with Great Britain hit the parcel post end of the Irish woollen trade very severely and we were hoping that the trade agreement with France might make up to some extent for the losses on the British market. It is a matter of interest to the poor areas and I should like the Minister to say what the position is and what the prospects are for development.

There is one local matter to which I wish to refer, arising out of the transport question. I do not want to say very much about transport, but the Minister, in his opening statement, pointed out that £360,000 had to be advanced from the Central Fund to Córas Iompair Éireann in July, 1948, and in January, 1949, to meet interest on State-guaranteed debentures. The fares have now been increased and the need to repeat expenditure of this sort has been obviated. The only comment I have to make is that it is a pity the Minister did not make his decision sooner. He has to bear whatever opprobrium attaches to the increase of fares and, if he had faced up to it sooner, he would have lived down the opprobrium by now and saved the Exchequer this sum.

We have no great grouse in the West with regard to the services generally. A great deal of political capital was made out of the fact that the railway line in West Galway was closed in the year 1935. If a plebiscite were taken west of Galway on the question of road or rail services, I have no doubt what the result would be. The road services have been brought into every village in the area. The bus and the lorry serve the remotest of these villages now. When the railway was operated people had to hire sidecars and drive up to 15 miles to get the train. They had also to maintain a large number of horses to bring goods from the railway station, and these horses had to be fed on corn brought from areas outside Connemara. All that has been done away with and the people have transport at their doors.

From that point of view we are satisfied enough, but I want to renew my representations to the Minister with regard to the interruption of the service from Galway to Lettermullen because the county council is dilatory in repairing bridges. The county council offers the excuse that the Government have cut down the road grants so enormously that they cannot go on with the work. As transport is a matter for the Minister for Industry and Commerce, I should like to point out to him that many thousands of poor people have to travel long distances to get this bus. The point of my question to him recently was that he should get Córas Iompair Éireann to continue this service on the understanding that when the bus came to one of these defective bridges the passengers should alight and walk across the bridge and then get into the bus on the other side. The reason I made the request was that the local people are asking why an empty bus cannot be allowed to cross over these bridges when a heavily laden lorry with its load and driver and helper, which is much heavier than an empty bus, is allowed to go over the bridges. If the bridges are able to stand up to that, why will they not allow an empty bus to cross the bridges? I think that is a reasonable suggestion to make. It will mean that these people will have the service which they had formerly. If there was a little slowness in repairing the bridges people would not notice it so much, but when they have to walk long distances they will not give their blessing to those who are responsible and the Government gets its share of the blame.

The previous Deputy experienced some difficulty in relation to the figures for unemployment and unemployment assistance. It is a difficulty which many of us sympathise with because we have experienced it ourselves. It is one of the defects of this organisation of the Department of Industry and Commerce that, whereas the Minister is responsible for unemployment and, naturally, to some extent, can be held responsible for unemployment when policy is discussed, yet the compilation of the statistics governing the extent of unemployment and the nature, variety and depth of it relates to another Department, the Department of Social Welfare. However, I suppose we can hardly go back to the time when the Department of Industry and Commerce was responsible for the compilation of these industrial statistics, particularly as it has been indicated by the Minister that, in the process of shedding some of the functions of this overgrown monstrosity of a Department, he has relegated the statistics branch to the Department of the Taoiseach.

There are many points and aspects of this Estimate which are of great interest to this House and might evoke a fair amount of consideration from the House, but the one of paramount importance to the Department, the Minister and the House as a whole as the guardian of the welfare of the people of the country is the question of employment. I propose to address myself to some extent to this question. That it is of the utmost importance, that its gravity cannot be disputed, is instanced, I think, by the very grave warning issued by the leader of the Labour Party in this House with which, with great haste, I wish to associate myself. I regret that I am not speaking to the Minister himself, but I am sure that the sentiments I express will be conveyed to and understood by him. I wholeheartedly endorse what Deputy Larkin said when he stated that he was

"not going to be associated with any Government or Party or individual who feels that the unemployed are to be the subject of open rebuke, strong criticism and scornful references because they are in the unfortunate position of being denied reasonable opportunities of earning a living under decent conditions."

I have noted with regret and with dislike that there has been a growing volume of adverse references to the unemployed. I thought that mentality was dead, I thought it had been killed by the war and by the activities of those workless people in this country who have gone to the dangers and hazards of employment in England. I thought that mentality which looked upon the unemployed as shirkers, which scathingly referred to the fact of the disinclination, as they thought, of the unemployed to work, had been killed by the war. But for some unknown reason, whether it is to escape the responsibility or whether it is because the solution to the problem escapes those who indulge in this type of remark, there has been a very dangerous tendency to get back to those pre-1932 days when the unemployed were referred to in such terms and, in fact, constituted such a very important aspect not only of our industrial but of our political life in those days as to contribute very considerably, I think, to the return of the Fianna Fáil Government. That mentality should die and should be buried, and buried deeply.

The dimensions of that problem have been referred to by Deputy Larkin. It is of very little interest to those who are unemployed to get the figures given to us by the Minister in relation to industrial production in this country. It is quite true that, according to his figures, industrial production in transportable goods has increased over the period to which his Estimate refers by about 15 per cent. and that as far as industry as a whole can be estimated there is an improvement to the extent of 16 per cent. That is of very little interest to those who are as yet or continue to be unemployed and it is of very little interest to the sections of industry where they have not the benefit of or do not participate in that general improvement, such as the sections mentioned by the Minister, the leather and footwear industries in particular, where there is unemployment and short time and where the symptoms of a crisis appear to be developing, symptoms to which I suggest the Minister should direct his attention.

Though one may take comfort, as the Minister definitely does, from this improvement in our industrial output, one should not, I think, be too over-confident about the matter. We may have reached a period which can shed a certain amount of satisfaction upon us and give some of us a certain amount of smug satisfaction but there are portents to the contrary in other parts of the world which undoubtedly have their reaction on our economy. We cannot in the present world consider ourselves as being in water-tight or economic-tight compartments. Any major development in one section of the capitalist world has its effect all over the area in which capitalism operates. In the United States at the present time economists and thinkers, those who are concerned about these matters, are becoming worried as to whether we are going to witness again a slump of such dimensions in the United States as may have very adverse reactions on all the other sections of capitalist economy throughout the world.

I merely instance this as a method of suggesting that we should be on our guard and take steps in time so to organise or protect ourselves that while we cannot hope to escape the full effects of any adverse decline in American economy, yet we might by judicious reorganisation, by protection and by various other economic agencies and tricks be able to mitigate the effects of what may be a coming slump. If that slump does affect our economy, I suggest that it can affect it in a way that can be of very grave significance to the country as a whole and that it will inevitably result in a swelling of the unemployed. The figure that we reached during the period under review of 84,000 unemployed distributed over the whole area, all types of industry, rural and urban, is indeed a warning of the gravity of the situation. We have yet time perhaps to take some steps in relation to it.

If, in the coming winter, this figure should mount we might witness again those stirring days when, in order to obtain justice, in order to obtain their demands for work, their demands to be given the opportunity of providing bread for their families, the unemployed started their marches on Dublin, their marches on the Dáil and all that type of activity, which I am sure the present Minister and the present Government would be the least likely to enjoy or in any way to take comfort from. They would, I believe—I am sure as far as one section of the Government is concerned anyway—be over-anxious to mitigate that increasing unemployment and the effects of it, not only by the provision or by an increase of social benefits and of relief for the unemployed, but by taking such steps as may enable industry to absorb the unemployed to a greater extent than it appears to do at present. The different factors in relation to that question of the absorption of the unemployed and the development of industry are too many to address oneself to at the present time, but there are a few aspects of it which could be fairly quickly remedied if the Minister were inclined to deal with them, if he were inclined to examine the question or to re-examine it and to take it under further consideration, and probably revise his views, or change his attitude in regard to certain fundamental aspects of this question of industry.

With regard to some of the aspects of this reorganisation of industry, which it seems to be agreed is necessary, I should like to contrast one attitude, which appears to be rather general on the part of the Minister, with the attitude of the Taoiseach in regard to the same matter. The attitude of the Minister appears to me to be reflecting the attitude of those industrialists who think that they and they only have the knowledge, capacity and confidence to run their own industry. I can say that many of them, from my own personal experience, appear to think that. I am referring now in particular to the footwear industry—the boot and shoe industry. Many of them seem to suffer from a very exaggerated conceit of their own competence to organise their factories with, I think, lamentable results. Whether, consciously or unconsciously, the Minister has given that sufficient thought or not, I am not aware, but we have in the Minister's introductory speech his examination of the boot and shoe industry. It can be taken as an example of this question of the examination of the whole industrial position, particularly in regard to those sections of the community which have got into difficulties or are not developing to the extent they could, and are not absorbing labour to the extent that they should, and to that degree are contributing to unemployment. He talks about the difficulties of the industry. It is quite true, as he has stated, that he has not neglected the interests of that important industry; he has consulted with the different elements which participate in that industry, not only with the industrialists but with the trade unions and with the trade union officials who are interested in it. But his main reliance, for the making of an improvement in that industry, is on a committee which, at his suggestion, was set up by the manufacturers to make a comprehensive examination of the industry and to submit proposals for action.

Now, here we have a case where the whole burden of the examination, the creation or the thinking out and the making of proposals for the reorganisation of that important industry rests upon a group of manufacturers, and unless I am mistaken—if I am I should like to be corrected—there is no evidence whatever of the workers being concerned in this re-examination and there is no indication that the appropriate trade unions have been asked for their advice, even though they do some pretty constructive thinking about this matter. As the Minister knows, they are concerned not merely with trying to improve the conditions of the workers whom they represent, with trying to get increased rates or improved conditions for them, but they necessarily have to give their attention to the organisation of the industry as a whole, and they have, I think, equal, if not superior, knowledge to that possessed by the employers as to the detailed organisation of the various factories. As I have said, in contrast to the Minister's attitude, there is the much more pleasing attitude of the Taoiseach, as indicated by his Waterford speech, in the course of which he said :—

"An aspect of the human factor in industry which had not been sufficiently appreciated was the failure to secure the participation of the worker in industry. The workman could not be expected to contribute of his best to productivity and high output unless he had a clear understanding of the problems of industry and unless he could be satisfied that some of the benefits of high productivity and output would accrue to himself. It would be of advantage to the community generally, and to industrialists, if, on a voluntary basis, workers could be induced to take a personal interest in the management of the industry in which they were occupied."

We would all welcome that, but instead of that, unless the Minister takes the initiative, it will be considered that he supports that false idea of the manufacturers that they, and they alone, know how to run or organise a factory: that the workers have no say in that matter, and that the workers are not competent to participate at the present time in this question of increasing productivity and of organising it on a basis which would be more profitable to the manufacturers and more profitable to the workers as well.

That is an important point in relation to employment, though the Minister, indirectly, has paid a very fine tribute to the workers in so far as they must be credited with the increased productivity shown by the over-all figure which he has quoted. If they are responsible, and I believe them to be very largely responsible for achieving the highest standard of output that has been achieved in industry in this country since records were kept, then surely the time has come for the Minister to insist that those who have achieved results of such outstanding importance should participate in the management of the industries in which they are occupied.

On the other side of the picture, there is the fact in relation to that industry that there has grown up, during the war period particularly, a tendency on the part of manufacturers to act in a very anarchistic manner, to misunderstand, or not to understand at all, the dimensions of the market in which they are engaged and, without reference to the general well-being, to improve and increase their productive organisations to an extent which is not warranted by the market at their command. This is abundantly shown by the figures given by the Minister in relation to the footwear industry. The fact that we have been producing of late years a quantity of goods far beyond the capacity of our home market to absorb can lead to but one thing. It can lead only to the bankruptcy of some of these concerns, with consequent disemployment, constant short time on the part of some of these factories.

This is a matter on which we should have some indication of policy from the Department. the matter may yet be too new to the Department or to the Minister to have worked out a policy. It may be a very difficult matter to work out a reasonable policy and it may be one that is fraught with political difficulties, but be that as it may, I think we cannot with any equanimity look upon development where the factories are now so equipped that they could produce the entire complement of footwear required by the citizens of the Republic in much less than the time in which the citizens would consume those products. In other words, it might be estimated that a number of these factories have become unnecessary. With the development of equipment in better financed, better organised or more firmly established factories having a higher industrial potential, they have so taken over a section of the market that they are leaving some of the weaker factories in a position where they will face increasing unemployment on the part of the workers.

This is a matter that probably would require Governmental intervention. If this committee to which the Minister has referred cannot produce a very good form of voluntary co-operation and reorganisation on behalf of the industry itself, it would appear to me that the Government must take some hand in regulating the industry in such a manner as to produce the least hardship on the workers. If that is not done there will be increasing dissatisfaction, there will be the usual wave of unofficial strikes, and there will be a situation in which large numbers of these operatives who have become skilled in their particular sections of the trade will emigrate and they may find that though this will lessen the impact of the crisis on the industry as a whole, when it starts going again after a period of decline they will have the same difficulties as they had at the start in training good operatives who will be willing and capable to run the industry.

From all these angles I urge the Minister to give the greatest possible attention—and I know he has been doing so—on the basis of some planned policy and to take into consideration whether he can overcome his natural, or perhaps unnatural, aptitude towards a laissez faire policy in regard to these matters, as was indicated by some of his introductory remarks. He should realise that what may apply to this industry to-day may apply to some other industry to-morrow, next week or next month.

While the main consideration should be the relation of industry to the home market, there is the possibility of an export market, but in view of the competition from the Continent and England and the huge industrial equipment other countries have, it would be a very difficult matter for us to get an export market of any dimensions. If we are to get that export market, it ought to be got on some specialised line to which all our manufacturers will contribute in some way or another so as to enable a product representative of Ireland, of having some definite connection with Ireland to be exported— something that would command attention in America, on the European Continent, or in England. We might establish a good export market with a specialised line, but that appears to be a very slight factor in mitigating unemployment in industry.

Our efforts should be directed towards increasing the number of employees and reducing the 84,000 now unemployed. If those able to work were absorbed in industry they could buy two pairs of shoes or boots instead of one, and that would definitely react on employment in the boot and shoe industry. In relation to other industries, there would be a similar reaction. That is what renders the question of unemployment so very important to all of us.

We have a great interest in this Industrial Development Authority and we are all anxiously waiting for an opportunity to discuss that matter in full. Already we have had a slight reference to it when a motion was before the Dáil dealing with the development of the industrial resources of the country. We are all waiting an opportunity of giving constructive thoughts on that matter. Constructive thoughts in regard to the abatement of unemployment and the proper organisation of industry are more germane to such a subject as the Industrial Development Authority and had better be reserved for that occasion.

In regard to the unemployed themselves, I have mentioned my concord with Deputy Larkin in reference to statements about the unemployed. The attitude that the unemployed take to these various jobs should be understood. I am sure that it is understood by the Minister because of his connection with and knowledge of the Labour movement. Now, Deputy Larkin related his remarks to the Ballyshannon-Erne scheme and the developments there where the question of the employment of hundreds of workers arises. But a similar question arises in small towns where there are four or five hundred people, or even 1,000 people, where the unemployed are offered work within the meaning of the Act and according to the law, but because of the conditions, difficulties and disadvantages attaching to such offer, the workers refuse to accept. We had a case like that in my own constituency. I addressed a question to the appropriate Minister in reference to certain unemployed who were offered and refused work. I do not want to give details now, but the case may be a typical one, particularly in considering the unemployed register. I do not want to suggest for a moment that I have the slightest sympathy with all the nonsense talked about the unemployed register and I hope the Minister is not deceived by any nonsense talked by the Fianna Fáil Party—for purely political purposes— in reference to the constitution of the unemployed register. I think that is sheer baloney and the problem of the unemployed is too serious to permit of any attempts at diverting attention from it in that fashion.

The case that I referred to was one where on one occasion 70 men and on another six men were paraded by the local employment exchange to go out and offer themselves to a farmer four miles distant from their homes. Deputy Larkin said that whenever a job has a bad name that bad name travels quickly. In small towns the local people will know the reputation of the surrounding farmers as employers. When a job has a bad name, nobody could expect town workers who know the conditions on the farms around to offer themselves to some cantankerous employer who is in perpetual trouble with his workers, who has continuous rows with them, who frequently takes a pitchfork to them and they to him, who is constantly using bad language, who indulges in slave-driving tactics and, furthermore, who persistently refuses to pay his workers until the last moment on Saturday night.

Just the other Saturday, I was driving home from a town where I had a meeting with a couple of colleagues. On the way we gave a lift to a young woman with a boy of about three years of age. She was laden down with parcels. She told us she lived four miles out from the town and there was no bus service of which she could avail. I asked her how it happened that she had to do her shopping at that late hour and she told me it was due solely to the fact that the farmer who employed her husband refused to pay his men until the last moment on Saturday night. She had then to lug the young lad into the local town with her and depend upon the kindness of some motorist to give her a lift home. When a bad name attaches to a job, no one could expect workers, who have a certain prestige and character and manliness, to offer themselves for such work. I think the Act is too harsh. I think there should be some clause dealing with such cases as this. If there were such a clause, it is possible that we might have a better understanding and appreciation of the situation. The unemployed would prefer to go without their unemployment benefit or assistance rather than work for an employer who has a bad reputation.

I know of one specific instance of that. Possibly that instance could be multiplied in other parts of the country. Where a number of unemployed refuse to work, there must be some fundamental reason for that refusal. Their refusal may look bad to those who do not understand the circumstances. In the case of Ballyshannon, where some hundreds are involved, it does look as if it reflects very badly on the unemployed. But it must be remembered that, from the point of view of the unemployed, there are extenuating circumstances for their refusal to accept work when it offers. There must be some sound reason which will impel them to forgo their benefits rather than take certain work. It was proved conclusively during the war that when work offered under satisfactory conditions the unemployed were more than anxious to take such work.

The Minister referred to the widespread prejudice against Irish manufactured goods. That is a matter which may call for attention and it is one upon which we could make some constructive suggestions. In Deputy Lemass's mind there appeared to be some doubt as to whether such an attitude does exist over any wide sections of the community. Having been Minister for Industry and Commerce so long, I presume he could hardly believe now that there could be such a prejudice still in existence. He said that there will be criticism of Irish goods if quality is defective, but that there certainly does not exist prejudice in the true meaning of that term which will deter people from buying Irish goods even when quality is satisfactory. I know a number of instances of my own knowledge and I know how this prejudice is created. I have brought my investigations in this respect to the notice of the Department and I have made constructive suggestions whereby I think this prejudice could be overcome. I wish to amplify that now to some extent. I am referring to a product with a very restricted market. The industry is a small one, but it is an important one since it has a direct bearing upon the transport industry. It is essential that it should continue as an ancillary to the transport industry. This industry manufactures sparking plugs. It is on a comparatively small scale, but, nevertheless, it is getting into difficulties. Its market is falling. The workers have been put on short time and the promoters of the industry fear that, if they have to close down, the workers they have trained in the last 15 years will emigrate. If that happens and conditions afterwards become better, through Governmental or other interference or other economic changes——

Or a change in Government.

——or a change in Government—it is immaterial to the matter under discussion—and if an attempt be made to restart this industry, they will have difficulty in trying to get together another band of skilled mechanics—turners, fitters and the different groups necessary for this type of industry. They suffer from this prejudice to which the Minister has referred. The prejudice against Irish manufactured goods is the primary cause, as instanced by them, for the decline in the demand for their products. We should ask ourselves is there any truth in these allegations? Anyone who goes about in a motor-car or has any connection with that industry or that mode of travel knows that there is undoubtedly a prejudice in favour of British sparking plugs and it is a prejudice which has no basis in fact. The previous Minister for Industry and Commerce, who was largely responsible for the development of this industry, laid down certain conditions for the continuance of the protection which is afforded to the industry, in reference to, for instance, the provision of up-to-date premises, the proper equipment of the factory in regard to machinery and processes generally——

And conditions of employment.

And conditions of employment. In regard to the conditions of employment, we are not making any entry on that basis in this discussion. This discussion relates to the question of the widespread prejudice against Irish products, how it affects industry, and how it can be overcome. The machinery installed in this factory is new up-to-date machinery. It is the latest type of machinery available in this form of industry. I inspected it myself. I know of my own knowledge that the firm have invested quite a considerable sum of money and they have got all the machinery available to do the work. The premises may not be too up to date but they are only temporary and they are waiting for another site. They have tests to which they subject their products and these tests are much superior to the tests to which the English products are subjected. They have withstood all tests and examinations and they have come out superior to the lines which are produced by their British competitors.

Despite that fact, there is always in the garages of the country a tendency to discount the Irish product and to advance the English product. For what reason? Not because the English product is at all superior. It is not, but because they can sell the English product at 7/6 to 12/6, whereas the Irish product is controlled—and rightly so—at 6/-. That is the reason. There is, of course, a quota. The Minister has exercised his powers and the industry is protected by a quota. There may be some smuggling from the North of English plugs. Of that I cannot speak. I have not got in touch with the king of smugglers to know how much business they have done it this regard, but I do not think it is very much. I do not think it is of such dimensions as would affect the whole industry, but there is this device on the part of garage owners and garage employees who want to make a little extra money. The very first thing they will suggest to the owner of any car that comes along is that the sparking plugs are the cause of trouble, that they should take them out and put in a set of Champions, K.L.G.'s or some other make. The factors who handle sparking plugs, in order to curry favour with the garages, do whatever they can to get a few dozen of the English plugs, and so they are pushing English plugs rather than Irish plugs.

I could say quite a lot about this matter. I know of it of my own knowledge and from the experiences of dozens of my friends who have been told to take out satisfactory Irish products before they have been fairly tried and to fit their cars with English plugs. Because they are not mechanically minded, they think that the garage hands must know, that the Irish plugs are the cause of the trouble and they accept the advice tendered them. Personally, I have done 24,000 miles on sparking plugs produced by the factory in my own constituency and they have never let me down. That statement can be corroborated by thousands of people and there is no necessity for pushing the English manufactured article at all. Here is the point to which I am coming. The Minister can help towards a solution of this problem even while allowing in these English plugs, so as to have a certain amount of competition, to keep prices right and to make native manufacturers keep up to standard. The industry is perfectly agreeable to allowing a certain quantity of these plugs into the Irish market, but they suggest—and it is a constructive suggestion—that these plugs should be used only by the assemblers in producing new cars for the market so as not to have these English plugs stocked by garages and sold at extravagantly high prices on the specious plea that they are far better than the Irish product. In other words he should exercise control of the quota in such a way that goods imported under it would not be used to the deteriment of the Irish industry.

Another fact which contributes greatly to the growth of prejudice against Irish manufactured goods is that sufficient advertising is not being done by this firm and, indeed, by a number of other Irish firms. Whether or not it is due to something in the Irish character, many Irish firms do not appear to understand the pulling power of advertising. They do not appear to understand the necessity for advertising their products. Whereas the previous Minister laid down certain conditions to which I have adverted, might I suggest to the present Minister that in operating these quotas he might lay down another condition, that a certain proportion of the resources of a company should be devoted to advertisement so that the people of Ireland will know what are the good quality goods and what are the aspects of the goods they are trying to sell which will appeal to them? The Minister himself, in fact, if he has any function in that regard, should develop an intensive advertising campaign—not that I have any interest whatsoever in any advertising agency -for Irish goods of all descriptions. That being done, we might overcome that prejudice which has such a detrimental effect upon the manufacture of Irish goods.

This is an extremely quiet and peaceable debate, a complete contrast with the debate on agriculture, but I suppose that farming has always a degree of noise about it which modern industry has not. At the same time, it has always been my opinion that the Department of Industry and Commerce is almost as important, if not as important, as the Department of Agriculture. If industry is successful it provides an enormous market for agriculture and for the employment of the sons and daughters of agricultural workers. No matter what people may say about industry in this country, it is quite a recent growth. It has been sought after and agitated for for quite a long time, but it is only in recent years that industry has been established here on any sort of basis. The Cumann na nGaedheal Party ventured on industry in rather a timid fashion. They set up a board to examine the possibilities of developing industry here and decide exactly what tariffs should be employed to protect it. They developed a few industries for a few years but just before our advent to power the greater number of them had disappeared.

When quite recently this Government came into power they seemed to adopt more or less the same attitude as the Cumann na nGaedheal Party adopted, and industry began to decline. Industry declined, not alone in the towns, cities and factories, but in the rural areas and the agricultural industry commenced to decline. I want to prove that by the number of people who emigrated and the number of people who are unemployed both in the cities and towns and in the rural areas. These people, having lost confidence, immediately went abroad to seek employment elsewhere, with the result that if the figures of those who emigrated within the last couple of years to the United States, Great Britain and some other countries were properly made up, I am sure the number would be appalling. This has had an extraordinary effect on industry because, due to unemployment and emigration, the sale of products began to decline.

Does the Deputy not know that that statement is absolutely untrue?

That statement is perfectly true. It cannot be denied. Not alone was there a decline on the industrial side but on the agricultural side. Up to a point—and a point not so very far away—the dairying industry was extremely successful but for the last three or four months it has dried up. Let us examine honestly, candidly and fairly why it has dried up. First, because people have left the cities and towns. Is it not a fact that 80,000 or 90,000 people have left the City of Dublin, emigrated, and how many more are unemployed? These people cannot consume milk and they cannot buy boots or shoes.

Did the Deputy say that 80,000 or 90,000 people had left Dublin?

I just wondered if I had heard him aright.

There are more people in the City of Dublin than there ever were.

Let that statement stand on the record.

But when I hear that there is less milk coming into the city than ever came in——

The Deputy is perfectly entitled to say so.

Is it not a fact that the milk produced in the country has been cut down? If less milk is consumed in the City of Dublin now than was consumed when the people took all the farmer could produce it must be because the people are consuming less now or because they are not there. Therefore the situation is not as rosy as would appear on the surface. Deputy Con Lehane must have heard some footsteps when he made this statement on page 2095:—

"I believe that between some of us who sit on this side of the House and the Minister there is a pretty deep philosophical chasm. The Minister and two or three of his colleagues make a fetish of free enterprise, of doing away with controls and the policy generally that, in the long run, if things are left to work out for themselves, they will work out for the best. That is a policy to which I do not subscribe and a policy to which the members of Clann na Poblachta do not subscribe. We believe in intelligent planning. I think it was Deputy Larkin who regretted the absence, or apparent absence, of any unified industrial and economic plan for the whole country. I may be told, and probably will be told, that it is premature to expect the emergence of such a plan."

This is the most important part of it:—

"At the back of my mind, speaking perfectly frankly, is the fear that the Minister and his Department are afraid of being accused of following too closely in the steps of their predecessors."

I think that is the kernel of the whole thing, but I am very glad that recently the Minister has changed his views on that and has ceased to adopt the policy that he adopted when he first came into office. There is hardly any doubt that the policy which he adopted when he came into office—if it was not his intention—had the effect of doing serious damage to industry in this country. Not alone the Minister himself, but his colleagues went very far to make foolish statements. The Minister for Social Welfare is always one of those and the Minister for External Affairs made some statements that were extremely damaging to industry.

Are Deputies entitled on this Vote——

The Deputy is quite in order.

I am glad to know that.

I am very glad, therefore, that the Minister has changed his attitude on that, and that these wild and foolish statements are no longer being repeated and that he is working in full co-operation with the industrialists of the country. Quite honestly and straightforwardly, I think we owe a deep debt of gratitude to the industrialists. If these industrialists were not producing during the war, nobody will deny that we would have been without shoes and boots and would possibly have had great difficulty in clothing ourselves. They had the greatest difficulty in procuring raw materials, but they succeeded in procuring them, and where they were unable to get them, they got reasonably good substitutes. They kept us, during all that period of some six years, reasonably well clothed and reasonably well fed, and we therefore owe a debt of gratitude to them.

They are people who were working without very much tradition against a country with a very long industrial tradition. There is no country in the world which has such an industrial tradition as Great Britain. Tariffs had to be applied here and they were very severely criticised, sometimes by farmers. The Minister himself often adventured on that line and told us about the farmers having to pay all these tariffs. These tariffs sometimes were not sufficient, and, even at present, industrialists here are paying from 20 to 30 per cent. more for their raw materials than industrialists in Great Britain. I am not sure how that can be got over. Before the war, the Germans did not succeed in getting over it and it was one of Hitler's greatest difficulties. We are in the position here that Great Britain, a great manufacturing country, with very powerful control of raw materials, can exert another form of tariff against us which I believe she is to a large extent exerting even up to the present.

One of the things which would benefit us here is an export market, but we scarcely yet have the machinery for an export market. I am doubtful if we have the capital and considerable capital is necessary in order to develop an export market. I believe that we will have to guarantee manufacturers who are exporting their products against losses for some considerable time. An export market costs something to get and I believe we would need to have some such fund as that, and, not alone that, but we would need, through our universities and other educational centres, to prepare and train travellers for the purpose of selling our goods abroad. It is not so much the quality of the goods that counts. I believe that it is the sales-masters and the confidence the exporters have which count. Sales-masters are sometimes able to sell a great number of things.

For instance, Deputy Connolly spoke about British goods and it used to be part of the Bible that the British produced the best goods in the world. No doubt, in certain lines, they produced excellent articles, but, in other lines, they produced goods which one could not say were of any high quality. Since the war, of course, the quality of their goods has deteriorated very much indeed but still they are able to sell them. They are able to sell them because of the variety they provide. On Saturday last, I saw what was known as a "cheap John" selling goods in a market. I watched the people buying these goods and I saw that what attracted them was the variety which he had displayed on his stand—and I can tell you that he had a big variety. It was the variety which brought the people around, and, once he got them around him, he was able to sell the goods.

One of the difficulties we have in our home market is that our variety of goods is not as large, or anything like as large, as the people require. There was, and is, a slump in footwear, in clothing and in some other industries. I said that it was due, to some extent, at any rate, to emigration and unemployment, with consequent shortage of money, but it is also due to a very considerable slump on the other side. There they have passed through the number one slump, and, whether they came in across the Border or otherwise, enormous quantities of cheap shoddy goods got in here—the worst type of shoes and children's footwear that could be bought; articles which would be dear at any price—and flooded the market. I am not saying for a moment that these goods got in here with the consent of the Government or the officials, but, however they got in, they got in, and did a lot of damage to the market here. Whatever the Government did allow in seems to be still here and there is a big store yet to be disposed of which is going to cause us a good deal of trouble.

The Minister has set up an advisory authority and I hope that that authority will have the courage of its convictions and that the Minister will stand behind it. I am sure that we as an Opposition will stand behind him in his effort to develop every industry we can possibly develop here. It is the only hope we have. Too long have we been without that arm and it is due to that fact that we had so much emigration and that our farmers are comparatively poor. They had no market but the market on the other side, and, for the sake of the farmers and producers, I hope the Minister will not fail to develop to the fullest extent by every means in his power the tourist traffic, so that, instead of having to ship our beef and whatever else we may have across the water, we will be able to feed it to tourists. There is no longer any necessity to say that the people here have not got enough to eat. The people have more than sufficient to eat and the more people we get in here, the more we can produce and the more we can get for our produce here at home.

I hope the Minister will do his utmost to develop the tourist industry and, together with that, there must be developed a reasonable and comfortable transport service. No matter how much we object to it, tourists will be coming in here with money and with luxurious cars—that is all to the good —and they will want good roads. I hope the Minister, in his interest to develop the tourist industry, will have a chat with the Minister for Local Government and try and persuade him to help the industry by keeping the roads in good condition. I may tell him that they are rapidly deteriorating, and, if they are allowed to go much further, you will not have many tourists with good cars coming here to travel over them.

I was very interested in Deputy Connolly's remarks about the boot and shoe industry. He apparently thinks that these people should get together and that the cure for the ills of the industry would be to establish a quota system, each factory to receive a quota. That is what I gathered from his remarks. I feel that that would be very bad for the industry, because I believe that, if you establish a quota system for an industry, it leads to inefficiency, whereas, if you have open competition in such an industry as the boot and shoe industry, it will lead to efficiency, the employers being anxious to sell their goods and the workers anxious to give good returns for the work for which they receive wages. If you have a quota system, it means that everybody becomes inefficient because they know the market is reserved for them and know that they will get so much work and will get no more.

The Minister said that during 1946 over 1,000,000 pairs of boots and shoes were imported and that, in 1947, 2,000,000 pairs were imported. Since he came into office, these imports have been drastically reduced, so much so that during the first three months of this year only 28,000 pairs, or about 2 per cent., were imported. Quite a number of people, especially those engaged in the industry, felt that the unemployment in the industry was caused by imports and I am glad the Minister has cleared up that point and has shown that imports are not the reason for that unemployment. The Minister has announced that he proposes to call the manufacturers together to devise a scheme for improving the quality and to get an export market. I hope he succeeds in that effort and I wish him well.

Another industry in my constituency which has been very much affected of late is the woollen industry, and particularly blanket making. One mill at present is completely shut down and another is working about half time. In 1947, the number of blankets imported was 100,000 pairs and, in 1948, 80,000 pairs, which is quite a considerable import. There is a free market here for blankets from any country in the world. England or any other country can send these blankets in and the local industry has no protection whatever. Up to this, the position was not so bad because there is a big demand for blankets in England, but, when that demand ceases, we will have dumping here and I want the Minister to look into the matter of giving protective tariffs to our blanket industry. This time of the year is the slack period, the period when most of the mills store up blankets for sale in the winter, and the mill which is working about half time at the moment would not be working even half time, were it not for the fact that they are storing the blankets for the winter. If these people could have an assurance that the market would be protected and that no dumping would be allowed, they would not mind building up stocks, but, so long as the market is left a free market, they are very nervous about employing their workers during the slack period.

I understand that this country has an export quota of 12,200 pairs. I was speaking to the manager of one of these mills who went to Belfast and offered his blankets to a Belfast firm. He told me that they had accepted them, the price being satisfactory, but, before he left, the merchant decided it would be better to ring up the Board of Trade to see that everything was all right. The Board of Trade said that everything was all right, but that blankets coming from Southern Ireland would have to bear a purchase tax of 66? per cent. That meant that these blankets were cut out because they were not made to the specification of the English utility blanket which is sold without purchase tax. The Irish blanket comes into the category of the better quality blanket which has to bear purchase tax at the rate of 66? per cent. Our blankets have to bear that tax, whereas English blankets coming in here can be sold in an open market.

Twenty years ago, the blanket trade had protection of 15 per cent., which was subsequently raised to 20 per cent. and, in 1936, to 25 per cent. and the least these manufacturers can expect —they have been giving good employment and not charging a penny more for their products which they are able to sell in competition with the English article—is that, in order to prevent dumping, the Minister will put a tariff of 25 per cent. on blankets coming in

The debate on this Estimate this year is different from the debate last year in that we have heard scarcely a word about the cost of living from the Opposition. A straw shows the way the wind blows and things must be going right, or we would have been hearing from them about it. I need not say any more about it. We have had some talk about sugar being sold at 7½d. a lb. We get a ration of ¾ lb. of sugar, 50 per cent. more than in England, at 4d. a lb., and any extra sugar required can be had at the rate of 7½d. a lb., which means that the racketeer and the profiteer are cut out. Not many years ago, I knew plenty of people who offered bags of sugar at the rate of 1/- a lb. and manufacturers and confectioners were delighted to send vans down in the night time to bring that sugar up to Dublin. I am very glad that the Minister has made it available at 7½d. because it cuts out the black marketeer and the profiteer.

With regard to tea, the Minister has announced that he intends to bring tea under ration, tea up to this having been supplied under quota. All the tea supplied under quota was subsidised, and I wondered, when I heard his announcement, because I understand that, in my city, a person who wanted ¼lb. of tea off the ration and who went into a multiple shop for it was charged 5/- a lb. In the ordinary shops, if a person gets extra tea, he pays 2/8 a lb., but I have been told by people that they had to pay 5/- in one of these multiple shops.

I wish they would come and tell us that and would give us the name.

I have raised it now. I thought these people might have been charged extra for tea off the ration. Other shopkeepers are delighted that tea is to be available on a coupon basis. Some of these people before the war had very small quotas and when during the war people sought to be taken on as customers, they were unable to supply them with a quota of tea, and naturally enough, these people would not then go to these shops for other groceries. They had to go to the multiple shops who were able to supply these commodities and they took on new customers by the hundred, whereas others were unable to take on any new customers. These other people are now very pleased to know that, if a person comes in and hands in the appropriate pages, they will be able to supply him, no matter how big their trade becomes.

With regard to bread—bread is being sold at present at a much lesser price than it was when wages were two-thirds of what they are now. Bread is one of the cheapest articles being sold at present. People suggest that the white bread is dear, but I saw people during the war queueing up to pay 1/- a lb. for white bread. They did not regard it as dear or exorbitant at a time when wages were much less than they are now. I think the whole difficulty now is that the ordinary bread is of too good a quality and, if the Minister wants to sell his white bread, he will need to increase the percentage extraction of ordinary bread, but I do not think he will want to do that and I do not think he should.

We have had a strike lasting for nine or ten weeks in another very big industry in Castlecomer, where we have the largest coal-mine in Ireland, a coal-mine which employs 500 men. The Labour Court held an inquiry down there some time ago and the men were asked to go back, but they said they would wait to see the result of the Labour Court's examination. This is creating a big loss to the men, the owners, the people of Castlecomer and Kilkenny and to the country in general. I do not know whether the Minister has any power in the matter or not but, if he has, I would ask him to ask the court to announce their findings as soon as possible. I do hope that they will be satisfactory, that both sides will be satisfied and that our industry will again be in production. There is a loss of 500 tons a week, which is a big loss to the country. I hope it will be in production in a short time.

Deputy Crotty who has just spoken amazes the House. In trying to suggest a comparison between what happened some years ago and what happens to-day, he makes the most extraordinary statements. I would like him to wait and tell us. He said that during the war there were queues waiting for white bread outside shops. My recollection of it is that during the war white flour was strictly prohibited and many people were put in jail for selling or black marketing white flour.

On a point of explanation. I have seen these queues within 100 yards of my own shop and I sell bread and I ought to know.

During the war?

During the war and there was no word said about it.

All I can say is that the "pip squeak" inspectors who were put into other activities when the change of Government came must not have been such "pip squeak" inspectors in Kilkenny.

He was asleep in those days.

Perhaps they were watching a bigger racket even than the white flour.

For instance?

For example?

I will give you plenty of instances.

The Minister is always threatening to get plenty of this and plenty of that. A Deputy gets up and suggests that certain things happened during the war when we know that the Department of Industry and Commerce had a team of inspectors going around. First of all, the millers were not allowed to mill white flour. Anybody caught sifting white flour got very severe penalties.

Did anyone get severe penalties? Were there any put in jail?

If the Deputy wants to be serious in his interjections, he should realise that one of the first things the Minister for Industry and Commerce did under his Government, when he got back to power, was to restore for supplies very large numbers of shopkeepers who had been cut off for breaches of all these regulations.

Can Deputy Crotty exist on that?

I am not going to answer any more questions because I am quite serious in what I am going to say. Deputy Crotty also said that nobody had raised the question of the cost of living, proof positive that the cost of living had gone down since the change of Government. I propose to deal with it. I have some information about it. We are not finished on this side yet in discussing this particular Estimate. First of all, I want to get down to this point: There appears now to be unanimity in the House that what were previously described as a form of racketeering in the country, protected industries, are necessary. After all the wild charges which were made against industrialists during the last general election, all the threats of exposure, when the books would be examined, of the terrible disasters which overtook the country, everybody now realises that side by side with the agricultural industry there must be a form of balanced economy that can only be brought about by having ordinary industrial activities which will give employment to those who are not employed on the land.

Does the Deputy say there was no racketeering?

I am saying that the charge against industry generally was that protection for industries was only a protection for racketeers.

There never was such a charge.

Indeed there was.

There never was.

Indeed there was. If the Deputy reads the debates in the House prior to the time the Deputy came here, he will see it. There was a great deal of objection to any protection for any industry.

That is not so.

The Deputy should read the speeches of the Minister for Agriculture when he was Deputy Dillon. I can quote it. Time and time again he was positively against protection of industry. The Minister for Agriculture, when he was on this side of the House, felt that we had no business to try to start these industries. He actually spoke on this side of the House to the effect that the difficulty in getting agricultural workers at rates of wages which would make the sale of our agricultural produce possible was because our people were being employed at twice the rate of wages on stupid ideas, making tin-pot types of furniture and so forth. Let us not say now that that was not the case. The position now is that it is agreed that we should have industries. The Minister for Industry and Commerce has changed considerably in the short period of time that he has been responsible for that Department because he probably now realises that it is not all what it was suggested to be.

It is a pity the Deputy would not change.

About what? Change about what? Does the Minister mean that I should change my political outlook, my religion? What does he mean? Change what? I would like the Minister to be definitely more specific.

Change on to the Estimate.

Very well. There is, however, a very serious difference between the members of the Labour Party and the members of Fine Gael. I do not know to what side the Clann na Poblachta Party hold on this. First of all, we have listened to-day to a repetition by Deputy Connolly of a very severe castigation of the Minister because of the statements which were made recently in connection with the unemployed and the manner in which they were answering the call to a certain specific type of work. I did not hear the Minister answer either Deputy Connolly to-day or Deputy Larkin when he spoke on the same point last week.

That is a pleasure in store for you.

I hope it is a pleasure in store for Deputy Larkin and Deputy Connolly. I say there are certain differences. One of the differences is a very important one to certain people. I can understand it. I spoke on it last year. Deputy Larkin again this year repeated what he more or less requested on the last occasion that this Estimate was discussed. He feels that the time has been reached when the worker in industry has a right to be on the board of management of the industry in which he is employed and also to participate in the profits of the industry.

Anything wrong with that?

I shall refer to it in my own way. He says that just in that manner. As I understand the present position controlling industry and the conditions of employment in industry, the Government will give protection to industries provided the industries fulfil certain requirements, some of which were mentioned by Deputy Connolly. The industry must produce a certain quality of article; it must pay certain specific wages; it must comply with certain other conditions and must not exploit the consumer. I mention this for the simple reason that there is an opinion abroad that a great deal more rapid development could take place in the establishment of additional industries if those who are asked to establish those industries or who are encouraged to do so can be satisfied on certain points.

I cannot see private individuals starting a private enterprise with their own private capital and with their own knowledge, experts and so forth, if they have the threat over them that other people will join, by law, if you like, in the management of their industry, as distinct from the control which the Department of Industry and Commerce rightly exercises over them. It is all very well to talk about the dividing of profits. If we can establish industries that will give reasonably well-paid employment to the workers, without overworking them and, at the same time, give them reasonably good hours, and so forth, it is not fair to say that the owners of the industry, so long as it is private enterprise, should have to provide additional benefits when they may have to save their margins of profit against times when they have losses. To me, this difference between the members of the Labour Party and, I take it, certain elements of the Coalition group, will have to be solved one way or the other. It will have to be made clear what the position is going to be. Then you will have to have a new approach to the method of establishing the industry.

Are you all agreed on the matter over there?

We will be agreed on any of these matters when we are again over there. At the moment it is your business to be agreed, if you can.

A Deputy

Then it will be a long time before you can make up your mind.

The Deputies opposite may be somewhat surprised if Deputy Larkin carries out the threat which he made in his speech and withdraws his support from the Government. If they do not stop abusing the workers in the manner in which they have been abused recently, the people over there may find themselves in a minority and the change may take place without an election.

That is your dream.

It is not a dream at all, but it is something you may find out. There was a Government over there which thought it had a very proud record when it had ten years——

That is a long time ago.

I agree. This is something that will have to be settled by a pronouncement by the Minister on behalf of the Government. If industry is required, if industrial development is to be encouraged and is felt to be desirable and if, in connection with that industry, the industrialists have to give certain undertakings as to how they will carry on, all that should be stated and there should not be a veiled threat that their conditions will be altered at some other time, or something else. If certain groups feel that workers should be the owners of their industries, what is to stop them from establishing an industry—as I said on the last occasion this Estimate was discussed—on a co-operative basis? What is to stop them from competing with the ordinary businessman? What is to stop them from showing how labour can, by its own ingenuity and knowledge, operate an industry better than the capitalist element from whom they are making these demands by suggestion?

Is that view universally held on your side of the House?

I am not giving the views of this side of the House. I am just indicating, as a result of the discussion on this Estimate, that there is a difference between the members on that side of the House. I say that if industry is to be encouraged and if we want to get these 84,000 unemployed reduced considerably by getting industries established, one of the things which may prevent certain industries starting will have to be clarified—the difference which exists between the Labour element of the Coalition and the Fine Gael element. As I have already said, I do not know where Clann na Poblachta stands in regard to this question.

I am sure the Deputy knows quite well.

I do not. Perhaps the Deputy will tell me?

Very well. I will give way to the Deputy.

I do not know where Clann na Poblachta stand in regard to this matter because I have never heard their view ventilated as clearly and as specifically as it has been ventilated by the Labour Deputies who have spoken.

Would the Deputy say where he stands?

He has indicated where he stands.

Please give Deputy Briscoe a chance to make his speech.

One of the most important sections of industry that could give very large-scale employment is building. One of the evils from which our people, and the working classes in particular, suffer greatly at the moment is lack of proper housing facilities and accommodation. The Government have not changed in any way their desire to see the building of houses continued. I do not say that they have in any way diminished the support to encourage housing as it was in the past. Local authorities are anxious about it. This present Government have appointed a housing director with a special staff to see how best these matters can be accelerated. That is one of the industries which can, as I say, give very considerable employment and which can bring great relief to the mass of our people who are in dire need. Yet progress is considerably slow.

Has the Minister anything to do with the housing drive?

Oh, yes. I am coming to it. If we had very large housing schemes being rapidly built, every ancillary industry would profit. Employment would be greater in the furniture industry and it would be greater in every single industry that would be involved in the equipping of these houses for the people. That is how I relate it.

That would not make it relevant.

Whatever delay there is in accelerating progress is going to delay employment in certain industries which are working on short time. I shall deal with that point later. However, this is something that perhaps the committee of which Deputy Connolly spoke would take up with the Minister. If the master builders, the trade unions and representatives of the building operatives could get together and find out how local authorities, in particular, could be helped, considerable employment would be given. I believe it was mentioned, and was in order in this debate, that because of the shortage of certain types of skilled labour, unskilled labourers at present signing on at the labour exchange, and who are on the list of unemployed, could be employed and would not, therefore, be on that list. I was glad to hear Deputy Connolly emphatically say that there was no truth whatever in the statement made in this House recently that, because of the advocacy of the Fianna Fáil members, the unemployment register was being stuffed so as to make the figures of unemployed look larger than they actually were. Deputy Connolly repudiated that statement in no uncertain terms and I was glad to hear it. I hope that that hare will not be started again.

That is his opinion.

In connection with the statement made by the Minister as to the difficulty in getting workers to answer the call of Bord na Móna and the Electricity Supply Board in regard to their present large-scale schemes, I quite appreciate the point of view of the Labour Deputies who have spoken on that matter. It is not so easy to get unemployed men in Dublin who have their families here to agree to go to——

The Dublin workers were not asked. I was speaking about rural workers.

As a matter of fact, when Deputy Connolly was speaking, he was labouring under the same misapprehension as I was. The Minister did not correct him so, therefore, I was quite entitled to assume that he was speaking correctly on the point. In any event, it is true that city dwellers who have families and commitments cannot be expected to go to another part of the country to work. When this matter was discussed last week the same thing was suggested and interjections were made from that side of the House while Deputy Corry was speaking. He was asked: "Is it not nearer than to go to England?" I want to say this and I hope Deputy Hickey will appreciate it. I subscribe emphatically to the Fianna Fáil view that the ordinary worker has the perfect constitutional right to choose for himself the work he wants to go into. I would resent very much a development whereby our working people would be dragooned and sent along en masse as if they were, if you like, under a State where they would be conscripted to work.

That is a scandalous statement to make.

What is scandalous?

The statement which the Deputy has just made.

What have I suggested?

I will deal with it when replying.

The Minister must not try to misconstrue what I said. I am saying to Deputy Hickey that I subscribed to a certain point of view as distinct from another. I want to develop that further and say, that being the case, that you can bring employment to those who are unemployed. As to the Fianna Fáil policy during the war, we were asked why we did not prohibit our people from going to England for work and the answer we gave was: "Until we can provide full employment for our people we have no right to restrict their freedom or prevent them from going for work wherever they can find it, but it must be the free choice of the worker."

There was no free choice then. It was either go or starve.

I do not know whether I am speaking very stupidly or whether those who misunderstand me are taking my remarks in a stupid fashion. What we did say was that unless and until there was sufficient work for any person who sought work at home, the Government had no right to restrict his freedom to go wherever he wanted to go whenever he could find work. In the same way, if we cannot provide State industries or semi-State industries and cannot provide sufficient work at attractive terms of employment for our people, then we are going to have this number of unemployed with constant emigration because they have to go to find work somewhere else. The only way that can be dealt with is by a plan of development of State undertakings, semi-State undertakings and a certain amount of private enterprise. Between the lot, it should be possible to find sufficient work for all our people in a reasonable space of time. Until that is found, I say we must have some means of sustenance for those of our people who, through no fault of their own, cannot find reasonable employment. I do not know whether Deputy Hickey will regard that as something very extravagant.

Do you believe that private enterprise will enable you to get that?

I said all three things —State undertakings which will give employment, semi-State undertakings which will give employment and, on top of that, you have room for private enterprise.

To make all the profits if possible.

Now we know where Clann na Poblachta stands, if the Deputy is in that Party. I do not want to attribute something to the Party which may not be correct. Deputy Cowan indicates that he is against private enterprise because private enterprise will pay certain profits to industrialists.

If Deputy Briscoe would continue without looking for interruptions and answering them we would get on better.

I should like to draw the Minister's attention to another matter. I understand that in Rineanna some hostels were built to house people who have to stay overnight and that these hostels are closed at the moment or not availed of because the air companies considered the price of accommodation to be too high. I think it was 30/- per night. The result is that the air companies bring their personnel and passengers who have to stay overnight into Limerick or some place adjacent to Limerick where they can get accommodation at a much more reasonable price. I should like the Minister to have that looked into. If there is a considerable loss on Rineanna at present, making use of these hostels may reduce that loss.

Deputy Connolly spoke of trying to educate the public to understand that Irish-manufactured goods were not necessarily second-rate. He suggested that there should be an encouragement to Irish manufacturers to advertise. I remember that when the Minister took over office one of the things he felt that was wrong with Irish industry was that part of the high cost of its products to the public was due to the fact that, from the point of view of the turnover, the advertising costs were too high and they should be cut down or cut out altogether. I do not know whether I am quoting the Minister wrongly.

Indeed you are.

There was some reference to it and I read some comments on it in an industrial organ.

Irish Industry.

Quite right. I remember reading the speech of the Minister in which he did make reference to advertising by Irish companies and said that he felt that if less advertising was indulged in there would be lower charges to the public. There you have a difference of opinion. I am not giving my own opinion on that. I am just saying that there is a difference of opinion between two sections of one Government.

The Minister gave certain figures in his introductory speech. He gave one set of figures to show there was an increase in our exports. The increase was in the form of money and it was related to increased industrial output. I say that the increase in our exports was due to the higher prices charged for our commodities, not necessarily industrial commodities. It does not follow that because our adverse balance was reduced or our export figures were up that more goods were in fact disposed of from the industrial point of view.

So far as industrial exports are concerned, last year they were up by 20 per cent. on 1947— £2,000,000.

The figures given by the Minister were comprehensive figures.

I am giving the Deputy the specific increase relating to non-agricultural exports.

That is something I did not see. The Minister also gave figures of people in employment to show that an increased number of people were employed. I want to say to the Minister that that also can be misleading. I happen to know a number of industries where workers are on what is called short time. Deputy Crotty referred to a similar situation in his constituency and also Deputy Connolly, so far as his constituency was concerned. A number of workers in industrial employment to day are on short time. A great number of factories, instead of laying off people, have put them on a rotation system, by which they work for so many weeks and are then laid off for one week. From the statistics point of view these workers are still regarded as being fully employed while they are not fully employed. The Minister ought to have these figures examined with a view to seeing how many weeks in the year each one of these people has been working. He will find that he will get a slightly different picture and it may encourage him to look even more favourably than he has in the last few months, which have been, if you like, favourable towards the situation.

Deputy Crotty talked about the cost of living. The cost of living has, of course, gone up since the change of Government. My children have to pay 5d. for sweets that they previously got for threepence.

Deputy Lemass imports?

With the two Deputy O'Higginses yapping at the one time it is difficult to hear what they want.

They were not Deputy Lemass imports?

I am talking about Irish sweets made with Irish sugar. The price of sugar to the sweet manufacturers has gone up and the sweet manufacturers are entitled to charge the public more. I know that sweets have gone up from 3d. to 5d. for certain types. In other cases they have gone up other amounts. That is an increase in the cost of living.

Is the Deputy aware that the price of 7½d. a lb. for manufacturers was not fixed by me but by Deputy Lemass when he was Minister for Industry and Commerce?

Since the change of Government the price of sweets has been permitted to increase. Whatever the reason is I do not know.

I am making it quite clear that my predecessor fixed the price of sugar at 7½d. to manufacturers.

I am not saying he did or did not. I am stating that since the Minister came into office the price of sweets to the public has been permitted to go up.

Because we are eating Irish instead of Dutch sweets.

I supposed we were eating Irish sweets before. I thought our manufacturers manufactured sweets during the war. It now appears that they did not from what the Minister says.

Is the Deputy suggesting that they are profiteering?

I am not suggesting anything of the kind. The profiteering suggestions came from that side. I am saying the cost of living has gone up.

Because sweets have gone up.

Since Deputy Cowan is so concerned about the poor of Dublin, does he realise that since last week the ordinary bun has gone up because of a decision of the Government that white flour must now be used in any form of confectionery, including buns? Is that not correct?

This is reminiscent of the French Revolution.

It is reminiscent of promises that were made and never intended to be kept. That constitutes an increase in the cost of living. Deputy Crotty had some cross talk with the Minister which I was not able to follow fully. However, he mentioned that in his constituency if a person bought an additional amount of tea over and above the ration he was entitled to get it at the rationed price. Deputy Crotty, of course, said people were paying 5/- but I understand, and I would like it made clear, that the position now is that you get a certain amount of tea on the ration at a certain price which contains the Government subsidy. If you want additional tea you pay a non-subsidised price for it.

Well, that is the general run of opinion.

The Deputy must be dealing in the black market.

I am not dealing in the black market and I have never dealt in the black market. I know nothing about the black market, but I do know that it is believed that, in the same way that sugar can be bought now at 7½d. above the three-quarters of a pound ration at the subsidised price, there is no objection to it. Am I correct in that?

No, tea is issued to anybody for sale except the tea which bears the subsidy and which is supposed to be retailed at 2/8.

Is there not going to be a change?

The Deputy is talking about the position as it is now. If the Deputy is trying to get a little advance information as to what is going to happen, that is another day's work.

That is typical of the Minister. That has been his attitude all through. I am not interested in tea, no more than I am in the housing business. I read into the Minister's statement, and there was a pronouncement made by the Parliamentary Secretary in answer to a question some months ago, that there was going to be additional tea available at a non-subsidised price and that the subsidy charged to the State was going to be less. The Minister has something of that nature in his own introductory remarks. I am asking, is that so? Is it going to mean that if you want extra tea, after a certain period you can get off the ration tea at a higher price?

The Deputy is now amending his remarks. What the Deputy alleged was that that was the practice already.

I said it was generally believed. I never bought any because I do not need it. I get enough on the ration to keep me going at the present. It is generally believed as the result of an answer to a question by the Parliamentary Secretary that this was going to be done.

Wait and see.

The Minister said in his introductory remarks that there will be a saving in the tea subsidy because a certain amount of tea will be sold. I am not confusing it with the tea sold to restaurants and hotels. That is another matter altogether. I should like the Minister to make that quite clear. In any event, Deputy Crotty talked about the price of bread being cheaper now than it ever was during the war. As a matter of fact, an increase has been put on to the price of bread since the advent of the Government because of a threatened strike—in fact there was a strike—so that bread is, in fact, dearer.

With regard to this new industrial advisory body that has been talked about, I do not exactly know what it is going to be. The Minister stated in his introductory speech that, because of the delay which was bound to happen since it was discovered that legislation was necessary to regulate the powers of this body, in view of the urgency they are going to be permitted to start before the legislation goes through. I am not yet clear, nor do I think anybody is clear, as to what the function of this body is going to be.

Some Deputies seem to think that the function of this body will be to advise and recommend to the Government purely on matters of applications of tariffs, whether it be an increase to an existing tariff, or a decrease to an existing tariff, or an application for a new tariff for a new industry. Other Deputies seem to think that this advisory body will be the body to whom potential promoters of new industries will go with a view to finding out whether this is an industry which will be considered necessary, whether there is any intention of the Government to suggest the site that they should bring their industry to, and so forth. I do not know whether the Minister ought not to be a little more specific in telling the House exactly what this body is supposed to do.

There is a rumour that this body is going to have a very large staff up to some hundreds of officials previously, or to a great extent, in the Department of Industry and Commerce. If that is the case it means they are going to do a terrific amount of research work, a terrific amount of examination and they are going to be a body that one would expect quick results from. I should like the Minister to be somewhat specific in order to let the people know. There are people who say: "If we are considering either an extension to an existing industry or a new industry to whom do we go? Do we still go to the Department of Industry and Commerce or do we have to wait for this new body?" My view is that up to this moment, anyway, and for some time to come the proper place to go for a new industry is to the Department of Industry and Commerce and let the Department decide whether they will give a decision on this matter or advise the people to wait for this new body. However, we will not know yet when it is going to be set up except that I imagine from what I read in this morning's paper this body will function almost immediately.

The final thing I want to refer to is the tourist trade. It is true that a great deal of agitation has developed in the minds of the people in recent times about whether tourist trade was of value or not to this country. A lot of people thought that tourists coming here were actually taking the bread and butter out of the mouths of the citizens of this State. Others suggested, as did Deputy Lehane, that this was a worthless trade because the money which they brought here was only bits of paper of no value and that we were giving goods away for that money.

I believe that the tourist trade is an important one for the country. The people in the hotel and restaurant business supply food to the visitors who come here. The income derived from those tourists is in exchange for the services rendered to them. The people employed in hotels and restaurants are not necessarily producing industrial articles, but they are rendering services for which the country, in return, gets a big income. If the people from other countries who come here in a friendly way to see our country and spend their money here while on holiday should feel that they were not wanted—if there is the suggestion that they should not come here —then, I am afraid, it will not take very long before you will damage the tourist industry to such an extent that it will be almost impossible to recover that trade again. The Minister stated that in 1948 which was the peak year so far as tourist traffic is concerned, the income which this country derived from it was in the region of £30,000,000 represented food, shelter, services and other odds and ends.

The people who come here contribute very extensively indeed to our revenue. They smoke cigarettes on which there is a heavy tax, and they drink whiskey, and plenty of it. All that is of great benefit to the State, and hence I suggest there ought to be unanimity on this, that we all do our best to see that this particular industry is encouraged and that it will not be spoken of in a disparaging manner. Nothing of a disparaging nature should be said about those customers of our nation who come here as tourists. We should do our utmost to see that the country would benefit from the tourist industry.

The most important item that I had in my mind, when I rose to make my contribution to this debate was to get a specific answer from the Minister to the questions put to him by Deputy Larkin as to where he stands on two or three matters. These matters are of vital interest to the Labour Party and if you like, to other elements in this House.

Are not the other elements entitled to make up their own minds about them?

I suppose Deputy Cowan may be described as one splinter of another element in this House, but there are other elements besides Deputy Cowan and the Labour Party which make up the Coalition Government. We, for example, are on this side of the House, and we are anxious to find out——

Why are you so concerned with the Labour Party?

I daresay that, before the debate concludes, Deputy Cowan will give us the benefit of his advice. I suggest to him that he should allow Deputy Briscoe to finish his speech.

I am about to finish, and I do not want to be set off on new trains of thought by the Deputy's interjections. I am anxious about this particular matter—that Deputy Larkin put certain specific questions to the Minister for Industry and Commerce. Deputy Connolly repeated them and I think they are of vital interest. I do not want to say that I am in agreement with them. I am not in agreement with these particular points, but as I have said——

Then why not forget about them?

——I would like to have that issue more or less clarified, so that the Minister can get to the point and say: "There is the policy of this Government for as long as we are going to be here." If he thinks that he is going to be there for the next 15 or 14½ years, then I do not want to see the country suffer by any uncertainty on the part of the Government in making up their minds as to policy. The country will make up its mind about this Government when it gets the opportunity. It may put them back with a much larger majority than they have at present as a Coalition and it may not, but the duty of this House is to do the business of the nation, and one of the most important items in doing the business of the nation is to find the ways and means of giving employment to those of our people who are unemployed and to see that those ways and means shall provide good conditions of employment. I do not think the Labour Party ever grumbled with Fianna Fáil with regard to the conditions of employment that it provided, or with the setting up of the Labour Court.

What about the standstill Orders?

The last Government guaranteed and continued the payment of subsidies on essential foodstuffs. These have now been removed. Deputy Davin, of course, is not so innocent as he pretends when he speaks of the standstill Orders. If we had not the standstill Orders, and if we had not provided the millions which were paid in subsidies there would have been a different story. There is no standstill Order now, and there is no great emergency. We are getting out of it because the supplies which are coming from all over the world have changed all that. There has been an increase in the cost of production, due to increases in wages. The point is that we on this side of the House subscribe definitely to the right of Irish citizens to find the best employment they can. We believe that it is the duty of the Government, whatever Government it is, to encourage, as far as possible, every single thing that will help to absorb our unemployed. We subscribe to certain minimum conditions of employment and certain maximum hours of working.

Are you suggesting that the wages and conditions offered either by Bord na Móna or the Electricity Supply Board are unfair conditions?

You have repeated that three times.

I think you are somewhat impatient with me and that you are taking me up in the wrong in advance of what I have to say.

I know the Deputy.

I know the Minister. We know each other privately outside. The Minister is somewhat impatient with me, taking me up somewhat in advance of the jumps before I am over them. I am just expressing what I think should be the policy the Government should adopt. There is a very serious unemployment problem and there is emigration as a result of it. In view of that, I think there should be certain large-scale State schemes to absorb as many of those unemployed as possible. Encouragement should also be given, as far as possible, to State-aided undertakings to take up another lot of the unemployed, and then for the balance there should be some definite policy stated to encourage private enterprise with the profit that goes to the people who start it.

I do not see that there is anything wrong in an industrialist getting a certain yearly income out of his business. There is nothing more wrong in that than that Deputy Cowan, as a solicitor, should get an income for the very good advice that he gives to his clients.

I certainly would not suck the lifeblood out of them anyway.

It all depends. I know very few solicitors, or very few professional people, who will give their services free, gratis and for nothing, no matter in how aggravated a form the blood may be flowing out of their particular clients. Recently, we in the Dublin Corporation had to set up a scheme for the giving of free legal advice to people who could not afford to pay for it and who, consequently, would otherwise have to go without it. So long as we subscribe to the system under which we are living at the moment, so long as we subscribe to the present Constitution, I have yet to be told that the making of a profit by a business man is something that is illegal. Unless the Dáil makes it illegal for people to work for the profit motive, then I say it is quite legal for those engaged in private enterprise to look for a profit out of their business. I say that private enterprise can absorb, under very good conditions of employment, a considerable number of our unemployed. It can also continue to keep in employment a considerable number of those who are presently in employment.

When I speak of private enterprise, I mean public companies as distinct from State enterprises. The State will be nationalising the railways very soon. When that happens, the railways will become State enterprises and State employment. The Electricity Supply Board is already State employment. The same applies to Bord na Móna. The Sugar Company is a semi-State enterprise because there is a considerable amount of private capital in it. I want to wind up by saying that these are some of the things in respect of which we find there are differences of opinion, and in respect of which there can be, as has been suggested, unstable conditions unless there is agreement. The Minister, therefore, will have to make up his mind. He will have to make his pronouncement and, when he does, it may be that some of his own supporters will disagree with him, while, on the other hand, he may find some of us agreeing with him on it. That is the problem that faces the Coalition Government. The Government have to make decisions and stand over them. Sometimes these decisions are not very popular, and when the Government go to the people they will get it in the neck if the people think they have done something wrong.

I do not usually criticise other Deputies' speeches, but I do not think I ever heard a more blandly inaccurate speech than Deputy Briscoe's. I think it almost amounted to defamation of character by innuendo of the Minister. He spoke about the building industry and inferred that the Minister was not doing what he ought to do in connection with furthering building.

On a point of explanation. I made no such accusation against the Minister.

You did, by innuendo.

I did not, but if the Minister and his Party are that thin-skinned, I will present them with it.

I do not think the Minister is thin-skinned and I am not thin-skinned, and I hope I am not half-witted, but if the Deputy's speech meant anything—the beginning portion of it—it meant that the Minister was not doing what he ought to do in connection with furthering the building industry. If it did not mean that, it meant nothing at all.

Sure, it meant nothing in the long run.

Perhaps the Deputy will read it, if he gets an opportunity, and no matter where he reads it.

The Deputy did not mention that local authority building is not really concerned with the Minister for Industry and Commerce and that the Minister quite recently has taken the licences off subsidy houses. That was a very big step and it has helped the building industry to go ahead more smoothly. Of course, that was not mentioned.

We heard a lot about the increased price of sweets. I may be wrong, but I am not aware that sweets are included in the cost-of-living index figure. But, again by inference, we were to accept it that that was so.

I would like now to turn to the real subject—industry. The Taoiseach stated the other day that this country suffered from chronic under-investment. That is perfectly true. It suffers also from chronic under-employment and has for many years suffered in that way. Those twin evils have walked hand in hand down the pages of history in this country and every Government have tried to do what they could to further investment and to increase employment. The first Irish Government, the Cumann na nGaedheal Government, started the system of tariffs in order to help Irish industries. They adopted a system of selective tariffs. Then we had the Fianna Fáil Government and they in their earlier period accelerated the tariffs given to Irish industries until at one period we had tariffs going on all the time. As the years went on, they became more selective and now we have the inter-Party Government using the tariff system as a means to further the promotion of Irish industry, but at the same time trying to watch the interests of the consuming public in a way that was not done in the past.

Tariffs are absolutely necessary— there is no getting away from that. They are necessary for the promotion of industry in this country. We are next door to one of the greatest industrial countries in the world, a country with a trained population, with people who have an inherited business acumen. Their work people in many cases, especially in the textiles industries, have an inherited sense which enables them to become, in a very short time, first-class workmen. We cannot in this country train in an agricultural population as quickly as it can be done in industrial countries where they have been at it for a long time.

That system of tariffs carried with it in the past certain dangers and difficulties. It is absolutely necessary to have tariffs in order that this country may build up its industrial arm, but, nevertheless, certain people were apt to forget that old phrase that property has its duties as well as its rights. They were apt to forget that that phrase is applicable to industry and that industries in the process of being built up behind the tariff wall ultimately must give value to the consumer or no tariff will protect them. I remember Deputy Lemass talking somewhat along those lines in the last year or two of his Government. I think our manufacturers are realising that and in the main are doing a very good piece of work.

We have had difficulties and we have had complaints of the quality of Irish goods in the past. I think those complaints are becoming fewer and that shows that this country can and will succeed in building up an industrial arm. An industrial arm is necessary here and, indeed, it is necessary in every country. We are mainly an agricultural country and to balance our agricultural population we must have factories and industries to take the products of agriculture and to absorb some of our surplus population.

The Minister for Industry and Commerce is doing a very good piece of work in his Department. He is watching the interests of the manufacturers and seeing that every effort is made to promote Irish industry, but at the same time he is keeping an eye on the interests of the consumer. The necessity for watching both sides of the question is something that has only become apparent as the years go on. I am glad to see that the Minister is divesting himself of as many controls as can be safely laid down because industry is not really helped by controls. In many cases the fair and equitable distribution of goods may be helped but the actual work of industry is not furthered by control. In fact, industry is slowed up. Every business man will welcome the gradual divesting of these controls by the Minister.

In that connection I would like to mention the subject of customs clearance. I would impress upon the Minister the importance of speeding up that process. Goods accumulate in Dublin and other ports of entry and the warehouses become cluttered up. Business men generally find that they cannot get goods through sufficiently quickly. I would impress upon the Minister the importance of speeding up this customs clearance by every means in his power. The port authorities would appreciate that very much indeed.

I would like to say a few words in connection with Córas Iompair Éireann. Deputy Lemass in his speech here mentioned the site of the Córas Iompair Éireann bus station in Dublin and he said that the Dublin Corporation approved of that. The pistol was held to Dublin Corporation's head. The Dublin Corporation never approved of that site as a bus station. The town planning committee was against it. The consultant town planner in his report mentioned an entirely different site as being a suitable one for the City of Dublin and the corporation experts were not in favour of the present site. Lastly, common-sense was all against the selection of the present site. This site means that country buses will now be dragged across the north and south traffic lines of Dublin City in order to reach the terminus. Surely, on the face of things, that is not wise. Surely that is not a very sensible place to put the main Dublin bus station.

The Minister has had a very difficult task in clearing up the sorry mess in Córas Iompair Éireann. I think most members of the House and the public are conversant with the details of the various schemes which had to be either abandoned or cut down in the public interest and in the interests of economy. I need not go into them now. But I would like to mention a report which appeared in the press recently in connection with Córas Iompair Éireann. According to that report sight-seeing tours by bus are going to be organised in Dublin. I do not think that should be done until the bus queues are taken off the streets and I would suggest that a much better purpose would be served by those sight-seeing buses if they were put on as auxiliary buses during the rush hours. That is done in other cities. I myself have stood in a bus queue and felt very pleased, indeed, to see a bus come round the corner marked "Auxiliary relief bus"; and half the queue got into that bus. I suggest that use could be made of these proposed sight-seeing buses. It could be arranged quite easily. It is arranged in other cities and I see no reason why Córas Iompair Éireann could not do it here.

We have had some discussion here on the question of tourism. I wonder do we do for this country all the specialised advertising that we ought to do. I wonder is Dublin ever advertised as being the very beautiful Georgian city it is. There are not so many large Georgian cities in the world and we certainly are the only capital city which can claim to be a Georgian city. We have some of the most beautiful Georgian buildings in existence. That is a type of selective advertising that I would suggest to the Tourist Board. "Come to Dublin and see the finest Georgian city in the world." There is no other Georgian city which can touch Dublin and there are a great number of people who are interested in Georgian architecture. There are other forms of specialised advertising which we might do. Many Americans would be interested in certain aspects of Irish life or Irish architecture. That type of advertising should be taken up and these things should be circularised through the agencies.

Another matter in connection with Americans touring continental countries and perhaps coming here via England is, is there any way in which they can be assured of getting sailing tickets during the busy months of July and August or do they have to stand in a queue with other people? There may be some answer to that. I know a number of people have raised that question and I would like to have an answer to it.

Industry and Commerce is a very big Department and a very important Department and I think the Minister has done a very fine job in the last 12 months. I congratulate him warmly on his work and I am glad to see that he is furthering in such an intelligent —for that is the manner in which I think it is being done—way the industrial side of this country. We must have an industrial arm. It keeps our population at home and provides a market for our agriculture. It gives employment. It is vitally necessary to the country in time of war. I congratulate the Minister on what he has done in that respect and for the way in which he has watched over the consumers' interests at the same time.

One of the principal planks of the Republican programme in the old Sinn Fein days was that when we attained national freedom, or even portion of it, whereby we could develop our own industries, that measure of freedom should be utilised in every possible way to develop our national resources. In 1922, I must admit, we did get a certain amount of control so far as certain rights were concerned inasmuch as we could control Departments of State. That gave us liberty also to put into effect the programme of industralising the country but up to 1932, the efforts made in that direction by the Government in power at the time fell very far short of the expectations of those who believed, even before we got that modicum of freedom, that industrial expansion would follow. Nobody believed that in ten years so little would be done. I admit that some new industries were established during that period but, on the other hand some of the old industries that were in existence when the British ruled this country were closed down. I refer to the small flour mills distributed over the country.

In 1932 when Fianna Fáil took over control of the country, they immediately started on a programme of industrialisation. I think it must be admitted—and I am sure every honest Deputy on the other side of the House will admit—that a number of industries were established in a remarkably short space of time. Many of these industries were of vital importance during the emergency in serving the needs of the community when most foreign sources of supply became exhausted. The mills, which, as I have already mentioned were closed during the regime of the Cumann na nGaedheal Government were reopened. We had other industries, such as the manufacture of boots and shoes, established. No doubt some of these were in existence prior to the coming into office of the Fianna Fáil Government but they would have been entirely inadequate to meet the demands made on that industry during the emergency period, had no additional factories been established. Due to the fact that a number of boot and shoe factories were established by the Fianna Fáil Government, we found during the emergency period that every man, woman and child in the country had at least sufficient boots and shoes to wear. That is something we can look back upon with pride. We hope now to look ahead and I hope that the present Minister will put on an extra spurt. In spite of the fact that from time to time he uses threats, as we read in the newspapers, against those engaged in industry, giving the impression by times that he is opposed to the establishment of industries in this country, he at other times, clearly and distinctively admits that he is all out to promote the establishment of further industries in the country.

I am glad to see by to-day's Press that the new Advisory Authority are going into occupation of their premises. I am glad that the Minister accepted the advice tendered to him by Deputy Lemass in his speech on this Estimate. As well as I remember Deputy Larkin tendered the same advice, that he should get this Industrial Advisory Authority going as quickly as possible in order to allay the suspense that apparently exists in the minds of those who are prepared to engage in Irish industry, so that they can see where they are going and what is expected of them. I hope that that authority will not confine their activities to sitting in their offices in Stephen's Green, waiting for the appearance before them of some particular individual seeking for information as to what type of industry can be established in his area, speaking probably on behalf of a number of residents in that area. I hope that this authority will go into their work carefully, deeply and enthusiastically, and from time to time will let the general public know the type of industry that is suitable in this country, with reference probably, if not to counties, at least to provinces, so that people who have money and who are prepared to invest money in Irish industry may have an opportunity of studying the matter and, perhaps, eventually of taking the all-important step whereby an industry could be established in their area.

There was one type of industry that was in a very affluent position before the war and which during the war went to a large extent out of production, an industry, the products of which are of such vital importance to-day when there is a great housing drive on throughout the country. I refer to the natural stone slate industry. Before the emergency, quite a number of slate quarries were distributed all over the country. There was one quite close to my own place but unfortunately that particular quarry happened to be a private concern. In other parts of the country slate quarries were in production and, being interested in building, I often have wondered what happened to some of those quarries during the emergency. I think that the natural covering for any building in this country is slate. I quite agree that in the production of concrete tiles and asbestos slates a certain amount of work is provided, but I think to produce the quantity of slates that would cover a normal building, far more money would be involved by way of labour content than would be involved to cover five buildings of similar size with either asbestos slates or concrete tiles. I would ask the Minister to take a note of my remarks about natural stone slate quarries with a view to putting the matter before the Industrial Advisory Authority in the hope that they could see what could be done with the quarries that have closed down during the emergency to put them back into production. There is one slate quarry in the Minister's own county, Carrick-on-Suir. I discussed the question of the type of slates and the easiest method whereby they could be produced with the manager of that slate quarry, a man who knew the ins and outs of the production of slates, a man who had practical knowledge of a Welsh slate quarry —he is now dead, the Lord have mercy on him—and he informed me that on one occasion he was asked to make a report on that particular quarry. To my surprise, he told me that he could not understand why Carrick-on-Suir slate quarry was not in full production. He gave me to understand that it was probably the easiest quarry in the country out of which to get slate with the least amount of waste.

I do not know what powers the Industrial Advisory Authority may have or whether the Minister is giving them discretionary powers to work on their own, but if he is, I would ask him to bring this question of Irish national slate before them with a view to seeing what could be done to have these quarries reopened. Now that there is a big housing drive on and a number of houses still to be built all over the country by local bodies, private individuals and otherwise, I hope that the country will not be dotted with concrete covering, or with asbestos covering that loses its colour in a few months but that we may be in a position to procure natural Irish slate that can be used here and there and from the scenic point of view have a mixture of all.

Reference has been made by some speakers to the building industry. I took particular interest last Wednesday, I think it was, in the speech of the Leader of the Labour Party, Deputy Larkin, particularly in the portion where he referred to the fact that not alone the Minister himself but industrialists and those representing industrialists are continually calling out for greater output in production. Having listened to Deputy Larkin—and I am sorry that he did not develop his point further—I got the impression that there was no use in the Minister or any employer asking for greater output from the worker until such time as the worker had a say in the management and general policy of the industry itself. I would have preferred if Deputy Larkin had developed his points further, as I was thinking in terms of the building industry. That is an industry which has fluctuated from time to time. There is a big drive on at present and everyone engaged in the industry is in full employment; but it will not continue, as we will eventually reach a stage when it must end.

I cannot understand how you could bring in the workers to take part in the management, to define or take part in the general policy and share in the profits. When a building contractor takes on a job, he employs a certain number of men. The Trade Union Congress or other congress, or the representatives of the trade union concerned—the brick and stone layers or the carpenters and joiners, or whatever it may be—have a representative on the management of the business. The ordinary worker, artisan or labourer working there is supposed to get a share in the profits. But before that contractor can ascertain the profits on that particular job, the workman, and probably the individual representative in the management, will be gone to some other place. Therefore, I fail to see how the scheme could operate eventually in the building industry.

If those representing labour want the worker, be he skilled or unskilled, to have his share in the profits of building, what I suggest is an alternative principle. I know it is against the principles of labour, but I have given great thought to this matter and have definitely come to the conclusion that the only way that you can share whatever profits can accrue from a particular building operation is by paying the individual artisan for his output. Deputy Larkin said that if they are not prepared to give the workers a say in the management, in the general policy and a share in the profits, this appeal for greater production can only mean further sweated labour in order to put profits into the hands of the contractor or builder. I say to Deputy Larkin or anyone else who argues like that, that there can be a greater output without any sweat now. Only some 12 months ago there was a building dispute before the Labour Court. One or two contractors or builders concerned gave evidence—which could not be contradicted—that from 1939 to that date the man output per hour in a certain trade in the building line was reduced 40 per cent.

I am speaking as one who has done my day's work, one who knows from practical experience what the average output would be for an individual. In my own particular line in the building business, the output as compared with 1914 is down by well over 50 per cent., in spite of the fact that in 1914 the workers in the provincial towns were doing 60 and 62 hours a week, while now they are down to approximately 48. When I say that the output has been reduced 50 per cent., I am taking into consideration the fact that the hours have been reduced also. It is the output per man-hour that is down. When a man works fewer hours in the day, one would naturally expect that he would be in better form when finishing up, that is, a better man at the end of the eight hours than if he had to do nine or ten as in 1914. Therefore, instead of having a reduction in the output, there should be an increase. However, that is the position and until the workers realise that it is in their own interest to put a little more elbow grease into it, we will not succeed. It is not going to sweat anybody, or anything approaching it.

Did not someone say that it is 50-50 as between the cost of the building materials and the labour content?

It was about 60-40 for a time, but it is about 50-50 now. Until they realise that and put a little more elbow grease into it, the cost of building will remain as it is now or increase further. It could be reduced if the workers would take into consideration the fact that they are working only 44 hours a week, that they have plenty of work before them and that, by putting a little more elbow grease into it, they will help to reduce the cost of housing and thereby reduce the rents to their own class and perhaps even to themselves.

Side by side with that drive for industrial development goes, as we learned in the old days, the development of our mineral resources. I am glad to see that the Minister has agreed to provide a certain sum for exploration to be carried out in the Avoca mines. It is a matter of £120,000, he stated himself. In the past year very little work has been done in that direction. In the early portion of the year, it was apparently the policy of the Government to cut out completely all moneys for exploration work. Evidently they changed their viewpoint and decided to go ahead with a certain amount, but very little has been done. My information is that a start has been made in sinking the shafts at Ballygahan, as suggested, I think, by Professor Jones. However, the pump which had to be used became damaged and I understand it was difficult to procure the necessary parts and the work was held up for some time. I am informed that the work was held up also because certain essential pipes could not be procured. The rumour in the Avoca area is that the money was not available to provide those parts. Some 30 men were employed in sinking this shaft at Ballygahan. There are 40 other men employed in the work also. It was suggested to me that these 40 are not usefully employed on that job in the particular work that they are doing. I take it that, probably due to the pump not being in working order and the parts not been available, or because the pipes could not be secured, there is the possibility that those men were kept going anyhow sooner than let them go off, hoping that the pump and the pipes would be available within a short period. I take it that that is probably the reason why those men are not usefully employed at the moment. I am sorry to have to say it, but that is my information.

With regard to the sinking of this shaft, I understand that Professor Jones, mineralogist, reported on this particular shaft, or generally on the mine area, that if this shaft were sunk 1,000 feet there was every likelihood of a fair amount of ore being found, or a good return. Now, £120,000 is quite a large sum of money, but if the Minister intends to carry out Professor Jones' suggestion to its logical conclusion, he will have to be a little more flaithiúlach and get the Minister for Finance to give a further sum to carry out such important work as this.

I am also informed that, in conjunction with exploration work, a certain amount of development work could be carried on in those mines. I understand that the expenditure of about £4,000 or £6,000 and the provision of a number of cells to the existing floating plant would result in quite an amount of copper, zinc and lead being obtained from the mines at the moment.

At one period it was thought that a proper flotation plant would be secured. I understand that, even during the emergency, when it was hard to get machinery of this type, a gentleman named Keyes, from England, was prepared to sell and transport a plant suitable for the extraction of the lead ores to which I have referred, but those in charge at the time, instead of accepting this offer, had, previously or thereabouts, installed a pilot flotation plant—a plant that is really only for testing purposes and from which nothing could be secured but sulphur. It seems that a certain amount of copper, known as precipitated copper, is going to waste down the river from the mines. I have been told that if this proper flotation plant had been installed and put into operation, with the expenditure referred to and the provision of extra cells, all this waste would be overcome and the mines of the company would benefit, as a result of the segregation of the copper, lead and zinc. We know that sulphur will not bring in a great financial return, but copper, lead and zinc should bring in very great financial return to the mines concerned where the necessary machinery is installed for the extraction of these ores. I am informed that a certain amount of precipitate copper flows away in the streams under some of the existing shafts, and individual miners, if they were in a position to do so, could make a living out of it by throwing ordinary iron into the water, which would collect the copper. I have here a sample piece of iron which was thrown into one of these small streams flowing under the shafts and the copper can be seen collected on it.

I would ask the Minister to investigate the few points I have made in connection with the Avoca mines. I can assure the Minister that the workers are not satisfied that everything that should be done is being done down there. I do not wish the Minister to assume for a moment that that refers either to him or his Department, but they believe that things are not right in Avoca, that the administration is not right. They believe that there is some sinister outside influence working against the best interests of the Avoca mines, and they cited for me as an instance of that when, in sinking shafts, they come to a good vein of ore, that vein is built up and closed up and nothing more is done about it. I have not seen it. I am just giving the Minister the views of the men engaged in the mine. I have spoken to and met deputations of the miners. They are definitely of the opinion, particularly so far as the extraction of ores is concerned, that there is some influence outside this country working against the best interests of the Avoca mines. They suggest that the Minister should send down an engineer and representatives of his Department or members of the Government to the Avoca mines to meet the men there and to discuss all their grievances with them. I can assure the Minister that I am putting the position to him exactly as I have it from the men and I believe that the men are genuinely interested, and should be genuinely interested, in the development of the mines. Perhaps the Minister would see his way, as a result of the statement I have made, to comply with their wish and send down an engineer and representatives of the Government to go into the question of the administration, etc., of the Avoca mines.

I wish now to refer to the question of harbours. I am particularly interested in Arklow harbour. As the Minister has said, it is one of the harbours on which a big repair job is about to be started. We understand that work should be in full swing in a very short period. The port of Arklow will develop and benefit from the work of the Department and those carrying out the necessary repairs. In addition to repairs being carried out, the dock walls will be extended and, for its size, it will be a very fine harbour when the work is completed. There is one unfortunate snag, to which I referred on the Vote for Fisheries, that is, the silting of the bar. The harbour commissioners find themselves mulcted financially every year to a very large extent in having to contribute their share of the moneys expended in keeping the bar of Arklow dredged. They felt the strain so much that eventually they decided to ask for expert opinion with a view to having a report submitted as to the reasonable chances of carrying out certain works by way of extension to the piers or otherwise in order to avoid the silting of the harbour which occurs perhaps two, three and four times a year. A preliminary examination has already taken place with that expert. My reason for mentioning it is that we have good hopes that something definite may evolve as a result of a further survey and that a scheme may be put up whereby the dredging will be eliminated to the extent that perhaps it will only need to be done once in every four years. If that can be done it will be a great relief, from the point of view of finance, to the harbour commissioners and it will be a great relief to the Department of Industry and Commerce and to the Board of Works which particular Departments put up their share every year. What I want to ask is that if that scheme develops, the Minister will, when it comes before him, take a broad view of it and, in coming to a decision, take into consideration the fact that for years and years the harbour commissioners have hardly been able to meet their financial responsibilities. In giving his blessing to the scheme, the Minister will be doing a good day's work for the people of Arklow, for the fishermen of Arklow and for those foreign people who occasionally have to bring their boats into the harbour of Arklow. He will be doing for all those people a good day's work and he will be relieving the commissioners of quite an exceptionally bad headache.

While it is generally appreciated that agriculture is the major industry of this country it is also accepted that it is necessary to have industry as an adjunct to it. It is, therefore, essential that the Minister in charge of that important branch of our industry should be fully aware of his responsibility and it is also well to note, from the interest taken in this debate in the last few days, that it is obvious that the Deputies are very conscious of the necessity for the Department of Industry and Commerce and for the discharge by that Department of its essential duties in this regard. Many suggestions have been made as to how the Minister's industrial programme can best be directed. Large industries are mentioned; State control, where necessary, is advised, as also the speedy erection of houses for the workers and for the growing population of the City of Dublin. As to these proposals in general, I must assert that I hold quite contrary views.

The men who advocate industrial development should turn their eyes from the big centres of population. If the Minister responsible believes that special facilities should be given for the erection of houses in the city of Dublin or other large centres of population, he is wrong and he is taking a wrong course. There are already far too many people living in our chief cities and no facilities whatever should be offered to encourage more people to come to these cities. So long as our line of policy is to continue the centralisation of our industries so long will we centralise and concentrate on more and more people coming to our cities. My plan is definitely one in the opposite direction. I ask the Minister and his Department to experiment in regard to the possibility of rural industries. Great play is made in the newspapers about the public concern in regard to the exodus of our people to foreign countries. From where are these people emigrating? Not from the large centres of population but from the rural areas. I forecast, and I am reasonably sure that the forecast will prove to be correct, that when the next census is taken the Government of this country, whatever Government may be in office then—and the people responsible—will be astounded at the diminution of the rural population. It may be that this problem of keeping the people in the country will present many difficulties. If the problem were not difficult it would not exist. If our industries are to make themselves worth-while to the nation they will have to develop to the point of finding an export market for their products. Otherwise, in some respects, we have reached the point of saturation. Is it possible and is it within the reasonable reach of things as we know them that our industries will be able to find an export market in competition with outside countries? Personally I do not think so. I have yet to meet the men in industry in this country who say that they are expecting to reach that stage. They give good solid reasons for not being able to do so. The volume of their business is limited. In most cases they have to import the raw materials. Their workers are practically inexperienced as compared with outsiders, and the machines they operate are comparatively small. All these are factors which operate against them. Where, then, is the reasonable prospect of finding an export market for our industries to-day? We import a lot of products manufactured in outside countries. If it were not for the fact that these products are limited by quota or are subject to tariff I am afraid that our local industries would have a difficulty in competing against them, even in the home market, and of maintaining their status. With all that disadvantage, then, as we see it, where is the prospect of our factories finding an outside market?

We increased our exports last year by 20 per cent.

Industrial exports?

By 20 per cent.? Over what year?

Over 1947.

What type of goods were exported?

A very wide range of goods.

And the Minister is satisfied that we are in a position to find an export market?

We have done so.

And is there a possibility that it will be expanded?

I hope so.

Would that increase have been in any way the result of the extraordinary circumstances which prevailed in the world in the last few years? The Minister thinks not. I am glad to know that.

Did the Minister say that whiskey and stout were involved in the industrial exports?

Not to a very great extent in the increase. They are always a very valuable part of our exports, but we certainly did not increase whiskey and stout exports by £2,000,000 over 1947. The increase was very largely due to the trade agreement negotiated in 1948.

I am delighted to know that the prospect of selling our goods in outside markets is very good. It is really a credit to the industries concerned. There is, however, the fact that all these industries have in no way stemmed the emigration from the countryside. I must draw the attention of the Minister to his responsibility to the countryside to see that it is not stripped of the most valuable asset that God has given us, namely, human beings. Look at the west of Ireland. What have Governments done for us? What employment have they given us? What has become of our people for the last 25 years since native government was established here? There has been a continued flow of people from the countryside and that flow is not to the city of Dublin or any of the industrial towns to any extent. There is definitely emigration from the western seaboard. There is a responsibility there which cannot be met by saying that we are doing fairly well. We are not doing well. We are going fast to ruin.

What is the prospect for the average family on a small farm in Leitrim. Sligo, Donegal, part of Cavan or Galway? None whatever. There may be five in family on a farm of £10 valuation. There is not any human feeling in the minds of people who say that these people should stay at home. They cannot stay at home. They could not marry and bring up a family. They must find an outlet. When they have no means of occupation in their own locality, do they come to Dublin or Dundalk or any of the other industrial towns? Not at all. The trade unions would not allow them to get a job if they came up here. They are debarred; they are like lepers in their own country. They cannot get a living at home and they must leave the country. That is the policy which is in operation. The Government must see that some steps are taken to deal with it before it is too late.

The position is so serious that the Government should declare a state of national emergency and deal with this question of emigration rather than going around glibly discussing the prospects of an industry here and an industry there. Industry should be placed in the thickly populated centres of rural Ireland where a person working in an industry however small can leave his home in the morning, come back at the end of the day's work and come home on Friday with his wages in his pocket. That is the kind of industry that is needed. Let us stop this notion about our trade unions and trade union regulation of wages. Leave these people in the countryside in their own atmosphere and let them follow out their own plan of energetic work and they will produce specialised goods. I do not suppose they can operate machines in a large way which can compete with factory work. Surely it is not beyond the bounds of ingenuity for the Department and its experts to develop some scheme of specialised products that our country boys and girls, who are very apt with their hands and are very clever, can produce and for which a market can be found in countries outside. I emphasise the necessity for turning our minds from centralisation and big industries and saving our people in the rural areas. With all our industries and our protection we have done nothing more than to make life more difficult for people in the west because of the increase in the cost of living without any corresponding increase in the income of these people. Consequently emigration is the only outlet.

I am very glad that the Minister has set up this industrial authority to investigate industrial concerns. There are many things which they could usefully investigate. In the near future I anticipate that the Government will be bringing in a Bill dealing with transport. I suggest that the first consideration in that regard is that the Minister should see that the transport facilities for the conveyance of industrial and agricultural commodities to and from the remotest parts of the country should be as cheap to those who live 50 or 100 miles from the centres of population as those within 15 or 20 miles of them. That may seem difficult to do. It may require State aid. But, if we are going to develop industry, we must provide cheap transport facilities. There is no use in saying that that would cost the State too much. For the last 40 years transport has cost this State in the form of shareholders losses of money and subsidisation by subsequent Government interference, sums running into millions of pounds. If transport is to be nationalised let it be national transport that will bring facilities to the remotest parts of the country and give equal facilities to those living at the extreme ends of the country as well as those within 15 or 20 miles of the cities and towns. Cheap transport is the essential thing.

I trust this new industrial authority will pay attention to another potential source of national wealth which has only been explored in a very limited way so far, that is our mineral wealth. I know that one can talk very widely about the possibility of mineral wealth. I know we shall hear the old story that after all possible exploration has been carried out the result is negative. People will say, "We know the reason why it is negative—because the people who did the exploration did not want to let it be known that there were immense resources down there." I know that many areas which it was thought contained mineral wealth proved on examination to be devoid of minerals. Yet there are many deposits, perhaps not so extensive as we would like them to be, not so rich and valuable as we would wish, still existing.

In my part of the country there are clays of different kinds and of very good quality which could very well be turned commercially into valuable glazed brick and glazed earthenware, for which a market could be found, I am sure. They have the advantage of being adjacent to an area where coal is produced, which is so essential in the turning of these clays. That is one industry that I know does exist and I direct the attention of the Minister and his new committee of investigation to the examination of that at the earliest moment with a view to seeing what can be done. There is also in that part of the country stone used for sharpening purposes. That is another deposit, the facts of which are very well known to the Department. I recommend that the board to be set up by the Minister should look into the matter and do what is necessary, if further exploration is required, so that these jobs could be undertaken at the earliest moment. I mention these because of the great importance of industry if the life of the people in the West of Ireland is to be maintained.

I do not know that I could find words hard enough to express what I consider to be the complete neglect by successive Governments of that area in the north-west. Not the smallest regard has been had to the welfare of those people in so far as providing them with an alternative occupation to that which they have and their predecessors always had recourse to—the ship that took them to the United States of America or the boat that took them to England or Scotland. It is a downright shame that those responsible for it, those who held the reins of office and who had the power to do something, neglected to do their duty. Let the responsibility rest upon them. I trust the Minister will do something to bring about better hope and prospects to those distressed people who showed courage and made an existence out of what nature was willing to yield.

A suggestion was made here by one of the speakers, Deputy Connolly, about labour having a share in the control of industry. I think it would be ideal. I see nothing wrong at all in it. I see no revolutionary project in that. I can see labour in harness with industry in this country with great advantage to industry generally. One of the most damning things in the whole scheme of industry is people going into industry with the one purpose of capitalising and making plenty of money out of it. The valuable thing about industry is that it should be gauged from a national and Christian point of view. Let industry be the means of producing national wealth. Let us produce more that way and let the wealth belong to the nation. It is bound to belong to the nation. If we ever want to reach the stage where we can compete successfully with outside countries such as England we will have to produce more.

If the means suggested of having labour representatives on our boards is the way of doing it—and I believe it could help—then I am all for it. If labour participates in the management, labour will have to participate in the profits. They will also have to participate in the losses, naturally, and if a lean period comes they will have to be prepared to accept a lower wage or to allow contributions from their wages, or by extra hours of work, to go into the capital and to subsidise the industry. Let them take and give and give in full and take in full and within these limits. If some proposal could be hammered out by which labour would have a say in industrial management it would be all for the good of industry. I would be very glad to see such proposals put forward and actively operated.

I should like to make a small proposal as regards the western area. I mentioned the development of clay and of sharpening stone. Bogs in the West of Ireland have never had a chance since the hand-won turf scheme ceased. Why not concentrate on those bogs in the West of Ireland where the best workmen in the world are, the most willing workers? Why not concentrate with those small machines that are in operation in the midlands where bog areas are so big? The Minister complained about the difficulty of finding workers for his major bog production plants. It is true. The moment you centralise any industry and try to take men from their homes from a wide area and put them in one centre you are bound to have difficulty. Let the men be employed so far as possible, leaving their home in the morning and returning in the evening and bringing back their pay cheque on Friday to their homes. Develop the bog areas with the machines as unlimited markets because you can always limit the outside supply of coal from England and elsewhere. Why will you allow unemployment and emigration from the West of Ireland while those bogs are lying there and you have machines on which you can put these men to work? There is a complete neglect on the part of the Minister in that regard.

We all make strong appeals to the various Ministers when their Estimates come before us. If we want to morally justify ourselves with the public we will have to tell them more straightforwardly what the conditions and circumstances are. Every time we appeal to the Minister and to the Government for more money for this and for that and say: "If I were in your place I would do so much better," we are failing in our duty here. That is only sheer dishonesty. There is no means by which a Minister or Government can subsidise any industry or scheme other than by taxation. However, by the implications that go on between Parties we are leading the public to believe that the Minister and the Government have the power of making money without interfering with anybody's pocket or source of income whatever. It is all immoral and wrong. We should tell the people straightforwardly that it is not politics that does things in the way of finding money or resources of that sort. If we demand money we must be prepared to take it in increased contributions from the taxpayer.

There is no use whatever in any Party in this House or any individual saying that they have a monopoly of good intentions and capacity to do things better than another. There is not a man in this House, I would say, but means well. There is not a man or a Party who would not like to see the country progress. Why, then, all this crying from bench to bench in implications that you are not doing as well as you should or as well as I would. That is not right. Different Parties may have different plans but any Party in office, even if it were only from a selfish point of view, would naturally like to do the best it could to satisfy the country and thereby get into favour. The pulling together of all Parties and the laying aside of Party criticism on this economic question would, to my mind, do more to further the projects that we have in view than any amount of criticism between Parties inside this House and outside.

I say to the Minister that I appreciate his effort in so far as this new board is concerned. I and others may expect too much from them but in any case if he makes them do their job, if they direct industry in a better manner than it has been directed hitherto, and if it means that they will specialise in providing employment in the West of Ireland then I would say he has done a good job and God bless the men who have made efforts in that direction—they have done a faithful and very useful piece of work.

I am disappointed with this Vote because I was expecting very big things from the brains of the inter-Party Government in view of all the promises they made to us some time ago. I find that there is nothing very strange in it. The only change that I see in it is that the inter-Party Government are adopting some of the schemes that were initiated by Fianna Fáil.

Would the Deputy by any chance have been reading last year's Book of Estimates?

They are adopting schemes that had already been initiated by that much-despised Party known as Fianna Fáil.

Is that not good enough for you?

We were to have a number of grandiose schemes. In fact, I was contemplating that, when the Minister introduced his Estimate, we were going to hear something that would put everyone in the country working, and that, from the joint brains of Clann na Poblachta, Labour the Farmers and Fine Gael, we were going to get some original plan that would make this one of the grandest countries in the world in which to live.

On a point of order. This is a deliberative Assembly, and can it be reduced to the state of a cross-roads meeting?

I am not concerned with Deputy Cowan's appreciation of Deputy Burke's contribution.

I am more or less concerned with the policy of this Department and I am just expressing my disappointment that more original and more concise plans for the workers as a whole have not been mentioned during this debate. I am very sorry that Deputy Cowan could not listen to hear the truth and that he has to go.

That is not the reason he is going.

This Vote is very disappointing to the unemployed. There is nothing very encouraging in it for a man who is out of employment. As far as it is concerned, the only thing for him is the emigrant ship again. I realise that a certain amount of protection is being given to certain of our industries. The Minister has stated that our export trade has increased. I should like to hear from him on what developed product we have increased our export trade. I know we have reached the position that certain of our manufactured articles are being exported. We should like to see more of them exported.

I have heard a lot of talk here in the last few days about the unemployed. Some people have stated that they should be asked to work and forced to work. Other Deputies have given an explanation as to why they could not work or do certain jobs in certain industries, State-subsidised and otherwise. A few explanations have been given on these lines. The last speaker said that a man who is unemployed and is living with his wife and family in a certain area does not like to be asked to go to a place that is a long way from home. It is possible that one is bound to come up against that sort of thing. I do not see why certain unemployed men should be asked to take on work that they have not been used to. We hear a good deal about vocationalism. As far as we were concerned, we tried to fit into our everyday lives, our vocational system, those workers who were best fitted for certain employment. We thought that they should get the opportunity of going into it. It is a big State matter. The Minister, when introducing the Estimate, did not say anything regarding this very much-discussed subject at the moment. If we are going to threaten our unemployed, then we are not carrying on according to ordinary democratic principles to which we hear so much lip-service given from time to time here. I have heard of a number of our workers being threatened that they will have to produce more. The only way in which I can see that they will be encouraged to do so is when some of our manufacturers, who are in a position to do so, will carry on industry in the same way as successful manufacturers are doing in other countries. I read recently a fine paper by a very eminent Irish clergyman, in which he said that the surest way to have stabilised conditions in industry was by making the workers profitshares in it. If that were done, he said, they would take a special interest in the industry in which they were employed. I subscribe to that view. If things are going well, I believe that the workers should get a share of the profits. If we are to carry on in this State, according to ordinary Christian principles, which we all idealise so much, then our workers should have the opportunity of taking part in the management of industry. When things are going well they should get their share of the profits, and if things are not going well, then, as Deputy Maguire said, they should take the rap. The position should be the same for them as for the directors of the firm.

That is terrible.

I believe that, if we had the co-operative spirit in industry, we would get somewhere. Some of our industries have tried that system successfully. It is a great encouragement to any worker when he realises that the more work he turns out the more he is going to get.

Were you listening to Deputy Briscoe?

I am expressing my own views. The Deputy will have an opportunity of making his contribution to the debate. I believe that a lot of the misunderstandings, the strikes and other things that go on in industrial concerns are due to the feeling that the people at the top are making all the profits, while the people who produce the goods are not getting a fair share of the profits. I believe that if our industrialists could see the other point of view, it would be good for themselves and the country, and would help to counteract the effect of the "isms" that are being preached by people in the East. We would be building up the foundations of an ordinary, decent, Christian State where the people will work in one great co-operative movement.

There are certain industries that have adopted pension schemes. We have reached the point where, in the State service, the service of the local authority, the service of the railway and so on, small pensions or large pensions, according to years of service, are awarded to workers. I do not see why all industries should not make an effort to provide for their workers when those workers gave years of faithful service. It is up to employers to take a special interest in the welfare of the worker. I must pay a high compliment to certain industries in my own constituency where there is a Christian atmosphere adopted regarding pension schemes, canteens and medical service. I should like to see those things developed more and more, and instead of threatening the workers to produce more and driving them along, much better results can be achieved by encouraging them.

Has the Minister any power in this respect?

This comes under that very much discussed topic—more production. I am only giving my views on how production can be increased.

I do not see any relation between canteens and pension schemes and more production. I do not see what the Minister can do. I do not see that there is any money provided in the Estimate or what control the Minister has in this connection.

I agree he has no direct control and is not a partner in any of these firms, but as Minister for Industry and Commerce he has a right to see that a firm will run its business along certain lines.

There are lots of things the Minister could do or would like to do, but has he power to do them?

I will go away from that point if you do not permit me to develop it. My submission is that the Minister has power to send an inspector to see that a factory is conducted according to law.

That is quite another matter.

I am dealing with industry and production and I will not go away from these subjects. We have asked our workers to increase production. We have different factories and workshops where the workers are asked to increase production. Certain encouragement is being given both to industrialists and workers to do certain things. We have reached the stage when the Minister and other responsible people are complaining about low production in industry. I have mentioned the statement made by an eminent clergyman some time ago, that he believed in industrialists sharing profits with their workers. In my opinion that is the solution of the whole problem. If that were done it would improve conditions in this country; it would be responsible for helping our country; it would put down bitterness and cut out misunderstandings and it would help both employer and employee to work for their own individual benefit and for the benefit of the country as a whole. Where this has been practised in other countries it has been successful. It is a principle that should be adopted by all industrialists who are in a position to do it. Under that policy they could increase production for their own benefit and for the welfare of the nation.

Is the Deputy aware that Deputy Briscoe is strongly opposed to that?

I was listening to Deputy Briscoe and he never said a word against it.

You must not have been listening to him very attentively.

As regards mineral exploration, there is very little in this Estimate to encourage us in the belief that anything worth while will be carried out during the coming year, notwithstanding that the emergency is over and the Minister has had a very prosperous year in other directions. I was expecting the Minister would do more along this particular line. It is most disappointing to me that he is not doing more to develop our mineral resources. Many people were anticipating that he would do something worth while. I thought his friends who make up the inter-Party Government would contribute something to encourage the Minister to proceed with that very necessary work in order to see what minerals we have, where they are and what they are worth. He has a good opportunity now because times have improved and there is nothing to stop him. Is he prepared to do anything in the coming year?

Would I bring any joy to the Deputy's heart if I tell him that there will be more mineral development in the coming year than at any time since the State was founded?

The Minister and his colleagues in the Government were handed over this country in a most stable condition.

What about Córas Iompair Éireann?

When this Government took up office the credit of the country was very high and everything was left ready for the Minister to do something worth while. If the Minister has the mind to go ahead with mineral exploration he has a grand opportunity now. I hope he will think of the people in rural Ireland. With all respect to his colleague, the Minister for Agriculture, he has forgotten those people and they are running to the factories that this Minister is trying to keep open around the towns. I am concerned about the unemployment that exists in rural Ireland. Every day I am meeting unemployed persons and I ask the Minister favourably to consider doing something for those people. As it is, the Minister for Agriculture is gradually running them out of the country. If the Minister is not prepared to consider this matter seriously as Minister for Industry and Commerce it is going to be a very poor lookout for the country. The only outlook we shall have is watching our people emigrate day after day. I am deeply concerned about another industry. I mentioned it on another Vote; It is connected with the possibility of keeping more of our people on the land. The Minister for Industry and Commerce deals with the export side of this industry. It is subsidiary to our dairying industry. The Minister deals with cheese, cream, dried milk and butter. I know that he only deals with the export trade in these commodities.

The Minister for Industry and Commerce has nothing at all to do with that.

Any questions I have put down with regard to these matters have always been referred to the Minister for Industry and Commerce. He is responsible for the export of them, if they are exported.

I do not think the Minister for Industry and Commerce has any responsibility for the export of agricultural produce.

If he has not, then the whole position is hopeless because I tried to reason with the Minister for Agriculture and he never replied to me but merely abused me personally.

I advise the Deputy to go back to the Minister for Agriculture again.

He will not risk that.

This is too serious a matter to be put on one side. I have made a study of what that industry has done for the people in other countries. I am here pleading on behalf of the unemployed in rural Ireland. I welcome any scheme responsible for keeping our people at home. I have pleaded with another Minister in relation to this industry. I bow to your ruling since I cannot go ahead with it now. Anything that will be done to improve the lot of the people in the rural areas will be welcomed by me.

During the year I had a number of questions here to the Minister for Industry and Commerce and a correspondence with him too with reference to the paper industry in Clondalkin. That matter has now been settled to the satisfaction of all parties. I am sure the Minister will hold a watching brief for that industry in the future, and I am sure he will do anything he can to keep the people employed therein the Clondalkin and Killeen paper mills in continuous employement.

There is another matter with which I wish to deal. I have here a letter from a representative of the workers in the Balbriggan hosiery factory. He says that he is writing on behalf of the workers of Smith & Company. He says:—

"The position here is very bad with reference to unemployment and short time and, worse still, there seems to be no bright hope for the future. The actual position is very serious as many other workers will be laid off and as stock cannot or will not be added to."

That unfortunate, misguided man was a member of the Clann na Poblachta Party during the last election.

Is the letter signed "P.J. Burke"?

Is the Deputy aware that the factory was closed when we came in?

"How can there be any prospect for a brighter future when things are so bad here? On January 22, 1948, a tariff of 25 per cent. was imposed on clothing and hosiery and on May 11, 1949, the tariff was increased for men's and boys' clothing." I was dealing with that factory during the year and with some other factories too. I see the Minister has dealt with it. "But there was no further increase in tariff for hosiery." The complaint is that a number of the workers are on short time in Balbriggan. I will give the Minister the letter and he can question the author of it if he likes. I received the letter this morning. I do not know the man at all, as a matter of fact.

Then how do you know that he is a member of the Clann na Poblachta Party?

Because I was told by a friend of mine that he was a member of the Clann na Poblachta Party and an ardent supporter of it.

Is the Deputy aware that the factory was closed before we took over?

I was looking after that factory before you came into public life and I am looking after it still; and I will look after the tomato-growers in County Dublin too.

There must be no cross-talk from Deputies.

Now, Minister, is it true——

The Deputy will please address the Chair.

Is it true that several tanneries are not doing so well at the moment and that we may be faced with the prospect of a shortage of leather? Can the Minister give me any information on that? Is it true that we are exporting some of our hides? I have been given to understand that such is the case. I am looking for information on this point since I do not know of my own knowledge whether that is so or not. If we are exporting hides then the position is serious.

The Minister went to America some time ago looking for tourists. What encouragement will this new Tourist Board give to tourists? Are all the Parties on the Government Benches now converted to the idea that the tourist industry was not such a bad industry after all? It was cried down at one time and then suddenly one of those who had condemned it most vehemently on the hustings and at the chapel gates goes down to open one of the tourist industries and states that it is worth £35,000,000 to this country. It is surprising how he was able to contradict himself after gaining a little knowledge. But when a man succeeds in contradicting himself, he is not too bad after all. I hope that he is now sincerely convinced that the tourist industry is well worth while, and I want to know from the Minister what he is doing to encourage it.

Closing the Fáilte hotels.

Surely it is not Deputy Rooney who is interrupting me again. I want to know what part our representatives abroad are playing in encouraging the tourist industry? What are we doing to improve our hotels? This is a very important industry because it brings us in much-needed dollars. We lost an excellent opportunity when we scrapped our Constellation planes. Posterity will judge this Government for that. Those planes were bought after judicious consideration by a competent Government. That step was taken in the interests of the nation, and not in the interests of any particular Party, in order to put us in the position of balancing our dollar exchange. We would have been responsible then for bringing our exiles back to visit their homeland with much needed dollars.

You are making Deputy Lemass hang his head.

I want to know whether the vilification carried on by the gentlemen opposite against the tourist industry has ended. I want to know what you have done to counter that campaign——

I have done nothing.

Other countries have been very anxious to encourage this industry. They have realised that tourists are an asset to any country they visit inasmuch as they consume any surplus produce and thus obviate the necessity for exporting it. Even the Tánaiste said when he opened Butlin's Camp that the tourist industry was worth £35,000,000 in this country. We have now reached the time when I should like to see a good deal more energetic work put into the creation of a special Department to deal with our export trade. I know that trade agreements have been entered into with certain countries. That is one aspect of our economic life that should not be lost sight of by our representatives abroad and by the Minister himself as he is chiefly concerned with matters connected with industry generally. I want to know what encouragement he is going to give to the expansion of our export trade.

I have heard a good deal about our mercantile marine service. Is it the Minister's intention to carry on the good work already initiated with reference to our mercantile marine service? Is the present Government going to continue the good work initiated by Fianna Fáil and are we going to have this country in the same position as other maritime countries of its size, with its own boats plying between this country and other countries throughout the world? I hope that every encouragement will be given to Irish Shipping Limited to have ships built here at home so that we shall not find ourselves again in the position in which we were when the war broke out, dependent on other countries.

Deputies

Hear, hear!

It is very easy for Deputies on the other side to say "hear, hear." There is a very feasible explanation for that.

You mean "plausible."

During the years that Fianna Fáil were in office they tried to do what they could for the people of this country and they succeeded.

The Chair is more interested in hearing something about the Estimate.

I am talking about shipping. May I claim your indulgence——

I am afraid I do not understand the way the Deputy is talking about shipping.

Does it not come under Industry and Commerce?

I am anxious to know if the Minister is going to encourage shipbuilding.

The Deputy asked that question three times before.

I am so interested in it that I would like to be as emphatic as possible.

There is no need for repetition.

I shall pass away from the ships at the moment and come to the harbours. One very vexed question in this country is the question of coast erosion. I am told it is the bailiwick of no Government Department.

If so, why ask the Minister for Industry and Commerce to accept the bailiwick?

Does he refuse to accept it?

There is no money in this Estimate for it.

Are you sure?

If I went down to where I live and brought a shovel and bucket with me and started to take gravel from the strand, the Minister for Industry and Commerce would be down on top of me.

Coast erosion is caused by the sea.

That is a debatable point.

The Chair is prepared to rule that it is caused by some power outside the control of the Minister for Industry and Commerce and there is no money in this Estimate to deal with it.

On the contrary, I submit that the Minister is responsible for the administration of the Foreshore Act and the removal of gravel from the foreshore is under his supervision.

There is nothing in this Estimate for it.

We should like to know what the previous Government did to protect the foreshore.

We passed the Foreshore Act.

The Minister for Industry and Commerce is concerned with the foreshore and I want to know if the Minister has power, as I contend he has, under the Foreshore Act, to stop people from removing gravel from the beach.

What is the Foreshore Act?

He should also be concerned in trying to protect the land because, as far as I understand, he is the only Minister who is deeply concerned with the foreshore.

I think if the Deputy wanted to discuss coast erosion and the Foreshore Act, he should give us the Short Title of the Act.

The Deputy is very clever.

I have just about two more years to do and I shall be able to talk to you after that. This is a very serious matter. It is so serious that unless the Minister for Industry and Commerce gives it his immediate attention and sees what can be done about it, we shall reach a time when coast erosion will develop to very serious proportions. We have coast erosion in various parts of the country but I am concerned primarily with the constituency of County Dublin.

If the Deputy repeats himself much further along these lines, I shall be tempted to offer him a bucket and spade.

That is what I am endeavouring to establish, that if I did take a bucket and spade the Minister would be inclined to prosecute.

We would be glad to see him doing a bit of work.

In dealing with this point I hope that the Minister will consider going a little further than the shore in future and think of the land that has been washed down into the sea. At points by Skerries, Balbriggan, Rush, Donabate and Malahide there has been very serious coast erosion and various representations have been made from time to time about it.

I am concerned also with the decision of the Minister for Industry and Commerce to increase the fares on the buses. I agree, of course, and concede to him that he was in a position where he had to do something, but the fact remains that he has made it very hard for a number of our people. I am dealing specifically with school children because they have been hit very hard. If we are to have regard for the education of the children of Ireland that is a matter that this Government or some future Government will have to consider. On numerous occasions fathers and mothers have come to me and pointed out what the increased fare has meant to them per week and it is a very serious thing. On a few occasions they have told me that they will have to keep their children from school altogether and I can easily realise that. When a good father and mother are doing the best they can for their children and spending as much as their small income allows, when the last penny is counted, what is their position when they have to pay 1/-, 2/- or 3/- more per week? I think the Minister and the Government made up of allegedly sympathetic Labour, Clann and so on should seriously consider doing something for the parents and children to whom I have referred.

Certain harbours come into the bailiwick of the Minister for Industry and Commerce and, as well as looking after shipping interests, he should also look after the harbours and see what can be done with them.

With regard to applications for factories, has the Minister considered sending some of them to the rural parts of the country or are all the factories to be centralised round the cities and large towns? Other Deputies have referred to the decentralisation of factories and industry as a whole and I do not see why the Minister with the opportunities given to him should not encourage decentralisation. I forgot one point when speaking about factories before. When a Minister of State refers to certain manufacturers, I do not think he should take it upon himself to defame and, if I might say so, to blackguard a number of them. If any man in this country—as I have told the Minister for Agriculture before—let him be a manufacturer or anything else, has done anything wrong the judicial system of this State is there and the courts are there. I think it comes badly from a Minister of State to take advantage of this House——

Is the Deputy referring to me?

Oh no, I am not referring to you at all.

No other Minister is in order.

The Deputy is quite entitled to refer to statements made by other Ministers.

And repeat them over and over again?

I am dealing with a Minister who did make irresponsible statements about people who are respected in the State and who have made a contribution during the emergency to it. I feel that it is not fair that they should be defamed. If one or two erred, then that one or two should be brought to justice, but all the people concerned should not be defamed by any Minister. Since I have been here I have defended that theory from this side of the House and from the other side of the House. If a man is guilty, the courts are there, but when a Minister of State says that certain manufacturers have done something and should be put inside closed thick walls, I say that that Minister of State is taking advantage of his position, not to the credit of the State or of the country as a whole and not as an encouragement to people who would invest money in industry—what we want—and help the country in every way possible. Having made these remarks I will say no more.

The principle of protection for Irish industry does not now need any advocate, but the application of the principle calls for comment and I appreciate that the Minister has a serious responsibility in the matter of affording protection to Irish industrialists. I do not want to be misunderstood. I am all for fostering Irish industry, but I do not want to take up the attitude that is taken up in the monthly magazine, Irish Industry, that every Irish industrialist is a saint, that he has never erred and that the present Minister for Industry and Commerce can never make a sensible statement about Irish industry and Irish industrialists. If people get assistance from the State, the State obviously has a perfect right to exercise a great measure of control over the people so assisted. I think there is nobody in this House who will deny that some people and some industrialists accumulated to themselves excessive profits during the war years. Reading Irish Industry, one would get the impression that it is a very wrong thing to say that. The Minister for Industry and Commerce has said it and I commend him for saying it. Gross profits have been made. I have this complaint to make about certain Irish industrialists, apart now from those who, by manipulating balance sheets, by the issue of bonus shares and by other tricks, were able to conceal profits. There are some Irish industrialists, and people connected with them and they are not very concerned about supporting other Irish industries. In one particular case I know of a man who is interested in a number of Irish concerns getting protection from the Irish State and who had occasion to write to me recently on a number of matters. Each time I got a letter from him the paper bore a British watermark.

Crown bond.

Crown bond or some-think like that—certainly not Swift-brook bond. I was speaking not long ago to an industrialist who has recently got an increase in the tariff on his goods and I happened to see on his office table a high quality British made paper, used as his letter heading. This paper question has caused me a good deal of concern, as we are not Irish industry-minded regarding the use of paper. I do not know if even the notepaper supplied to Deputies and Senators is made in Ireland. I hope it is, but as a matter of interest I held it up to the light recently to see if it had an Irish watermark and I could not discern any watermark. I would like to get the Minister's assurance that it is made in Ireland.

That leads me to the question of our publications and the absolute prohibition there is on our sending them into England. It is time to take very definite action to prevent the flooding of this country with British publications. I am not given to reading English dailies or English Sunday papers, but a few weeks ago I could not get a Sunday Independent and I bought an English paper instead.

Did you notice any difference?

I did. I was very sorry I spent 2d. on it. If Deputy Lemass does not see any difference between some of the English Sunday papers and the Sunday Independent, I am sorry for him.

The English Sunday papers are a little more friendly to Deputy Lemass's point of view.

We will have a remedy for that soon.

The Minister would be doing tremendous benefit to the country if he would exercise the power he has to the extent of absolute prohibition of many of those publications.

On the question of the organisation of industry and the place of the workers in industrial concerns, I was very interested in Deputy Ben Maguire's contribution and in that of Deputy P.J. Burke. I agree altogether with what those two Deputies said regarding giving to the workers in industrial undertakings a share in the profits. That idea is in accordance with the pronouncements in the Papal Encyclicals Rerum Novarum and Quadragesimo Anno. It is laid down there that workers are entitled to a just share in the profits and even to a say in the management of the business. I happen to have Quadragesimo Anno here. Paragraph 61 says:—

"Every effort therefore must be made that at least in future a just share only of the fruits of production be permitted to accumulate in the hands of the wealthy, and that an ample sufficiency be supplied to the workers."

Paragraph 73 says:—

"Let employers, therefore, and employed join in plans and efforts to overcome all difficulties and obstacles, and let them be aided in this wholesome endeavour by the wise measures of the public authority. In the last extreme, counsel must be taken whether the business can continue, or whether some other provision should be made for the workers. The guiding spirit in this crucial decision should be one of mutual understanding and Christian harmony between employers and workers."

I mention that because Deputy Burke said that when profits are good the workers should have their share and when they are bad the workers should take the rap. That does not seem to me to be the spirit of the Papal Encyclical. It says that by all means the workers should get their just share when profits are good and when times are bad the State should help them.

What I am leading up to is that the Minister can exercise his right to control every industrial concern that he backs. He can very easily extend that control to a provision in the memorandum or articles of association to the effect that, after provision from the profits for a certain percentage to the shareholders, there will be, step by step as the share profits grow, a bonus to the workers as well. If that were done, it would be a very effective means of helping the Minister to put into effect his abjuration to the workers to put more effort into more production. It is unreasonable and unnatural to ask a man to work harder and produce more without giving some hope to that man of being able to get something more for the increased effort. We must hold out some practical incentive to the worker. It seems to me that that would be a practical and fair means and, for what it is worth, I give it to the Minister. Certainly, I would be very pleased to see him putting it into effect so far as coming industries are concerned.

The objection might be made that people would not invest in these industries at all or be anxious to put their money into them. I am confident, however, that there are sufficient people in this country who have the money and who have confidence in this State and to whom State guarantees would be a sufficient inducement to invest their moneys in Irish industry for a fair return. I know we have people who want to get rich quick, but the vast majority of our people are nationally-minded and will co-operate with the Minister in an industrial policy of that kind. Money can be found if the guarantees are given.

I do not know what function the Industrial Development Authority would have in that particular connection, but I welcome it, and particularly for the reason that it shows that the Minister is a modest man. As Deputy Lemass said in his opening speech for the Opposition, the Minister does not hold himself out as somebody who knows everything about everything. I do not know if those were his exact words, but that was the gist of them. His move in setting up this authority shows that he appreciates that he does not know everything and that is a very healthy sign in a man. I did not have the opportunity of listening to the Minister's opening speech, nor to the speech made by Deputy Lemass, but I had the advantage of reading them over the week-end and I feel it only right to say that I was heartened by the note of optimism in the Minister's speech, and, while I am throwing bouquets at all, I might say that I thought that, from the point of view of the Opposition, the contribution made by Deputy Lemass was very commendable indeed.

This Estimate, to my mind, is very important because the Department of Industry and Commerce is concerned, either directly or indirectly, with every other Department of State and every phase of our economic life. The Minister in his opening statement mentioned the gross decrease in his Estimate and explained that a certain amount of it had been transferred to other Departments. He said that there was a net decrease of £3,735,965, but that decrease was mainly on food and fuel subsidies. A decrease in an Estimate looks nice. It shows that the cost of administration is being brought down, but that is not so in relation to this Estimate because the decrease is mainly on subsidies. A decrease also looks well because it shows a lowering of taxation, but I am one of those who do not believe in the lowering of taxation, because, as was mentioned by Deputy Maguire, if a Government contemplates carrying out schemes and has been asked to carry out schemes, the money has to be provided, and, when the Minister was able to show a decrease of almost £3,800,000, I should have imagined that he would devote it to industrial expansion and to employment expansion.

He may try to make it appear that he has done and is doing a lot in that way, but unfortunately I cannot agree with him. The figures on the unemployment register have been fairly static and the number of unemployed is given as 70,000. That total of 70,000 is made up of a number of classes, males and females, and of workers who could be termed skilled workers, but the main problem confronting the Minister at the moment is the problem of the unskilled workers who constitute the vast majority of the unemployed. Statements have been made to the effect that this system was brought in by Fianna Fáil for political Party purposes, but I cannot understand the logic behind that, because, if Fianna Fáil were out to serve their own political Party purposes, they would not introduce this system, because the concealing of the unemployment figures is more to the advantage of a Party than the revealing of them. This register system was brought in not merely to give a picture of those wholly unemployed but to give an index of the people partically unemployed, people unemployed at particular times of the year. The type of person I am referring to is the uneconomic holder in the West and throughout the country. It is true that during the latter part of spring, summer and early autumn, they can find a fair amount of employment working with neighbours and so on, but when it comes to the winter period, there is nothing for them and certain schemes were set on foot in order to relieve that unemployment.

The register also proved a very useful guide to the type of employment needed for the various classes and I should be very sorry to see any departure from it, although we have been told that a number of those on the register are not prepared to take work when it is offered to them. Deputy Maguire dealt, and, I think, dealt very well, with that aspect of it. He stated, and I want to emphasise what he said, that those who were in the habit of getting employment on relief schemes and on the turf schemes are not very anxious to go any distance, even within their own county, to work when they know that quite convenient to them there is an industry on which they could be employed. So far as my county is concerned, during the emergency period, an average of £116,000 a year was spent, but that was all put away almost overnight.

I do not intend to go into details on that matter, but I hold that that industry should be maintained and that certain work could have been carried out in preparation for what, to my mind, is a very useful scheme, a scheme that holds out great hope as far as the future is concerned, that is, semi-automatic machine-won turf. Last year in County Galway, the first year that the present Minister was in charge, semi-automatic machines were being operated on 18 bogs, according to the Minister's reply to me. Fourteen machines were operated, giving employment to 261 people. This year, that has been reduced to ten bogs, 27 machines and an estimate of 250 workers. If the Minister had taken his courage in his hands last year, he could have found a number of other bogs in County Galway on which to operate these machines. If the eight bogs that have been dropped were unsuitable for semi-automatic machineproduction of turf, I am quite sure that there is a number of other bogs on which machines could be operated this year if the necessary preparatory work had been carried out last year.

South of Loughrea, in my constituency, there is a big tract of bog. It is a mountain area. During the emergency, several hundred men were employed producing turf which was taken to Dublin and other centres. It is a very good quality turf. As a result of what happened, those people were unemployed. It has been stated by some people, including prominent members of the Government, that people registered because they were told to do so. When you find people of valuations of £5 or £6 and less whose livelihood has been suddenly cut away, is it any crime to advise them to register? I advised them to register and I make no apology to anybody for doing so because I believed that it would be an indication to the Government of the position and that, if they were not prepared to go on with the turf scheme, they would try to find alternative schemes in order to provide employment.

As far as machine-won turf is concerned, as I said, I believe there is a great future for it and I would like to see it extended very considerably. I would like, in the first instance, that hand-won turf production would be encouraged. Many of the co-operative societies that were established did very useful work and their members got a fairly decent return for their labour. I would like that such co-operative societies should be encouraged again, that the improvement of bogs would be continued and that grants for that purpose would not be stinted. While the production of hand-won turf would be continued through the medium of co-operative societies, I would very much like to see the production of semi-automatic machine-won turf being encouraged. Every encouragement should be given to co-operative societies or to persons who have a technical knowledge—I am sure many of them would be found—who would be prepared to invest in that type of machine. I would like to see the day when the entire domestic fuel requirements of the people in the rural areas in the West of Ireland would be provided by the semi-automatic machine. I hope the Minister will bear that in mind.

I am glad that the Minister, although he comes from the town of Nenagh, is conversant with rural Ireland and I am sure he understands that one of the heaviest and most costly crops to save as far as the farmers are concerned is the turf crop. For instance, take a farmer who has to produce his own supply of turf fuel with the help of his own family or hired labour. He generally goes to the bog after he has the greater portion of his crops sown. Even if the weather is fine, the operation on the bogs continues for at least a fortnight at cutting, then a number of days spreading and a certain amount of time footing. That is a big handicap on the farmer. He may have to go a distance of two to 15 miles. The meals have to be prepared by the housewife and taken to the bog at the very time that the root crops are commencing to come above the ground and when the weeds are also appearing. In view of the distance involved and particularly if the weather is fine, the farmer will try to finish the turf production and, consequently, neglects his crops at the very time that they require attention. That is why I would like to see co-operative societies or individuals or some organisation under Bord na Móna undertaking, as far as possible, the whole supply of domestic fuel in the rural parts of Ireland where bogs are available. That would be of very great importance to the farmers and many farmers would be prepared to pay reasonably well to have that work carried out. They could afford to pay because, if they had any worthwhile crops at all, it would doubly repay them to give proper attention to them when they need it most. I mentioned one or two bogs south of Loughrea— that great tract of territory there. I sincerely hope that the Minister will convey to Bord na Móna my recommendation that that large bog be inspected and that semi-automatic machines be put to work there. In the first place they will get a certain amount of a market in the town of Loughrea and probably also in the town of Gort. We have a number of public institutions in County Galway that could also be supplied without sending any out of the county at all. There is another bog convenient to Woodlawn station— Moyardwood bog. Machines were on that bog last year but not for very long. I am not in a position to state whether the bog was suitable or not, but I know that as far as the production of hand-won turf was concerned, a very fine amount of it was produced on that particular bog during the emergency. There is the very great advantage, too, that it is along the railway line from Galway to Dublin. There is also another bog at Caltralea between Ballinasloe and Ahascragh where very fine turf was produced during the emergency. A bog was also taken over by the Land Commission on the Trench estate at Poolboy and Kellysgrove, Ballinasloe. That bog was, in the main, given out to people in the town of Ballinasloe. If machines could work on that bog in something like the manner I have indicated I am sure that the people of Ballinasloe town would be quite willing to pay for the turf that would be produced there. It would give just as much employment and perhaps even more than is available at the moment where the individuals are producing it themselves.

The Minister stated at Westport and, of course, he stated it in this House, too, that there was work for 5,000 with the Electricity Supply Board and Bord na Móna, but that the response was very poor. It may be so that the response was very poor. However, I remember that in the past there was very great criticism, even in this House, of the conditions of employment with Board na Móna—very unfair criticism and of a type that would not by any means bear the light of investigation. I am told that conditions have not worsened since. But, nevertheless, when you have criticisms of that kind it is not very helpful. People take it to themselves. I would like that when workers are being advertised for— apart altogether from the conditions and the rate of wages being given at the labour exchange—they would also be given in the public Press. I think it would be a very useful thing to do. I hold that turf production is an industry that can do more to expand employment in rural Ireland, particularly in the western counties, than anything else. Of course, we would have employment on roads—very useful employment, too—but that is a matter for another Department. Nevertheless, the Minister is interested in giving employment and I hope he will pull his weight, as I am sure he will, in the Government, to see that the shortsighted policy which was put into operation this year in regard to road grants will not be continued and that, in regard to the improvement of roads, main and county—as well as the improvement of roads and drainage in connection with bogs—good substantial grants will be made available. After all, the giving of good useful employment to people in their own areas and districts, in my opinion, overshadows all this thing and what I term the "penny wise and pound foolish" policy which is being carried on by the present Government since it took over office.

The question of commercial industries in towns was raised. That is a matter in which I am keenly interested. We have a few towns that could very well do with industries. When the Minister was making his opening statement on this Estimate he said that notice of approval had been given in 90 cases; that the production stage had been reached in 14 cases and that proposals were in an advanced stage in 70 cases. One thing I should like to know and which I should like cleared up is, how many of the 90 cases, in which notice of approval has been given, were on the files of the Minister's Department previous to his taking office, and how many of those 14 cases that have reached the production stage were on the files of his Department before he took office.

I gave that information recently in answer to a question.

I will try to look it up. I believe that at least 90 per cent. of them were on the files of the Department before the change of Government. I am glad that the Minister is going on with them. I am delighted, and I congratulate him on being so broad-minded as to go on with them. I only wish that in every other sphere we had the same spirit of broad-mindedness and appreciation for the efforts of his predecessor in office.

The Industrial Development Authority has now been established. I do not know any of its members except one and I know that he, like the Minister, is very interested in the welfare of the country. I was pleased to note in the evening paper that the Minister referred to a question which I intended to ask on this Estimate, namely, whether that body would advise those anxious to promote and invest in industry as to the most suitable type of industry for the particular district concerned. I remember that on certain occasions since the industrial revival in 1932 people came together in an area and were prepared to put up a certain amount of money to go into an industry. The trouble with them was that they did not exactly know what industry they should invest in or what industry would be most suitable to their area. Of course they had certain ideas about industries that they might start, but when they went a distance, not having any technical knowledge or experience, they were told that an industry of that kind would not be suitable. They were given a list of other industries which they might consider but as a result of their first experience they became confused and consequently no industry was started. I should like to see the Industrial Development Authority go as far as possible to supply advice in a matter of that kind.

In the town of Loughrea there is a number of people prepared to put up anything from £15,000 to £20,000 to start an industry. I should like very much that the Industrial Development Authority or certain of its members would be prepared to go down to meet these people and talk the matter over with them. I think it would be better business than bringing these people to Dublin, because the members would see the position for themselves and get an idea of the district. I know that in Loughrea they were very keen on one type of industry and anybody having raw material so near at hand would imagine it should be a very suitable industry. They were told from time to time, however, that it was an industry which was very doubtful from the profit-making point of view. I refer to a wool scouring and combing industry. After all, Galway produces a very fine type of wool and supplies, I suppose, one-sixth of the wool of the entire State. An industry of that kind should be thoroughly examined. Deputy Bartley mentioned something to-day about seaweed coming into the manufacture of fine textiles. If that is the case we have both the seaweed and the wool in County Galway and, as the emergency in now over, it is quite possible that the machinery necessary for this fine combing process could be made available.

Another matter that was mentioned in relation to Loughrea and Portumna and I might say Gort, but not so much Gort, is that they were unsuitable centres because they had not good railway facilities. I wonder in connection with the Milne report on the transport position if legislation is introduced and carried through on the basis of that report will this railway-minded legislation be of any great advantage or benefit to towns like those I am speaking about. There are, of course, several hundred towns in the country similarly situated. They are either at the end of a line or there is no railway line at all. I believe that with a good lorry service industries could be established in towns such as Loughrea and Portumna and that the cost of distribution would be no greater than where you have railway facilities.

As I said, there are five towns in my constituency, Loughrea, Portumna, Gort, Ballinasloe and Athenry which could do with an industry. In Ballinasloe a boot and shoe industry was established during the Fianna Fáil regime. It had some difficult years to contend with in the early stages, but it is a very fine industry now. I know well, and the people who are drawing their wages know much better, the value of that industry to them. Some £500 or £600 per week is paid out in wages in that town. Even the small sack factory in Athenry, although the number employed is not so great, is a great asset to that town. I should like to see an industry in all the towns and even a second industry. I should like to see an medium-sized or small industries in the smaller towns given every encouragement. Where we have people willing to invest money and take an interest in an industry they should not be discountenanced because the proposed in dustry was not a big one. Every help and assistance should be given then by the Industrial Development Authority.

I am afraid the Government made a bad start as far as industrial development is concerned. A number of references were made to Irish industrialists —they are even being made yet. I think a number of them would have been better left unsaid. It is very difficult to expect people to invest money in Irish industry when they know the background and history of some of the people who are members of the present Government. Here is a quotation from one of them:

"We do not want to see Irish industry for ever carrying on its purse the parasites that have attached themselves to it in the last ten years. I pray for an economic D.D.T. with which we can spray Irish industry and watch the vermin that infests it to-day falling off."

That was the then Deputy Dillon in 1945 as reported in the Official Reports, Volume 97, column 1579. He is now a member of the present Government.

What is wrong with that?

Has the Government proof that there are any such parasites? If they want to prove that there are parasites, all the flock should not be blackened because of the one black sheep. Whatever few parasites are in it, they should not be spared. All the other people, however, who invested their money, perhaps their life savings in industry and did a very good job of work should not be tarred with the same brush. That type of talk is no inducement whatever. It is all very well for people to say—I do not disagree with it—that workers should have a say in the management and a share in the profits of industry. We should remember, however, that the people who invest their money are investing money which they earned, in the main, honestly for services rendered to this country. In my opinion, no matter what anybody else says, they are entitled to have a greater say in regard to how that money is to be utilised than the people who come in just to work for what they can make out of it. I do not think there is anything wrong in what I have said. It was stated here by Deputy Maguire and certain others that if the workers have a say in the management—and I should like to see that—and a share in the profits, they would not do more when the question of losses came up.

Progress reported; Committee to sit again to-morrow.
Barr
Roinn