Supplies and Services (Temporary Provisions) Act, 1946 (Continuance) Bill, 1951—Second Stage (resumed).

Mr. Sweetman

When the House adjourned on last Friday, I had commenced to point out that this is a Bill by virtue of which any Government, in the times in which we live, utilises its powers for the purpose of directing and controlling the economic life of the country. Since then, the Tánaiste has indicated in another place his views about certain people which it is essential should be put in perspective and in the background of this case. We all know that the Tánaiste, speaking last Friday night, indicated his great dislike of the lawyers.

Mr. Lemass

I must not be misrepresented—only in particular circumstances.

Mr. Sweetman

Is the Tánaiste suggesting that he should change the record again in that respect? The Tánaiste made it perfectly clear that, so far as politicians are concerned at any rate, he thought a lawyer's training was a very bad one. I must confess that when I read it I thought that perhaps that might be one of the reasons why poor Deputy Little was dropped from the Cabinet.

Mr. Lemass

I also exempted solicitors from what I said.

Mr. Sweetman

And I thought that, of course, would be still further evidence of how unlucky the Parliamentary Secretary to the Taoiseach, Deputy Jack Lynch, is. I think the real reason the Tánaiste has such an objection to lawyers is that the lawyers of the Fianna Fáil Party have so often failed them in the past. The essence of his objection, apart from asides, is because the Tánaiste himself stands without any question for the supremacy of the State as against the individual. The Tánaiste has always been quite the cynical theoretical State-ist par excellence and it is because lawyers, no matter how much anyone may dislike them and because the courts, no matter how much people dislike going to them—and people should dislike going to them, may I add as a lawyer myself—stand between the State-ist and the ordinary people that the Tánaiste delivered himself of that objection and indicated that outlook.

It is an important outlook to consider in regard to this Supplies and Services Bill in which very considerable powers indeed are given to the Government. It gives powers which in the present times are essential but powers which must be utilised sparingly so far as the overriding rights of the individual are concerned and it gives powers which, while proper as a temporary measure, are not proper at all as a permanent feature of legislation.

Last year, when we were speaking on this Bill, the Tánaiste made it quite clear that he regarded it as being imperative that there should not be temporary legislation of this sort but that there should be permanent legislation. At column 1299, he indicated that the case should be made that it is not good enough that the Government should ride along on the basis of temporary legislation and not turn its mind to the problems of the present and the future. There is this year, just as much as there was last year, necessity for some permanent approach to this problem, quite apart from the temporary one that is made by this Bill. I want to suggest to the Tánaiste and to this House that the only reason he made that observation then was to score a silly and cheap point against the Government then in office.

We in this Party stand for the slowing down of State control in permanent form but, in temporary circumstances such as those in which we exist, it is undeniably essential that any Government should have at its command the powers necessary to deal with the matters that are covered in the Supplies and Services Bill.

It is necessary, when we are considering this Bill, that we should take it in its background and in its perspective. It was the campaign which was started on this Bill last year, and which was started by the Tánaiste himself, which is responsible for having the Fianna Fáil Government with their coalition five allies in power, and I want the House to consider for a moment the basis upon which that campaign was started and the dishonest methods that were utilised in that campaign, so that the House may see now the perspective in which it is being asked to give the present Bill to the Government.

Those of us who were here last year remember that when he was opening the debate on the Supplies and Services Bill, 1950, Deputy Cosgrave, then Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Industry and Commerce, made it quite clear, in the beginning of his speech, in the comparisons that he was giving, that he was dealing with the position as it had operated up to August, 1950. He made it perfectly clear that all the comparisons he had given about the cost of living were up to that date. He followed that on by saying—column 1279—that though that was the position up to then, in the middle of 1950 the Korean war had commenced and that that had changed the whole picture which he was giving to the House. We had then the most enlightening interruption from Deputy Major de Valera, who asked: "How did the Korean war affect it?"

Let us consider that picture as it was then and the picture as it is to-day. Let us consider the picture as it was then when the Tánaiste, as Deputy Lemass, was speaking as the Leader of the Opposition in that debate on this side of the House, a speech which he opened with these words, as reported in column 1291 of the Official Reports:—

"As this Supplies and Services Act is the main legal foundation for the ineffective efforts at price control that the Government is making...."

He went on to discuss the fact that it was essential that the time of the House should be utilised at some length to discuss prices. Then he continued, as reported in column 1306:—

"The failure to control prices, to prevent a rise in prices up to now, the accelerating rise that is now in process, is perhaps the Government's greatest failure."

This is the same Deputy who had the effrontery to stand up the other day and to say that there should be no references in this debate to the cost of living.

We all know quite clearly that the Korean war was the commencement of an international chain which meant that prices did start to increase and Deputy Lemass, as he then was, when speaking in this House 12 months ago knew that then just as well as he knows it to-day, just as well as when opening this debate three weeks or so ago. But, because he was determined that he would try to put over on the people a different aspect and a different trend, he utilised this debate last year—and his Party utilised it in this House and throughout the country—to ensure that the real facts of the case would be withheld from the people and that the people would not realise that it was international events which had caused the increase in the cost of living during that period of the inter-Party Government régime. He hoped that he would get the people to believe that it was the fault of the then Government. Having been given that headline here in this House, the Fianna Fáil Party continued it from one end of the country to the other. I have in front of me leaflets issued in different parts of the country by different members of the Fianna Fáil Party in which all of them endeavoured to show, and let me say succeeded in duping the people to believe, that the rise which had then taken place was the fault of the inter-Party Government and that if Fianna Fáil were returned there was going to be, not a stabilised cost of living, but a reduced one.

I have here a leaflet issued in Cork City which has in it four photographs of very presentable people—Deputy Jack Lynch, Deputy Seán MacCarthy, Deputy P. McGrath and the Lord Mayor of Cork, Alderman Furlong, about whom members of the Fianna Fáil Party do not like to be reminded at present. This leaflet is headed: "The Cost of Living! The Coalition. Some Results," and it gives a series of individual items that had increased in price between 1947 and 1951. I am quite sure that every decent person in Cork City who read that leaflet, whether it was given out at the chapel gate, in the streets or put through the letter box, thought that if only they voted for these four gentlemen under the aegis of Fianna Fáil the cost of living would be reduced and the prices—to mention just a few items—of beef, sausages, bacon, butter, were going to be reduced if they gave this country a Fianna Fáil Government.

I pass from Cork and come to my own constituency of Kildare, to the leaflet which was put out there, printed by the Leinster Leader and published by Joseph McCormack, election agent for the Fianna Fáil candidate. It was headed—“Especially for you Women of Kildare”—and stated:—

"The Coalition gave you cheaper beer and tobacco but dearer butter, bacon, bread, biscuits, cheese...."

And the whole list of other items. Then it goes on:—

"Mr. Norton blames the war in Korea. That is his excuse."

Did any women in Kildare when reading these leaflets which were distributed at the chapel gates think, when they went to vote for Mr. Harris or Mr. Nolan, following the lead that the Tánaiste had given in this House, that they were going to vote for the position which has occurred since—that, far from there being any reduction in these figures set out in these leaflets, the price of almost every single item in that list that was given by Fianna Fáil at that time has increased beyond all question?

The Tánaiste has always been credited with being the chief propagandist of the Party opposite. Certainly it was as "Dáil Reporter" that he showed himself in that line to the public. He has also been credited with being the brains in their propaganda effort. It was no doubt the Tánaiste, who as propaganda chief, was responsible for the nation-wide advertisement published by the Fianna Fáil Party in which the harried housewife was shown with one hand on her accounts and one hand to her head, surrounded by the words, "butter, soap, shoes, gas, coal and electricity." She was not merely surrounded by that, but there was taken out and put at the side of it a quotation from the speech delivered by Deputy Cosgrave last year, a quotation entirely out of its context, a quotation which anybody reading the speech in its entirety, as Deputies on the other side must have read it, knew was deliberately and dishonestly trying to paint a picture which was not painted by him. Did any housewife who read that advertisement in the daily or the provincial papers in which it was published, imagine for a moment that if she voted, as she was urged to do in this advertisement, for Fianna Fáil, she was going to get the increase in butter, in soap, in shoes, in gas, in coal and in electricity that she has got since then?

It was not enough for the Tánaiste to say, as he said at the beginning of the debate, that the Government were unable to control these things because of the steps taken before. Fianna Fáil in their election manifesto and campaign, directed from the top—because it would be foolish for anyone to suggest that this huge advertisement was published without authority, having regard to the fact that it must have cost the Fianna Fáil Party between £10,000 and £15,000—embarked on a dishonest campaign, a campaign which was intended to dupe the people, and the important thing about it is that it is a campaign which is now returning like a boomerang on the Deputies opposite because what the people are worried and anxious about at present is, not only the cost of living, but the dishonest method adopted by the Party opposite by virtue of which the people were duped into voting for Fianna Fáil at the last election by the promise of a reduction in the cost of living, by the promise that an effort would be made to hold prices and stabilise the cost of living.

Wherever one goes in any part of the country, no Fianna Fáil Deputy can deny that he did not get many votes because he led the people to believe that. No Deputy sitting opposite can deny that his canvassers went out into the towns and villages and highways and made it clear to the people that, according to him, the almost overwhelming rise in the cost of living which had come about under the inter-Party Government was something that called for immediate change.

We are here to-day to discuss this Bill, and we have on it a clear acceptance of the fact that the Government now has nothing more to offer the people than what was offered to them by the inter-Party Government prior to June last. This time last year there was a reference by Deputy Lemass, as he then was, to the manner in which the decontrol of certain articles was effected. He indicated then that he believed that the Government of the day had decontrolled certain articles because, had they kept them under control, prices would have had to be increased. At column 1302 of Volume 123 of the Official Report, he said:—

"I say that the reason why they were decontrolled was that the Government knew that if they did not decontrol they would have to sanction higher prices."

We have to-day in that respect exactly the same situation with the exception that price decontrol is on a much wider scale under the present régime than it ever was under the inter-Party Government.

We had a reference by other Deputies to the price freeze Order made last year. We had a reference to it by Deputy Dr. ffrench-O'Carroll in his election campaign when he asked why it had been thawed. I think it would have been desirable for him, when he was speaking last Friday, to have asked the Minister that question in the same form in which he postulated it in his election address. There is no doubt that this time last year there was an international rise in prices which resulted in an increase in prices at home. There is no doubt also that 90 per cent. of Irish manufacturers and Irish distributors are honest, decent people who only wish to make a decent and a fair profit. There was a position in which a small minority were taking advantage of the times then existent to fleece the public. That was a small percentage but, small though it was, the only way of meeting the situation and preventing this small minority cashing in on it was by clamping on the price freeze Order introduced this time last year.

Anyone who appreciated the situation as it then existed must have known, and did know, and the present Minister knew, that the price freeze Order was introduced for the purpose of holding the situation until the Prices Advisory Body had ample time to examine the position and ample time to ensure that that small minority, which was prepared to take an unfair advantage of a certain situation, would not be allowed to benefit and in that way prices would be controlled until such time as the Prices Advisory Body had had an opportunity of considering the matter in public.

Notwithstanding that, we had to face then grave criticism by the present Minister of that Prices Advisory Body. So far as one can understand from his statement here, he now proposes to reverse what he said then and, having reversed, he proposes to continue that body in operation. At one time he suggested that he would abolish the Industrial Development Authority and he promised to give us an indication of that in this Bill. Yet, the Bill is now before the House and no mention whatsoever has been made of that body.

This Bill will enable the Government to investigate, check and correct every aspect of our economic national life and we are entitled to get from the Minister and from the Government a clear indication of the line they propose to take in existing circumstances. So far we have not got that indication. The only indication we have got is that the present Government proposes to follow the lines already laid down. I think the House is entitled before this debate concludes, to be told whether in relation to price control the existing system established last year will be altered or whether it will be carried on as it is in the year ahead. If the Government proposes to operate exactly as their predecessors did, then the House and the people are entitled to be so informed. They are entitled to know whether it is correct that the present Minister and the other members of the Fianna Fáil Party, who, this time last year and in the early part of this year, were making the welkin ring because of the rise in prices which had come about from international causes, are now satisfied that their complaints at that time were unjustified. If they are not prepared to admit now that their complaints then were unjustified, what steps do they propose to take now at this stage to change the trend so much in evidence since they took office, a trend so much in evidence every day when one takes up the morning paper and finds a new increase in some article or other in ordinary everyday household use?

It is under this Bill, too, that the prices of commodities such as artificial manures are determined. The House and the people would like to know what efforts the Minister proposes to make to ensure during the coming year that the price paid for artificial manures will be one within the competence of the individual farmer. Any merchant in the country will tell you that far less fertiliser is being bought to-day than at any time during the past three or four years. If that is so, it means that agricultural production, so eminently desirable and so absolutely necessary, will be retarded instead of increasing. That is one of the matters upon which I hope the Minister will give us some information before the debate concludes.

I turn now from the question of prices to the discreditable method by which the Deputies opposite came into office and the just as discreditable method by which they propose to remain in office or try to increase their majority. After the present Government took office it became abundantly clear that they proposed to set out on a campaign designed for one purpose, and one purpose only, namely, to pretend that the previous Government had left everything in a mess.

Deputy Dillon has given it as his opinion that the reason for that was that it was desirable that the Tánaiste should come out of that situation as the saviour, and, by so doing, eclipse the other members, the potential leaders, in Fianna Fáil. Whether that is so or whether it is not so, it is perfectly clear to anyone who reads the speeches that have been made over the past five months, and the speeches that have been made in this House and are on record, that what the Government did intend to do was to create a false scare, a scare for the purpose of ensuring in the spring that they would be able to go to the people and say: "Look at what we were left with, and look at how we have saved you." With that false scare, and with that false picture painted, the opportunity might then have arisen for the Taoiseach to take one of those trips, which he so delights in, to the country. The sooner he takes that trip the better. When he does take it, the Deputies who are over there, many of them, will shake very much in their shoes, because there is no doubt anywhere in the country to-day that, wherever you go, the spirit and the morale of the Fianna Fáil Party were never so low. In addition to that, there never was such a poor opinion held of any Government in recent years as that held of the present Government to-day.

The first indication of this fake scare that was going to be raised was that which the present Minister for Finance gave when he came into this House on 18th July last to introduce his Estimate for the Department of Finance. The Minister for Finance spoke in this House the other day and spoke about some of the same things which he discussed here last July. There is an extraordinary difference, however, in his two speeches because, when he opened on the 18th July, 1951, at column 1873, he indicated that there were four problems which had faced the Government when it took office. The first was the character and the adequacy of the current year's Budget; the second was the unwieldy programme of capital expenditure; the third, the trade balance of payments, and the fourth the rapid dissipation of external assets. Then he came here to speak the other day and, at column 718, he told the House that there were four problems which faced the Government when it took office: the Budget problem, the balance of payments problem, the currency problem and the confidence problem. Anybody who looks at the two sets of four problems will see that they differ, and that the Minister changed his mind between July and the other day. They will find that three of the problems which he postulated to the House were the same, but that one was different in each case: that, in July, he said there was an unwieldy programme of capital expenditure and did not refer to that as a problem at all the other day; that the other day he said there was a confidence problem, and yet, while speaking in July, he did not advert to the fact that there was any confidence problem. The mere fact that the Minister, when dealing with a serious matter in that way, was unable to keep his mind the same within a short period of four months, makes it even more abundantly clear that the whole of this hullabaloo that is being raised is being raised for a faked purpose, namely, to suit the Fianna Fáil Party and the Fianna Fáil Government, and not because of any underlying real and genuine belief or genuine anxiety.

When the Minister for Finance was speaking the other day in regard to the character and the adequacy of the current year's Budget, he gave a series of figures which, he said, totalled a deficit of some £10,000,000. He mislaid a few odd millions here and there until Deputy Mulcahy pointed out to him that his arithmetic, in the first instance, was not very accurate. However, having had his arithmetic corrected, and, surely, it should not be necessary for a Minister for Finance to have his arithmetic corrected, he then said that our current budgetary deficit was going to be of the order of £10,000,000. Having done that, he was followed later by his leader, the Taoiseach, who told us that the actual Budget deficit, in fact, was only going to be £5,000,000. It seems extraordinary that over the space of a few days the Taoiseach could ascertain that the Minister for Finance was incorrect in the matter of a mere £5,000,000, but, even if we do take the figures which the Taoiseach set out as being £5,000,000, and if we analyse them, we will find there a very different picture from the one which the Government are trying to paint. That £5,000,000 deficit includes a figure of some £3,000,000 odd of a fuel subsidy. When the Minister for Finance was speaking I asked him to break down the figure. If the Tánaiste does not accept the fact that the figure given by the Minister for Finance includes the £3,000,000 fuel subsidy, I will give him the reference. It is at column 719. The figure of £3,079,950 for a fuel subsidy is the figure which the Minister for Finance in that column included as being part of the £10,000,000.

Mr. Lemass

The Deputy is now proceeding on the difference between £5,000,000 and £10,000,000.

Mr. Sweetman

No. If the Tánaiste would like me to take that up I will take it up.

Mr. Lemass

It is all right now.

Mr. Sweetman

Let me turn aside for a moment from the Budget problem, which the Minister for Finance indicated as existing and which he distorted in the way I have described, to the position that has arisen and that has been discussed at some length in this House, and properly discussed, in regard to the balance of payments and in regard to our external assets. Those two matters are, naturally enough, tied up with the White Paper which was issued by the Department of Finance and with the Central Bank Report. When the Minister for Industry and Commerce started out on the 8th October last blazoning forth to the people that there was a serious and imminent crisis, he was making the ground ready for the White Paper which was going to be issued by his colleague, the Minister for Finance. When he was making that speech, he made it crystal clear to the country that, in his opinion, it was vitally necessary to restrict imports. Perhaps I will accept that it was only right and proper on the occasion on which he was speaking that he should not give any indication of the items which he wished to restrict. Anyhow, no such indication was given by him. Right along from that day, unless we take into account the famous somersault here at the opening of this debate, there was not any suggestion forthcoming from any member of the Government as to what items should be restricted, or as to what items should be brought in. An attempt was made to create a general scare by saying that all sorts of items were being imported which should not be brought in here at all. An attempt was made by global discussion, global speeches, and global attack to suggest that if one took the trouble to examine the imports and their cost it would be found that an enormous number of articles, costing a great deal, and entirely unnecessary luxuries had been imported.

I do not propose at this stage in the debate to examine these items at length, but if anybody takes the trouble to examine Table 5 on page 8 of this disreputable document which was issued by the Department of Finance and goes through the items that are set out as having been imported, it would be interesting to know the items to which he would object. We see almost in the first item that the volume of tea that was being imported was increased by 100 percent. Is the reason that there was objection taken to imports the fact that once again the Taoiseach is going to give us a homily to stop drinking tea and to go back to milk and light ale as I think he did some years ago?

Mr. Davin

That was Dr. Ryan.

Mr. Sweetman

I believe the Taoiseach also said it either in Dundalk or Drogheda. The volume of tea that was brought in was double the quantity brought in in the previous year. Was that a silly thing? The White Paper under discussion must be considered in the light of the picture that was being continually painted for us last year by every single Deputy on the other side that at any moment war was likely to break out, the result of which would be infinitely worse for this country than the emergency of the last great war, and in the light of the fact that day after day we read speeches from every member of the Opposition, as it then was, from Deputy de Valera down, that it was vital and absolutely necessary that every possible import that could be obtained should be obtained for the purpose of ensuring that, if that disastrous international war should come, this country would not go short of supplies.

In that picture and with that background I invite the Deputies of this House to consider the White Paper that is now before us, to consider whether it was wise that we should have increased the volume of tea imported by as much again and spent £1,900,000 on that importation. I would ask you to consider whether it was wise that we should have expended, as this paper sets out that we did expend, £2,800,000 in importing additional machinery and electrical goods; whether it was wise that we should have imported £500,000 worth of electrical wire and cable and that we should have brought in an additional 2,734 agricultural tractors; whether it was wise that the other agricultural and drainage machinery that was imported should have been imported and that an increased amount of 55,000 tons of fertilisers should have been brought in.

There is quite a simple issue to be considered in regard to that White Paper and that is whether it was better to obtain the things that are set out in that White Paper or leave our money across the other side in danger of depreciating again should there be another devaluation or should there be another serious price inflation in Great Britain. If it was not wise to get those things in those circumstances, there is an obligation on the Government not merely to attack the figure of imports as a whole but to come down to brass tacks and to enumerate the items, item after item, which should not have been imported and to tell the people: "On that specific item the previous Government were wrong to allow those things to be brought in. On that specific item we propose to make a change." If the Government had done that there might have been some respect for them in their approach to this question of the trend of external trade and payments, but merely to come out in the global way in which they did, shows conclusively that they were anxious not to tackle a problem that might be there in the national life of the country, but to create a fog and a scare, in which they could blame their own misdeeds on the previous Government, and blaming their own misdeeds on the previous Government in that way, eventually appoint themselves as the saviours of our people.

The real trouble that is abroad at the present time is not the problem which the Government have indicated to the country exists but rather that indicated by the Minister for Finance by a word used in a different context when he was speaking here on the 14th of this month. The trouble that there is to-day is a lack of confidence and it is that lack of confidence in the ernment which is worrying the country as a whole. It is a lack of confidence which comes from the manner in which they have failed to tackle existing problems. It is a lack of confidence which comes from the fact that the people appreciate that the Government are merely trying to play a party game and are not tackling a national problem.

The national problem that requires to be tackled is the problem of credit. This time last year the then Government indicated, in the background and in the picture which I have already represented of Deputies in the Fianna Fáil Party saying that there was likely to be an international conflagration, that they were anxious to ensure that the maximum imports would be brought in that could be obtained. They sent for the editors of the four daily newspapers and told them what it was proposed to do. The then Government indicated to the banks that they were anxious that every reasonable facility would be given to people throughout the country in order that they might buy as much goods as possible. They also had to urge that distributors and retailers would buy because if they did not do so the wharves and the stores would be blocked up. The picture is shown in this White Paper that every type of commodity that is there is a commodity that it was infinitely better in the circumstances that existed in the early and in the middle part of this year right up to now should be obtained no matter what they might cost rather than risk possible further devaluation or further price inflation in Great Britain which would make those articles that we wanted so very much more costly.

That whole purchase was only made possible because at that time the Government induced the commercial banks to enable purchases of those goods. In the summer of this year, coincident with the change of Government, there was a change in that banking policy. The members of the Government have given categorical assurances that they did not give strict instructions to the banks to restrict credit. I must, of course, accept that assurance but there was no necessity for any such instructions to be given in categorical terms by the Government. It is perfectly clear if one read the speeches by responsible Ministers, that hints were given to the banks so broadly that not even the dumbest person could, under any circumstances, avoid reading into them what the Government wished. The first of those hints to which I am going to refer for a moment is one that was given on the 18th of July last by the Minister for Finance. As reported in column 1899, he stated:—

"Private and public spending are causing congestion that can be relieved only by a reduction of one or the other; credit facilities are encouraging outlay on less essential goods."

I have already asked members of the Government to refer to the less essential goods in this White Paper that have been imported and the import of which they suggest should have been stopped.

There was even a more significant phrase used by the Minister for Finance when he was speaking on that day. It is a phrase that must be considered in conjunction and in comparison with the Report of the Central Bank. It is a phrase which indicates that when the Central Bank were considering the type of report that they were going to issue, it was clear that they and the Minister for Finance were travelling along the same lines. Speaking, as reported in column 1885 on the 18th July, the Minister for Finance stated:—

"The release of counterpart moneys now must be regarded as having a predominantly inflationary influence."

We then read the following in page 16 of the Report of the Central Bank, at the very top of the page:—

However, there is one thing about a movement of the head. If a mouse puts his head into a mousetrap, it has unpleasant results for the mouse. The fact is that throughout the country, in the last six months, customers have been told everywhere by the banks that they will not be allowed the same overdraft facilities as they had this time last year or in the early part of this year. The result for these customers has been that they have had to try to cut down on their purchases and to realise their stocks, so far as was possible, for the purpose of reducing their overdrafts. The effect of that has been that not merely are they unable to purchase without selling but that, after they have sold, they are not enabled or allowed to go back in the purchasing market in which they were before.

Everybody knows, no matter what the Tánaiste may say, that that is a fact. Everybody knows that up to this, banks have steadily been reducing overdraft facilities. Everybody knows that they have told customers that their facilities must still further be reduced within the next six months. The result of that is bound to be the trade recession that has undoubtedly commenced. I am not going to suggest to the Tánaiste that that is the only cause of the trade recession but I suggest categorically that it is the main cause and that it has arisen entirely from the atmosphere created by the speeches which were started by the Minister for Finance in July last and carried on after that by the Tánaiste on 8th and 11th October, by the Minister for Finance again in this House the other day and followed by a speech from the Taoiseach.

Mr. Lemass

They were powerful speeches if they produced the same result over the whole world.

Mr. Sweetman

One of the things which were extremely noticeable was that, during the course of this debate— on 15th of this month, column 954 of the Official Report—we had an interruption from Deputy Cunningham. We can remember how a few years ago Deputy Davern let the Fianna Fáil cat out of the bag. Deputy Cunningham interjected, when the restriction of credit was being discussed, that it was happening in Britain also. We then got at the propaganda that our friends opposite were being told to disseminate, namely, that this restriction by the banks—which is or is not a fact, according as the Tánaiste wishes—was being caused by a world symptom. The fact is that it was caused by the speeches by the Minister for Finance and by the Tánaiste to which I have already referred. Even if it had not been caused by these speeches, there is an obligation on the Government to ensure that, whatever is the reason why it started, it is not continued. If it were not continued and, even at this late hour, if it were stopped, there would be a better chance of the trade recession receding and of our getting back to the position in which we had been before.

When this question of credit restriction, and so forth, was first indicated, Deputies may remember that there was an article on the front page of the Independent which featured the Governor of the Central Bank and Deputy Dillon. In the statement which Deputy Dillon then made, he indicated that he understood, and that he was afraid, that the Government, in taking the line that they were taking, were being influenced by the same type of consideration as moved the “May” report in 1931 to affect English political life and that brought such appalling disaster and unemployment in its wake in Great Britain.

Mr. Davin

And which was reflected here also.

Mr. Sweetman

I agree. Candidly, I thought at that time that the remark made by Deputy Dillon was perhaps a little far-fetched but when I heard— because I was in the House at the time —the Minister for Lands, Deputy Derrig, interject on this subject it was quite clear to me that Deputy Dillon was right and that the effect of the "May" report in Great Britain must have been studied and considered by the Government. On 14th of this month, as reported at column 745 of the Official Report, the Minister for Lands, Deputy Derrig, interjected as follows:

"What about Philip Snowden's speech? The Deputy ought to go and read it."

The only speech of any comparison that Mr. Snowden made was a speech when, as Chancellor of the Exchequer, following the "May" report, he introduced devaluation in Great Britain. We all remember the quip there was at the time about Mr. Ramsay MacDonald, that the effect was that it would enable him to take tea with the duchesses. I should shudder to think that the effect of these documents that have been issued by Deputy MacEntee as Minister for Finance would be issued in the same spirit of taking——

Mr. Davern

Why does Deputy Sweetman not quote Jimmy Thomas? He said something about it too.

Mr. Sweetman

It was not Deputy Sweetman who was quoting the English people as our guide here. It was Deputy Derrig, the Minister for Lands. Deputy Cunningham interjected during the discussion on credit and indicated that because the British restrict credit we should do likewise. It is perfectly clear that the British have an entirely different problem to handle from that which we have to handle is not governed by the same set of circumstances as the British problem. The mistake that the Government are making is that they do not realise that fact, that they are discussing these problems in regard to trade, currency and so forth as if we were in the same position as the British and as if, in addition, we had a currency that is separate as regards price inflation instead of the currency that must follow, as things are, any price inflation that may arise.

The difficulty in which the country is at present is the difficulty of confidence. It is a difficulty that can be surmounted if we can strike out on a confident note, if we can accept that what we want here is an extension and a development of our capital resources without the necessity of playing Party politics, of bringing in, without justification, scare headlines. We are all anxious on both sides of the House that there should be an expansion of our exports and that there should be an expansion of agriculture and industry. In regard to that expansion of agriculture, I want most specifically to refer to one statement that was made by the Taoiseach when he was speaking the other day because I think the policy he outlined would be a disastrous one for this country. When the Taoiseach spoke the other day he dealt at some length with agriculture, the land reclamation project and the manner in which he felt that such land reclamation project should be put into operation. At columns 1102 and 1103 of Volume 127, No. 6, of the Official Reports, he said:—

"The first care then should be the lands which are capable of giving an immediate response to the efforts put into them. You will find, in the main, that these are the good lands. The next step would be to get the marginal lands, lands that are not so good. If these are properly utilised they will give you a fairly immediate return. Let us next put any capital we have to spare into the less developed and less productive, submarginal lands."

In other words, so far as the development of our lands is concerned, the policy of the Taoiseach has been to make the rich richer and the poor poorer. The effect of that policy under the land rehabilitation project if put into action would be entirely to undermine and entirely to prevent Deputy Jack Lynch from having any possible chance of doing anything in regard to the undeveloped areas. We must regard the problem of the development of agriculture not as a problem of to-day or to-morrow but as a problem for the future on a long-term basis. If we take the view that we are going to improve the good land first and only going to do something for the western lands or for the land on the edge of the bog, if there is anything left over in the kitty when the Government is finished, we will certainly not succeed in doing anything to meet the problem of emigration. We will certainly not succeed in doing anything on a permanent and on a long-term basis for agriculture.

It is exactly the reverse of that statement by the Taoiseach that was the policy of the inter-Party Government. The policy of the inter-Party Government is the right policy to ensure that by taking on a long-term basis the maximum number of acres can be brought into productive employment. The effect of the Taoiseach's policy would mean that those who are living on small and poor holdings would never have a chance and that only those who are living on the big, rich holdings would be able to improve their agricultural capacity and improve their means of livelihood. If there is anything of which I am proud during the period of the three years of the inter-Party Government it is that we did not adopt the suggestion that is now made and that we adopted the scheme of ensuring that, when large-scale moneys were being made available, they would be made available first to those who were in the worst position rather than to those who were in a better position to help themselves.

I do not want to delay the House any longer. The whole of this debate has shown quite clearly that the Government are not clear where they are. It has shown quite clearly that whatever problem there is is a problem of their own making and one which has caught up with them. It produced results in the country such as even they did not realise or visualise when they first set out on this political scare for their own Party purposes. One of the troubles about a scare such as that which has been created is that it is difficult to catch up on it. The difficulties that have been raised by that scare at present are accumulating day by day. Every day that goes by without the Government taking real and effective action to superimpose a new set of circumstances; every day that goes by without the Government taking real and effective action to build up the opportunity for carrying stocks and to prevent the restriction of credit that is going on will make the task more difficult. Every day will mean more people added to the unemployment roll and every day will mean that the task of the next Government in clearing up will be infinitely more difficult.

Mr. Hickey

In discussing the Supplies and Services Bill, I think it is no exaggeration to say that it is difficult to-day to buy a bar of soap made in a factory in this country which is not connected with the Lever Company. It is difficult to buy a bag of flour that is not linked with Rank and Company; buy a cigarette unconnected with the Imperial Tobacco Company or buy a bag of fertilisers outside the influence of the Imperial Chemical Company. We cannot send our £ note to America to buy anything we wish to buy there without the consent of the Bank of England through, of course, our Minister for Finance. We have come to be the most controlled and dominated of Governments in the civilised world to-day. We are no longer a Government by conviction or by majority vote but a Government by the opinion of a small group of dominant men who also control our money and credit.

Speaking on this Bill, the Taoiseach told us that before we provide any services for our people we have to provide over £7,000,000 for interest on our national debt which, by the way, is more than we are paying 34,000 agricultural workers at the rate of £3 17s. 6d. a week. In other words, it takes the labour of 34,000 agricultural workers to provide the interest of £7,000,000 to service our national debt.

Mr. Davin

The boys in College Green.

Mr. Hickey

I asked the Taoiseach had he anything in mind that would remedy that matter. The Taoiseach indulged in giving me and the House a very lengthy lecture. He told me that I had very false ideas about finance; that I had not given these matters the study they deserved; and that I was more or less guided by formulae and by phrases. I want to say to the Taoiseach that I have not the slightest animosity in regard to anything he said to me on that matter and anything I shall say on this Bill will be free from any kind of animosity and prejudice. I am anxious to get down to some understanding of this important problem of the control of our money and credit. I would like to tell the Taoiseach that when the Central Bank Bill was going through this House nine years ago, I had very strong views then as to who should control our money and credit and I was somewhat alarmed at the time that the Taoiseach had such conservative views. Having regard to the speeches made by the Taoiseach on that occasion, I have given much thought to this all-important question. I may say that I have read what the Prime Minister of Canada, Mr. MacKenzie King, said. One of the statements he made was as follows:—

"Until the control of the issue of money and credit is restored to the Government and recognised as its most conspicuous and sacred responsibility, all talk of the sovereignty of Parliament and of democracy is idle and futile."

That gentleman had some basis for making that grave statement. I also studied the report of the International Labour Office in Geneva which says:—

"If the depression has shown one thing more clearly than anything else, it is that economic prosperity and social security depend more on monetary policy than on any other single factor."

I have also studied, since then, the writings of one of the Rothschild brothers, who says:—

"The great body of the people mentally incapable of comprehending the tremendous advantages that capital derives from the banking system will bear the burden without complaint and perhaps without even suspecting that the system is inimical to their interests."

We should all take a lesson from that statement, because many thousands of our people are not yet able to pierce the clouds which are set around this question of money and the control of credit. I have also read what Philip A. Benson, President of the American Bankers' Association, said:—

"There is no more direct way to capture control of a nation than through its credit system."

I am amazed by some of the conservative statements the Taoiseach made on both this and the Central Bank Bill when it was going through. Not so long ago, I had an opportunity of reading and studying a very important book, entitled Economic Tribulation, by Mr. B. C. Vickers, who was for nine years Governor of the Bank of England, for 22 years a director of Vickers, Limited, a director of the London Assurance and Deputy Lieutenant of the City of London. That book was published for the first time in 1941 and I want to quote a sentence or two from it for the information of the Taoiseach and every member of the House:—

"I, who write this, need no proof of the importance of the money system upon the lives of the people and even to the future existence of the British race, so long as that system fills the position which it now holds in our national economy. Ever since that day in 1926 when, not in arrogance but with humility, I felt it my duty to explain to the Governor of the Bank of England, Mr. Montagu Norman, that henceforth I was going to fight him and the gold standard and the Bank of England policy until I died...."

He went on:—

"Not more than one-tenth of my income is earned. The rest comes from investments in banks, Bank of England stocks, American and Canadian securities, etc., and mainly from British industrial securities. I am, therefore, a capitalist...."

So that it is not Deputy Hickey who is making the statement:—

"...In 15 years nothing whatever has occurred to make me alter my views. I still believe that the existing system is actively harmful to the State, creates poverty and unemployment and is the root cause of war."

I claim that our policy is responsible for the evils from which we suffer at the moment. He went on:—

"This personal confession is merely to demonstrate that I have seen both sides of the picture. My opinions are based upon my own experience and knowledge and I am to-day in the unique position of being absolutely and entirely devoid of animosity and wholly disinterested. I feel myself no longer under any restrictions whatever except to guard against doing harm to my country and giving offence to anyone."

It is then rather lighthearted for anybody here to say that, when we talk about the need for change and for control of our money and credit, we are guided by formula and phrases and have foolish ideas about finance. I want to tell the Taoiseach and anybody else who thinks like him that whatever views or convictions I hold on this question are derived from Catholic writers and not from people who sneer at and make little of anybody who speaks about the change needed in our financial policy, or the so-called experts about whom we hear so much from day to day.

In order to bring conviction to the minds of those who doubt, let me quote what Pope Pius XI had to say about money and credit:—

"Control of financial policy is control of the very life-blood of the entire economic body.... Immense power and despotic domination is concentrated in the hands of a few.... This power becomes particularly irresistible when exercised by those who, because they hold and control money, are able also to govern credit and determine its allotment, for that very reason, supplying, so to speak, the very life-blood of the entire economic body and grasping as it were in their hands the very soul of production so that no one dare breathe against their will."

These are severe but understanding words and I gladly echo them here.

I have often followed the Taoiseach and studied his speeches both inside and outside the House and I remember him making a statement here on 19th December, 1934, at column 1748 of Volume 54. He then said:—

"I said that it would be possible, with the resources of this country, for 17,000,000 people to live here in a higher standard of comfort than that in which the present people were living. I stand up to that. I believe it is a fact that the resources of this country, with proper organisation, are sufficient to give to 17,000,000 people a higher standard of living than the present people are getting."

That was 17 years ago, and it was rather depressing to hear him say a week ago that we have either to produce more or eat less and that we have not yet 3,000,000 people in the country, although he said 17 years ago that we could support 17,000,000. I want to ask the Taoiseach or the Tánaiste, who is here, for what reason can we not give a better standard of living to fewer than 3,000,000 people when we felt 17 years ago that we could give a higher standard to 17,000,000? Why is it that we cannot give more than £1 a week to our old age pensioners, to men who have given 50 years of honest service to the community—2/10 a day or less than 10d. per meal—to feed, clothe and give themselves shelter? I submit that it is because of the defects of our money system that that is so.

To think that he could make that statement 17 years ago, when we read, just a short while ago, in one of the Cork papers about the position of a house in Clare. This is the statement of the district justice presiding at the Ennistymon District Court when a little child was charged with stealing a sovereign from a private house. The district justice, having heard the facts of the case, said:—

"I think it is a tragic and revealing commentary on our contemporary life in this country that a man and his wife and ten children have to live together in one room. How can we expect the same standard of honesty from people whom we compel to live in such congestion, as we expect from people brought up in the lap of luxury? I think it would be presumption for me to sit on judgment on this little child and I apply the Probation Act."

What do we find a short while after— and this is in 1951? The Limerick County Council asked its medical officer of health to report on the town of Coonagh as to the question of having some houses built. He was asked to make a survey and here is what he said:—

"The total population of Coonagh live in 80 houses unfit for habitation. The pumped water supply has gone dry and the water in a shallow well for urban use is unfit for human consumption. There are no sanitation or conveniences of any kind."

One of the country councillors said it was disgraceful that human beings should be forced to live under such conditions.

I want to say with all the sincerity I can command that it is not only a disgrace, but that it is sabotage on our people, that with all the resources we have, of which the Taoiseach spoke 17 years ago and said we were capable of supporting a 17,000,000 population, this kind of situation should exist while we have millions of money invested in England and elsewhere.

I am not going to waste the time of the House by going over some of the things said about the bank report and the restriction of credit, but I think it is well to say this, that any member of the House, no matter on what side, who makes a statement that the banks have not restricted credit is not speaking the truth and he knows it. The Minister for Posts and Telegraphs made a statement last week at the Annual Dinner of the Chartered Accountants. He said:—

"The talk of panic and bank credit restriction was mere political flag-waving."

That is a most uncalled for statement, from a man who knows it is not true. Last April, the Cork Corporation issued Loan Stocks of £520,000 to build houses for our people in Cork. All the security of the corporation was offered—the income from the rates, from the housing, from the water and the city estate. Notwithstanding all that security, we got only £75,000 from the banks. The money was issued at 3½ per cent. at 97 and the banks only gave us £75,530; the investing public gave £80,300; the insurance companies gave £38,000; and the Minister for Finance had to subscribe the balance of £326,000. That very month we were informed through the financial bank returns for the year ending 31st December, 1950 that the ten joint stock banks operating in Ireland reached a fresh high level of £405,183,831 and that from 1941 to 1947 these items were progressively expanded by an average of £26,000,000 per annum. In the same bank returns it was stated that the net profits for the banks for the same period was £1,429,982. Their investments were £200,313,005 and their total assets £457,911,000 on a paid up capital of less than £9,000,000.

I want to tell the Taoiseach and the Government and everyone else who has a sense of responsibility that there are thousands of families in Cork suffocating in hovels of vermin-ridden and rat-ridden slums, during all those years; and that we are prevented from building houses because of the grip the banks have on our money and credit.

The Taoiseach said here last week that the Central Bank was set up with two main objectives—one, to safeguard the integrity of our currency and, secondly, to ensure that in what pertains to the control of credit the constant and predominant aim should be the welfare of the people as a whole. I would like to hear from the Taoiseach or the Tánaiste what is meant by that. What degree of control is in the Central Bank Act? To bear out what I am saying, I give a quotation from the Taoiseach, when the Central Bank Bill was going through. It is reported in Volume 86, column 1136, of the Dáil Reports, for the 23rd of April, 1942:—

"This Bill is not put forward as a Bill that will enable the banks or the Government effectively to control the volume of credit. It may influence it and if there is co-operation it can influence it tremendously, but it is not designed to effect it by coercive measures. It is based on an attempt to get co-operation between the three bodies interested—the Government, as representing the community, the Central Bank as being the body that has to manage it from day to day, and the commercial banks."

Let us not fool the people by making a statement here that the Central Bank has the power to control credit. Our Constitution definitely states what this Dáil should do as far as the control of credit is concerned, and I hope the Taoiseach and the Government will take advantage of the situation and carry out the directions of the Constitution. All this talk about the last election and any other election is playing very loosely with the interests of the people.

I think that we have a very lively belief in the credulity of the people and also a very lively belief in telling falsehoods to the people at election time. I could quote statements which were made by the Fianna Fáil candidates in Cork during the last election. I was listening to the Tánaiste when he made his speech in Cork a few days before the election and I am sure that it would be interesting for him to go back and read it now. It is wrong and unfair to try to fool unthinking people by telling them things which are not material. I challenge any member of the Fianna Fáil Party to say that I have ever mentioned on a platform anything which did not matter to the people.

I believe that until we take control of money and credit as we should according to the Constitution all other reforms—or talk about reforms—are merely futile. I was listening to speeches the other night. Deputy Dillon told us that our present banking system works, but we know that it does not work. We heard Deputy Briscoe telling the House that I wanted to nationalise everything. I want nothing of the kind, but I want to see the country governed and ruled by Irish people in the interests of Irish people —something that is not being done to-day. You could buy hardly anything in this country which is not connected with combines and monopolies. It is a sad state of affairs to come to; here we are a land full of plenty and a people who desire to produce the things they want, food, clothing and housing, and yet thousands of them are living under miserable conditions. In over 90 per cent. of the houses from Bantry Bay to Donegal the people want furniture, clothing and many other of the ordinary necessities of life and are unable to get them because of the grip the moneylenders and financiers have on this country. Nobody can deny that. I would appeal to the young men who have come into both sides of the House to rebel against all the humbug and pretence of this money and credit system.

I want to tell the Taoiseach that I am not guided by formula or phrases. I realise that our wealth is our national production and that we do not live by the issue of paper money. We can, however, live on the production of our people. When we talk about this matter let us be clear in our minds on this point: of what is the issue of money and credit made? I claim that it is clearly made of the capacity of our people to produce goods and services and nothing else. Therefore, we should have control of that very factor. To confirm that belief I would like to know whether the Tánaiste and the Taoiseach have seen the statement issued by the Archbishops and Bishops of Australia in 1948 on socialisation. Here is what they said:—

"The Church recognises that under present conditions there are certain forms of enterprise and industry which are of quite extraordinary importance to the community and which legitimately come under public control in one form or another although not necessarily by means of nationalisation. Among these are banking and insurance, the manufacture of steel and heavy chemicals, railway, sea and air transport, public utility services, electricity and gas.

It is also out of harmony with Christian thought that the control of credit policy as distinct from the administration of credit should be in private hands.

This is a basic function of the public authority whether credit is dispensed by banks or insurance companies which are to-day often more powerful financially than banks.

It is opposed to right order that the sovereign power which rests in formulating the credit policy of the nation should be in the hands of private individuals."

The Minister for Finance told me last week that I was talking nonsense on this matter but I wonder whether he would say that the Archbishops and Bishops of Australia were talking nonsense.

Are we not like legal trespassers in our own country, afraid of each other and afraid of want? We have a fertile land and labour willing to produce all we need. This country is the basic security for the financiers, moneylenders and combines who operate in this country.

I heard much talk in the course of this debate of the electrification of our country. What is our position as far as the electrification of the country is concerned? I put down a question recently to find out how much money had been advanced to the Electricity Supply Board in the 20 years ending March, 1950, the amount of interest paid in the same period and the amount of capital paid back in the same period. What did I find? During a period of 20 years over £22,000,000 was advanced to the Electricity Supply Board for the electrification of the country. I am not objecting to that but I object to the system under which it was given. In the same period over £12,000,000 was paid in interest while only £963,000 of the capital was paid back. In other words they have paid in interest more than half the capital while they have not yet paid even £1,000,000 of the capital. I could say the same thing of industry.

We have, as I think Deputy Sweetman said, delegated a great deal of power to people other than the Government. What is the position of the Hospitals' Trust Fund? When I was in this House previous to 1943 I put down a question—I had good reason to ask the question because we could not get money even at 4 per cent. to build houses for our workers in Cork—to find out where the Hospitals' Trust Fund was invested. I was told— like the answer to so many questions— that it was a matter for the Hospitals' Trustees and I got no information. When the inter-Party Government came into office I availed of that opportunity. I got an answer with full details and I found that the Hospitals' Trust Fund had been lent as far away as Newfoundland, Ceylon, New Zealand, Trinidad, Nigeria, Rhodesia and Scottish agricultural stock at, if you please, 3 per cent. and a number of English corporations and municipalities at 3 per cent. and 3¼ per cent. That money was lent to these faraway places at rates of interest from 2½ per cent. to 3½ per cent. while Cork Corporation had to pay 5 per cent. in order to build houses for our people. Having seen where our money had gone I happened one day to go into the Library to look over the accounts of the Hospitals' Trust Fund and the investments and going through the sales of the investments I found that from 1939 to 1945 there was a loss of £172,834 or an average of £28,805 per year.

This is the result of the financial expert whom you and I and ordinary Pat Murphy should not touch and should not talk about because we are not capable of talking about their money system. I do not claim to know much about money and its ramifications, but tell me who are the people in charge of sending money to Nigeria, Ceylon and Scottish agriculture at 3 per cent. while our poor farmers here have to pay 4½ per cent. I would shock the fine feelings of many Deputies by telling them about the man who borrowed £100 24 years ago. The man had serious difficulties to meet and he died in the meantime. The poor widow had to try to pay the money borrowed which is still due although more than the amount had been paid in interest. I have a letter in my possession which she received a fortnight ago telling her that if she did not pay £10 down by a certain date she would be dispossessed of her farm. At the same time Irishmen or so-called Irishmen invest money as far away as Newfoundland, Ceylon and Rhodesia at 2½ per cent. at a loss of £172,000 in six years. These are the matters of which we should take note rather than political propaganda from both sides of the House.

I suggest to the Tánaiste that the testing time has arrived, that we should accept the challenge of the times in which we live. I would repeat to the Tánaiste what I said to the Taoiseach in 1942, when the Central Bank Bill was passing through the House. I told him that there was not a man in any part of the world that I knew who had a better opportunity of doing the things that it was necessary to do for his people and that behind him he had at least 95 per cent. of the people that mattered in this country. The same thing applies to-day. We in the Labour Party would stand foursquare behind any Government that would do the things that I am advocating in this House. We have not had the moral courage or the social faith to attack the immoral, antiquated money system that has robbed our people of the necessaries of life in the years that we have had power in this country.

I do not wish to waste the time of the House or to go into detail but I could quote the Taoiseach talking about control and saying that if it was well managed it would be beneficial but if it was not well managed it would be harmful. Where do statements of that kind leave us? Electricity and water are most useful things but if we did not control them they would destroy us. The trouble with our financial and monetary system is that we do not control it.

I say to the Tánaiste and to the Taoiseach: Let us start now and do the things that the country requires. The Labour Party will stand behind you and 90 per cent. of the people that matter will stand behind you in doing the things that this country has been so long waiting for.

I think of the men on both sides of the House who took their guns and went out to challenge the British Empire, the biggest empire in the world. If men were prepared to sacrifice life, to face the firing squad, to secure economic as well as political freedom, are we now afraid to face the forces that are keeping us where we are? I appeal to the Taoiseach and to the Government to do what is necessary to be done and I assure them that the Labour Party will be behind them in anything they do in the interests of the people of Ireland.

Mr. D.J. O'Sullivan

As a new Deputy I was interested to know how far one should go in referring to general policy in this debate. For that purpose I looked up the report of the debate on the Supplies and Services Bill for last year and discovered that the longest contributions to that debate were made by Opposition Deputies of the Fianna Fáil Party, now in government. At that time their contributions were dominated by one factor, which, needless to say, was the cost of living and the responsibility of the then Government for not ensuring that it was kept at a lower level. Later on, I intend to refer to the conditions which obtain at the moment in relation to that aspect of our economy.

During the course of this debate, various views have been put forward from the Government Benches. Do the Government realise that they came into power by an accident, that they came into power without having presented a programme to the people? Do they realise that a few of the Independents, when they qualified their support of that Government, did not point to anything wrong in the programme of the previous Government? The reasons they gave were absolutely against certain persons who were in the inter-Party Cabinet. Consequently, the country has been awaiting a clear statement of policy from the Government since it came into office. Instead of that, we have had the first disturbing note sounded in the speech made by the Minister for Finance in his early days as Minister in this Government. That was the prelude to a succession of disturbing speeches and statements which have resulted in the present artificially created recession in trade. The ensuing unemployment and the very disturbing factors which attend the present situation can be traced directly to the speeches made by the Tánaiste, the Minister for Finance, the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs and other members of the present Government.

When Deputy Blowick intervened in the debate, he was advised in very patronising tones by the Tánaiste to keep far away from the question of high finance. Yet, I feel that the small-holders of Connaught, who sent the Clann na Talmhan Deputies here, are quite concerned over the present situation and that there is a responsibility on every Deputy on both sides of the House to go into this matter, to review all its aspects and to pronounce his views on it in the House.

It is of extreme import at the moment that those people, who have to rely on the goodwill of local traders in their small towns and villages, are feeling the blast of the Tánaiste's speech. The restriction of credit is affecting them.

The inter-Party Government handed over to this Government a country which was making steady progress in the course of the past three years. That cannot be denied. The inter-Party Government got a clear mandate from the people to implement their schemes of capital development. It is now proposed to institute some alternative scheme of capital investment. We have not got the details but when in his introductory speech the Tánaiste referred in a global way to the Departments in which it was intended to expend these moneys, I noticed that agriculture came at the tail-end of the list.

When the inter-Party Government were implementing many schemes intended to improve production and to make it possible over a number of years to bring it up to the point when we could satisfy home requirements and also be in a position to export to world markets, there was scant assistance given by the Fianna Fáil Party. The long term trade agreement implemented by the inter-Party Government has had a very gratifying effect on agricultural production. I do not agree that any particular department of our agricultural economy can make progress at the expense of another. Therefore, it is a matter for concern if any particular branch of agriculture shows a decline either in volume of production or in the price obtainable for the commodity.

I come from a part of the country which is essentially a dairying district. In 1947 the people were relying purely on what they got for their milk from the creameries. They had no subsidiary income. They were leaving the skim milk as it was not worth their while to take it home. A change occurred as the result of the 1948 Trade Agreement. In consequence, the small farmers whose debts mounted up during the winter months were able to pay off these debts in the spring owing to the prices they got for dropped calves. As well as that they were improving the yield of their cows and they were able to carry a higher number of cattle than in previous years. I note with concern that, according to the current preliminary statement of the Statistical Bulletin, the prices of the younger cattle show a great decline in value. I feel that that will not encourage farmers in my part of the country to go in for higher production. Actually, when the inter-Party Government left office the number of younger cattle was on the increase. That is something which will be of benefit to the present Government. Nevertheless, it is disturbing to realise that, comparing the last quarter with the corresponding quarter in 1950, there is recorded a decrease in the price of cattle under three years of age of 24.7 per cent. That is an astonishing decrease in value and one which grievously affects the South of Ireland.

When the recent general election was in progress, we heard many criticisms of the outgoing Government. The main criticisms, however, centred around its alleged failure to do something about the increase in cost of living. It must now be agreed that the inter-Party Government stabilised the cost of living, kept it down until the commencement of the Korean war. Then, when forces outside our control had adverse effects on our economy, that was availed of immediately by the high-powered propaganda machine of the then Opposition to represent to the country that the responsibility lay with the Government then in office. Consequently, we had this advertisement of the harried housewife, the pitiable picture of a woman practically demented as a result of the difficulties which she had to face in trying to supply her household with the necessaries of life. It is a strange coincidence that every single household commodity mentioned in that Fianna Fáil advertisement is now considerably dearer than it was when the Government took office.

In canvassing towns in my area and going from door to door, I was faced with that picture and asked: "Why did you do nothing about it? How can we vote for the return of a Government which allows such things to occur?" Do the Government realise that these people are now itching for a chance to put them out of office and return a Government which would in time bring up the prosperity of all sections of the people and which during their short term of office gave the country a good instalment of the policy which they intended to implement?

The present shiftless lack of policy on the part of the Government is bringing about a dire situation throughout the country. Unless they realise that something drastic must be done, they will have a lot to answer for when they face the electorate again. The hoax about the cost of living was the greatest one ever played on the electorate. I am not speaking on behalf of a city constituency, but I am amazed that the Fianna Fáil back benchers, who were so vocal some months ago, have not so far intervened in this debate and have not referred to the difficulties with which the city people are now contending. I know that many of the difficulties which they are now facing have not yet reached out into the remote rural areas. But I am aware that the added costs brought about by the increased transport charges, bus fares, telephone charges and other charges added on to the business community will be reflected in the prices when the consumers go into the shops to purchase goods. It is a matter of great concern for all the community that such conditions obtain.

Ministers think that they are at liberty to create an artificial situation for political motives without taking into consideration the effect that their speeches will have in the country. I know that when he became Minister for Agriculture, Deputy Walsh made a statement in this House which did not seem to be of great import. He said he was going to maintain the Dillon scheme in a modified form, despite all the opposition which his Party put up against it when it was introduced.

Some weeks later, however, the effect of that statement was brought home to me in a very clear and emphatic way. I was told by a young man, who thought that this scheme had come to stay and felt that the farmers were daily increasing their confidence in it, that he had decided to spend a lot of money in purchasing machinery and to set up as a contractor for the carrying out of the huge drainage works under that scheme. He secured two sureties for a loan of £13,000. Deputies will realise that the persons who went security for a large amount of money and were acceptable to the bank must have thought that it was a good investment. But the morning after the Minister for Agriculture made his statement in this House that the scheme was to be modified, this young man wired to the firm from whom he was obtaining the machinery cancelling the order. Look at the bad effect on production which will ensue in that particular parish as a result of the loss of that equipment in carrying out a capital investment scheme such as the land project scheme. Therefore, when Ministers ask us not to pay too much attention to their statements, when they retract them in this House and tell us that the construction put upon them was not what they intended to convey, they are asking us to believe too much.

We have heard Ministers speak with different voices on this matter. Earlier in this debate we had a union between the White Paper issued by the Minister for Finance and the Central Bank Report. Some Independent Deputies are now asking us to accept the later retraction as a natural one—the fact that the Tánaiste stated in his speech that it was not the Government's intention to accept the implications in the Central Bank Report in their entirety.

We believe that it was as a result of the ill-effects on the country as a whole, which ensued directly from the dire forebodings of the Minister, and because of the strong statements from the Opposition and the line which the Opposition took that there was a partial retraction at any rate on the part of the Government in relation to the Report of the Central Bank.

There never was any portent in the country foreshadowing a crisis. I feel that the whole campaign was deliberately instigated for political purposes. Call it a "stunt" or what you will, there was definitely never any need for it. Yet, its results have been devastating in certain branches of trade and industry. We believe that the Opposition must now take this opportunity of showing how needless the whole campaign was.

We know that throughout the country the people are seriously perturbed because of the statements made by the Taoiseach and his Ministers to the effect that they intend to curtail certain of the schemes inaugurated by the last Government. In this connection, I refer in particular to the land reclamation scheme. We believe that the poorest land is the most deserving of attention so far as that scheme is concerned. Even though the results achieved may not pay as high dividends as other branches of industry, it must be remembered that that scheme is one which radically affects the lives of our people.

We hear a good deal from time to time of the evils of emigration and unemployment, and so on and so forth. In the land reclamation scheme we have in existence the necessary machinery; we have the officials on the spot; we have the people, irrespective of political affiliations, all anxious to take up the scheme. Recent statements by Government spokesmen in relation to the scheme are causing grave concern. I appeal to the Minister to reconsider the Government's approach to the scheme before bringing in any serious modification of it.

It is only natural that this debate should awaken an intense interest in the economics of the country as a whole. The greater part of the debate so far has concerned itself mainly with finance. We were criticised bitterly for introducing the two-price system. Will the present Government introduce a better one? Have they devised an alternative scheme to replace the one of which they were so critical when we were in office? That was one of their general election trump cards. It accompanied the harried housewife on her rounds. We were castigated because we had one price for rationed goods and another price for unrationed goods. We believe our system was a fair one. All the indications up to the present are that Fianna Fáil now intend to adopt that scheme in its entirety. Certainly we have had no indication that they have devised a better one. Yet, in relation to that scheme, we were met with a barrage of false propaganda both before and during the election.

Up to the time they were elected to office the Government gave no warning of any impending crisis. If the situation is such as they now portray, they must have been well aware of it several months ago. But we adjourned for the summer Recess. Why were we told to go home three months ago if the situation was as portrayed by the Government recently? Why was the House not summoned to debate such a very serious matter?

After the recent general election in England the new Premier, having pointed out to the people the difficulties with which the Government had to contend, immediately reduced the salaries of his Ministers as a gesture to the people when appealing to them to tighten their belts. In like manner, though not to the same extent perhaps, the present Fianna Fáil Government is appealing to our people to tighten their belts a little. They have not issued any instruction to their Ministers as to what economies they should practise. The inter-Party Government was criticised for appointing one more Cabinet Minister. Under the present Government we have a number of additional Parliamentary Secretaries with a consequent increase in administration costs. We have had an indication, too, of the appointment of another Minister.

These things are not in accordance with the air of gloom or the prophecy of crisis, a crisis which the Minister would have us believe is imminent. In consequence of all these new appointments we cannot accept the picture that was painted for us by the Minister when introducing this Bill. We believe the country is anxiously awaiting an opportunity of recording in no uncertain manner its opinion of the hoax that was played on the harried housewife throughout the country. Given the opportunity, the people will return to office a Government which will present it with a true picture of the circumstances in which we are to-day. That Government will speak with one voice and we will not have the contradictory statements we have had here in the past few weeks from Government spokesman. We had the Taoiseach coming in here talking about £10,000,000; we had the Minister for Finance coming in talking about £5,000,000. Which figure are we to accept?

I am sure the Independent Deputies supporting the Government are anxious about conditions in relation to the cost of living. This time last year some of them moved a motion of no confidence in the Government. Yet, in none of their contributions to this debate did they deal with the undeniable increase in the cost of living in recent months. One of them stated in his election address to the citizens of Dublin that, if elected, he would constantly bring the searchlight of his contributions to bear on that particular problem. We listened to a 15 minute dissertation from him a few days ago; not once did he refer to the cost of living.

We do not believe that the Fianna Fáail-Cowan-Cogan set-up is a united one. We cannot believe in our hearts that they are at one in relation to the cost of living at any rate. If public confidence is to be restored, it can only be done by giving the people an opportunity to redress the harm caused some months ago when people who had no mandate to do so supported the present Government and when the present Government resorted to very questionable means to obtain its slender majority in this House.

Since that occurred, however, these difficulties have become considerably aggravated. That is now realised by everyone in the country, and the people await an opportunity of correcting it. The Government, no matter how they may put this Bill through the House, will have to face for months to come, as they are facing at the moment, the ire of the people who were deluded by their promises in relation to the cost of living, and by their criticisms of the inter-Party policy at the general election. They then made foolish promises to the effect that they were going to introduce a concerted programme which would provide for the people of the country greater peace and prosperity than they had during the three and a half years in which the inter-Party Government was in office.

Consequently, we feel that in voicing these matters we are merely making an effort to bring home to the Government what is being said to-day in the bus queue or by the person you meet on the road, in the bar or outside the church gate. The same criticisms are offered to one by all those people. One may not be able to determine their politics, but the problems which are facing those people present a very different picture indeed from that which was put before them on the day they entered the polling booths. For the reasons which I have given, I feel that the Government has failed completely to implement the promises which it made to the people, and that it has also failed to produce an alternative programme to the various measures introduced by the previous Government which its members criticised.

I heard Deputy Dillon during the week speaking on this subject and I regret the note of recrimination which he struck. At column 967, Volume 127, of the Official Debates of 15th November, 1951, he said:—

"All I can claim is that I was given the agricultural industry of this country into my care when it was in a state of dereliction unprecedented in Irish history."

I wonder why then in five years, three and a half years of which Deputy Dillon was responsible for the agricultural production in this country, 50,000 workers emigrated from agricultural holdings. I quoted from the Irish Independent of 31st May, 1951. That does not suggest or bear out the statement Deputy Dillon made later on that he left agriculture in a state of prosperity never heretofore attained in the country. I do not think that it is by a succession of fire brigade tactics, such as was indulged in by the Coalition, that our problems can be solved in this direction. Therefore, as far as the agricultural end is concerned, might I appeal from this side of the House to Deputies on the Opposition Benches coming from rural areas to ask the people on every occasion to co-operate to solve their problems?

I heard Deputy Cafferky, who, I believe, is chairman of the Mayo County Council, make a wild statement here last Thursday, I think, about the state of by-roads and accommodation roads in his area. Deputy Cafferky, I am sure, must realise that it is very hard to get people in rural areas to co-operate or to take advantage of any scheme that may be formulated by any Government for their benefit and for their convenience. Night and day I am trying to hammer into people the necessity for co-operation, especially in regard to rural improvement schemes. There is no use in calling on the Government for money they have not got. No Government has anything by way of money except what it can extract from the people. I think it should be brought home to the people that they are the Government and if they want a Government to formulate or carry through any schemes, they must provide the money.

Mr. Morrissey

The debate on this Bill has lasted over a rather long period and has wandered much further afield than it did on the debate on the similar measure 12 months ago. I was not in the House at that time; I happened to be in hospital. Perhaps because of that, I had more time to read and to study the speeches which were made this time 12 months on the Supplies and Services Bill. Speeches on that occasion were confined almost entirely to the cost of living. It was not the beginning nor the culmination but rather the middle of perhaps the most dishonest racket that was ever started in this country.

One of my colleagues speaking this afternoon noted that there were very few speeches from the Fianna Fáil Benches on the cost of living this year. He noticed that the gentleman who was so anxious to get the cost of living debated and so desirous of getting a vote of no confidence in the Government of the day on the cost of living has no motion about it this year nor do I think he referred to it in the speech which he made here last week. I refer to Deputy Peadar Cowan. Deputy Cowan was so concerned at the way in which the cost of living was bearing on his constituents 12 months ago that he almost ordered me to be brought here on a stretcher. There is no doubt whatever if the misfortune of having a Fianna Fáil Government in office to-day can be attributed to any one factor, it can be attributed to that entirely dishonest campaign about the cost of living. It did not cut very much ice throughout rural Ireland, a certain amount in the towns and smaller cities, but it did pay good dividends for them in the City of Dublin and in the City of Cork. They were aided and abetted in that dishonest campaign by a lot of self-appointed associations in the city, citizens who were seeking not so much a reduction in the cost of living as notoriety for themselves. Even trade unions and various branches of trade unions were brought into play by the activities and the vocalism within the branches of trade unionists who were supporters of Fianna Fáil and who allowed themselves to be used.

The fact of the matter is that there has been a far greater increase in the cost of living in this country since last June than there was during the previous three and a half years. That is a statement that will not be questioned by any housewife in this country whether she supports Fianna Fáil or any other Party in this House. Of course, it is now explained away by the Minister for Industry and Commerce, by some of the Parliamentary Secretaries and by those other members of the Party who dare even mention the question of the cost of living. It is now sought to be explained away by the statement that, of course, the Government cannot control the cost of living, or can control it only to a very slight extent. The rise in the cost of living, they say, is due entirely to circumstances and events that are beyond their control. That is quite true, but it is no truer to-day than it was 12 months ago, when the same statement was made by the spokesmen of the Government who were in office 12 months ago. It was repudiated by the Fianna Fáil leaders who were then in opposition. The cost of living in this country, and I assert this, rose less in this country between 1948 and the middle of 1950 than it did in any other country in Europe. I think I could nearly include America and Australia as being covered by my statement. I want Deputies and the people outside to mark this. There is a very distinct difference when you are dealing with our period in office and with the period in office of the present Government, their present period in office. Let me put it that way to avoid confusion.

During that three and a half years, during which I assert there was a smaller increase in the cost of living in this country than, perhaps, any other country in Europe, wages and salaries rose to a much greater extent than in any similar period, perhaps, in our history. During that same period there were no fewer than three general wage increases, so much so that for the first time since records were kept the earnings of workers in this country outstripped the cost-of-living rise. Deputies who are sufficiently interested to check up on that statement can do so from the publications of the Statistics Office. I say that there was a dishonest racket in regard to the cost of living. We are accused, or at least we were accused—they are not so anxious to talk about the cost of living nowadays—of saying in the early part of 1948 that if we were returned as a Government we would reduce the cost of living. I am not denying that such was said but might I say this to the Minister? If the circumstances in which those statements were made— internal and external circumstances— had remained as they were then we certainly would have been able to reduce the cost of living. That, I suggest, was demonstrated quite clearly by the fact that for two years we kept the cost of living from rising. Let me say to the farmer Deputies that food is one of the principal items in the cost-of-living index and that food is the item which is most heavily weighted in that index. I will just refer to two items. When the inter-Party Government came into office early in 1948 the top price for beef in this country was less than 90/- per cwt. I think it was 88/- or 86/- per cwt. Before we left office the top price for beef had gone as high as 115/- per cwt. I think I am correct when I say that when we came into office the price for pigs, dead weight, was 190/- per cwt. I am not overstating that, if I am not understating it. What was the price per cwt. for pigs when we left office? The price of the beef in the market or the price of the pig in the factory generally determines the price which is to be got for it outside.

I attended a function in this city within the past three weeks where a Parliamentary Secretary was deputising for the Minister for Industry and Commerce. He made a reference to the cost of living but he skipped away from it and I do not blame him. I do not intend to stress this point very much because, in fairness to the Parliamentary Secretary, it should be said that he was merely deputising, and probably at very short notice, for the Minister. Anyhow, he said only what the Minister and other Ministers had said, namely, that the position was that the Government could not control the cost of living because it was due to factors entirely beyond their control. I accept that statement, but it is a completely different tune from the one which the Fianna Fáil Party were playing with regard to the cost of living this time 12 months. They would not accept such a statement then from the inter-Party Government, and it was as true then as it is at the present time. I do not want to refer now to many things which have happened in connection with the cost of living and the prices of a great many articles as they affect the upkeep of the ordinary household. I do not intend to go into these matters in detail. Let me, however, remind the House, and the Fianna Fáil Deputies in particular, that the year before Fianna Fáil left office in 1947 the cost-of-living figure had increased by no fewer than 31 points in one 12 months. The Fianna Fáil method of dealing with that situation was not to deal with the cost of living but to alter the cost-of-living index and bring in a new index to camouflage it.

Mr. Briscoe

All of which you were going to reduce by 30 per cent.

Mr. Childers

The Deputy may not have understood what the Taoiseach said.

I regret that the Taoiseach has not seen fit to retrace his steps along with the Minister for Industry and Commerce because, if he had, I believe it would have done a lot of good. I do not think the line which is taken by the Minister for Finance matters very much. However, great harm has been done. There is not a farmer or industrialist or businessman in this city or in any part of the country who has not experienced the pressure which followed upon or coincided with these speeches. The fact that we have 4,000 more unemployed to-day than we had this time 12 months ago is not unconnected with those speeches and those statements. I can only hope that before this debate concludes and before this Bill is finally passed we will have further statements from the Government side of the House which will have the effect of still further improving the situation. I hope that we shall have from the Government side of the House statements which will help to clarify the situation. I hope that they will not continue to paint the gloomy picture which they have been painting, but that, instead, they will give us a statement of the actual position of the country.

The Minister for Finance, the Minister for Industry and Commerce. the Irish Press and the Sunday Press told the people that we were right up against a crisis of the first magnitude. Some of them went so far as to say and to write that the State was on the verge of bankruptcy. These statements were untrue—and untrue to the knowledge of at least some of those who uttered them. There is not a crisis in this country, and it is not on the verge of bankruptcy. To-day, this country is as credit-worthy as most other countries in Europe — and certainly that is not an over-statement. All sections of the people of this country are enjoying to-day, and have been enjoying for the past two or three years, the highest standard of living and of life that has ever been attained in this country—notwithstanding the fact that the numbers queueing at the labour exchange to-day are 4,000 greater than they were this time 12 months ago. Notwithstanding that fact, there are more people in gainful and in good employment in this country to-day than there have been at any period since figures were kept. Nobody will question the fact that the people in agricultural Ireland are to-day enjoying a good measure of prosperity.

I doubt if anybody will question the statement that farmers to-day are better equipped than ever before to get the maximum return from their land with the least amount of drudgery. I do not think anybody will deny that the industrial economy of this country is more firmly rooted to-day than it has ever been. I do not think anyone will question the statement that our own people and, for that matter, people outside the country—but certainly our own people—are more interested to-day in the products of Irish factories than they have ever been before. They have a higher regard and a higher respect for the products of Irish factories than ever they had before. The day when it was enough to condemn an article when you put the Irish trade mark on it has gone. That has been killed. I am not claiming any credit for it for the previous Government. The only thing I do claim credit for during that three and a half years is that we killed that idea for all time. I think it was a good thing for Irish industry that it would not be dependent for development and encouragement upon any one Government in this country. If there is one thing that has given not merely manufacturers but the ordinary Irish people confidence in Irish industry, confidence to the extent that they have poured their money into Irish industry to an extent never before achieved, it is the fact that they were not going to be dependent on any particular Government and that there was not any likelihood of any Government being returned here that would not do its best all the time, having due regard to the claims of other sections of the community, to encourage and to help Irish industry to expand and produce in Ireland to the fullest extent possible, not merely our own requirements but so as to organise, so to increase efficiency from the management level down to the operative level, that we would be able to go abroad and compete in the export market with industries from other countries. Is not that so? Upon what is the prosperity or the credit of a country based?

I have given, very briefly, my views as to the state of agriculture and my views as to the state of industry in this country. Development took place and is still taking place. I have always told our people that Irish goods should get preference, not merely because they are Irish but because in most instances they were at least as good, if not better, than what was coming from outside. I do not want to boast of the number of factories that were erected during the three and a half years the inter-Party Government were in office. I know, and I have admitted it publicly, that some of the factories that were erected and some of the doors I opened during the time I was Minister were due to the work done by my predecessor. Some of the doors that he will open will be due, to a large extent, I am glad to say, to the work that was put in by the inter-Party Government. But does it matter two thraneens whether it was Seán Lemass, Dan Morrissey or Tom O'Higgins that gave the necessary encouragement and licences to get factories started so long as they were started and so long as Irish boys and girls will get employment here instead of having to go abroad?

I was very proud when I was leaving the Department of Industry and Commerce that during the three years that I had the honour of being there—and I say there is no credit due to me for the fact—no fewer than 36,000 additional Irish citizens went into Irish factories to produce for Irish people. Does anybody think for a moment that it would not be a matter of pride to me if the present Government—assuming it lasts for three years, which, of course, it will not, but suppose it did —or the Minister for Industry and Commerce got up in this House at the end of three years and said: "I put 60,000 additional people into Irish factories during the last three years as against your 36,000"? It is about time we grew up in this country. It is about time we forgot all about those petty points that count very little, not merely in the life of the nation but in the life of a particular Government.

We are taunted that during the three and a half years we were in office not only did we not improve things but we disimproved them. Nobody believes that, least of all the people making these statements. It is not true. It is definitely not true either in respect of agriculture, industry or in respect of matters social, political or economic. There are certain things to be put right. Everything is not right. Everything is not right in any country on the face of the globe to-day. We have fewer problems than, perhaps, any other country on the face of the globe to-day but that is not saying we have not problems. We have.

When Deputies say that there has been no improvement in agricultural production and attribute that to Deputy Dillon or to the inter-Party Government, I am satisfied they know they are talking through their hats. Many of the causes of the poor returns from Irish land go back further than the inter-Party Government. However, I do not want to go back over that.

I certainly could. I listened here last week to Deputy Corry talking and attacking the Government about the price of barley. I know as much about barley as Deputy Corry—probably I know more about it. I handled much more of it than ever Deputy Corry did or will if he lives to be 100. I have lived all my life in the middle of a barley-producing county. I have been dealing with farmers producing it for many years. I do not want to tell Deputy Corry when he snarls at a Government that was there up to last June about the price of barley that during the time his Government was in power before, with his support, farmers had to sell their barley for 11/9 and 12/- a barrel.

Mr. Briscoe

There were reasons for that.

Mr. Morrissey

There were and we could give them.

Mr. Briscoe

I know.

Mr. Morrissey

The Deputy knows a great deal and knows a great deal about many things but he has not the detailed knowledge that I have about some of the things I am talking of.

Mr. Mannion

Would not the Deputy agree that that happened before the advent of Fianna Fáil?

Mr. Morrissey

It happened in 1935 and 1936. I do not want to be raising those points here. I dealt with tens of thousands of barrels of barley. I am only trying to say that a person like myself and other members here who know something about barley cannot be expected to sit down and accept all the tripe Deputy Corry pours out and let it go unchallenged. I could quote prices year after year up to 1947 and I could talk about the price of barley during the war, about how it was stuck at a certain price and how the Government would not allow it to be increased by one shilling. I am merely giving Deputies a little hint that if they want me to go back into some of these things, I can do so quite easily.

I was dealing with the state of agriculture and the state of industry. I wonder are Deputies opposite aware —some of them are, I know, and better aware of it than even I am—of the effects which the speeches made by the Minister for Finance and the Minister for Industry and Commerce have had on industry? Are they aware of how people have been frightened about their investments and of how frightened people have been as to whether they should invest any more here? Are they aware, not merely of the new restrictions, but of the way in which people engaged in trade and industry and commerce are being pursued? The Ministers who made these statements have a lot to answer for, and I know that their supporters in the House and outside are not very happy about the situation which has been created by these speeches and I know quite well that they are not very happy that these speeches should ever have been made.

There was a lot of talk about cement, and I am going to face up to cement the same as I face up to everything. I did my best as Minister, almost from the day I went into the Department, to induce the cement company to increase their output, whether by the erection of an additional factory or by extensions. We were advised by them that extensions would be the quickest and most economical way to get increased production. There were two issues arising. The first issue was that I could not get the company to agree that the extensions should be as large as the Government felt they should be, in other words, that the output of cement should be so great. Their line was that that quantity would not be needed, that this was only a temporary problem, and that it would be unwise, unsafe and unsound, financially and otherwise, to go in for that extension to produce the extra thousands of tons. They kept to that line for a considerable period. However, as the building programme for houses and roads and so on expanded, they began to change their mind and ultimately they agreed. That was one point.

The only reason why the extensions to the existing cement factory were not undertaken two and a half years ago instead of now was that the company were insisting on being allowed to charge a price for the cement that would enable them to pay a dividend of at least 10 per cent.

Mr. Davin

Do those opposite accept that?

Mr. Morrissey

Mr. Briscoe

Perhaps the Deputy could give the information I sought.

Mr. Morrissey

I think that Deputy Briscoe should give me the opportunity of explaining things. I am only trying to put the position in clear, plain language before the House. If I am to be pilloried — I am not saying that the Deputy is doing it——

Mr. Briscoe

I am sorry. I did not address my question to the Deputy but to Deputy Dillon.

Mr. Morrissey

If I am at fault perhaps my fault is that even then at the end of two and a half years I was inclined to give in in my anxiety to make sure that cement was available.

Mr. Finan

I am afraid that at this stage in the debate it is not likely that I will be able to introduce anything new. In the earlier stages the debate took place on a high plane and we, the smaller fry, should thank Deputy Seán Collins for bringing it down to the level of ordinary intelligence. He succeeded in bringing reality to bear on this very important debate. The matter of the Bill and the amendments made the field very wide and probably that is the reason for the line which the debate has followed.

I feel, however, in so far as I have listened to the speeches and read those to which I did not listen, that there is one factor in our economic life that appears to have escaped Deputies. It is, in my opinion at least, a very vital factor: in this country the disproportion that exists between producers and non-producers is too great. I am sure that it will be admitted that our output is entirely, or almost entirely, agricultural, and that the number of people engaged in actual production, as distinct from distribution in agriculture, is very much too small in relation to the number of non-producers and that that is imposing a burden on those producers which they are not able to bear. It may happen that with the introduction of equipment and machinery in the last three or four years the situation may be improved, but it was very necessary that something should be done in that way.

In this connection I think that over a long number of years the Department of Lands and the Department of Agriculture should shoulder a certain amount of blame and I do not attach blame to any particular Government. If we are to increase production, in view of the fact that we are an agricultural country, we must place every possible man on the land on an economic holding. I do not suggest for one moment that there is sufficient land in the country to bring about that situation, but in so far as land is available the first solution to our economic problems must be to place every possible man on an economic holding.

It will not be denied, I think, that ever since we came into self-government the Department responsible for relieving that situation has been lax. It is a terrible thing that in many cases the Land Commission acquire land and keep it in their possession for as long as 15 to 20 years. I do not think that there can be any justification for that attitude. I admit that there must be a reasonable lapse of time for the Land Commission to put things in order but once they acquire the land their aim should be to divide it with the utmost expedition.

I feel too — I know this; I am speaking from personal experience — that the attitude adopted by the Land Commission regarding applicants for land is not in the best national interest. I know that the Land Commission had a very sad experience when they gave land to landless men, but I would bring to their notice that there are two types of landless man. There is the son of the household who cannot be provided with a home farm, who has spent his life in the pursuit of agriculture, and who is perhaps a much better tiller of land, a much better farmer, than his brother who will inherit the holding. That type of landless man, to my mind, should be provided with a holding by the Land Commission. I am afraid that that is the type of man who emigrates because he does not see a future for him here. If he could see that there was a possibility of his leaving his father's holding for some other holding we would not have the best type of young man in the country seeking a livelihood in a foreign country.

I hope that the Government will review that situation again. I do admit that when an effort was made to provide land for landless men the right type of applicant did not appear to be selected, but I am sure that the Land Commission can reply on their inspectors throughout the country to use good judgment, and in the light of what happened before not to make the same mistakes again. I knew a case where the sons of a house had by their energy and industry accumulated a certain sum of money. They told me that they would be quite prepared to put that money down as a guarantee that they would work the land well, settle down and become good farmers. I think that where a man is in a position to do that his claim should be attended to and if possible acceded to.

I have said on a previous occasion in another place, and would like to repeat here, that I have the utmost sympathy with the man who happens to be Minister for Agriculture in this country. It is a very unenviable job, and in my opinion it is one of the most difficult portfolios which any man could have in our Cabinet. The reason is that there is no common agricultural policy that will suit all conditions. In certain areas you have the dairying industry; in others you have beef production; in others you have mixed farming, and to think that any Minister, unless he be superman, can with a common agricultural policy satisfy all those sections is ridiculous.

I would suggest to any Minister for Agriculture that he would consider my problem, that he would say to the people in the counties where the dairying industry is the main industry: "You are one zone. It is your duty to produce all the milk and butter you possibly can; that you will produce not alone sufficient butter for home consumption but a surplus for export, and it is my business to assure you that if you do that you will get a decent return for your labour." I know that that cannot be done in a minute, but I commend it to the Minister for his consideration. I suggest that the Minister should say to the people in the beef-producing districts: "You are the people we rely on to produce all the beef we require for home consumption and export, and I will ensure, as far as my position permits, that you will get a decent return for your labour." To the people in the mixed farming areas he should say: "Apart from your ordinary household products, I would ask you to concentrate on maximum production of eggs and poultry." If that policy were pursued over a reasonable time there would be a satisfied community in the dairying zone, a satisfied community in the beef-producing zone, and a satisfied community in the mixed farming zone. At the same time, there would be increased production for home consumption and export. Any Minister for Agriculture, no matter to what Party he may belong, who does not try to adopt such a scheme will never satisfy the farming community.

I know that on the land of Ireland there is much dissatisfaction among the young men. I am not talking about the agricultural labourer. There are many people employed on the land — the big majority — who would not be described as agricultural labourers but rather as self-employed persons. It is for these men that I speak. The agricultural labourer has a certain guaranteed income. Admittedly, it is low. But there is the self-employed man who has no regular income at all, the man who works on the land with his father and brothers, who does not know on Saturday night whether he will get anything to put in his pocket or not. I submit that he is in a much worse position than the paid agricultural labourer who, at any rate, will draw his money on a Saturday night.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

In the Chair's opinion, this would be more relevant on the debate on agriculture.

Mr. Finan

I submit to your ruling. The debate had covered such a wide field that I thought I might be permitted in my first speech in this House to deal with that problem.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Deputy may briefly refer to it but he should not go into it in detail.

Mr. Finan

I shall not go into it in detail. I shall deal very briefly with what has been the important point in this debate, the Central Bank Report. I shall not bore the House with a long speech on a matter which I consider entirely above me. In fairness I would say that, in my opinion, the Central Bank discharged their duty, which would be the duty of any Central Bank, when they set before the people and the Government the precise financial situation which they found in the country. That would be their first duty. They might also be quite entitled to draw their own conclusions from the financial position which they found. There I would call a halt. I think they outstepped their duty and did a disservice to the country and to the Government when they suggested remedies because, in my opinion, that was dictating policy which I do not think the Central Bank had a right to do. I agree with those Deputies who say that much damage has been done both by the suggestion of remedies by the Central Bank and by the endorsement of those remedies by the Minister for Finance and the Tánaiste. It cannot be denied that when the Central Bank suggest remedies and the responsible Ministers of the Government publicly admit that they agree with those remedies and that in their opinion they should be adopted, and if those remedies are to curtail development, a very serious situation can be brought about which it will be very difficult to remedy.

A man who would seriously suggest that a country should lend money at any rate of interest, whether it be one-half of 1 per cent. or 1 per cent., to another country, for development in that country, when similar development is required at home for which money is needed, is making a very ridiculous suggestion. Everyone admits that one of the main factors hampering the agricultural industry in this country is shortage of capital. For years, agriculture has been denied capital. It has been kept in a stagnant and depressed state through lack of capital. It is well known that the British Government gives very generous grants to farmers for the purpose of carrying out a scheme similar to the land project. That we should advance money to England which is used for the purpose of such schemes and deny money to our own farmers is the essence of nonsense.

I know from experience that the land rehabilitation scheme was welcomed by every farmer in this country, irrespective of his politics or how he would vote at a general election. At the same time, I have no hesitation in saying that the land project could be improved. There is no scheme that was ever introduced or that ever will be introduced that could not be improved by experience. I suggested to the then Minister when I was in the Seanad that in my view that scheme would be improved by earmarking a certain amount of the money that was provided for the scheme for the production of cheaper fertilisers. I repeat that suggestion now. During the emergency, the land was mined in an effort to produce food for the people. Fertility will not be restored by nature in a short time. The man who will confer a benefit on the farming community and who will ensure that in the event of another emergency the soil will be capable of providing food for the people is the man who will make plenty of artificial fertiliser available at the cheapest possible rate. Fertiliser is the one thing that the land needs. I am sure it would be possible to use some of the money provided for the land scheme for that purpose.

Some Deputies have referred to private overspending. That is a matter that can be regarded in different ways. It is a good thing that a nation or an individual should save money. Private spending, however, may not be the national disaster that some people think. In my opinion, private spending is not a national disaster as long as the money remains within the country, because it is merely changing hands from one person to another. There may be too much money spent at present on amusements and entertainments, but that money is still remaining here and is merely changing hands. I do not think that is a very serious thing for the nation.

The Government will have to economise in the direction in which economies can best be made without imposing hardship. If the Government sets about doing that I think they will find plenty of scope for economy.

It is gratifying for a newcomer to the House to listen to a debate where the views expressed were mainly non-Party. I have heard several speeches which seemed to me to be as frank as they could be. It is encouraging to the people to realise that the Dáil is acting in that way.

Mr. Browne

I do not propose to deal with either the White Paper or the Central Bank Report. Both have been fully debated by the ex-Ministers in the present Opposition during the past three weeks. There is one aspect of the banking system that I would like to bring to the notice of the Government and the Minister. It is a method of banking which benefits the ordinary people throughout the country. I refer to the giving of credit by the business people in country districts. The businessman in the country town or village is really a bank. He gives credit at short notice and sometimes at grave disadvantage to himself. Where a farmer wants immediate service, it is the local businessman who gives it.

The speeches of the Minister for Finance and the Minister for Industry and Commerce, over the last three, four, five or six weeks have done serious damage. I think that damage will take some time to repair, because their speeches have had the effect of rendering these people unable to give service. Let any Deputy approach a businessman in a country town or village — I do not care to what Party he belongs — and he will find that there is a changed system so far as business is concerned. The old system is a thing of the past. The businessman in the rural areas to-day has a system which is different from that in existence 20 or 30 years ago.

He has the method of stocking supplies ready to be made available to the public. He makes provision, after short notice, that if an article will be needed to meet the needs of his customers or of the people in the area two or three months later, he will have it with the assistance and help of his bankers, by means of a temporary increase in his overdraft.

The position is that stocks are fairly big all over the country. They have been increased, not since the change of Government but previous to the change. People were putting in stocks of goods because of the danger of war. I think it was a very good thing to have these stocks and goods distributed all over the country. They are to be found in the big and small towns and in the rural shops. It was very much better to have done that than to have them in a big pile at the North Wall deteriorating. There is a certain amount of security in the fact that the goods were distributed in that way and so will be available when required.

My experience of meeting people in different walks of life from all over the country has been that they say that business was never so bad. The stocks are there but the people are not buying. The shopkeepers cannot turn their goods into cash. That is the whole cry. It is one of the ways in which an increase in unemployment can show itself and is showing itself. You have a certain number of people employed in the shops. They may be employed inside or outside the counter or at other work. Well, the employers will not be able to continue to pay a reasonable week's wages or, perhaps, continue to employ the number of people they have if the business is not there. That is the serious situation that is facing that section of the people so far as the warnings given by the Minister for Industry and Commerce and the Minister for Finance are concerned. We have to add to that that less money is being spent.

The other day I asked a question about the amount of money that is going to be made available in my county under the Local Authorities (Works) Act for drainage schemes. I think that last year the sum of £80,000 was made available in my county. I expect that most of that money has been spent. There is no better method of helping people on the land, especially in my part of the country, than by providing money for the drainage of their land. I was told the other day, when I had a further question down, that the amount we were going to get this year will be £51,000. The difference between these two sums is going adversely to affect an area such as North Mayo, where you have a big percentage of very small farmers, with fairly big families, depending for an existence on a weekly wage. The object should be to help those people. Drainage is one of the best ways of doing so.

I agreed with the view that was taken by the former Minister for Agriculture that, at least, a very big proportion of the £40,000,000 of the Marshall Aid loan should be spent on the reclamation of land in the poorer areas. I was very disappointed recently to learn from public statements made that the policy of the present Government is, more or less, to change the policy of the previous Minister by spending money on the better land of the country. I think that the people living on the good land and on fairly big farms — farms of 40, 50, 100 or 150 acres—should have to wait for a while. A man with, say, a farm of 150 or 100 acres of land in the Midlands will have at least 70 or 80 acres of good arable land out of this total area. He surely will be able to make a good living out of it. He will get a good price for everything he produces, whether he grazes cattle and sheep on the land or grows wheat or barley or goes in for poultry production. He will get a good price for everything he produces, and should be able to afford to wait until those with poor land in the western areas have been provided for.

In fact, a man with a big farm like that may be able himself, out of the profits he makes, to carry out reclamation work on that part of his farm which needs it.

Compare that man with the unfortunate small farmer in my county. He has been tilling his poor land for the past 25 years and will be tilling the same land for the next 25 years. Unless people like him are helped, they will never be able to reclaim their land. It may be argued that the State will get a return more quickly if this money is spent on the good land. While that may be so, the effect will not be as helpful or as desirable from the general point of view as if the money were spent by increasing by one acre, or by two, three, four or five acres, as the case may be, the holdings of small farmers such as we have in parts of Mayo. The farmers in these areas can compete with the farmers in any county in Ireland so far as the production of bacon and eggs is concerned. These are two articles of food which are needed in every part of the country. For these reasons, I would appeal to the Government to alter their view of having a percentage of this money diverted towards the improvement of the better land in the country. I suggest that instead of doing that, they should concentrate more on the poorer areas.

Deputy Finan spoke on agriculture, and I should like to say a word on that. I want to say that in my county there is this year a certain amount of unrest as regards the price to be paid to the growers of seed potatoes. I asked a question the other day in regard to the export value of seed potatoes, and I could not be told. It may be reasonable not to make the figure public. But I do not expect that I would be asking anything unreasonable if I were to ask what is the export value of ware potatoes this year—that is, the selling price of ware potatoes in the case of licensed exporters or dealers in potatoes. I think that I should be told, and that the public should be told, what the farmer is going to get for his ware potatoes.

I remember that about one and a half years ago the Minister for Agriculture, at that time, when speaking on his Estimate, was able to tell us that he had a market for a certain tonnage of potatoes with a guaranteed price of £10 13s. 6d. per ton for potatoes free on board, and that during a certain period later it would be £11 8s. 6d. That gave people an idea of what they were likely to get for their potatoes. They were in a position then to make up their minds as to what use they would make of their potatoes. They had three choices. One was to market them at the export value at that time; the second was that they could go in for pig production by feeding them to pigs, or, thirdly, they could go in for poultry production. Some people made up their minds to use the potatoes in the production of pigs, while others used them to increase their poultry population. I should like to know what the position is going to be like this year because, in part of my constituency, we have a big percentage of growers of seed potatoes and growers of ware potatoes. They are disturbed, and they feel that they are not being treated as they should as far as the price is concerned, especially by reason of the fact that they are not being told to-day what ware potatoes are worth, either for the home market or for the export market. I say that the Minister, when he is summing up, should give some idea of what they are worth so that farmers in my area will have an idea of the value of ware potatoes.

Mr. Dillon

Would the Deputy allow me to ask a question? Has he heard any complaint in North Mayo about the question of bags?

Mr. Browne

Yes, in my area. I was given to understand this and I give it now for what it is worth. Up to this, a quantity of bags sufficient for a year were supplied to us. Potatoes were put into the bags and debited up in the ordinary way to the producer. When he returned the bags he got credit, not a cash transaction. This year he has to buy bags. I am given to understand that there are two grades of bags, one grade costing about 1/3 and the other grade costing from 1/6 to 1/7½. People have to buy the bags, which will then become their own property. Even when it is a question of buying the cheaper type of bag it reduces the profit one has got on a ton of potatoes. For instance, if one has to buy 20 bags, they will cost about 25/-.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Deputy is going into too much detail on that point. He should pass away from that matter.

Mr. Browne

I just mention it because it is creating a certain amount of friction among both producers and workers.

I will now deal with the question of manure. So far as my portion of the country is concerned, manure plays a very big part, probably a bigger part than it does in other districts. In my area people go in in a very big way for using artificial manures. Without it we would not be able to produce the crops. It is going to create a very serious problem this year. Thirty per cent. superphosphates is going to cost £13 per ton and 40 per cent. superphosphates is going to cost £13 15s. per ton. I am aware that 35 per cent. superphosphates was sold last year for £9 15s. per ton. Thirty-five per cent. superphosphates cost £9 15s. per ton last year and the same quality and the same quantity cost £13 15s. this year.

Mr. Lemass

My advice to Deputies is that they are not going to get it less. The price in England has doubled.

Mr. Blowick

The farmers know the price has doubled.

Mr. D.J. O'Sullivan

Will the Minister subsidise it?

Mr. Lemass

I think the announcement made by the Minister for Agriculture that there would be no subsidy was insufficiently publicised. I feel it should be known that there is going to be no price subsidy for fertilisers, and farmers would be well advised to buy now.

Mr. Dillon

Deputy S. Flanagan should put that in his pipe and smoke it.

Would the Minister state the amount of fertilisers Comhlucht Siúicre Éireann have in their stores?

Mr. Lemass

They have not got it.

Mr. O'Higgins

It is in the White Paper and if you look at the White Paper you will see it.

Mr. Dillon

Deputy Browne might read it out for him.

Mr. Browne

Deputy Giles has just said: "Do not try to throw it in our eyes."

Mr. Browne

As far as manure is concerned, even the price of potato manure, as well as that of compound manure, will be much in excess of the price that we would wish.

Let me conclude by saying that, as far as the income of the people is concerned, I want to make it perfectly clear that, in the interests of the people I represent, I am opposed to any increase in taxation, and if such a proposal comes before the Government in a Bill I have my mind fully made up to vote against it.

Mr. O'Gorman

This little country of ours was sailing along most serenely up to June last. Everybody seemed to be quite happy and contented and then a general election came.

Mr. Lemass

And there was a change of Government.

Mr. O'Gorman

Another Government assumed office and from that day up to the present, whatever happened, something certainly went amiss. Strange as it may seem, a recession in the various trades throughout the country took place with the coming into office of the present Government. During the recess, away back last July, or at least August and September, the people down the country were frankly amazed at the gloomy speeches of the Tánaiste for, to give him his due, he does not as a rule speak in that gloomy strain. Naturally the people undoubtedly received a considerable shock when they were told that there would be a crisis. The ordinary people of Ireland are possessed of that sang froid for many years, and even though the Tánaiste prophesied that we were on the verge of a very serious crisis they took it as they usually take it—calmly. Naturally, when such a serious pronouncement came from the second Minister in the Government it should make them sit up and take notice, but then when that was followed by the Minister for Finance issuing another very gloomy prophecy, people found it very hard to swallow that pill. Thirdly, on top of all comes the Central Bank Report and they tried to force that pill down the throats of the people. In my view the three pills that were administered were not acceptable to the people.

Speaking as an ordinary country businessman I think I can say that the people did not know just where they were. A cloud of gloom seemed to descend upon the business community and certainly were it not for the inspiring speech of the late Taoiseach—I think everybody will agree with me that it was a most inspiring speech— conditions would have been much worse. It went a very considerable way towards allaying the nervous feeling which existed generally. When you have Ministers holding high office informing the plain people that we are on the verge of a financial crisis you can expect only one result. We had, for instance, what I can only describe as the oratorical gem which lasted for three or four hours by the Minister for Agriculture.

People down the country pay a considerable amount of attention to what is said in this House. This is the Parliament of the country and people look to us for guidance in their many vocations, particularly to statements made by those who hold responsible office such as the Tánaiste and the various Ministers. I am glad to say, however, that the anxiety and nervousness which resulted from some of these statements are disappearing. The gloomy utterances such as we have heard have, however, considerably retarded the normal flow of business and the unfortunate workers throughout the land have been the first to feel the evil effects of the unemployment which followed—a state of affairs unknown to them during the three years when the inter-Party Government was in office. I was rather disheartened and disappointed to read in the daily papers of yesterday or the day before that the unemployment figures on 31st October, 1951, were up by well over 3,000 as compared with 31st October, 1950.

I should like to state that in my particular business I come in contact with commercial men every day of the week. I have known recently of commercial travellers who left Dublin on a Monday morning and who travelled right down through Carlow, Kilkenny and Waterford to my home town of Youghal and, as we say in trade parlance, they had not blackened their books after a journey of 140 miles. Naturally if travellers do not receive orders a reaction is bound to take place in the factories. Factories are not run for the fun of the thing. The directors will naturally leave off men if sufficient trade is not available to keep them in employment.

Another serious feature is that those who control credit in this country, the banks, have decreed a considerable restriction in credit. I know certain people who are quite solvent, people who are worth up to £10,000, £15,000 or £20,000. I think a man who possesses such an amount of money is in the category of wealthy men. I have seen letters delivered to these people, warnings from the directors of the banks, and issued to these customers by the local manager. I have memorised the words: "To reduce substantially your overdraft." These are people who in their long dealings with the commercial banks never received such requests before. Your bank agent or manager is, if I may so describe him, your financial confessor.

He knows your business and your turnover for each year. He knows, when you are buying in stock, the amount of money you require. I know six, seven or eight people who, some time ago, when they wanted an overdraft of £5,000, £6,000 or £7,000 to buy in stock, would get it readily. Now when they require lesser sums they are being requested to reduce their overdrafts substantially. In my opinion, that is due more than anything else to the synchronisation of the gloomy speeches of the Minister for Industry and Commerce and the Minister for Finance and the issuing of the Report of the Central Bank.

I do not want to discuss the details of the Report of the Central Bank; personally, I think its discussion has been overdone. I do not belong to the category of high financiers. Until I listened to this debate I did not think that we had so many high financiers in this House. We seem to have quite a considerable number. I think it should go forth from the Government that decent traders who are temporarily stuck should not be embarrassed by these restrictions. A man, to be a success in business, must have a considerable amount of stock on his shelves. It you go into a shop and see the shelves half-empty, you just walk out again and say to yourself: "Well, I think this fellow is going down." It is always a good thing to keep your shelves well filled and stocked. Nothing looks so well in city or country as a well-filled shop. It enhances the business prestige of the owner.

I think it would be no harm, and I am certainly anxious to hear the Minister when replying on this matter, if a greater feeling of confidence were created amongst the people generally. I feel that there is no necessity at all for the squeezing policy adopted by the Irish commercial banks for the last few months—and let it be remembered that it is only for the last few months. Running a bank is just like running any other business. No businessman is going to give credit to a person who, he feels, is not going to pay him some time. Of course, there are times when, no matter how keen you are, you will come across a bucko who will wipe your eye, but the banks are not going to give out money except to solvent people. Every businessman requires an overdraft at times to finance his business and I think that an extension of credit facilities by the banks would give a considerable stimulus to trade.

Any of us who have been reading the reports of the Irish banks will know that they have done very well for the last five or six years. If my memory serves me right, I think the deposits in these banks have increased considerably for some years past; to use an expression commonly heard in the country, they are literally bulging with money. Then what is the necessity for this squeezing policy? I have spoken to some eight or ten businessmen in my constituency, and they asked me to give expression to these views in this House. I hope that the Minister, when replying, will make some reference to this matter. An atmosphere of gloom has been created by many of the statements which we have heard for some time past from Ministers and others. Yet, consider the position which has existed in Ireland during, say, the last eight or ten years. Consider the development of any particular industry. Why, people are falling over one another to invest their money in Irish companies.

I know of companies, as I am sure some of the other members of the House do, too, with a capital of £500,000 or £750,000, and when they were being formed the capital was over-subscribed six or seven times. Does that show any feeling of anxiety? Does that show any nervousness on the part of the investing public? When a man who has, perhaps, saved £3,000 or £4,000, after all his years of work, is anxious to invest his capital in a good Irish security—does that show any nervousness or uneasiness? I do not think so. If you go to the trouble to check it up, you will find that, over the past four or five years, the capital of Irish companies has been over-subscribed every time. The lists which open at 10 a.m. close, in many instances, five or ten minutes afterwards. That should certainly satisfy the people of Ireland and the Government of Ireland that the ordinary man in this country who has a few hundred pounds to invest considers that there is no safer place in the whole world to invest it to-day than in his own country. I am assuming, of course, that those behind the industry are the right type of people. In the course of the past 20 years or so a number of shady companies have been floated here in Ireland: every Deputy knows what I am referring to. People from other countries have come over here and floated companies. They sucked what they could suck out of the people of Ireland and then they hopped it. Some of these people have not yet been caught, and I sincerely hope that they will be caught some time.

Any Deputy who passes through Dublin after travelling from the country will have to agree that Dublin is not a poor city and that the country is not a poor country. On several occasions I travelled to Dublin in my own car and in the whole of the City of Dublin the only central parking place I could find was the space in front of Leinster House. I came along by St. Stephen's Green to-day on my way from Kingsbridge and I noticed that cars were parked along the four sides of St. Stephen's Green. What does that show you? Does that indicate any sign of misery or panic or of any financial crisis in the country? Personally, I should love to see every man in Ireland own a motor car but I think that the present situation indicates that within the past 20 years or so we have enjoyed an era of prosperity. The plain people in the country say that Dublin is Ireland and I am sure that that will be agreed to by all because the money of the country is continually floating into Dublin.

I come now to the question of the cost of living. There is scarcely a Deputy in this House who has not referred to it. Last year when the inter-Party Government was in office it was faced with a barrage of criticism on the cost of living from the then Opposition, the Fianna Fáil Party. During the general election campaign last May there was not an after-Mass or fair gathering throughout my constituency which was not attended by Fianna Fáil speakers and we heard nothing from them but the cost of living. To my mind the silence on that subject from the Government Benches now seems ominous. Last year, Deputy Major de Valera spoke on this subject for about two hours. He had a list of every housewife's commodity and he taunted the inter-Party Government on the cost of living. I regret I had not time to look up the speech he made then—I think it was on this very Bill when it came up for discussion last year—but I hope that some Deputy on the Government Benches will look it up and repeat it verbatim because, certainly, it would make very interesting reading.

In a world which is threatened with war and in which turbulent conditions exist everywhere, it is very difficult for any Government to keep the cost of living in a stable manner. I think it must be admitted by everybody that the inter-Party Government, during their three and a half years in office, certainly kept the prices of commodities reasonably static. During the general election campaign I heard nothing from Fianna Fáil speakers in my constituency but hypocrisy and blatant nonsense about the then cost of living. Why, the cost of living has gone sky high since the present Government have come into office. It is the duty of the Government to endeavour to keep the cost of living as stable and as static as the inter-Party Government kept it.

I listened with rapt attention to the speech which the Taoiseach made on this measure. If my memory serves me correctly he stated that it might be necessary to impose further taxation on the people of this country. As an ordinary humble Deputy of this House, I advise the Taoiseach to keep away from further taxation. As countries go, we are not a wealthy country. We are happy and contented, but if we are to remain so I advise the Taoiseach to keep away from further taxation. I do not believe the people would stand for it. We all know what happened when the Taoiseach imposed extra taxation in the autumn of 1947. The people down the country, who have to work very hard in order to make a living, do not want any further taxation and I respectfully suggest to the Tánaiste that he should convey that information to the Taoiseach.

The Tánaiste visited my constituency recently. He went across the river from Cobh to Spike Island. I trust that good results will accrue to Cobh as a result of his visit. Every Deputy is anxious that the people in his constituency will have employment. I hope that the rolling mills will be put into operation shortly and so absorb the remaining unemployed who live there. Cobh is a very fine town and can be said to be the gateway to the Atlantic. It suffered very serious setbacks during the two Great Wars, the 1914-18 war and the 1939-45 war.

I am appealing to the Minister—I am glad he is here now—to do something to expedite that. I feel he will and I hope he will. Might I also draw attention to a letter which I received under date 4th November, 1951? It is in relation to the Rushbrooke dockyard. Work there is practically at a standstill at the moment.

An Ceann Comhairle

Is not this a matter more for the Estimate than for a Bill of such a comprehensive nature as this?

Mr. O'Gorman

I am working it in to supplies and services. We cannot get our supplies, Sir, without having our services.

An Ceann Comhairle

Mr. Lemass

That is Fianna Fáil policy, and not Coalition policy.

Mr. Dunne

At the risk of being slightly vulgar, it seems to me that this debate has been flogged almost to death and I do not intend to impose upon the House any longer than will be necessary. The debate appears to me to have produced one or two impressions. First, the remarkable thing about it is that is has lasted several days and will probably go down on record as one of the longest debates that has ever taken place here.

From the Government side, we have had speeches by the Taoiseach, the Tánaiste, the Minister for Finance and the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs and one back-bencher, but from the rest, complete silence. That is a remarkable thing, because I should have thought that some of the Deputies who were so vocal here in the past three and a half years and who were so violent in their denunciations of the then Government, particularly in relation to matters such as the cost of living, would at least have said something by way of advice or suggestion to their leaders in the Government in regard to the present situation, whereby those who voted for them at the last election would have the hardships they are now enduring eased to some extent.

The Central Bank Report and the White Paper issued by the Minister for Finance, as everybody has said— and it sounds hackneyed now to say it —have caused unrest in the country, but the situation has been eased somewhat over the past few weeks by the reassuring speeches made, principally from the Opposition side, and, to some extent, by the belated efforts of the Minister for Industry and Commerce to reassure the people and to give them to understand that things were not quite so bad as the Central Bank had said, and possibly even not quite so bad as was suggested by the White Paper. The people to-day, however, are still worried, and very worried, because they do not know what is in front of them and they want to know what is to happen to them in the future under this Government. It cannot, in truth, be said that they sought the setting up of this Government, but I think they are anxious to get an opportunity to reaffirm that they did not have the idea in mind that this Government would be set up, and they are therefore apprehensive as to what the future holds.

Already, within the space of a few months, what have they seen? In my constituency, and it is within my knowledge that this applies to the whole country, we have developing unemployment every day. Within the past week, I have had upwards of 50 men coming to my office—and it is the experience of every Deputy representing a Dublin constituency—and telling a story of unemployment and asking that something be done to put them into jobs. That has not happened on this scale since pre-war years. That is not merely a statement being made for political effect; it is the truth, and everybody knows it is the truth. We have in the City of Dublin, and certainly in the county, a fast developing unemployment problem, and men who have been in continuous employment in certain types of industry, men who came back to this country at the end of the war and particularly on the advent to power of the inter-Party Government to take up employment in the building trade, now find themselves unemployed for the first time for years.

We are moving up to Christmas and the outlook is black. The people want to know what is going to be done about them. All that has appeared for the past few weeks in the papers in regard to high finance and the niceties and complexities of the banking system in this country is so much Greek to the ordinary man in the street, the farm labourer working on the land and the man depending for his livelihood on a day's work. The workers of the country are interested in finding out what the policy of this Government is in relation to them and what the Government propose to do to take them out of the position they are in. The cost of living has been discussed here, and I suppose Deputies who have listened to the debate are fairly tired of hearing reference to it. It is a fact that within the past six months roughly 80 commodities of ordinary household use have increased in price and some of them have increased very sharply in price. You have that on the one hand and on the other hand there is the restriction of credit, with the resultant unemployment and shortage of money.

My approach to this problem is the approach of one who has always believed that we should control our own credit facilities, that the people should not be held to ransom by any group of individuals, whether they be English or Irish, in a matter so important as credit. Since it is a fact that every aspect of the nation's welfare is affected by the credit and banking system, it flows from that that if we are to have an effective, a fair and a just banking system, the people, through the Government and the Oireachtas, should control that banking system. Even in countries where Labour ideas have not been accepted, it has been found to be very useful and the most effective method of running particular countries. It cannot be said that it is a revolutionary idea, as it has been accepted in many places and in countries where neither the people nor the leaders have developed along the road of progress to any great extent. I do not think that endless and pointless talk here will bring about a satisfactory position.

What we need now is action by the Government, action by the Minister for Industry and Commerce, first of all on this question of prices. The immediate need of the moment is to prevent prices rising further, and to reduce them as far as it is humanly possible to do so. Where the people are made to understand that certain price increases were inevitable, where price increases sprang from the international situation, and where that is explained plainly, the people will accept it; but unfortunately the history of the present Administration, when it had power during the years of the war and up to 1948, was not such as would inspire the people with confidence as to the earnestness of the Administration in their statements regarding price control.

So far as we can discover, there is no effective price control yet. Every day I get complaints from my constituency in regard to over-charging. The machinery which we have to enforce price control is not effective. Certainly, until such time as we have a degree of control which will bring to the ordinary people the benefit of low prices, and until we have that machinery working instead of merely talking about it here, it will be very little use to continue debating the point. The fact that we have this Government in power, allied to the gloomy statements, the Report of the Central Bank and the White Paper of the Minister for Finance—these three facts have brought about, along with the undesirable things described here, a catastrophic turn in events, that is, a slowing down in the housing drive. That is evident in Ballyfermot.

A question was asked here last week by Deputy MacBride of the Minister for Local Government and the reply showed that there had been delay in the building of houses in Ballyfermot and resultant unemployment of building workers, because of the manipulation of red tape, because of more exacting demands by that Department on the local authority concerned, the Dublin Corporation. That is one way in which the general tendency to cut down on essential works can be achieved. That manipulation of red tape by a Government Department can be just as effective a brake on expenditure on public works, as we all very well know. I think it is not unconnected with the general feeling of despair that has been generated throughout the country by the statements of the bodies to which I have referred.

What is going to be done about unemployment? That it has flowed to some extent from the Report of the Central Bank and the White Paper is beyond question. Credit has been restricted and when that occurs in the society in which we live, or indeed in any society, unemployment undoubtedly ensues. What is going to be done about it? That is what the working people want to know. That is what I would like the Tánaiste to say when winding up this debate. The countless men now finding themselves unemployed for the first time for years, and facing what looks like a hungry Christmas, have they to look forward again to a period such as we had before the war came, when there were years during which the common sight was that of long queues of men—and, indeed, of women, too, and young women —waiting outside the labour exchange? Is that the future that the workers have now? It seems to be. Perhaps the Tánaiste in his reply will tell us openly whether he believes that that is the future that this country deserves.

During the war, of course, there was the emigrant ship to remedy unemployment. We all hope we will not see that occur again. Are there minds in this country which look forward to a similar situation developing? Do people look forward to a condition of affairs where we will again have unemployment and again be shipping thousands of our people across the water to make munitions for warfare? If there is such a mentality abroad—and there seems to be—then it is a bad thing for the country; and I sincerely hope that the workers will get an opportunity of expressing their point of view about it in the very near future.

The Central Bank Report contains something on which information is needed. In its statement of accounts for the year ended 31st March, 1949, there appears an item which has been referred to before in this House, but because it may have had the appearance of being referred to more in humour than in earnest I would like to raise it.

In Part 2, under the profit and loss account there appears an item headed "Other Expenses" of £60,805 18s. 2d. and in a similar statement of account for the year ending March 31st, 1951, the item "Other Expenses" is £120,621 10s. 3d. To use words in common usage that is no chicken feed, but it is under the heading "Other Expenses".

As members of this House we are entitled to know what these "other expenses" are. This Central Bank as far as we can discover from its history has always been the courier of doom, the courier of bad news. I think that at one time there was an organisation or body which corresponded with the Central Bank, the Banking Commission if I do not make a mistake, which pronounced that it would be a foolish act to set up sugar factories in this country. We all know very well that men who are out of touch with the common people of the country and who live only in an atmosphere of external assets and millions of pounds are liable to get pretty queer ideas about how the country is progressing and where the country is going.

Certainly for this body to have issued a report and for that report to have been permitted to have the effect it has had, the effect of almost creating a crisis in the country, is a sad state of affairs. It is just one more argument in favour of the policy we have always enunciated of taking control of credit and finance as far as is reasonable into the hands of the Government of the day and so making the people the masters of their land.

We have heard a lot and have been hearing a lot for some years about emigration. Was there ever any document or group of documents so calculated to promote emigration as the documents which are the subject of the motion and amendments discussed in this debate? I believe that an impetus, a very considerable impetus, has been given to emigration within the past few months and particularly since these documents were issued. They do not mean very much to the ordinary people. Farm labourers working on the land and, indeed, working farmers have not very much time to study White Papers and will probably gloss over what is said in the Central Bank Report or the synopsis of it that has appeared in the papers, but the effect such statements have upon the commercial banking companies throughout the country and upon trade is making itself felt even in the byways of every rural area in the shape of shortage of money, lack of employment and lack of the necessaries of life.

This debate has, I think, therefore, served a purpose. It has spotlighted the need which exists for having something done to secure that credit shall not be entirely at the mercy of a small group of private individuals to do with as they will. It has served the purpose of showing up a bad situation wherein a whole nation can be held at the mercy of, if you like, private speculation and profit-making.

I want the Tánaiste to give some thought to the hardship and privation which exists in my constituency and to which I have referred on other occasions. I have already talked to him here in this House of the situation in the town of Balbriggan where the hosiery industry is at a standstill and in Malahide, Lucan, Swords and Tallaght, every part of my constituency, unemployment is becoming a problem. What is the Government going to do about it? I think that the Government has a duty to do something about it because this applies not alone in County Dublin but everywhere, and it is the result of the bad news which was spread through the country first of all when this Government got into power and, secondly, when the reports to which I have referred were issued. It is easy to say that this situation of unemployment is due to trade recessions or one thing or another. Whatever the reason may be, there is a duty upon us as members of the Oireachtas and certainly a duty devolves upon the Government to take steps, if necessary of an exceptional nature, to provide relief for such workers. Exceptional grants should immediately and without any delay be made available to every county council so as to relieve unemployment.

An Ceann Comhairle

The Deputy is travelling on to the Estimates now.

Mr. Dunne

I do not wish to transgress the rules of debate in this matter, but I do want to avail of the opportunity—it was my prime reason for rising in the debate at all because every single aspect both of the motion and of the amendment has been covered—to relate unemployment questions to the motion and the amendment and, in doing so, to try to get something done for the thousands of workers who now find themselves without any means of livelihood, who need immediate relief and are not getting it. When the Tánaiste is replying, if he does nothing else—I am sure he will do a lot more—will he kindly let us know what is going to be done about the unemployment problem and the prices situation? Those two things are the most important and vital matters affecting the workers at present, and I will be interested to hear what he has to say about them.

Mr. Rooney

Much public unrest has been created in the country as a result particularly of ministerial speeches first by the Minister for Finance, who was followed by the Tánaiste. They pursued a line in July and August of warning the people and threatening a crisis round the corner. They were followed by the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs, and finally by the Taoiseach. They all sounded the one note. That was the tune they were playing until the Fianna Fáil Árd Fheis of a few weeks ago. It then appeared to be discovered by those who had made their little journey from the country that they were not all taking the same view as these members of the present coalition Cabinet. Then we found that there was a peculiar arrangement whereby the Tánaiste threw overboard the general view expressed by the Central Bank and disowned it. We had at the same time the Taoiseach defending the Central Bank at the Árd Fheis and stating that there was good reason for the views stated in the report. We had the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs taking the side of the Taoiseach and saying: "Yes, the Central Bank Report is one that should be acted upon." Then we find a change of heart in the Ministers for Posts and Telegraphs and for Industry and Commerce. There is divided opinion in the Cabinet at the present time concerning the proper view to take and the line to adopt in relation to the opinions contained in these reports.

When the Minister gets an opportunity to reply to this debate, I hope he will be able to tell the House that all four members of the Cabinet whom I have mentioned will take the one line and not go in opposite directions, because that attitude is inclined to create that uncertainty amongst the public which is probably causing much of the industrial trouble at the present time in the matter of unemployment and the slump in trade. If a firm line were taken, if a direction were pointed to the public and if they were not confused by these different views, the country might be pulled together again. There is no excuse for splintering the country as has been done in the last couple of months. All this has been caused by these contrary speeches. It is regrettable that the members of the Cabinet who expressed those views and made those speeches did not realise the harm they would cause.

I notice from the speech of the Taoiseach some days ago that he is promising the probability that direct taxation will be imposed. Certainly, I, for one, cannot subscribe to the view that further taxation should be imposed upon our people. They might have been in a position to bear some measure of taxation if the cost of living had not been allowed to get out of hand in the last couple of months. Probably that margin would be available in the form of taxation if it was proposed to use it for capital development.

During the general election, before the present Coalition took office, we found the present Minister for Industry and Commerce stating that if Fianna Fáil became a Government again the 1947 policy would be implemented. I think he said that the 1948 policy of Fianna Fáil would be implemented That is the policy which was repudiated by the people in 1948. It is no wonder that confusion has been caused in trade when the people see that a Government which was repudiated because of its policy, early in 1948, has taken office again.

It has been mentioned here that the banks and financiers have been restricting credit. Possibly, the restriction of credit is due to the fact that we now have in office a Government which promised to implement a policy which was turned down by the people in 1948. Probably that may explain why the bankers are becoming cautious. It is necessary for them to be cautious if there is a policy being operated in which there is no confidence. Even if the present Coalition are able to carry the vote within this House, they know quite well that they did not get a majority of votes outside the House during the general election and that there is no confidence outside this House in the present Coalition. That is very probably the reason for the attitude adopted by business interests at the present time.

Remember also that when they were offered this policy of 1947-48 last May the people had in mind the fact that during the years 1946 and 1947 we were exporting thousands of tons of cement. We were exporting it at a time when it was well known that 100,000 houses were needed here. Dublin County Council were selling back cottage sites to the owners——

Mr. Lemass

You are just a few years wrong. That is all.

Mr. Rooney

I am only quoting from the answer to a question which I put down some time ago.

It is wider than that.

Mr. Rooney

I am speaking in a general way. I am asking the Minister to examine the whole field of industrial activity in this country, to ensure that the general public are paying only what they ought to pay for the measure of protection afforded to these different interests. I shall not specify any, because possibly there are certain industries which need a different type of treatment and a different approach.

At the present time we are facing the need to get taxes from our people in order to finance losses which continue to be shown by Córas Iompair Éireann. I want to know from the Minister whether there is a redundancy on the Córas Iompair Éireann staff and, if so, whether it will be possible for him to devise some other class of activity in which these people can be engaged. It might, for instance, be more economic for the country to pay full wages or pensions to these people without keeping them in Córas Iompair Éireann until such time as they succeed in securing some other kind of employment. We have an example of that, for instance, in the alcohol factories. It was stated by the previous Minister for Finance that it would be cheaper for the taxpayer in the long run if all the employees of these factories receiving wages continued to receive the same amount and the factories were closed down. That is not a good type of economy. Let us see whether the alcohol produced is serving a useful purpose. Let us see whether alcohol is produced in other countries at the same expense and the purpose for which such alcohol is being used.

I want the Minister to examine the various activities being financed by the State at the expense of the public in order to see in what way he can put them on a business basis. Every private business must be able to pay its way, must prove to be efficient, and it is only right to expect that branches of State activities should also do likewise. Deputy O'Donnell pointed out the folly of putting our savings into the British stocking instead of putting them into our own stocking.

Mr. Lemass

Into nylon stockings.

Mr. Rooney

Even if they are nylon stockings, provided they are Irish ones. Let us see whether it would not have been wiser for the Administration that preceded the inter-Party Government to make better use of our assets than leaving them lying there in Great Britain as a credit. Let us remember that this country lost the purchasing power of £100,000,000 overnight when devaluation was decided upon. If we had made use of that £100,000,000 before devaluation was brought about, this country would be in a very different position at present.

During the inter-Party régime a progressive attitude was adopted both in regard to agriculture and to industries. We had the establishment of something near 200 new factories which brought into employment an extra 38,000 persons, and that development actually resulted in the reduction of unemployment by 26,000 persons. That reduction of unemployment by 26,000 persons compared with the number unemployed when the inter-Party Govment was in office is not being maintained. In three and a half years the inter-Party Government reduced unemployment on the average by 8,000 persons per year, and now, after four months of the present Coalition Government, we have unemployment increased by something like 4,000 persons as compared with this time last year, whereas if the trend had remained the inter-Party Government could boast of having reduced it by a further 1,000 persons per month since last June. The inter-Party Government reduced unemployment at the rate of 800 persons per month for every month they were in office.

Apart from that, 30,000 houses were built during that period. Plans were laid for the building of hospitals and the building of many of them was started. In fact, if we look at the policy of the present Government in general we can see that the only part of the inter-Party Government policy being adhered to is the programme of hospitalisation, and I think that is where Deputy Browne's influence on the present Coalition comes in That seems to be the only policy being pursued in the same way as under the inter-Party Government. A good thermometer, as far as the economy of any country is concerned, is the stock exchange.

Mr. Hickey

They are not going to produce goods.

Mr. Rooney

I am sorry to hear that Deputy Hickey does not agree with me in that. The rise and fall of shares on the stock exchange taken over a period is a good guide to the economy of a country and the general outlook and buoyancy of trade. We saw only last week big headings in the newspapers showing that the Dublin Stock Exchange, which is not a very big one compared with the London Stock Exchange, was almost at a standstill; there was not a bid from one side or the other. To add to this chaos we have pig prices falling. Rural Deputies will bear me out when I say that the price of pigs at fairs and markets has fallen. But the consumer when going into a shop finds that the price of bacon is going up. There must be something happening between the day the pig is bought at a fair or market and the day it is put on the counter as bacon. I would advise the Minister to have a look into that to see what is going on. Similarly, the prices of cattle are falling while meat prices are up. There again the Minister should see what is happening and what is the reason for the discrepancy and for the trends to be going in opposite directions.

In regard to unemployment. I pointed out that when the inter-Party Government were in office they reduced the number of persons unemployed by 26,000. As unemployment is on the increase again, I want to know whether the policy of the present Government is similar to their policy before the war when unemployment was always around the 100,000 mark. I think in one particular month in 1939 there were 119,000 unemployed persons on the register. Are we moving towards that scale of unemployment again? We are often reminded of the palmy days of peace in 1938 and 1939 before the war. But we had then between 100,000 and 120,000 persons regularly registering as unemployed. Are we going to bring the unemployment figure up to that again?

We saw where the Central Bank recommended the withdrawal of food subsidies. I am glad to have had an assurance from the Minister that he does not propose to follow that recommendation. They also recommended a wage freeze. There again I should like to get an assurance from the Minister that he does not propose to interfere with the wage packet of the person who earns his weekly wage wherever he can get the best terms.

The Minister, of course, always expressed opposition to the two-price system in respect of such commodities as tea, sugar and butter. So strong was he in his opposition that I feel now he should subsidise, if not the whole ration, at least the greater part of the ration which people normally consume in respect of tea, sugar and butter. It is only right to expect that he will take the line he has always taken in relation to subsidies on the one hand and in relation to the ordinary economic price on the other.

The Minister, too, objected to the price of butter when it was 3/6 per lb., the economic price. The subsidised price was 2/10. He will now find himself in the position where he has to deal with butter at 4/- per lb., the ordinary economic price, and the subsidised price of butter has also increased.

There has been a slowing-up in the payment of housing grants. The Government must know the reason for that. The Government should be able to tell us why some people, having complied with all the regulations, have now to wait for a very long period for payment of these grants. Instead of the usual gloomy speech prophesying doom which we have become so accustomed to from the Minister recently, I was glad in this debate to notice that he gave us a speech which appeared to follow the line set by Deputy Costello in relation to our national economy. I think that is the proper line and I hope the Minister will continue to follow it.

I know that the Minister and his Party always expressed themselves as opposed to capital development. Last year during the local elections there was very severe criticism from the Fianna Fáil Party of the capital development programme that the inter-Party Government was pursuing at the time in order to provide our people with houses as quickly as possible, with electricity, with telephones, and in order to expand our turf production, afforestation and various other services. I hope the Minister is now converted to the policy of providing these amenities for our people as quickly as possible, particularly those of housing and electricity.

It was pointed out by the Fianna Fáil Party that we in the inter-Party Government were mortgaging future generations and that they would have to pay for the amenities we were providing for ourselves. I think it is only fair that the coming generations who will benefit by our efforts should pay their share. That was our attitude in relation to our capital development programme. That programme was financed mainly through the medium of national loans. People subscribed willingly to those loans to enable us to finance these projects. I hope the present Government will continue that programme.

The Minister mentioned in the course of his speech that it was proposed to try to get a level £50,000,000 per annum in order to finance these capital projects. I do not know whether he indicated the source from which he proposes to get that £50,000,000. I do not know whether he proposes to get it in the form of national loans or in the form of taxation. I would like to know what his plan is. I agree it is desirable to have money to pursue the capital development programme as rapidly as possible. To-day we are probably paying for the folly of yesterday.

Mr. Lemass

Hear, hear!

Mr. Rooney

I want to emphasise that. I should say——

Mr. Lemass

Let it stand.

Mr. Rooney

The yesterday of which I am speaking is the years between 1932 and 1937 when the economic war was, as Deputy Childers, Minister for Posts and Telegraphs, has so often told us, deliberately embarked upon by the then Government. We know that the country lost about £400,000,000 during that period. The amount in dispute was £100,000,000.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

That is going a long way back.

General MacEoin

It is a bit relevant. It was either yesterday or ere yesterday.

Mr. Lemass

It is a bit embarrassing for the inter-Party Government, too.

Mr. Davin

It is not as bad as your arrangement with the Captain.

Mr. Lemass

You were on the right side then.

Mr. Rooney

At the present moment we have not as many cattle in the country as we could have. We have not as many sheep or as many pigs. We have not as many subsidiary industries. That is mainly due to the deliberate policy pursued by the then Deputy Childers and his colleagues, namely, the economic war between this country and Great Britain. We would be very lucky now if we had anything like that £400,000,000 in order to pursue our capital development programme.

As a result of a delegation to America last year which went there for the purpose of studying the dressed meat trade, we have now an expanding dressed meat trade. We have many more people making application to be allowed to set up abattoirs in various parts of the country, and we will probably find ourselves with more abattoirs than are necessary for dealing with the live stock available. We know the country is under-stocked in relation to cattle, sheep, pigs and poultry. We know this is an agricultural country capable of maintaining a much greater stock than it has at present. We know there is a world meat shortage. We would be very lucky now if we had not suffered in the past a Government which subsidised the slaughter and the destruction of our live stock at the expense of the general taxpayers.

If we had these four classes of live stock now, we could export meat from this country to the four corners of the earth. At that time, of course, our policy of exporting meat was ridiculed. It was not appreciated that the export of meat always has been, and is, the basis of our economy, and the basis of our trade. It enables us to purchase the normal goods which we do not produce ourselves.

There has been a very big change in the last couple of months in the matter of prices. Everything you can mention is going up, and those who deal in commodities are not a bit afraid, after telling you that prices are up to-day, to come along to-morrow and tell you that they are up still further, although it is probable that they already had some of those stocks in hand. That is the position as far as prices are concerned. It is just that, and the public are beginning to take it for granted. But at the same time they are finding great difficulty in trying to meet these prices. Let us remember that, in general, our wage and income levels have not changed in the last 12 months, but still the cost of various commodities normally used by the people has risen steeply. There is a good case to be made for an upward adjustment of income and wages to enable people to meet these increases, especially if they are going to be of a permanent nature. Possibly, we will hear from the Tánaiste, in his reply, some kind of a plan which he may have in order to bring prices back to within reach of wage levels which have existed for the last 12 months.

I agree with the view that, apart from causing a slump in business and creating unemployment, the attitude adopted by members of the Cabinet has been the cause of emigration in the last few months. There always has been a certain amount of emigration, but it has been stimulated during the last three months. I have met many persons who lost their employment, and who came along trying to find out if there was any other work to be had. Nine out of ten of them say: "If I could get a job at all here in Ireland I would not go to work in England or elsewhere." That is the prospect that is facing so many people at the present time. They must have some kind of a wage packet, and if they cannot get it in this country they must go elsewhere.

The present position reflects the ill-timed speech of the Taoiseach concerning conditions in Birmingham at that particular time. It probably caused a certain amount of embarrassment to Irish workers, working beside British workers when these statements by the Taoiseach were read. The Taoiseach knows as well as everybody here that Irishmen would not work in England if they could find work in Ireland.

The greater part of the Tánaiste's activities at the present time would appear to me to be concerned with sanctioning increases in prices. I would like to see him give his pen a rest, because I feel that many of those people who are trying to justify an increase in prices could carry on without having those increases sanctioned if the Minister just refrained from doing so. There is at the present time a slump in the building trade. There is a considerable amount of unemployment. That, certainly, is a very big change from last year when the inter-Party Government were able to boast that in no year in its history did we build in Ireland so many houses. That was in the year 1950. We certainly will not be able to boast of such an achievement during the present year.

Mr. Rooney

I regret that I cannot put my hand at the moment on a speech made only a few days ago by the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs. He talked in very high terms of the plans and the dreams of the Fianna Fáil Government, and pointed out that, if these plans and dreams were to be financed, the amount would run into hundreds of millions of pounds. I suggest that we should come down to earth and just plan to do what we are capable of doing. There is no point in planning beyond our capacity. It is claimed, of course, that all this housing was planned by the Fianna Fáil Government before they were turned down by the people in 1948. But, strangely enough, it will be claimed, I suppose, that it was even planned that the Dublin Corporation should take 6,000 acres of land from the Dublin County Council in order to carry more houses for the city. That is the position now, that it proposes to take 6,000 acres of land from the county in order to have these extra houses provided. If Fianna Fáil had had any plans for housing. I am quite satisfied that people will agree that they would not be exporting cement in 1946 and 1947. I know they did not tell Deputy Burke about those exports, because I am quite sure that, knowing the housing position as it was in the county, he would have objected. There is a lot going on in the Cabinet which he should be told, but they should not be telling him that they are going to do one thing while actually doing the opposite, especially in matters relating to housing and other things.

I do not know whether this comes within the scope of the debate or not, but I would like to know why the present Government only paid the old age pensioners from the 5th October.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

That does not come under this.

We had Deputy Corry last week asking here for an increase in the milk price, and then as soon as it looked as if he was going to carry the vote he withdrew the motion. The farmers expect more honesty than that kind of play acting in this House. If Deputy Corry considers that an increase in milk prices is justified he should leave it to the House to decide instead of putting down a motion and then withdrawing it, and refusing to give the House an opportunity of voting on the motion. He spent three hours of the public time last week debating this very point, asking to have the price of milk increased; then he turned round and withdrew the motion.

Mr. Davin

He was told to do it, of course.

Mr. Burke

Deputy Davin told him.

Mr. Davin

Your boss told him.

Mr. Rooney

If he knew he was going to be defeated he would not withdraw it. One more point I wish to make is in regard to the burden placed upon trade and business by the new telephone charges.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

I do not think that can be discussed in detail on this Bill.

Mr. Rooney

I want to refer to it only in a general way. It is a fairly heavy burden on business and businessmen all over the country using these telephones when they find their bill gone up by 25 per cent.

Mr. Cunningham

I thought they were making huge profits an hour ago and that they were lining their pockets.

Mr. Rooney

No. Only the exploiters and speculators were lining their pockets. There are ordinary businessmen who do not, and it is on their behalf I speak. I am not concerned with the exploiters and speculators I mentioned.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

That does not arise on this Bill.

Mr. Rooney

I will depart from that.

Mr. Davin

Has it nothing to do with Supplies and Services?

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Deputy may mention it in a general way but not in detail.

Mr. Davin

It is an essential public service.

Mr. Cunningham

The promotion of the tourist industry and the building of luxury hotels were criticised at the time they were launched and here again to-night. We are inclined to forget that the tourist industry is our second biggest industry and one which is earning us valuable dollars.

Unemployment is something from which every country suffers. At present we are experiencing unemployment here but it is also being experienced in Britain and in the Six Counties. In factories across the Border thousands of workers are being thrown out of employment. On Sunday last the Bishop of Derry ordered prayers that employment would be found for the vast number of shirt workers who have recently become unemployed.

Mr. Hickey

Still the call is for more production. More production is the slogan and yet we have all those thousands of unemployed.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Deputy Hickey should allow Deputy Cunningham to make his speech. Deputy Hickey has already spoken.

Mr. Cunningham

The land project should be continued but not in the form in which it was carried on by the Coalition Government. There was some talk to-night about seats in the west. It was said that it was down there the Fianna Fáil Party lost seats. On examining the returns of the land project scheme we find that in each of the counties of Mayo and Galway more money was spent under the land project than in any four of the other counties, and then we are being criticised because, under impending legislation, the western counties are about to be developed.

It is popular, of course, to criticise the Government, but it should be fair criticism. I admit that we have had constructive points raised by many members of the Opposition, points which the Government, and which any Government, must and will take heed of. On the other hand, a good deal of time has been wasted over the past three weeks on repetition and on criticism, merely for the sake of criticism.

On these points I will conclude, and I ask the Minister to consider the valuable suggestions which have been put forward by both sides of the House.

Mr. McGilligan

I am 27 years a member of Dáil Éireann this month, and during the period I have been in the House I have never seen a more sober motion than the one which the House is discussing at the moment. When the motion was put down, Fianna Fáil were in the mood of panic, and they were trying to ride the country into a panic. Speeches were made up and down the country, in which the word "crisis" several times occurred. It was the keynote of the speeches that were made preceding the introduction of this piece of legislation. The legislation then appeared and the motion was put down. Since then we had the spectacle of the chief spokesmen, the chief mourners as one might call them, in the Fianna Fáil Party, coming into the House asserting that there is no crisis but that there is a problem. There is a problem; at least there is a certain amount of embarrassment amongst people who are facing what is an ordinary development in a scheme on which we had entered with our eyes open, the scheme of trying to invest the surplus resources of this country in the country itself, and of trying to start a productivity which would put us beyond the necessity of the old patchwork schemes of relief which led nowhere and which marked the history of the country since it became an independent State.

The rout is now on. Right through the countryside Fianna Fáil Deputies are telling their constituents that there was never any intention of creating anything in the nature of embarrassment for the people who had got money from banks for the purposes of development. They say that they have got nothing to do with the restriction of bank credits, and they say they have no intention of stopping the schemes of development which we had started.

They now say there is, as I remarked before, merely a problem but not a crisis. Of course, there is a problem— for them. They are moving into a completely new world from that which they left in 1947. 1947 was a period in which the country was ruled by Orders—standstill Orders and compulsory Orders in regard to this, that and the other thing. There was a denial, that had lasted for many years, of a system of arbitration for State personnel—for civil servants, members of the Army and teachers. Right away in 1948 we did away with this system of Orders. At a later period, in 1949, we established a system of arbitration for State servants. We not merely asked but encouraged industrial workers to have resort to the Labour Court where they could argue their case in relation to the cost of living or to sacrifices which they had to make during all the years when Fianna Fáil was in office. They could argue their cases there to see if they could get any increase in remuneration that would help to balance the sacrifices they had endured over a long number of years.

The people we are faced with at the moment as chief mourners are the Tánaiste and the Minister for Finance, with the junior banshee's position filled by the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs. The Tánaiste had legislation prepared at the end of 1947 for a new standstill Order on wages. He was prevented from bringing that in, but at a period in 1948 the present Minister for Justice could complain that wages had gone up, that local authorities' employees had their wages increased, and that clearly a movement was going to grow when Civic Guards, members of the Army and local authorities' employees would all have to get increased emoluments. The Minister complained that that was one of the things that Fianna Fáil had prevented and which they would have prevented still further if only more seats had been won in Dublin so that a Fianna Fáil majority could have been returned. We had the standstill Order and the denial of arbitration to civil servants during Fianna Fáil's term of office and the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs had put himself on paper, many years before, a programme for Ireland in the years after the war.

One of the main points of his privately circulated thoughts was that there must be stern control of the wages and salaries of those who were engaged in exporting industries. That was a situation that of course was easy to work, even though it was inhuman to work it—Orders preventing any increase in the emoluments of local authority employees, the possible deprivation even of the Labour Court services, the denial of arbitration to civil servants, and the old threat we had that Fianna Fáil were not concerned so much with crops on the land as with seeing fields filled with inspectors.

They came back then after three years to find changes made, changes which they cannot destroy. The wages now of State personnel are freely negotiated before an arbitrator, and outside workers have their resort, freely taken, to an established court. In addition, Fianna Fáil found themselves faced with other developments which we brought about, and which cannot be changed. There was the development of what was called the capital Budget. We had for many years a system of hard effort to have native development pursued. That was hampered and brought to nothing because of the fact that whatever was done in the way of development, except for a few minor subtractions, had to be met out of the annual revenues of the year. We instituted and introduced a new system, segregating certain items as being real capital items. We asked for the most careful and exact scrutiny of these schemes, and that people should point out to us if there was anything that we were treating as capital development, to be met out of borrowings or out of the surplus earnings of our people, which it would be better to meet out of the ordinary revenues of the day. No economist of any note criticised us for what we were doing in that way, but what the Minister for Finance has called the economic illiterates of Fianna Fáil did criticise.

In the year in which we first made a move towards that development we had the scandalous propaganda with regard to what was called putting the community in pawn and the sign of the three golden balls was a sign they tried to make popular as an emblem of their criticism of our development schemes. Yet they seized possession of these schemes when they came into office. No more than they can destroy arbitration or any of the other liberalistic measures which we took, can they destroy any of these capital development schemes. Even their own convention passed a resolution, against the wish of their own Ministers, objecting to any reduction in the schemes that were included in the capital development programme. So they took those on their shoulders, although they were not willing to do so, and the only thing that had to be considered was the method of financing these schemes.

The speeches that were made preliminary to this legislation in the Dáil were couched in terms suggesting extravagance on the part of the Government which preceded them. When the Minister for Finance was asked as to the objects of expenditure out of certain parts of the Counterpart Fund, he described these objects as being to pay for his predecessor's folly. That is the term he used with regard to the provision of houses, the erection of schoolhouses, the development of electricity, the development of the telephone system, afforestation, etc. If these are follies, then that is the type of folly upon which we spent money. It was that type of folly for which I promised in the constituencies during the general election campaign, that I would endeavour to get money. I said that I would go to the people, as I had gone to them three times before, and appeal to them to utilise their savings for purposes that would eventually inure to the betterment of the country.

I move the adjournment of the debate.

Debate adjourned.

Dáil Éireann díospóireacht - Tuesday, 27 Nov 1951

Supplies and Services (Temporary Provisions) Act, 1946 (Continuance) Bill, 1951—Second Stage (resumed).

Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Tuesday, 27 Nov 1951