It is not my practice to contribute to or to intervene in these debates, primarily, I suppose, because there are so many Deputies on this side of the House who are able to put the Opposition point of view with so much more clarity, information and effect. In this matter, however, I feel it is my bounden duty to enter a brief but most emphatic protest against the manner in which this country has been governed, and is being governed, by the present Administration since it resumed office 18 months ago. There is absolutely no doubt but that the last one and a half years have witnessed a remarkable change for the worse in the economic life of our nation.
During the period of the inter-Party Government, a measure of progress, of amelioration, of advance, of improvement, of peace was achieved and maintained which was never before experienced or known in our country. A degree of national development was introduced and also maintained which far exceeded the most optimistic anticipations or the most sanguine expectations of all but the very few. This remarkable work was effected, not with the encouragement or assistance of the Fianna Fáil Party, but in the very teeth of their bitterest and unremitting opposition.
When, due to circumstances too well known to be further described, the present Government assumed office, they found a country that was prosperous, secure and happy. Trade was thriving, unemployment had reduced or dwindled to a trickle. Emigration had almost ceased and money was freely in circulation. Men found a pleasurable security in their work. That, naturally, was not a state of affairs that Fianna Fáil could hope to stomach.
It was a condition of things fit to stimulate their bile and, as we know to our cost, they embarked on their infamous counter-offensive. Almost at once, clouds were made to appear on our economic horizon, artificially created, conjured up out of ersatz or phoney material.
To me, at any rate, the Tánaiste and the Minister for Finance became the Rogers and Hammerstein of the Fianna Fáil Party, except that their theme song was that "ruin was bustin' out all over" and they invited the country to join them in a dance macabre to the verge of economic dislocation and bankruptcy. Due to Deputy J.A. Costello's famous speeches, the Tánaiste had the intelligence and, may I say, the guts to put a stop to his own frantic gallop and he steadied down to a more respectable trot. Not so with the Minister for Finance, who was immediately joined by the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs, and they, like twin Cassandras, continued the horrific jeremiads, the woeful dirges to a nation now thoroughly upset and disturbed. If these gentlemen considered themselves to be the latter-day Paul Reveres deanta in Éireann, sounding a clarion warning to the Irish nation, it was due to an ad hoc schizophrenia consciously and deliberately introduced. So that their moanings and ululations might appear to have some validity, the now ill-fated White Paper was introduced and it was quoted by the Minister for Finance with almost unholy glee. He gloated in the fact that that discarded document supported and justified in some way his own gloomy prognostications, his own summing up or analysis of the economic position. It seemed to me, on the other hand, to be a particularly sordid performance. Naturally, there was the inevitable reaction. A trade recession immediately began to develop. Banks began to restrict credit. Unemployment began to surge and assume the proportions of a tidal wave. Emigration was once more resumed, as we know, on an almost vast scale.
The building industry, which had been encouraged to such a remarkable degree by the inter-Party Government, creaked and grinded to a stop and all over, as we and the people in the country know, there was dislocation, there was worry and there was anxiety. All that time the Minister for Finance continued to spur his own apocalyptic horsemen with the threat of economic disaster, the threat of bankruptcy, the threat of financial chaos and dislocation. His pièce de résistance was, as we know, his Budget of this year, which I, with so many other people, regard as being lunatic, irresponsible and without justification. He appeared to level his sights at the pockets of the most vulnerable sections of our community and to have fired point blank. What queer urge impelled this action I cannot say. What reason or what motives he had for doing so I cannot even imagine. There may be these reasons. It may be that the Fianna Fáil Party were so outraged, or may be enraged, by the decisions of the electorate to put them out of office some three years previously, that they found it impossible to forgive them and sought this the first opportunity to wreak revenge upon them.
However, I find such an explanation so reprehensible, so callous, that I disregard it right away. There is another reason which has at least the merit of an historical justification. Since Fianna Fáil was first given power it has had the strange, unreasonable point of view that the Irishman and Irishwoman should be made to adopt the Spartan way of life. The hair shirt complex has ever been inherent in their political philosophy and they have neglected no opportunity whereby we, the Irish people, might be hedged in with restraint, inhibition and control of all sorts. It is apparently their policy to say: "What was good enough for our great grandfathers is good enough for us," and down the years they have, consciously or unconsciously, attempted to depress, and they have sometimes succeeded in depressing our standard of living.
While they might have been trying to induce asceticism, they certainly succeeded in bringing about deprivation. Now we are being urged to eat less, to spend less and to save more. We are being told that we live beyond our means. I imagine that statement must strike a bitter chord in the ears of the unemployed, the underemployed, the widow, the orphan, those forced to emigrate, those with fixed salaries and those whose incomes are comparatively static.
If there are people living beyond their means in this country it is not the working, honourable sections who are doing so, but those of the spiv mentality who could not care less. One of the outcomes of the present Government measures has been that the price of sugar has increased for the ordinary customer so that the jam manufacturer and the large-scale confectioner may be able to sell their goods at a more acceptable price. The price of flour and bread has been increased, but that of biscuits and fancy goods has been reduced. "If they have not butter, let them eat jam. If they have not bread, let them eat cake." With such a slogan, the Minister might easily join the company of the immortals. One can almost visualise the late Marie Antoinette emerging from some spectral salon to backslap the Minister and to say: "That's my boy."
Now that the infernal machine which the Fianna Fáil Party gleefully invented for the destruction of the inter-Party bloc has become a Frankenstein in their hands, incapable of being disciplined, apparently, no longer subject to control, and poised and ready to plunge this country into possible bankruptcy, what defensive measures does the Minister for Industry and Commerce suggest to us when introducing this Bill? I heard most of his introductory speech and the rest I have read. It seems to me his speech dealt almost exclusively with the reasons behind the bread-price increase, a matter which was dealt with, in my opinion, very brilliantly and effectively by Deputy Crotty.
The Minister made no reference to the rise in the unemployment figures. He did not at any time pass any comment on the increasing tide of emigration. No reference was made to the fact that a trade recession is unfortunately in full operation in this country. He suggested no curatives nor palliatives whereby the present unfortunate economic conditions might be remedied in some way. No nostrums were mentioned; no panaceas were introduced. As far as the Minister was concerned, the present economic ills now besetting this country might as well not exist or have existed.
I can assure the Minister that all over the country a wave of outrage, of resentment, of bewilderment, almost of shock, has spread, and continues to spread. Whether they be in support of the Government or not, the one question agitating everybody's mind is: what does the Government intend to do and when is the Government going to do it? If the Government have no policy, no programme, no suggestion as to the manner in which the present critical situation may be relieved, then I think that, in all fairness, not only to the people of this country to whom they owe their paramount and primary duty, but also to themselves, they should pack up and get out while, in their view, the going is good. If the country is to be allowed to flounder in its present morass there will inevitably be a recrudescence of the depression and want which last found full flower during the economic war.
May I join with the other Deputies on this side of the House in urging upon the Minister to bring his policy, or his lack of it, before the bar of public opinion by going to the country and seeking the views of the electorate? It might have the effect of clearing away some of the obfuscation, some of the virtuous hypocrisy, which at the present moment enshrouds the attitude of the Minister for Industry and Commerce, the Minister for Finance and their immediate supporters. It would also afford the Minister for Finance, that financial Picasso, the opportunity of explaining to the people his surrealistic efforts in the fiscal field and of discovering whether they appreciate the bizarre and iconoclastic flourishes as much as he does himself.
I was interested to discover how the Independent Deputies currently in support of the Government, would justify their continued allegiance and fealty. I wondered how these gentlemen, the virtuous, righteous, preux chevaliers of the House, would react to the manner in which this country has indubitably gone to hell in the last 18 months. I would have thought that they would have risen in their wrath and denounced the Fianna Fáil Party for all its works and pomps. I have had the experience of hearing Deputy Cogan, Deputy Cowan and Deputy Dr. Browne. Deputy Cogan was so outraged by an alleged social peccadillo on the part of Deputy Giles that he felt constrained to intervene in the debate. Were it not for this purported faux pas, he would probably have kept his peace.
The rising tide of emigration, the growth of unemployment, the increase in the cost of living, all those unfortunate and regrettable matters apparently would have passed unnoticed; but he chided the Opposition with having been so indelicate as to mention these rude matters at all. It is apparently Deputy Cogan's attitude that we should not disturb Nero's fiddling by even the slightest reference to the fact that Rome was beginning to singe a trifle.
Deputy Cowan was surprised to discover that this grave and important debate was still in progress, when he arrived some time at night in the House last week. It would seem that he, too, regarded such a debate as this as being of such little import as to merit only the most casual and perfunctory reference. He then proceeded to launch a gratuitous attack on one of the most decent and honest Deputies in the House. I refer, of course, to Deputy Dr. Esmonde, and he ascribed to him statements he did not make. He appeared to be ready to forgive the Government for its many sins in recognition of its genius and valour in having introduced the Legal Adoption Bill. I certainly do not wish to appear offensive and Deputy Cogan, who is now in the House at the moment, will, I trust, accept that assurance but I cannot help feeling that those four Independent Deputies currently supporting the Government, have come to regard the Fianna Fáil Party as their political "Tuts" and they are prepared to remain avidly affixed to its hind teat, irrespective of whether or not the nourishment doled out to them is curdled or sour or just plain unpleasant. I have no doubt the Fianna Fáil Party, particularly the Cabinet, have come to look with a fond affection on those legislative orphans. I have no doubt that in their secret hearts they refer to them with particular nicknames—maybe Eeenie, Meenie, Minie and Moe. Very few in the country would be prepared to refer to any of them as "Tóstal".
Before closing, I would like to urge on the Minister to come down to the realities of the present situation. He, in my view, is an intelligent, hardworking, resourceful Minister. I believe he has the right spirit. For the life of me, I cannot understand why it is that he continues to allow the ship of State to drift in the aimless manner in which it has done for the last year and a half. I, as a newcomer to the House and essentially a back-bencher, make so bold as to urge on him that if he has a policy whereby the present unfortunate state of affairs may be brought to a close, and he is being prevented by anyone in his Cabinet—be he an egg-head, are-actionary or a radical—if he is, I say, being prevented by anybody in the Party or the Cabinet from putting his policy into effective operation, then I would suggest that he jettison such a destructive element and go ahead.
We have been charged with not having suggested any way whereby the present crisis might in some way be relieved. I think myself-and I put forward my own view with all proper humility—that one good way to do that would be to restore the confidence that was in the country when the inter-Party Government was in office. If that feeling of confidence, of security, of happiness that there was in this country then—I say it quite honestly—if that spirit were to be reintroduced and re-established, if all this gloom, depression and the destructive elements who have been in full flight and operation were dispelled and banished, I imagine one considerable step on the way back would have been taken. Deputy Dr. Browne, speaking to-day, complained that we on this side of the House had made no practical suggestion. That may be so; that may be Deputy Dr. Browne's point of view, but may I point out—and I listened carefully to his speech—that he certainly made no reference to the unemployment situation or to the emigration position, except to say that they must always be with us. That is a point of view that I have never heard before in this House or outside it.