When the House rose the other night, we were discussing this important motion with regard to the cost of living. I think it is opportune at a time like this to see the record of the present Government, in relation to prices and price control generally, against the promises they made when they sought office. I do not think there is now in this House any Deputy who can deny the fact that the problem of prices is one of the gravest problems which face the people of the country. So fantastic is the situation that we now find that the real value of the £1 note is something less than 9/- compared with its pre-war value. That unfortunate situation is largely due to the ineffective steps taken by the present Administration in relation to price control for the last 18 months.
One could understand some fall or decrease in the value of money due to circumstances outside the fiscal control of this country and due to major financial problems. One could condonethis situation in such circumstances, but what concerns the people is that in the last 18 months, not by any act of omission but by positive Government action, by positive Government policy, prices have been substantially increased. That is why I say it is important that we should avail of this opportunity to put this Government's record against the background of the propaganda, the policies and the promises they used to get where they now are.
I had in mind in particular the debate initiated in this House in the autumn of 1950 by the present Minister for Industry and Commerce. I think it is well that people should remember that particular debate because it supplies the touchstone for what I describe as the fraudulent policy of the present Government in relation to price control. In the autumn of 1950 this country, in common with every other country in Western Europe, was beginning to be affected by the ripples set off by rearmament and the Korean war. There is no doubt that in the autumn of 1950 an incipient rise in prices, caused by international rearmament, was beginning to be felt in this country. It was not a serious situation. It did not call for panic; it did not call for sensational action. It was a factor that had to be considered by a responsible Government, considered calmly and carefully, but the existence of that particular factor, that slight incipient rise in prices that occurred in August, 1950, and continued up to Christmas of that year, was used deliberately by the Fianna Fáil Party, each and every one of them, to endeavour to charge the inter-Party Government with an ineffective price control and with having no policy in relation to stabilising living costs. Indeed, when the present Tánaiste started the hullabaloo others were ready to follow his lead.
I recollect that when the Autumn Session of Dáil Éireann commenced in October of 1950 a motion of no confidence in the inter-Party Government was tabled by Deputy Cowan because, he charged, the inter-Party Government had failed effectively tocontrol prices. He made that charge following the lead of the present Minister, following the hullabaloo of the Fianna Fáil Party, and following the specious nonsense that had been uttered by Deputies such as Deputy Major de Valera and other Fianna Fáil Deputies.
What was the situation then? For two and a half years, from February, 1948, until the late autumn of 1950, the policy of the inter-Party Government and the action of Ministers like the present Deputy Morrissey had effectively stabilised the prices in this country. There is no one who can now have any doubt about that fact. From February, 1948, to the late autumn of 1950 a pretty sound stabilised price level was maintained here. Agitations with regard to certain commodities had been sponsored, but were fought by the then Minister for Industry and Commerce. In the spring of each year, butchers had consistently demanded an increase in the price of meat. That demand was resisted by the Government, and meat was still available at controlled prices to our people.
With regard to a variety of other commodities, a case had been made to the Government by those engaged in their production for increases in prices. Nevertheless, following a cohesive, sound, clear policy, the inter-Party Government were able to maintain stabilisation of prices. That meant for our people and for workers who had got during that period two increases in pay a substantial increase in living standards and an assurance that their pay packet, once it went into their pockets, would not be depreciated in value by rising prices.
It was with that background that in the autumn of 1950 we had this famous debate on the occasion of the Second Reading of the Supplies and Services Bill. The present Minister had this to say at column 1291, Volume 123, of the Official Report:—
"As this Supplies and Services Act is the main legal foundation for the ineffective efforts at price control that the Government is making, it was to have been expected thatthe Parliamentary Secretary would devote his remarks almost entirely to the problems of price control and not to other Government activities which are carried on under the authority of this Act."
He goes on elsewhere to refer in detail and in his own decisive manner to what he repeatedly described as the ineffective efforts of the inter-Party Government to control prices. I have no doubt that this particular charge was made knowing it to be groundless. I have no doubt that the then Deputy Lemass in charging the inter-Party Government with ineffective price control knew well that whatever increases in price had taken place were due entirely to international rearmament and circumstances outside the control of the Government. But why did he then, with his tongue in his cheek, seek to make these charges at that time except that he wanted to fish in troubled waters not caring what he caught or the bait he used?
It is only right that now, some two and a half years later, we on this side of the House should arraign him and every member of his Party and charge them to render an account of their efforts since they have been there to control prices. In the last 18 months what has happened to the Prices Section of the Department of Industry and Commerce? In the last 18 months what single step has been taken by the present Government to control the price of any commodity?
Meat has been decontrolled and the announcement of the decontrol of meat was appended to a pious aspiration by the Minister for Industry and Commerce that the decontrol of meat would mean a reduction in the price to the consumer. Does the Minister now think that that pious hope has been justified? Is he not aware that the decontrol of meat has meant that less meat can be purchased by poorer people because the price has substantially increased? The present Minister also decontrolled bacon and again the people were assured that the decontrol of bacon would mean a substantial fall in prices. In fact, thedecontrol of bacon was followed by two extraordinary occurrences—an increase in the price the consumer had to pay for bacon and a reduction in the price the farmer got for pigs.
The Minister for Industry and Commerce decontrolled fish. Again, we were told that the decontrol of fish would mean that one's Friday and Lenten repast would cost less. Again, the result has been quite a considerable increases in the price the people have to pay for fish and the virtual disappearance from fish shops of the more popular kinds of fish. I could go on, as the Minister himself did in the autumn of 1950, and refer to commodity after commodity that has in the last 18 months, under the administration of the present Government, substantially increased in price. I do not think it is useful or beneficial to the people to continue reciting this long list of wrongs.
I am satisfied, as the people outside certainly are satisfied, that in relation to the propaganda with regard to prices each and every member of the present Fianna Fáil Party is equally guilty of a fraudulent political hoax played on the people of this country and that charge, of course, would also apply to at least one of the Independent Deputies who helped to put the present Government where it is. Whatever may have happened in the past, whatever injurious propaganda may have been used, whatever false promises may have been made and whatever omissions may have occurred, the time has now come when we are entitled to expect from the Government and from the Minister a lead with regard to prices.
I heard the Minister in this House in recent months in effect saying with regard to prices: "We must conserve our resources. We must struggle on and we must hope for the best." That is, in my opinion, not good enough. It is not good enough to expect an Irish Minister for Industry and Commerce to hope that import prices in coming months may drop and that if they do drop subject to the supply situation here the reduction in price may be carried over to the consumer. That kind of thumb twirling and waitingaround hoping for the best is not good enough in the present situation.
We are now living in a country that is bearing an awful burden of taxation pressing down on every section and each class. That burden of taxation has to be considered also in conjunction with the burden of rising prices. We have Government Ministers parading around as a policy an assurance that no one in this country, civil servants and other large sections, can expect any increase in pay or salary. There is now looming out of the background the shadows of a new standstill in relation to wages and incomes. That is a matter we may discuss on another occasion but whatever the Government's policy is with regard to wages, salaries and incomes surely it must be coupled with an effective effort to stabilise prices?
There can be no sense in the complacent outlook of the present Government when real values of money are dropping substantially each week. There can be no sense in a Government outlook that permits workers' wages to be halved before even the unfortunate worker has the opportunity of spending his pay packet. It is in that situation that now, after 18 months or almost two years of the present Government, the people make the demand that if they are going to stay there and want to stay there or keep the present set up and the present Dáil in existence, at least they must come together and produce a policy. If they do not want to produce a policy, let them take the other step, dissolve the Dáil and get out— because we on this side have a policy, a policy that was in operation for three and a half years, that effectively stabilised prices, that effectively guaranteed to workers and all persons dependent on salaries a pretty uniform real money value. We have a policy now. It can go into operation and have a fair opportunity of being effective. We at least make the demand that if the Government want to stay there they must produce something.
I cannot for the life of me see what the Government's policy is regardingprices. No evidence has been given since they came into office that they are concerned with anything but shelving responsibility, decontrolling commodity after commodity, letting prices be fixed by someone else and generally letting matters drift. As a result, we have had in the last 18 months, unfortunately, a very vicious competition between different producers, between different sections, which in their turn have been faced by rising costs, due to faulty control by the Government and who legitimately must make a demand from the Government for a rise in the price of commodities on account of those rising costs. That vicious circle has been continuing and the consumer has been paying all the time.
I do not suggest for one moment that even the major portion of the increases that have taken place is the direct responsibility of Government policy. I do not make the kind of case that the Minister himself made in the debate I referred to, in the autumn of 1950. Sufficient for the charge I make is this, that much of the price increases that have occurred is due to direct positive action by the present Government and that that action has taken place at a time when there has been no policy, disclosed anyway, to control or deal with prices.
Accordingly, I welcome the opportunity given by this debate to discuss this serious problem and to assure the Minister, If assurance is required, that this problem is now as real as ever it was in the worst years of the emergency, that people are being driven to desperation by rising prices and that the harassed housewife who appeared in Fianna Fáil advertisements in the last election with grey hair now has white hair and that the situation is far more serious than it was at any time in the past. That is due not merely to the problem itself but also to the fact that the people can see no redress coming from the Government, no policy being made available except assurances such as we have had from the Minister in the past: "Hold on, hold tight; there will be something turning up around the corner." I hope that, as a result of this debate, we willget a statement of policy that will give the people some assurance that in coming months some efforts will be made to deal with this problem.