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Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Wednesday, 18 Mar 1953

Vol. 137 No. 4

Committee on Finance. - Motion by the Minister for Finance (Resumed).

My first duty, and a pleasant duty it is, is to pay a tribute to the speech delivered by Deputy M.P. Murphy last Friday. In that speech, Deputy Murphy put forward some constructive suggestions, and I was particularly impressed by the suggestion that unemployment assistance, or, to give it its more usual name, the dole, should be payable in respect of men who contribute one or two days' work per week. This suggestion that, instead of paying out the dole and getting no return, we should seek to establish a system by which men would contribute some work, if only one or two days a week, is a constructive suggestion and a suggestion—I will deal with it more fully later—which is in striking contrast with the eruptions we have heard from the front Opposition Bench.

It is time for the leaders of the main Opposition Party to adopt a more constructive and reasonable approach to national problems. Their whole case —a laboured case, built up over the past year—is that the country was rolling in wealth and prosperity when the change of Government occurred and that, as a result of speeches delivered by certain Ministers, the whole situation changed for the worse. I do not accept the view that the country was rolling in prosperity when the Opposition Party went out of office. They would never have gone out of office were it not for the fact that they were faced with very grave and difficult problems following the sudden termination of Marshall Aid. That, of course, was not the explanation given to this House or to the country for the dissolution in 1951. Since then, the former Taoiseach has said that he dissolved the Dáil because certain Independent Deputies were seeking a higher price for milk. That might have been as good a reason as any for dissolving the Dáil, but it does not indicate that the position was as happy as some Deputies have sought to convey here.

I have listened to their case builtup over the past 12 months and it is my purpose to-day to tear that case to pieces. I shall start by indicating that one of the most frequent assertions here over the past year was that a certain Minister told the Irish people that they were eating too much during the inter-Party period.

Deputy Dillon repeated that assertion in the course of this debate and announced that the people of Ireland, under the inter-Party Government, were eating more and eating better than ever they did before or since. Deputy Blowick endorsed that statement and claimed that, since the change of Government, he and the rest of us have not been eating enough. He even went further and said that the rise in food exports over the last year was due to the fact that the Irish people were eating less than they could even afford previously.

I wanted to trace this matter back to its source and find out when and where the Minister for Finance did make the statement that the people of Ireland were eating too much. I made a little research to-day before I came into the House and I find that the statement was actually made by the Minister for Finance but it was made on the 28th February, 1951, when the Minister for Finance introduced his Vote on Account. The Minister for Finance at that time was Deputy Paddy McGilligan, Minister in the inter-Party Government. At column 789 of the Official Report dated the 28th February, 1951, he said:—

"The disturbing feature, of course, is the deficit in the balance of payments, particularly when that is marked by the great increase in consumption here, especially when that great increase in consumption is attached to the non-essential goods. The continuance of such a situation for any period would be highly dangerous."

That is the assertion in this House that the people of Ireland were eating too much. At column 787, the same Minister said:—

"The developments in 1950 are, of course, disquieting and it is clearthat we could not for very long expand consumption at the present excessive level..."

There again is another assertion that consumption in this country in 1951 was at an excessive level and that it would need to be curbed. Those statements were not chance impromptu statements made in the course of the discussion in the House but were part of a prepared speech deliberately made when the Minister introduced his Vote on Account in 1951. I think it is right that this House and the country generally should remember that that was the situation which prevailed when the Dáil was suddenly dissolved in 1951.

The Minister for Finance in the inter-Party Government was alarmed and disturbed at the position of the balance of payments and at the excessive consumption of non-essential goods by our people. In the course of that debate on the Vote on Account I remember that I referred to that situation and I said that as far as I could see the policy of the Government appeared to be to eat, drink and be merry. The then Minister for Finance got rather cross with me for suggesting that that was their policy but up to that statement by the Minister for Finance no steps were taken to remedy their position and no steps were taken by the Minister then except to dissolve the Dáil.

I want to examine the suggestion that the people—and by the people I mean and refer in the main to those in the lower income groups—were better off during the period of the inter-Party Government. I stated in this House—of course, nobody can dare contest it—that the cost of living went up by 23 per cent. Half of that increase in the cost of living occurred before the change of Government. The other half occurred since. That is an increase of 23 per cent. in the cost of living but against that you have got to consider that the lowest paid workers in this State or in any other State are the most important workers in the country. They are the men who work on the land.

Some time during the period of theinter-Party Government—I think it was in 1950—Deputy Dillon strutted into the House like a turkey cock in the early spring and announced proudly that agricultural workers' wages had been raised to £3 per week. Three pounds per week was the minimum wage that would be paid to any agricultural worker in any part of Ireland at that time. That was the position under the inter-Party Government. The position to-day is that the agricultural worker has £4 per week. In 1950 the worst-off agricultural worker—the man with the large family —had a wage of £3 per week. If he had a family of six he had a family allowance of 10/- which brought his weekly income up to £3 10s. To-day, that man's wage would be £4, plus 18/6 children's allowances which brings his income up to £4 18s. 6d. per week.

That is not a very big income. It does not provide for a seven-course meal three times a day but that is the income of the agricultural worker to-day and it is 40 per cent. higher than the income of the agricultural worker under the inter-Party Government although the cost of living has risen more than 23 per cent. I think it is quite clear from that that while the worker's position to-day is not good it was even worse under the inter-Party Government.

Those are facts which nobody can dispute. The farm workers' wage is related to that of the forestry workers, the road workers and of all those other people in the lower income groups. All their incomes, having regard to the children's allowances, have risen by 40 per cent. and the cost of living has risen by 23 per cent. so that, whatever may be said about their position to-day, it is not quite as bad as it was when the inter-Party Government held office. I think that is an important point and one which is very clearly recognised by the workers.

There is no use in Deputy Dillon or Deputy Blowick coming into this House and talking about the wealth that prevailed amongst the manual workers under the inter-Party Government. I am a small farmer and most of the people with whom I am acquainted are either small farmers,agricultural workers or road workers. I know them all. I know the conditions under which they live. I talked to them during the régime of the inter-Party Government as they prepared meals on the side of the road. There was no great feasting on the part of these men in those days. Their meals were frugal and modest. I am sure the same position prevails to-day and our aim should be to make conditions better but there is no use trying, as Deputy Blowick and Deputy Dillon tried, to completely distort the whole thing in order to make it appear that there has been a disastrous reduction in the standard of living of the most important workers in this State.

The next line of reasoning, if you can call it reasoning—I suppose "line of deception" would be a more apt definition—by the leader of the Opposition—I am not accusing the ordinary rank and file because I do not think they go in to the same extent for this sort of distortion and deception—is that Government policy over the past year and a half has been based on the Central Bank Report. We all read the Central Bank Report when it was issued and we are all aware of the recommendations contained in it. The Central Bank Report recommended a slowing down of all capital investment works. They recommended a slowing down of housing, turf development, the provision of hospitals and of all the other public works that are essential to the nation. Apparently the first reaction of the Government, when they had considered the report, was to make a decision on it. At the earliest opportunity after the publication of the report, that decision was conveyed to this House by the Tánaiste, Deputy Lemass. I quote from the Official Report of the 7th November, 1951, in which Deputy Lemass is reported as follows:—

"I want to make it quite clear that the line which the Government intends to follow is diametrically opposed to that which the Central Bank suggests."

That is a very clear-cut and definite statement of policy. The facts, asborne out in the reports of progress over the year, prove that that policy was adhered to. The Central Bank recommended that there should be a slowing down of all development work. The fact is that there was a stepping-up of all development work. In other words, there was a complete rejection of the advice of the Central Bank and a policy was adopted which, as the Tánaiste said, was diametrically opposed to the recommendations of the Central Bank.

But it gave the same result.

No. The results of the policy adopted in opposition to the policy recommended by the Central Bank were that over the past year there were very great increases in development work. The number of houses completed last year was 13,000 as against 12,000 the previous year. The amount provided for hospitals in 1951-52 was £3,000,000 as against £4,250,000 in the present year. The number of new schools being built in 1951 was 66; in 1952, it was 81 and in 1953 the number is 107. There is no slowing-down on development work, to judge by that report.

Let us examine the position in regard to the production of machine-won turf. In 1950, 214,000 tons of turf were produced. In 1951, 457,000 tons were produced and in 1952, 600,000 tons were produced.

Rural electrification has been stepped up in the past year. Through peat and water power, electricity generating stations have been erected and further new schemes are being planned.

The number of workers employed on forestry work in the last week of January, 1950, was 2,346. In the last week of January, 1951, the number was 2,786. In the last week of January, 1952, the figure was 3,453 and for the last week of January, 1953, the figure was 3,612. These facts indicate that there has been a progressive stepping-up in the numbers of workers employed in the Forestry Division on work which the Central Bank recommended should be slowed down. Similarly, with regard to the acreage planted by the ForestryDivision. In 1950, when Deputy Blowick was in charge of that Department — ably assisted by Deputy MacBride during his infrequent visits to this country—the acreage planted was 7,400. In 1951 the acreage planted was 9,400. In 1952 the acreage planted was 15,000.

Would these details not be more relevant on the Estimate?

They would, but it is necessary to show that the case so laboriously put forward by the Opposition that the recommendations of the Central Bank were accepted and put into operation by the present Government is absolutely false. I am sorry if it has been necessary for me to go into some detail on this matter but that case is made by the Opposition time and time again without ever giving any figures to support it and I think it is necessary, now and again, to produce concrete evidence of the facts and figures to disprove the rotten case made by the Opposition and to show how dishonest it is.

Such as 90,000 unemployed. Will the Deputy accept that figure?

Has Deputy Morrissey accepted Deputy Murphy's solution for that problem?

That was put up here 20 years ago. Apparently, the Deputy never heard of it before.

I heard it and the Deputy will hear it again. The most spectacular increase in development work comes under the heading of land reclamation. In accordance with the wishes of the Chair, I shall not go into the figures but I should like to say that there has been an increase of £1,000,000 under that heading. Therefore, under every heading on which the Central Bank recommended that there should be a slowing-up there has actually been a stepping-up.

Deputy Morrissey talks about unemployment. He does not seem to remember or to bear in mind the fact that the numbers of people inemployment have increased just the same as the numbers of people out of employment have increased. Deputies on the Opposition Benches do not seem to remember that we had the same problem under the inter-Party Government but that it was relieved somewhat by the spectacular increase in emigration. At that time, trade was booming in Great Britain. There was a big development with regard to armaments and men were urgently required, with the result that our unemployment problem was relieved, to a certain extent at any rate, by mass emigration. There is still emigration, but not on the same scale.

How do you know?

How do you know?

How do you, who made the statement, know? There are no figures available now, fortunately for the Government.

I hope they will be available, and the sooner the better. There is not very much use in Opposition Deputies trying to build a case on emigration. We have always had emigration. We have had it since the establishment of the State. When I mentioned that emigration had increased during the inter-Party régime, I did not hold that anything against the inter-Party, because I do not think they had any control over the fact that conditions in Great Britain made for increased emigration. This is a problem that will always remain difficult, and is one that we must face constructively. There is no use in tossing it from one side of the House to the other, with one side blaming the other for it. I am not blaming the inter-Party for it and never did when they were in power or out of power. I say it is a difficulty that faces any small nation such as ours which, in the main, is an agricultural nation, living close to a highly developed industrial state such as Great Britain.

We have the same problem with regard to the migration of our people from the rural areas to the cities. It too, is a difficult problem, and, if figures were produced showing theextent of that migration, they would be very disheartening indeed. It is, however, just one of those things that we have to fight against.

I think it is a step in the right direction to be able to point out that there has been some improvement in the general standard of living amongst the people in the rural areas. The trend there at present, with the modernisation and the mechanisation of agriculture, the raising of the wages of agricultural workers and the provision of fair prices for agricultural produce, is one which all of us hope will be continued. If it is, there will be the tendency, I hope, for our young people, reared in the rural areas, to continue to live there and work in our most important industry. That is a hope which everybody who has the real interests of Ireland at heart, and is not concerned merely with the making of political catch-cries, must cherish.

Another point which is very frequently made by the professional politicians—I suppose I must so call the leader of the Opposition as against the ordinary rank and file——

Which class do you fit into?

I have never been in any class except that of the farmer.

You have never been classified. That is right.

I have as an independent farmer. It is a class that I am rather proud of. The case has been made by those gentlemen that, last year, money was borrowed at too high a rate of interest. I admit that the rate of interest was high, but on the whole it was not higher than the rate of interest at which money was borrowed under the inter-Party Government from the United States. My reason for saying that is, that while the nominal rate of interest on Marshall Aid was only 2½ per cent., the fact remains that every penny of the money so obtained has to be paid back to an outside nation and not one penny of it can be recovered by way of taxation.

I was rather interested to know the exact contribution which this country will have to make by way of repayments under Marshall Aid. On 4th December last I addressed a question to the Minister for Finance with a view to finding out what liability we had actually incurred to the United States under that loan, which appeared at the time, I should say, to be very generous. I asked the Minister: "If he will state when repayment of the principal of the Marshall Aid loan will commence; what the total payment for interest and sinking fund will amount to in that year; what it will amount to ten years later, and what the amount will be during the last three years of repayment." I received the following reply:—

"Repayment of the principal of the Marshall Aid loan will commence on 30th June, 1956. Interest and sinking fund payments in the years specified by the Deputy and the equivalent in sterling converted at the current rate of exchange with the United States dollar ($2.80 to the £) are as follows:—

Financial Year

Amount Payable

Sterling Equivalent

$

£

1956/57

3,845,188

1,373,281

1966/67

5,898,863

2,106,737

1981/82

9,611,625

3,432,723

1982/83

9,612,838

3,433,156

1983/84

9,454,400

3,376,571”

In other words, in 30 years' time when Deputy Morrissey—I am sorry he has left the House—will have become rather mature and when other Deputies who are now very juvenile will have grown up, we will be paying over $9,000,000 a year to the United States. We can all easily understand what a load that will be on the shoulders of our people. At present dollars are not easy to get and so we may assume that in the future they will not be easy to secure. That is a burden of debt which has been assumed by this country and which must be met, so that on the whole if Deputies compare the liability which we incurred under the recent National Loan with the liability incurred under Marshall Aid they will find that the burden in respect of Marshall Aid is by far the heavier oneon this State and on the economic position of the country.

When money is borrowed from citizens within the State the interest on it is payable within the State. We can assume that a certain amount of income-tax and of other forms of taxation will be recovered from it, and that indirectly it will go to provide a certain amount of employment within the State. When, however, the principal and the interest have to be paid to a foreign nation, and particularly when they have to be paid in dollars, the sum involved represents a very severe burden on a small nation such as this. I am not speaking now against the acceptance of Marshall Aid by the then Government. Nobody in this country, except perhaps Deputy Cowan, objected to that loan. Most people at the time considered that having regard to the dollar payment position there was no alternative. Looking back on it now it is not quite clear whether it was as good a——

Bargain.

——bargain or enterprise as we thought it was. However, the debt or liability was incurred and the nation has to face it. When it is said that the Government offered too generous terms in respect of the loan last year it must be borne in mind that the previous Government attempted to raise two loans at a lower rate of interest which were not subscribed to. It is very easy to float a loan at a low rate of interest, but if it is not taken up the Government's position is worse than ever.

They were taken up.

Not fully.

Not by the public.

What does that matter?

There is a big difference.

They were taken up as much as the last loan.

What is wrong with going to the banks?

No Government with a sense of responsibility could face the prospect of not having money that was urgently required to meet works of capital development, which were proceeding and which had to be paid for. No member of the Opposition would suggest that at present it is possible to obtain money at a cheaper rate. In matters of this kind, Governments as well as citizens are governed to a great extent by world financial conditions, conditions over which neither the present Government nor the previous Government had any control. People who say that the Government made the price of money dearer merely show their lack of knowledge or conception of the position.

The banking system, I suppose, is outside governmental control. That applies not only in the case of this Government but of other Governments. It is an international system, the operations of which are not always easy to foresee and which are impossible to control as far as Governments are concerned. I think it will be accepted by Deputies of all Parties that a reasonable attempt is being made to carry out this nation's affairs.

One accusation made against the Government was that by their policy over the last year they sought to create a situation of inflation. Against that the accusation was made that they were seeking to precipitate a condition of deflation. Recently in this House two statements were quoted. One was a statement made by the Minister for Finance in which he declared that inflation would have to be curbed. The other was a statement by the Minister for Industry and Commerce in which he said they would have to seek to prevent deflation. It was suggested by Deputy Cosgrave that there was a direct conflict between the two statements. Anyone who gives the matter any thought will see that there is no conflict between the two statements—that the wise policy is to avoid deflation and inflation, that the alternative to inflation and deflation is a condition ofprice stability, which is the condition towards which any Government with a sense of responsibility should direct its policy.

There are people who would say that the removal of the food subsidies last year was a step towards inflation inasmuch as it was calculated to lead to wage increase demands. Deputy Cosgrave made that point. I know something about wage increase demands. I know what they were under the inter-Party Government when nearly every day an ultimatum was presented by the trade unions or the Trade Union Congress for increased remuneration. I do not think that any uncontrolled inflation has been caused by the changes in food subsidies last year.

There are two policies that a wise Government must consider and weigh in a situation in which the cost of living makes it difficult for the lower income groups to live. One is the subsidisation of food. The subsidisation of food means a subsidy not only in respect of the food of the lower income groups but also the food of the richer people. The alternative is to provide children's allowances. Of the two, the provision of children's allowances is the more equitable and perhaps the better solution of the problem. An increase in children's allowances enables those most seriously affected by a rising cost of living to meet that situation.

It is worthy of note that the inter-Party Government within the last six months of their period of office watched while the cost of living rose by 11 per cent. but did nothing about it. They did not provide increased subsidies. They took no steps to deal with the situation. At least over the last year an attempt has been made, as I pointed out, to deal with this matter by increasing family allowances. That is the better solution to the problem. The man who has a large number of dependents is most seriously affected by a rising cost of living. An effort is being made to adjust the position so as to create a situation of price stability, in which we can look forward to money purchasingthe same amount of goods over a considerable period.

I have already pointed out how the farm worker's position has been improved by a rise of 40 per cent. in his income whereas the cost of living has risen by only 23 per cent. That is a line of approach to a final solution of the problem. For every rise in wages and salaries of the lower paid workers, namely, agricultural workers and manual workers generally, there ought not to be a corresponding stepping-up of the wages or salaries of every other section in the community. Such a corresponding stepping-up means that the farm worker is kept down far below the level of the rest of the community and a continuation of the situation in which the most important people in the community are by far the worst paid.

I was rather indignant when I heard a county manager recently declare that there should be permanently a differential of 12/6 between the farm workers' wages and the road workers' wages, that the farm workers' wages should be kept 12/6 below the wages of the road workers. That would be an intolerable position, particularly in an agricultural country, and it is one which should be resisted. Our aim should be to keep the higher paid workers level and bring up the deserving lower paid workers until you reach a certain amount of equity in the distribution of income.

It is some satisfaction to turn away from the futile and absurd proposals we have heard from the Opposition Benches and consider constructive suggestions for the improvement of the nation's position. We have listened for the last week, and indeed for the last year, to denunciations of every social and economic evil, and we have listened to these evils being blamed upon the Government by people who held governmental rank up to a few years ago and who during their tenure of office could make no attempt to deal with these problems and had to get out because they could make no attempt to deal with them.

Nothing was more amusing, and perhaps it was a little disgusting, thanthe exhibition given by Deputy Dillon last week when he barked across the House at the Government to get out. It reminds me of the person who sees the master of the house sitting in his favourite chair and for that reason is indignant. There is not anything constructive in barking across at the Government Benches and telling the Government to get out. It would be more constructive to put up some proposals for the improvement of the whole economic position of the country.

For that reason I should like to endorse the suggestion put forward by Deputy Murphy in regard to the unemployed. He suggested that, instead of paying the dole to workers throughout the country, they should be given two or three days' work per week. That in itself would not only help to relieve the position of the unemployed, but it would add something to the wealth of the nation. I believe that we have been toying with this problem too long. I do not think that anyone will suggest that in a free society where private enterprise is recognised you can have 100 per cent. full-time employment. Therefore there will always be a number of people who, in the competition for employment, will find themselves forced out, and it is the duty of the State to provide for these. The socialists say it is the duty of the State to provide work or maintenance, but I think the Christian solution of the problem is for the State to provide work, and I believe that that is something which is within the power of the State to do if the community are so organised that work will be provided in every area throughout the country.

I believe that we should set up in every parish a parish council and give to that council, as Deputy Murphy suggested, the money which is paid in doles and that they should provide part-time employment for the unemployed people within each parish. That is the Christian solution of the problem. The socialist solution of the problem is to herd these men to the labour exchanges, let them queue up, pay them some miserable sum ofmoney, and in that way make them slaves of the State.

The time has come when we must try in some way or other to get away from this idea of the welfare State or the slave State and when we must try to develop private enterprise in the first place, local initiative in the second place, and co-operative action on the part of the citizen for the development of the country and provision for the needs of the unemployed and the destitute. If a parish council were established in every parish and the clergy and all well-meaning people in each parish were asked to co-operate, it would be possible to find works of improvement within each parish which could be carried out by the unemployed instead of asking them to travel five, six or seven miles to the nearest labour exchange for a miserable allowance which is of course insufficient to maintain them.

Deputy Sheldon put forward a proposal which I think most Deputies will endorse. It was that the burden of expenditure, the sum total of expenditure, has grown so much that there must be some drastic steps taken to cope with State expenditure. Some effort must be made to reduce the cost of governing this nation and I think it is a desirable proposal that a small Committee of this House should be set up to examine the Estimates with a view to seeing how economies could be effected. We have a Committee of Public Accounts which examines expenditure with a view to seeing whether or not the money has been expended by the Departments in accordance with the law. But there is something more than that required. Some effort should be made to examine proposed expenditure to see whether the money is being used to the best advantage or not, to see whether every Department is absolutely essential or whether it is overstaffed. That is the kind of work that ought to be undertaken and that should have been undertaken long ago, but it is better to attempt it later than never.

An impartial and thorough investigation, I think, would reveal ways and means by which economies could be effected. It might not have such adrastic effect as Deputy Corry suggested. It might not result in the elimination of the number of civil servants that he suggested, but at least it would result in some cutting down of the staffs of the various Departments and it would lead to some economies. Of course, when we mention this matter we always come up against the problem of what is to be done with the people who would otherwise be employed by the State if we effect these economies. That is, of course, a bigger question and it is one which is tied up with the problem of the economic development of agriculture and of our industries.

Until we reach a stage where every square inch of Irish land is producing its maximum output we cannot claim we are making a reasonable attempt to provide employment for our people. The first essential is to make agriculture self-sufficient and policy must be directed towards that end. I have no use for the kind of patronising patter we got from the former Minister for Agriculture. That does not solve any problem. He claimed that the volume of agricultural output had gone up during his tenure when he knows, in fact, that it had gone down. Claims of that kind do not solve our agricultural problem. Two years ago on the Vote on Account Deputy McGilligan commented on the fact that during the three years in which his Government had been in office there had not been any increase in agricultural output.

That position has applied under successive Governments. It is a position that could be remedied, and it is in remedying that position and in further developing our industrial potentiality that we can provide employment for our young people instead of driving them into the Civil Service where many of them are lowly paid, particularly in the early years, and some, perhaps, right through to their retirement.

The attitude adopted by successive Governments towards agriculture has been unsound. On one occasion here I brought in a motion to secure a higher price for milk and all the Parties constituting the inter-PartyGovernment, including Deputy Everett, marched into the Division Lobby to vote against that increase.

We did not put the farmers in jail.

Deputy Everett will admit that possibly the wrong people were put in jail. The people I would put in jail are the people who refused to give the farmers a fair price and allowed that situation to develop, the people who refused to give a costings investigation three years ago when I and others demanded it. Had we got that costings investigation then we would have been in a position to obtain accurately the cost of producing milk and securing a fair price for the farmers without the farmers themselves having to take the drastic step of withholding supplies. I know there was an undercover movement to force the farmers into a position where the Guards would have to arrest some of them. That was politically inspired. The arrests were made by the Guards without any instructions from the Government and in the course of their ordinary duties. The directions to the farmers, however, to force that situation came from the headquarters of various political Parties, the names of which I will not mention.

Give the names.

He dare not mention names because it is not true.

We want to get away from that kind of position and we want to make the situation such that it will not be necessary for the farmers to agitate for price increases by withholding supplies or by getting Deputies to raise the matter here by way of motion. I hope that situation will be arrived at in the near future and that we will have a national council of agriculture representative of all farmer organisations and that that council will advise not only the Minister for Agriculture but the whole Government in regard to agricultural policy in the future.

We should accept the fact that agriculture is our main industry and such a council of agriculture shouldrank next in importance to this House. It should be in a position to meet the Government on the same terms as the executive of the National Farmers' Union of Britain meets the British Government and settles or arranges agricultural policy for the coming year. That is one step that should be taken to improve our agricultural and economic position.

It should be possible to provide cheaper credit for agriculture and the most important type of credit now is short-term credit. Long-term credit will be necessary for such works as drainage, land reclamation and the fertilising of land under the lime and fertiliser scheme, a scheme first recommended here by me. Short-term credit of the type provided by the Irish Sugar Company in connection with the growing of beet is very essential. It should be possible to provide that type of credit within the present financial system. The bank rate has risen and the interest rate is very high. The Government is a very large financial concern. The Government raises and expends something in the region of £100,000,000 per annum. It should be possible out of that sum to provide £1,000,000 for short-term credit to agriculture at a very low rate of interest since the money would come out of revenue and not have to be borrowed. That is more important from the point of view of agriculture than increasing the existing grants. Small farmers find themselves up against the problem of shortage of credit very often. The ordinary small farmer who is anxious to improve his land or buy better equipment has no banking account. He is not known to the local bank manager and if he goes in and asks for money he will probably be thrown out. The only way he can secure a loan is by depositing money in the bank for 20, 30 or 40 years and at the end of that period he may be able to secure some accommodation.

Our banking system was never intended to help agriculture. The Agricultural Credit Corporation suffers from some of the faults and weaknesses of the banking system itself. That body is tied to the high rate of interest and it does not serve the interests of thefarming community in the way it should. Another way in which credit could be provided would be by the establishment of local credit societies for the financing of farming operations using the farmers' own money in the main. Steps along these lines should be taken in the very near future to improve agriculture.

We cannot allow the position to continue in which Irish agricultural output remains static while every other country in Western Europe is increasing its agricultural output. The main obstacle to expansion in agriculture is the lack of credit facilities, particularly for young farmers who are beginning to farm on their own and who have no capital behind them. They may be full of ambition and enthusiasm, but they have no financial backing and they are compelled to sit back and watch the older people continuing a policy which the young and the ambitious regard as inefficient. If the Government want to help agriculture to expand they ought to concentrate their energies on giving the maximum support and encouragement to our farmers' sons because they are the men upon whom the future of the industry depends.

I hope Deputy Sheldon's motion in regard to expenditure will be accepted by the House in the spirit in which it was put forward. I resent very much the patronising attitude adopted by Deputy Dillon towards a former Independent colleague of his. He said he taught Deputy Sheldon anything he knew about Government administration and finance. As a matter of fact, Deputy Sheldon probably has forgotten more than Deputy Dillon ever knew on this question. I think it was an exhibition of arrogance and intolerance for an old Deputy to insult in that way a young Deputy who is making a reasonable and fair contribution towards the solution of our administrative problems.

There was not a shred of truth in that suggestion that he taught Deputy Sheldon.

I think that is also true, because I do not think Deputy Sheldon was on the Public Accounts Committee at the same time as Deputy Dillon. He came on that Committee later andacquitted himself well. He gave very good service on that Committee over a number of years, perhaps much better service than did Deputy Dillon.

Let us return to the Vote on Account.

The truth does not matter very much to Deputy Dillon.

If there are lies told in this House there is no harm in having them contradicted on the records of this House. I hope the House will accept Deputy Sheldon's suggestion, and that we will, as a result, get a more efficient Civil Service than we have had in the past, and that an efficient Civil Service will strengthen the position of any Government with the public in asking for a higher degree of efficiency in private enterprise, in factories, in business and on the farms. I believe it is through increasing knowledge, increasing efficiency and with a policy of slightly more liberal credit facilities that we can build up not only industry but also our fundamental industry, agriculture, so that we will have permanently a higher standard of living for all our people irrespective of whether they live in town or country.

The Deputies will no doubt remember before Christmas when the Civil Service Arbitration Board was sitting figures on behalf of the Government official view were given at that arbitration hearing as to the estimated short fall in the revenue and as to the estimated increase in expenditure. The case Government spokesmen made at the Civil Service Arbitration Board hearing was that there would be a substantial budgetary deficit this year. More recently in this House the Minister for Finance, and also the Taoiseach, when pressed for the reasons for refusing to implement the findings of the Civil Service Arbitration Board, stated that there would be a substantial budgetary deficit.

The latest figures available for receipts into the Exchequer and forissues out of the Exchequer are those figures for the 7th March this year, approximately three and a half weeks before the financial year concludes. These figures make very interesting reading and certain conclusions can be drawn from them. The first is that at the present time there is a substantial budgetary surplus. The second one is that there will be little or no short fall in the revenue for which the Minister for Finance budgeted last year. The third is that it appears from the figures which we now have—and there are only three weeks more to run—that not only will there be a balanced Budget at the end of the year but that it is very likely there will be a surplus also. The fourth conclusion to be drawn is that if the very substantial Supplementary Estimates had not been brought in there would have been a very large budgetary surplus running into millions of pounds on the original Budget which the Minister for Finance introduced last year.

Probably the most important conclusion of all to be drawn from the figures which we now have is that, in view of the fact that the revenue is now running at the rate of something like £97,000,000 a year, that expenditure this year is much less than was budgeted for this year, and that the Estimates for the coming year were built around the Estimates for expenditure of last year and not around the actual results of expenditure last year, the Minister will not have a difficult task in reducing taxation when he brings in his forthcoming Budget.

I would like Deputies to look at the figures which are available to this House for revenue and expenditure on 7th March of this year. Those figures show that at that date the revenue was £89.7 million. At the 7th March last year the revenue was £79,000,000 and on the 31st March last year the revenue was £83.8 million. In those last three and a half weeks of the financial year revenue, therefore, increased by £4.8 million. We are entitled to expect, however, a much greater increase in revenue in the three and a half weeks from 7th March, 1953, because of the greatly increased rate of tax. That is borne out by the figures for the monthprevious to 7th March, 1953, which show that the revenue is running at the rate of £2.4 million a week. With three weeks to run Deputies will see that there should come into the Exchequer £7.2 million and with three and a half weeks to run it is quite clear that more than the sum of £97,000,000 approximately, the sum for which the Minister budgeted last year, should come into the Exchequer by the 31st March of this year. In my opinion the figures clearly demonstrate that there will be little or no short fall in the revenue this year.

I would ask Deputies to examine the expenditure for this year. Expenditure on 7th March was £93.3 million. It will be seen that that is approximately £4,000,000 over the revenue. That does not mean there is a budgetary deficit, however; at the present time it seems there is a budgetary surplus, because out of that £93,000,000 is to be deducted the amount spent on Capital Services. The amount spent for Capital Services in this financial year was to be £9.3 million. It is quite obvious that the major portion of that sum has now been spent and if you deduct even £7,000,000 from the figure of £93,000,000 for Capital Services which are not to be taxed for, and admitted by the Minister not to be taxed for, there is clearly a substantial budgetary surplus.

Last year's expenditure up to the 7th March was £89.7 million and on the 31st March was £101.2 million. In the three and a half weeks, expenditure increased by £11.5 million. I do not think that expenditure will increase by £11.5 million in the last three and a half weeks of this financial year for the reason that the food subsidies which were in operation last year are no longer in operation. As against that, there is the fact that since the 7th March the first payment on foot of the recent National Loan has had to be made. There has also been a Supplementary Estimate since the 7th March of £900,000 for the Office of the Minister for Social Welfare. In view of the reduction in the food subsidies, and allowing for these other items which will come in to be spent this year and which had not to be spent last year,it would appear that a reasonable estimate of expenditure would be the same figure as last year. It has also to be remarked, comparing the three or four weeks before the 7th March, that expenditure has not been running at the rate of £11,000,000 every three weeks. It has been running at less than £10,000,000. But even if we accept the fact that there is to be an estimated further expenditure for the last three and a half weeks of this financial year of £11.5 million, Deputies will see that the estimate for the total expenditure for this financial year will run about £104.8 million.

The outrun, therefore, of the Budget this year should be approximately £97,000,000 for revenue and £104.8 million for expenditure. That expenditure includes Central Fund Services and Supply Services, and out of the £104.8 million has to be deducted sums which the Minister said in his Budget speech last year were to be devoted to Capital Services and were not to be taxed for. Assuming that the expenditure on Capital Services was as estimated— and Deputies who support the Government have been boasting of the fact that there has been no reduction in capital expenditure by the Government—assuming that there is to be deducted £9.3 million for Capital Services from the total expenditure of £104.8 million, it will be seen that the total amount of expenditure to be taxed for this year is £95.5 million, or over £1,000,000 below what the estimated revenue will be. It will be appreciated, of course, by Deputies that these are very rough estimates in view of the fact that we are still three and a half weeks from the end of the financial year and uncertain as to what the ultimate figures will be. We do not know what the expenditure by the Government has been on Capital Services.

I should like to point out further that in addition to the reduction of £9.3 million for Capital Services for which the Minister budgeted, there will be substantial reductions in respect to the Supplementary Estimates which were introduced this year and which are included in that total expenditure which I have estimated at a roughguess at £104.8 million. One of the Supplementary Estimates which this House voted before Christmas had reference to a sum of £1,505,000 for the Office of the Minister for Agriculture.

I should like the House to examine the content of that Supplementary Estimate. No less than £500,000 of that Supplementary Estimate was to be paid for the land rehabilitation project and water supplies—a project which the Government themselves have admitted is a capital service and should not be taxed for. I say that the people should not be taxed this year in respect of that extra £500,000 to be expended under the land rehabilitation programme which the Government have admitted is work of a capital nature. Included in that Supplementary Estimate also was a sum of £150,000 for the ground limestone subsidy. That, again, is a sum which according to the Government should not be taxed for, because the money in the past has come not from the taxpayer's pocket but actually from the Grant Counterpart Fund which this Government authorised.

I should like to refer also to a sum of £555,000 included in the Supplementary Estimate which is a repayable advance for the importation of superphosphates. That in fact was a sum paid to the Sugar Company because the sales of superphosphates had fallen off, and was paid in respect to a bank overdraft which had to be met before the 31st December last. That is a repayable grant and surely the Government do not contend that the taxpayers should be taxed in respect of this £500,000 for a repayable grant to the Sugar Company which, if it has not been paid back already, will be paid back in the near future? There is another item of £300,000 because of a deficiency in money which is payable by the Sugar Company to the Exchequer. The Government had estimated that the Sugar Company would be able to pay into the Exchequer this year by means of Appropriations-in-Aid a sum of £400,000 but according to the Government, owing to the falling off in thesale of superphosphates, only £100,000 was paid in so that they have had to make a deduction in the original Estimates for the Appropriations-in-aid and they have added on to the Estimates a sum of £300,000. It is quite clear to me that that is a sum which the taxpayers should not be asked to pay for this year. If these figures are not correct I should be glad if the Minister, when replying, would deal with them and inform us how much of the Supplementary Estimate should be taxed for this year.

I should also like to refer to the recent Supplementary Estimate for the not negligible figure of £900,000 for the Office of Social Insurance. That Supplementary Estimate, it is said, is necessary in order to make payments under the provisions of the Social Welfare Act, 1952, because of a deficiency in the Social Insurance Fund. We do not know how that Social Insurance Fund has become deficient or how the expenditure has increased beyond the revenue. It would be very interesting to hear if the whole of that £900,000 represents the amount by which current expenditure has increased over revenue or if any of it is to go to pay for the erection of the Store Street building this year. If any portion of that £900,000 which has been voted to the Social Insurance Fund is to be spent on works of a capital nature, the taxpayer should not be asked to pay for it this year.

I would ask the members of the House to look at the Supplementary Estimate which was introduced in respect of the Department of Defence. Included in it is a sum of no less than £800,000 for warlike stores. This year, the Government are spending no less than £1,710,000 on warlike stores. In his Budget statement last year and in the tables which he circulated with it, the Minister admitted the financial probity of deducting for stockpiling expenditure in any given year if it could be shown that stocks had been bought which would be used over a given number of years—say, five or ten years. It is not financially correct totax the people for the whole amount of that stockpiling programme in one year: the taxation should be spread over a number of years. That financial mechanism was adopted by the Minister in his last Budget.

It seems to me that, following that principle, this sum of £1,700,000 should not be taxed for in this year. There should be a deduction of at least half of it for stockpiling purposes. The taxpayers should not be taxed this year for the full sum of £1,700,000 in respect of the stockpiling of warlike stores. It will be seen, therefore, that —in addition to the capital services which should be deducted from the expenditure for the financial year— other sums which are included in the Supplementary Estimates and which are not included in the Minister's statement should properly be deducted this year and should not be taxed for.

If the Minister carries out the proper financial policy and he does not deliberately tax people for things in respect of which they should not be taxed, he will certainly have a balanced Budget this year: very likely, he will have a surplus on his Budget when the full figures for the financial year are known. Whatever the result of the financial year may be, it is quite clear that, on his original Budget, the Minister would have had a very substantial surplus if he had not introduced Supplementary Estimates totalling something like £5,000,000 odd over and above the Supplementary Estimates which he said in his Budget speech he would bring in.

The Government have made the excuse that they are not in a position to implement the Civil Service Arbitration Award because of the deficit in the current account of the Budget. There is no doubt but that there is money to implement, at least in part, the Civil Service Arbitration Award. A very small body of people in this country who have been very adversely affected by the financial policy of the Government in the past 20 months are the Civil Service pensioners. The other day I asked the Minister for Finance a question as to the total cost of increasing the pensions paid to Civil Service pensioners to the rate set downin the Civil Service Arbitration Award, I was told that the figure is £62,000. In the second part of that question I asked the Minister whether he is prepared to grant the increase and the reply was: "No."

In view of the huge sums of money which the Government are now spending, in view of the fact that there will be little or no short-fall in the revenue this year, it is very niggardly indeed of the Government to refuse to grant £62,000 to alleviate the lot of pensioners who have ably served the State in the past.

It is quite clear that the statements made in this House concerning the Government's policy in introducing the Budget last year have not been denied. Indeed, they could not be denied because the policy behind the Budget is contained in black and white in the Dáil Reports. Every Deputy can read for himself the policy of the Government in introducing the Budget last year. Some Deputies and some Ministers have tried to gloss over what has happened in the past 20 months—and, in particular, since the Budget of last year—by saying that all that the Government were trying to do was to balance the accounts. They said that the Government were left with large commitments which had been incurred by their predecessors-in-office. They have tried to make the excuse that all that they were trying to do last year in their Budget was to balance the accounts. That argument has very effectively been dealt with elsewhere by the ex-Minister for Finance, Deputy McGilligan, and therefore I do not propose to deal with it again now. That was not the reason given by the Minister when introducing his Budget last year. He went much further than that. He talked about the large-scale consumption and about the serious deficit in our balance of payments. The reasons which he gave for bringing in the type of Budget which he introduced last year were the serious state into which our economy had got and the urgent necessity for doing something about the deficit in our balance of payments.

I should like to point out to the House again—as I have had occasionto do before—that the Government's view of the balance of payments was incorrect. The crisis which they believed existed did not exist. The Budget which was introduced last year was introduced because of faulty understanding of the economic situation of our country. At the time the Budget was introduced—and before, and since—the Minister and his colleagues have spoken of the alleged serious condition of our sterling holdings which had resulted in the deficits in the balance of payments over a number of years. Time and time again, and in the Budget debates last year, we have pointed out that deficits in the balance of payments do not necessarily mean a drawing-down of our sterling holdings and that because, from 1947 to 1951, there were deficits in the balance of payments amounting to £156.5 million, it did not mean that there would be a reduction of £156.5 million in our sterling holdings. In my opinion, the Government worked on the assumption that because there were these deficits which, we knew, were large, this country was losing its sterling holdings. Some Deputies—if not some Ministers—said that the political independence of this State was at stake.

Deputy McGilligan said that when he was Minister for Finance.

He never made such a crass statement.

He said that these external assets were the mainstay of our economic independence.

Nobody is denying that. They were not drawn down by £156,000,000—as the Minister led the House and the country to assume. We have never denied that the question of the balance of payments is a problem but we think it is a lesser problem than some other problems. We said that we would give priority to full employment and to schemes of capital development and we said that the question of the balance of paymentswould right itself in time. We have plenty of time in which to build up our capital assets.

In fact, during those five years when there was a deficit in the balance of payments amounting to £56.5 million, there was an inflow of sterling into this country amounting to £66,000,000. There was the American loan of £45.6 million, and those large deficits, over those of 1951, were financed to the extent of £38.9 million only by drawing upon our sterling holdings. We have at the present time, in the form of sterling assets in England, a sum which it is not possible to gauge accurately, but which is certainly over £400,000,000 and may be over £500,000,000.

As I say, I regard the reason for the introduction of the Budget of last year as one designed to remedy a balance of payments situation, a situation which, I think, was wrongly presented to the Dáil and to the country by the Minister, a situation which was not critical, a situation which we said, and which events have proved to be right, would remedy itself in the course of time.

When the Minister introduced his Budget in April of last year, he said that there could be no hope, on the figures available to him then, of an expansion in our exports and that we had to reduce our imports. I wish to accuse the Minister of going the very worst possible way about reducing our imports. He reduced them by a simple financial device, by a device which was adopted in other countries —by England, Denmark, Canada and Australia and by many European countries which had a balance of payments problem—the device of mopping up surplus purchasing power, and in that the Minister was eminently successful. He was successful in mopping up purchasing power so that there was less demand for imports last year than there was the year before. If the Minister wished to reduce imports he could have introduced a system of licences or physical controls, but, instead, he adopted this financial mechanism of reducing purchasing power in the State so that imports in every category were reduced.

We have the fact that, of the reduction in imports last year over the year before, of £32.4 million, over half of that—£16.3 million— represented materials for industry. All classes of imports, not merely consumer goods, were reduced. We had reductions in materials for agriculture, reductions in capital equipment, reductions in materials for industry. In fact, all classes of imports were reduced because of this faulty diagnosis of our economic situation.

The effects, of course, of that policy which the Minister adopted—a policy which, as I say, the inter-Party Government realised could have been a simple one, if adopted, because it was adopted in other countries with similar results—was that consumption was reduced and effectively reduced in this State. It also did other things as well. It put up the cost of living between May, 1952, and August, 1952, by 7 per cent. The cost of living in May, 1952, had gone up by 14 per cent. Seven per cent., or half of that increase, went up between May and August of last year after the reduction of the food subsidies.

Industrial production has also been affected. Industrial production between the quarter ending September, 1951, and the quarter ending September, 1952, decreased by 12 per cent. I do not think one would need to have the eyes of a prophet to be able to say that production, since September of last year, has again decreased. The effect on industry and employment was, of course, that on 28th February, this year, we had 89,000 unemployed; on 21st February, a week before, the number of unemployed was 88,000. The figure for unemployment a year before that was 73,000, and two years before that, when the inter-Party Government were in office, the figure was 63,000. The number of unemployed has increased between February, 1951, and February of this year by 26,000. That, of course, was the natural result of the financial policy of the Government in reducing spending and reducing effective demand in the State so that less goods could be bought.

It has already been pointed out in the Dáil what the Government got, and what they paid for this financial policy. The Government got, as a result of cutting the food subsidies, an estimated sum of £6.6 million. Then they increased social welfare benefits and the net saving was £3.9 million. Therefore, they brought into the Exchequer last year an estimated—the estimate, of course, is one which we do not accept—£3.9 million. What was the economic, social and human payment for that £3.9 million? An increase in the cost of living by 7 per cent., a falling off in demand, a rise in unemployment and, above all, a rise in the costs structure of the State, due to necessary wage adjustments which had to be made as a result of the policy of deliberately increasing the cost of living. The wages in many sectors, but by no means in all sectors, of the community have been increased.

There has also been the deficit in C.I.E., due to the cutting of the food subsidies which necessitated an increase in wages. The deficit in C.I.E. was increased this year, so that you had the paradoxical situation of the Government, having allegedly saved on food subsidies, coming a few months later to the Dáil and asking for a much larger sum to meet the deficit on C.I.E. That deficit, as I say, was the result of cutting the food subsidies. There was also the necessity to increase the Vote for the Department of Health because of the increased cost of health services, due to the increased cost of food and the increase in wages.

You also have the fact that agricultural costs and agricultural prices have gone up, so that we are very near the position now when we will be pricing ourselves out of the world markets, and all for £3.9 million. That was the financial policy of the Government. Those were some of the results which that financial policy brought in its wake.

I would like to say this to the Minister: When he is framing his Budget this year, I would ask him to forget about the balance of payments problem, for a few years at any rate. I would ask him to concentrate on theunemployed. I would ask him to concentrate on trying to bring about a return to, at any rate, the 1951 figures. I would ask him to try to initiate a policy by which the State would contribute to bringing about a position of full employment. I would ask him to try to see how he can increase business activity in the State by means of alterations in the tax structure. I would ask him to see what means he would take in his Budget for stimulating investment, both governmental and in the private sector of the economy.

We have shown the way. The Opposition has demonstrated in its speeches the concrete proposals of policy which it believes should be put into operation to remedy the situation. We will not object if the Minister takes over that policy lock, stock and barrel, if it is going to improve this country. We will not object if the Government takes over our policy as long as it will bring remedial measures. If they do not take it over, I would ask them to let us take over Government instead.

Maybe the Government will have learned some lessons from the last year and a half. Maybe they will have learned the lesson that you cannot have a policy designed to reduce consumption and have full employment at the same time; that you cannot have an equilibrium in the balance of payments and a policy of repatriation of sterling assets at the same time; that you cannot deliberately bring about a rise in the cost of living without creating wage demands and setting up a cost inflation in the country; that you cannot borrow at 5 per cent. and increase the rate of Government borrowing by 1½ per cent. without raising the rents of the persons who wish to purchase their houses under the Small Dwellings (Acquisition) Act.

The Government might also have learned, not from the economic scene but from the political scene, that you cannot go to the country any more with the old shibboleths; that the banners and slogans of 20 years ago have become a bit tattered and a bit weak, and that the people are now judgingGovernments on what they do and the results of their policy and not by what they say. I think the Government have probably learned that lesson and that is the reason why we are not having a general election this year.

I am watching carefully the development of Deputy Declan Costello as a politician in this House. He is certainly getting a tolerable grip of financial jargon which I am sure will be appreciated after recent events in his constituency.

There are several schools of financial thought but we have, as it were, two schools of financial thought—the official financial thought as advised to the Minister for Finance for the time being and the other type of financial thought advised to Deputy Costello, Senior, and Deputy Costello, Junior, by another side or by some person who did represent another side in the same Department. I do not think it matters an awful lot; I do not think it helps in any way to solve the problems that face us if we are simply going to consider them on the basis of financial jargon.

Judge by results.

Results will come.

They are very bad at the moment. When will they come?

The Vote on Account gives us an opportunity of looking into policy and of considering what the results are and what they are likely to be. I propose to confine the few remarks I have to make to that consideration. The Vote gives us an opportunity also to consider the motion moved by Deputy Sheldon and which is generally welcomed by the House as something that will assist in the machinery of parliamentary control over expenditure. The motion has great advantages and I do not think anyone except Deputy Dillon considers that it was moved for the purpose of enabling the Government to escape a full consideration of their financial policy.

I have not only listened to but I have read very carefully the speeches that were made here by leading Deputies of the Fine Gael Party. I have read carefully the speeches of Deputy John A. Costello, Deputy Dillon and Deputy O'Higgins, Junior. It surprised me to find that there is not one constructive suggestion within the whole volume of the debates covering their speeches.

An opportunity was availed of by Deputy Dillon to make his usual personal attack on myself and a number of Deputies. I can only speak for myself. In view of the fact that this attack has been repeated in this debate by Deputy Dillon, I want to make my own position as clear as I can.

I wanted a Social Welfare Bill, a Bill that would increase old age pensions, that would provide for increased children's allowances, that would provide for increased allowances for the sick and generally for the people who are unable to fend for themselves. That Bill is now law, is now in operation and under that Bill, many more people are entitled to unemployment insurance and unemployment assistance than were entitled to these allowances before the Bill became law.

I wanted an Adoption Bill. The present Government introduced an Adoption Bill and passed it into law. It is now in operation and funds have already been provided by the House for it. I wanted a Health Bill, and we have before the House a Bill introduced by the Minister for Health which does not go as far as I should like it to go, but at least it is a Bill before the House for discussion. I wanted to see provision made for our congested areas, for our undeveloped areas and for the Gaeltacht areas and these provisions have already been made by this House. Those are beneficial results which have arisen from the Administration which has been in power for the past couple of years, an Administration for whom I deliberately voted when the change of Government occurred in 1951.

There were other reasons at the time why a change of Government wasnecessary. Any Government that operates in this country must operate in a constitutional way and under and in accordance with the Constitution. If a Government are to act responsibly there should be only one head of that Government and that is the Taoiseach. During the last days of the inter-Party Government we had a position of gross irregularity and disorder where one Minister of the Government took upon himself to order or command another Minister to resign from the Government.

That is not relevant to the motion.

With all respect, it is relevant to the attacks which have been made on me by Deputy Dillon and other Deputies in the course of this debate.

The Deputy has now made it quite clear that he is responsible for everything the Government have done.

Deputy Dillon was informed that attacks on Deputies were not relevant to the debate.

There has been an appeal made to the Government by every Opposition Deputy to have a general election, to resign and let them take over. If they took over, the case is made that we would have more stable financial conditions. I want to assert and to establish that if we were to have a return to the form of Government we had in the last couple of months before the change of Government we could not have order nor progress nor stability.

Why not let the people decide that? Why should you decide it?

I happened to be in the position of helping to decide it. It was my responsibility to help to decide it and I decided in what I considered was the right way. Deputy Morrissey knows very well that a Government, like a house, divided against itself, cannot stand. DeputyMorrissey would not for one moment endeavour to arrogate to himself the right to dismiss any other Minister from a Government of which he was a member.

A bad Government should not stand.

That was the sort of Government we had in the last couple of months of the inter-Party regime.

That is not true.

Deputy Morrissey knows it is true.

A Minister arrogating to himself the right to dismiss another Minister from the Government——

That does not arise on the Vote on Account. The question is the general financial policy of the Government during the past 12 months.

How could any Government have any financial or other policy when it was divided against itself in such a way? That is what the House is being asked to do and what the country is being asked to do—to replace the present Government by a Government that will operate in that way.

Have a little bit of courage and let the people themselves decide.

The people had an opportunity of deciding on many occasions.

They thought you would do the opposite to what you did.

Deputy Morrissey should allow Deputy Cowan to proceed.

That is the very point I am dealing with. As DeputyMorrissey well knows, for reasons which I explained in this House, I decided to withdraw my support from the inter-Party Government. I said it deliberately and definitely, from the very seat from which I am now speaking, prior to the dissolution of the Dáil and to the general election, and I asked the people to vote for me because I was standing by certain principles which the inter-Party Government had refused to honour. How any person in his sane senses could imagine that by putting that proposal before my constituents I would vote for the inter-Party Government to come back into office is something I cannot understand. It is unfair and shameful to suggest that I was elected to do one thing and that I did the other thing after having been elected. No person could put his position more clearly or more definitely, and I am glad to know that the step I took in voting for the change of Government had the support of my constituents.

You do not know that yet.

There was another reason. The financial position then, as it is now, was grave and serious. The national position was in jeopardy.

And is still.

Money was needed to run the country. Would the decision to increase taxes have been taken, or would money have been borrowed from some source outside the country for the purpose of running the country, and, if borrowed from outside the country, what would we tender in exchange for it? I felt then, and I said it in this House, that there was danger to the freedom and the liberty of the people of this country. I believe still that there is danger to the freedom and the liberty of the people if this country will not pay its own way. When I opposed the decision of this House to accept Marshall Aid money, I stated that this was not a beggar or a mendicant nation. I repeat those words: it is not a beggar or a mendicant nation. If this country is to be run successfullyand satisfactorily and in the interests of the people, then whatever moneys are necessary to run the country must be put up and contributed by the people and by nobody else.

Certain drastic steps had to be taken last year to provide the finances necessary to run the State and to avoid danger to our freedom and our independence. Nobody liked those drastic steps. Least of all did I, as an Independent Deputy, like those steps. I would have much preferred it had there been no necessity for the imposition of these extra taxes and for the collection of these extra moneys, but as an Independent Deputy, I had to act with a sense of responsibility and I acted with a sense of responsibility by supporting the imposition of every one of these extra taxes, however unpopular that imposition might be and even if my support of it might result in my defeat at the next election. That responsibility was thrown upon me by events. I could not act in the irresponsible way in which Deputies who call themselves Independent have acted from time to time, clamouring on the one hand for increased expenditure under every conceivable head and, on the other hand, clamouring for a reduction of taxation on every score.

When people come to consider this particular aspect of our nation's history there will be a sense of appreciation, I think, of the responsible attitude taken here by the four or five Independent Deputies who have been abused on so many occasions by the Opposition Deputies. Every Deputy should act with a sense of responsibility. Overriding everything as far as I was concerned was my desire that this country should maintain its freedom, its independence and its integrity. I think we have succeeded in achieving that.

In the course of his speech Deputy Dillon referred to the state of Newfoundland. He held up that country as a parallel for Ireland. If there is any parallel between Newfoundland and Ireland it is the parallel that was there before these drastic steps were taken last year in order to ensure that this country would not go the way Newfoundlandhas gone. Deputy Dillon was apparently unable to see the analogy in the examples he himself put forward. Deputy Dillon and others want us to exhaust our domestic resources and our foreign resources so that we will find ourselves in the position of Newfoundland and will have to beseech some neighbour to take control of us.

That is nonsense, of course, and the Deputy knows it.

The Deputy has not read what Deputy Dillon said.

Indeed I have.

This is what he said at column 289 of Volume 137 of the Official Report:—

"Newfoundland woke one morning to discover that, by the dissipation of its resources on irrelevancies, its great fishing industry had become inefficient and uneconomic. Having exhausted every domestic resource, a deputation went to London to ask the British Treasury to accept Newfoundland as a temporary charge. The price they paid was that the Treasury in London named their Government."

Is not that the real parallel? Is not that the parallel that would exist between this country and its neighbour if we were to dissipate our resources rather than make an effort to live within our resources? I do not know whether Deputy Dillon gave thought to this matter or whether it just blew up while he happened to be speaking but, in addition to referring to the position of Newfoundland, he referred very specifically to the position of this country, and what he said does not make very cheerful reading for Deputy Morrissey or for anybody else in the Fine Gael Party or in any other Party. What was his story? This country was down and out. That is the picture he tried to paint. He said we had nothing to exist on except our agricultural production and our agricultural exports. What has he to say about them? I will take them heading by heading.

Butter: We are not exporting butterbecause we are no longer able economically to produce butter in Ireland.

"We cannot sell butter abroad because our costs of production for butter are too high. We will never sell butter abroad—never."

That is what this famous agricultural expert says about butter. But, in case there might be some mistake, he goes further. He says:—

"The concrete fact is that we cannot export butter and that we will never export it again... The export of eggs has become un-economic... The export of fowl has become uneconomic... The export of bacon... and pork is just in the balance. If the costs of production in that branch of the agricultural industry go up by another 5 per cent., the pig population of this country will melt away. Stop and think a moment what this means. It means that you are left with cattle and sheep. There is not a farmer in this House who does not know that, during the war, the sheep population of this country vanished from the face of this country through a complexity of circumstances. I am not going to go into those circumstances now, but I think they could easily recur and, if they should, you are driven back to cattle. Stop there, and think a moment."

Butter, eggs, fowl, sheep, bacon, pork; no hope for this country in any one of those lines and we are left then with cattle. We are left with nothing but cattle to live on and nothing but cattle to depend on. How does Deputy Dillon deal with cattle:—

"We are out of the United States market for prime beef—and we are out of it by competition. We cannot produce it in Ireland at a price the Americans are prepared to pay."

He then goes on to the 1948 Agreement and this is all that we are left with, this proud nation to which Deputy Dillon refers:—

"By the mercy of God's providence we have the 1948 TradeAgreement to fall back upon. We have the other party to that agreement in a vice from which they cannot escape—not thanks to Fianna Fáil but thanks to our Government."

Then he makes this extraordinary statement at column 289 of the same volume:—

"There is not a Deputy in this House who does not know that all that stands between the live-stock industry of this country and crisis is the trade agreement we made in 1948 which holds the other party as no agreement between two nations of such disparity in power ever held a second party before."

Then we have the final and general summing up: "If costs should further rise, agricultural exports from Ireland will decline." That is rather an anticlimax but nevertheless it is what Deputy Dillon has said. Deputy Dillon, of the Fine Gael Party, has said that there is no hope for this country, that we are on the way of Newfoundland, that we are on the way out as a nation. I want to know is there any sensible Deputy or any sensible person in this country who would put back into office a Deputy who holds those views in regard to our capacity, our capability and our agricultural position?

It is not nice to have to read those things but it is just as well they should be read, studied and understood. When we are up against that sort of thing we find how nonsensical is the financial jargon we hear from Deputy Costello, Senior, and Deputy Costello, Junior. Does Deputy Morrissey believe that is the true position in Ireland? Does Deputy Morrissey believe that Deputy Dillon is painting a correct picture of this country? Does Deputy Morrissey think this country is down and out as Deputy Dillon suggests in that speech? Those are the views of Deputy Dillon in regard to agriculture. Does Deputy Morrissey think he should ever be invested with the responsibility of guiding the agricultural destinies in the future? Deputy Morrissey is silent.

When you are finished I will tell you.

He is wisely silent.

You want an interruption to help you along. I will tell you when you sit down.

I hope Deputy Dillon does not represent the views of Deputy Morrissey. I know he could not represent those views. It is very hard to know where one is——

Hear, hear!

——when listening to the speeches we have in this House. As a student of politics, I should like to know what Parties exist here, who lead them, and what their policy and objective are. Broadly speaking, the set-up is, the Fianna Fáil Party are the Government, and they are supported in office by a group of Independent Deputies. We have other Parties in the House. There is the Fine Gael Party, which, I understood, was led by Deputy Mulcahy. We have the Clann na Poblachta Party.

I assume I will be in order when I am called upon—and I hope to follow Deputy Cowan—in continuing this line?

Deputy Cowan should get back to the Vote on Account.

He never reached it.

He is dealing with points made by the Opposition.

I know what the Minister thinks about Deputy Cowan or rather what he did think and could never say.

I do not give two hoots what anybody thinks about me. I am putting forward this position and Deputy Morrissey, with long experience of throwing the neophyte out of his stride, will not succeed now. As I say, we have to understand where we are. We have the Labour Party and the Clann na Talmhan Party. Then we have certain other people who support those Parties in a general way. However, in this debate I read andlistened to the speech that was delivered by Deputy O'Higgins. Deputy O'Higgins made this very specific statement at column 352 of the same volume quoted above:

"The only Party in this House which has consistently followed, in Government and out of Government, the same financial and economic policy has been the Fine Gael Party, led by Deputy Costello, the Leader of the Opposition."

I just want to know where I am? Is Deputy Costello the Leader of Fine Gael? Is he the Leader of the Opposition? Does he lead the Labour Party? Does he lead the Clann na Talmhan Party or the Clann na Poblachta Party?

Has this any bearing on the Vote on Account?

Yes, Sir, it has. Deputy Costello, who was followed on the same lines by Deputy Dillon, has said to the Government: "Get out. Your policy in this Book of Estimates is not a wise policy for the country. Get out and let us take over."

You should hear what the people outside are saying and they are not bound by parliamentary language.

I want to know where we are. Who wants the people to vote for whom? Is Deputy Costello saying that he is asking the people to vote for another Government in which there will be members of the Labour Party, members of the Clann na Talmhan Party, members of the Clann na Poblachta Party and members of the Fine Gael Party.

And Deputy Cowan.

I submit, with respect, Sir, that that is perfectly relevant to this discussion. If this Vote has been availed of to ask for a change of Government, who wants to take over?

Let the people decide that.

But the people must have something before them.

They have plenty before them.

That is the problem with which we are confronted.

The fact is that you are finished and you will not sit down.

There is a very big bluff being carried on and nobody knows that better than Deputy Morrissey.

I am listening to it for the last 20 minutes.

There is a big bluff being carried on by Deputy Costello, Senior, Deputy Dillon and other members of the Fine Gael Party, who suggest that if there were an election to-morrow and if there were an increased number of seats for Fine Gael, Labour, Clann na Talmhan and Clann na Poblachta, Fine Gael could again form an inter-Party Government and could run this country. Deputy Morrissey knows that nobody can give any such guarantee.

Why do you not call our bluff?

The responsibility is not on me to call anybody's bluff.

I am afraid it is, very largely.

The constitutional responsibility rests on one man and he will decide for an election at the time he thinks it will suit Fianna Fáil.

Hear, hear!

There is no doubt about that and if Deputy Morrissey were Taoiseach he would hold an election at the time he would think would best suit himself.

The question of an election is not before the House.

Unfortunately.

It is not, and I think I can say with certainty, thatthere is no likelihood of a general election this year or next year.

You are telling us.

I think Deputy Morrissey realises that.

Do not be whistling, now.

Reading Deputy Dillon, one is inclined to become pessimistic, but when I read the Estimates and the Supplementary Estimates that were before us, I think I can come to the conclusion that, although every necessary precaution must be taken to avoid danger that might damage this country, the Minister for Finance is in a better position this year than he was in last year. Consequently, there are some rays of hope appearing from a study of the Book of Estimates, Supplementary Estimates, the Budget and other statements that have been made in regard to it. While there is this ray of hope, it is possible, I think, for the Minister this year to make certain concessions that will be welcomed by the public. As has been stated by the Taoiseach and Ministers, we seem to have reached the limit of taxation or, as the Minister for Finance said, the limit that the people will cheerfully bear. If the stringent steps taken last year will result in measures of relief this year, then I think we have a lot to be grateful for and a lot to be thankful for.

If, as I see it, there can be reliefs, I would suggest to the Minister and to the Government that there is no better way in which relief can be granted than in a provision for the award of the arbitration board that considered Civil Service salaries. There are many thousands of civil servants, whom we all know, living on rates of pay that are entirely inadequate. They have been living on these rates of pay for many years. Studying the award of the arbitration board, I felt that it was not a very generous award. There was nothing extravagant in it, and I feel that Governments are in the same position as anybody else. If Governments agree to enter into arbitration, then Governments are bound to accept the award of the arbitration board concerned.I have not fully convinced myself that arbitration is the best machinery that should be available for a determination of matters between the Government and the officers of the Government. I think that is a matter that requires much more consideration than it has got up to the present but, once the principle of arbitration has been accepted, once the machinery of arbitration has been adopted, then the findings of that arbitration should be honoured.

I said in this House before, a couple of weeks ago, in connection I think with the debate on the National Stud, that in my opinion the award of the arbitration board would be honoured. That is on record in the Official Debates in this House. At that time I was challenged by Deputy O'Higgins, who said that I might be called on to vote on that issue. It is surprising that no motion in regard to it was put down by Deputy O'Higgins or by any member of the Fine Gael Party, although I did understand that when the Tánaiste stated he was prepared to allow time for discussion of the matter, if the principal Opposition so wished, Deputy Dillon, apologising for staff upsets due to illness, said the matter would be considered. I am sure it has been considered but, while there has been a certain amount of sniping with regard to it, there has been no positive declaration by the Fine Gael Party that they want this arbitration award honoured, nor has there been any desire on their part to ask this House to request the Government to honour that award.

I understand that under the machinery of arbitration the Government had a period of three months to consider it, after which they must publish the findings of the tribunal and the Government, as I did say in the debate I referred to—if it was not in that debate I said it about the same time in some other debate—availed of every minute and every second that was set out in the machinery there before they published the award. They availed also of the second part of the machinery that apparently was agreed upon between the Civil Service andthe Government. That was that if the Government were unable without the introduction of a special Budget or a Supplementary Budget to honour the award, if they accepted it, the matter would be dealt with under the next Budget. I understand that is the precise agreement that exists—in other words, that the Government were entitled to say: "We could not honour this award now without introducing a Supplementary Budget, and rather than introduce a Supplementary Budget in the month of March we shall deal with the matter in the annual Budget which comes before the House in the month of April or May, as the case may be." I do not think that is an unreasonable attitude on the part of the Government, because it is within the machinery of the arbitration and nobody in this State understands better than civil servants themselves the meaning of words and the meaning of agreements.

To some extent, the matter has been confused by deputations and by interviews. I have been asked to receive deputations. I have said that I will receive any deputation that comes to see me in regard to it. It should have been obvious to anyone, writing such a request to me, that there was no necessity to see me on a matter of this kind. The arbitration award provides for certain specific increases to civil servants and it provides that these increases are to be paid from a certain date. Once the Government agreed to accept the principle of arbitration, once they agreed to accept the machinery of arbitration, I say that they are bound in honour to honour the award in all its implications including the back-dating to the specific date that was mentioned by the tribunal. I do not want any misunderstanding as to my position in relation to a matter of this kind.

Deputy Cogan has referred to the Socialist State and to the welfare State. These are matters which, perhaps, could well be the subject of consideration by Deputies of this House. As I see it, we have two main Parties here: they are the two main political Parties. Both of them believe in thesame system of Government. Neither of them is a Socialist Party though, in my opinion, one is more socialist than the other. We have very serious matters affecting us with regard to production and with regard to other matters of importance. I have put this before to Deputy Giles and to other Deputies—and I could put the same question to members on the Fianna Fáil Benches and I would get the same answer. There is no desire on the part of either of these Parties to have compulsion. In other words, there is no desire on either side of the House to compel farmers to grow more than they choose to grow at the moment and there is no compulsion on workers to work more than they say, within their own trade union organisations, they will work. Taking it by and large, that is the position.

Then we have these interminable conflicts in regard to which side of the House will get the farmers to produce more—and it all boils down to the question of which side of the House will pay the farmers most for producing more. Does anybody disagree that that, in fact, is the position? That can only be the position when you have two Parties—one in Government and the other, the main Opposition Party, operating under the same system. That can only be the position with both of them appealing for votes from the farmers when the only solution that each of them has is to give the farmer more to induce him to produce more. You will never get anywhere under such a system. One of our great troubles is that we have not a very clean-cut division between the people who believe in the present capitalist system and the people who believe in a socialist system.

Which do you believe in?

I am coming to that. Deputy Giles knows well what I believe in. He will never have any doubt about that. Generally, when I express my mind I express it in such a way that there is no doubt as to what I mean. We have two mainpolitical Parties and each trying to gain more support in exactly the same way. There must be an end to that. It just cannot continue. This bidding by two political Parties, one against the other, with the people's money by giving better provisions to this section, to that section and to the other section, for the purpose of getting more votes and more support must come to an end. The farmers have a responsibility to this State and every other section and interest in the State have a responsibility to the State.

I came to the conclusion many years ago—and I have seen no reason to alter my views since—that this State or any other State cannot successfully be administered in modern times unless the State has the power to compel. If the State has not the power to compel farmers to grow more or to compel workers to work more then it has lost very vital powers which it ought to have. I have, as I do very often, resort to the writings of James Connolly for inspiration. In a book entitled Labour, Nationality and Religionthere occurs the following paragraph in which one will see what I believe. This is what James Connolly wrote as the last paragraph of this book—and Connolly was able to see very far in front of him:—

"The day has passed for patching up the capitalist system; it must go. And in the work of abolishing it the Catholic and the Protestant, the Catholic and the Jew, the Catholic and the Freethinker, the Catholic and the Buddhist, the Catholic and the Mahometan will co-operate together, knowing no rivalry but the rivalry of endeavour toward an end beneficial to all. For, as we have said elsewhere, Socialism is neither Protestant nor Catholic, Christian nor Freethinker, Buddhist, Mahometan, nor Jew; it is only human. We of the socialist working class realise that as we suffer together we must work together that we may enjoy together. We reject the firebrand of capitalist warfare and offer you the olive leaf of brotherhood and justice to and for all."

Lest there should be any doubt in anyone's mind, I believe in a system ofSocialism for this State and for every State in the world. I believe that it is only under a system of Socialism that you can have ordered progress and prosperity. I believe, with Connolly, that you cannot patch up the capitalist system, and what we really have here are the efforts of the two main Parties, each one trying to patch it up a little better than the other.

The day is past for patching up the capitalist system. "It must go." Those were the words of James Connolly, and in years to come the people of this country will realise the soundness of the advice that was given to them by James Connolly. I only wish that there were in this House more socialists than myself. May I appeal to my friends in the Labour Party to get back to the inspiration of James Connolly?

What about appealing to Deputy Cogan?

I am not interested in Deputy Cogan on this. I would appeal to the Labour Party to endeavour to find inspiration in the writings of Connolly. If they do that, then I think some of the difficulties which confront the country will pass quickly enough.

We have listened to a very long speech——

I did not think it was so anyway.

——and I will do the Deputy the credit of saying, a very dishonest speech up to the last five minutes.

Dishonest depends on what side you happen to be supporting.

Three definite statements, and only three, emerged from the Deputy's speech. The Deputy has nailed his flag to the mast, giving gladness to the heart of the Minister for Finance or rather gladness to the heart of Deputy Seán MacEntee. If that cloak is not purple it is pink. When I imagine the letters which Deputy MacEntee could write to the Evening Mailon the material which has now been put into his hands by Deputy Cowan, it is another reason why I am sorry he is Minister for Finance and is deprived of that pleasure, because he only remains Minister for Finance during the pleasure of Deputy Peadar Cowan. The three statements of Deputy Cowan were: (1) the power to compel the farmer to produce what and as much as Deputy Cowan thinks he should produce—Deputy Cogan was feeling quite happy on that—(2) the power to compel the worker to work for as long as Deputy Cowan thinks he should work, (3) the power and the intention— I propose in a moment or two to show, according to Deputy Cowan himself, that this is a power which he boasts of —to smash in this country what he is pleased to call capitalism.

Did you not believe in that when you were a socialist yourself?

That is too old a trick, and the Deputy should remember that he is not now in the District Court, but in Dáil Éireann.

I followed you for a long time.

You never did. You were never within the bawl of an ass of me.

You did not know it.

I had a few queer fellows after me all right, but not Deputy Cowan.

The Deputy will not say that Deputy Kyne and Deputy Everett are very queer and yet they were with him when he was vice-chairman of the Labour Party.

For a quarter of a century I have been trying to advise the Minister to have a bit of sense. It is I, I suppose, who ought to have the sense, and know that it is futile to try to teach him even at this late hour. This, of course, is an old trick of Deputy Cowan's and of DeputyMacEntee's. Both know what I am coming to, particularly Deputy MacEntee—that the threat is to destroy what is called capitalism.

That is what Connolly said.

What is called capitalism in this State to-day is very different indeed from what it was at the time Connolly wrote those words.

It is not a bit different.

Unlike Deputy Cowan this is not the first time that I heard, or read, what was written in that book. What Deputy Cowan means in effect and, in truth, is having the intention and desire, if he ever has the power, to destroy private enterprise in this country. That is what he means when he talks about capitalism.

Have you read Deputy J.A. Costello's speech?

The Minister should keep out of this. I have—I knew the Minister would be here—some cuttings from letters which the Minister wrote to the Evening Mail.

I have better cuttings from the Deputy's own speeches.

It would be better if, on all sides, Deputy Morrissey was allowed to make his speech without interruption.

I always get the measure of my effectiveness by the reactions I get from Deputy MacEntee and Deputy Cowan. These are the desires of Deputy Cowan: compulsion for the farmer, compulsion for the worker and the destruction of private enterprise. That is his creed which he has avowed here openly and unashamedly. Mind you, Deputy Cowan is perfectly entitled to say that.

I said the same to-day as you said 25 years ago.

You went a littlefurther, I think, than Deputy Dr. Browne did in Trinity College the other night.

Trinity College?

I read it in the daily papers, not in the Evening Mail.

You will be running down Robert Emmet next.

Deputy Cowan told us that the reason why he was supporting Fianna Fáil, and was continuing to support it, was because he wanted the public health scheme, and that Fianna Fáil produced it. He wanted higher old age pensions, higher national health insurance and higher unemployment assistance, and he says "I got them."

Quite right.

Look at the power behind the throne! He wanted a Legal Adoption Act and he says "I got it".

Quite right.

Deputy Cowan did it and Deputy Dr. Browne and Deputy Dr. ffrench-O'Carroll had nothing to do with it, and neither had the 66 members of the Fianna Fáil Party. Deputy Cowan on his own did it. Is it not a sad state of affairs that the people who boast of having the biggest single political Party in this country have now descended to the level that the two chief spokesmen for it on all occasions and on every occasion in this House are Deputy Cowan and Deputy Cogan and that the members of that Party sit there in silence?

How the Minister for Finance must be bubbling over. I can imagine some of the sentences, some of the phrases that he is turning over in his mind, and how he would glory in being free to use them. He used a couple in Liverpool last night but they were nothing to the ones he could use about Deputy Cowan if and when he gets free, and it may be very soon notwithstanding what Deputy Cowan has said. When that day comes I am going to sit back and enjoy the performance.

Do you remember the time when I used to support Deputy Morrissey?

The Deputy succeeded in speaking for a long time. When he rose to speak, I said to Deputy Declan Costello, who was sitting behind me: "I will make a small bet with you, Declan. It is that there are three matters which Deputy Cowan will not refer to in any way whatever. He will make no reference to the Vote on Account; he will certainly make no reference to unemployment, and I am absolutely positive that he will never mention the words ‘cost of living.'" And he did not, not even by implication. Deputy Cowan talked about everything under the sun except the things that really matter. Then, at the tail-end of his speech, in a way which, frankly, I believed would be beneath Deputy Cowan, he tried, in the most petty and cheap way that I have ever heard, to cash in on the civil servants and the arbitration award. That will not deceive anyone for a moment.

He did not march with them.

He then taunted this side of the House for not putting down a motion on the matter. For what purpose? To give the Deputy the pleasure of doing what he has done on previous occasions: of speaking in favour of it and voting against it.

On a point of order. If such a suggestion is made by a Deputy, that a Deputy in this House spoke against a motion and voted for it——

No; the other way about.

——or the reverse, spoke for it and voted against it, I submit, with respect, that the records and the occasion should be referred to.

It is there. There is no question at all about that.

It is not there. I say it is not there.

It is there and I will produce it.

Produce it. I am asking the Deputy to produce it.

I will not. I will produce it when it suits me and neither the Deputy nor anybody else can compel me to do so.

It is not there.

It is there.

In the meantime you will continue to make unfoundeo allegations.

You would not know anything about those things. Deputy Cowan is low enough at the moment but he is not so low, as defenceless, as to want your assistance.

The Deputy might use the third person. There is too much of the second person.

I beg your pardon and the Minister's but the Minister and myself are——

Old friends.

Old antagonists. I will not say we are enemies and perhaps we might be nearer to being friends. I would not say I would be an enemy even of Deputy Cowan's. Perhaps I have a good deal more respect for his capacity and ability than most people in this House.

Perhaps we could get nearer to the Vote on Account.

These bouquets are unexpected.

I am respectfully suggesting, Sir, that I am infinitely nearer to the Vote on Account, and I have been speaking for only ten minutes, than Deputy Cowan was for three-quarters of an hour and I suggest, with respect, that I am entitled, not merely to traverse what Deputy Cowan said, but to refer to the matters which he has carefully left unsaid. The Deputygave us here at length what he alleged were his reasons for supporting the present Government and what he alleged were his reasons for not supporting anybody in opposition to them.

Deputy Morrissey has spent nearly 12 minutes on that.

Now the Vote on Account.

What I want to refer to now Deputy Burke does not want to hear any more than Deputy Cowan. I want to refer to the cost of living. I want to refer to the effects of the Budget. Deputy Cowan said he supported every tax that was imposed in the Budget. He asserted that proudly, as a boast. Remember, when we are talking about the cost-of-living index, we are talking about the cost of essential items. Deputy Cogan told us the other day that the cost of living had increased as much in the period of office of the inter-Party Government as it has since the present Government took over. That is not true, of course. Deputy Cowan said it was fifty-fifty. Take it even on the percentage increase.

I did not refer to it.

I know you did not. I reminded you that you did not although you wanted me to be brought out of a hospital bed to answer for the cost of living when it was 25 per cent. less than it is now. I am talking about your political pal, Deputy Cogan. When I look at Deputy Cogan and Deputy Cowan I have to agree with the old saying that politics make strange bedfellows. I can see Deputy Cogan subscribing to the James Connollys. Let me get back to the cost of living.

Does that apply to Deputy MacBride and Deputy Morrissey?

The Minister does not want to hear about it either. Deputy Cogan says that the cost of living has increased by 23 per cent.— 14 per cent. on essential items. DeputyCogan said, of course, it increased but that we were more to blame than the present Government, we increased it more. Who increased the price of bread and flour by 50 per cent.?

Deputy Cowan's vote, putting back Fianna Fáil.

Who increased the price of butter from 2/8 to 4/2 a lb.? Who increased the price of tea from 2/8? Do Deputies want me to go down through any more items? When I heard Deputy Cowan talking to-day with a throb in his voice, or rather a whine, about the road workers and the forestry workers whom he is so fond of chumming with at the side of the road when, as he said himself, they are partaking of their meagre meal in the middle of the day——

No. Deputy Cogan. I would be long sorry to accuse Deputy Cowan of that. Whatever I may say about you, you do not whine. Deputy Cogan was telling us about it. He saw those unfortunate working men in the days when the inter-Party Government were in office and there was very little of what they had and very little substance. Deputy Cogan is perfectly satisfied that they are better off to-day I challenge Deputy Cogan—and he will very soon get the opportunity—to stand up in Wicklow and tell the working men there that they are better off to-day than they were two years ago. I challenge Deputy Cogan to get up in Wicklow and assert, as he asserted on this Vote here to-day, that in fact since Fianna Fáil took over, the standard of living has improved. There is no man in this House or outside it who, if he spoke his real mind, could rend Deputy Cogan on those statements more quickly and more effectively than his present political colleague, Deputy Cowan.

Deputy Cowan, whatever else he may pretend here, is not ignorant of the conditions in this city, or he ought not to be. He is not ignorant of the fact that business in this city and in this country since this Government took over, and particularly since the Budget, has hit a very low level. Heis not unconscious of the fact that there have been wholesale dismissals and wholesale reductions in staff, giving us a registered number of over 90,000 unemployed. Unless he has his head in the sand he is not unfamiliar with the fact that there are thousands of other workers who were on full time and many of them on overtime who are now on short time and living in fear of being dismissed completely.

Will Deputies read the annual reports of some of the public companies operating in this country as to the results of their trading over the last 12 years? In the case of one of the most important companies in this country their profits for last year's trading dropped from £194,000 to something over £50,000.

Deputy Norton was telling us they were making too heavy profits. He wanted to put them in jail.

Are you finished?

These are not the people that stockpiled during your term of office?

Deputy Morrissey is entitled to make his statement without interruptions.

It is a free country, Sir, and if the Minister or Deputy Burke wants to make an ignorant and unintelligent interruption I suppose even you cannot stop him, with all the powers you have.

They can make them elsewhere.

They are making enough of them elsewhere. They can be checked and brought to account here, but when they get outside there is nobody to check them. Sometimes when you hear them making interjections you would imagine they thought they were outside at a cross-road.

They do not go near the cross-road now.

We were always able to stand at the cross-road and the highroad and we will stand at the cross-roads in Wicklow.

I hope the Deputy will take notice of what the Chair is saying and Deputy Everett as well.

It is not that they are so much annoyed but that they are coming to realise exactly where they are. They are coming to realise what they started one and a half years ago. The Minister for Finance has now before him in a rather unpleasant way some of the results of the careless and irresponsible speeches which he and his colleague, the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs, made which created an artificial crisis in this country. In this country to-day we have depression in business; we have 90,000 unemployed and the number growing at the rate of nearly 1,000 per week; we have the highest cost of living ever reached in this country, and all that is due entirely to the fact that the Minister who introduced this Vote on Account went out deliberately and, unfortunately, succeeded in destroying the faith and the confidence of the people in the future of this country, in creating a feeling of uneasiness that amounted almost to fear, and in some cases to actual fear. He has brought about a state of affairs now that neither he nor his colleagues, with or without the assistance of Deputy Cogan and Deputy Cowan, can check.

It is all right for Deputy Burke to talk about the cross-roads. It is all right for the Minister for Finance to make silly interjections to me across the floor of the House. It is all right for Deputy Cowan to posture for three quarters of an hour. But that is little consolation to 90,000 persons lining up at the labour exchanges. The Minister may or may not be able to balance his Budget in a month's time, but there are thousands of families in this country to-day that as a result of last year's Budget and the policy pursued by the Party opposite will be unable to balance their budget in their homes.

Deputies who are in touch with realities know quite well that there are in this country to-day and havebeen for months, thousands of heads of households who are at their wits' end to make ends meet, but the Minister's pet financial theory must be carried out irrespective of the cost to the people. We heard a lot of humbug from Deputy Cowan and others. The difference between Deputy Cowan and some of the others is that he knows he is talking humbug. The Minister talks humbug sometimes, and I am very doubtful whether he is conscious of the fact. Sometimes he is and does it deliberately. This humbug has brought a lot of misery to this country and to the people.

We are told there was a danger of the country's birthright being sold to some outside Power. Nobody will believe that for a moment; even Deputy Cowan does not believe it. It is fashionable now for the Minister, by implication, and for Deputy Cowan and Deputy Cogan by direct assertion, to be as insulting as they possibly can to the American nation for giving us the Marshall Aid loan. Nobody but Deputy Cowan objected to the acceptance of that loan. There was nothing wrong in accepting that loan. There was, however, a good deal wrong when the change of Government took place, with the way in which the expenditure of it was abused. Deputy Cowan tells us that we were better off paying 5 per cent. to our own people than paying 2½ per cent. to America.

Of course we were.

Let me finish. I would agree that, so far as it is possible to do it, the money should be raised within our own shores.

It could have been.

I would not care to tempt the Minister with a loan at 2½ per cent. from America or Great Britain. I would venture to make a decent bet that he would not refuse it. He would be glad to get a loan at 2½ per cent. from America or Great Britain. We do not want any more of that sort of cheap talk. That is the dishonest sort of clap-trap we hear on a Vote like this about surrenderingthe country's independence or selling the country's birthright in return for Marshall aid. Of course the Minister does not believe that. He knows it is not true. He knows quite well that there was no such danger.

The money which we required by way of loan could have been raised successfully within this country from our own people at less than 5 per cent., if the Minister had gone to the people for the loan at the time he should have gone. The Minister's predecessor had announced his intention in May, 1951, to go to the country for another loan and the Minister could have gone in 1951 for a loan and have got it at much less than 5 per cent. Even the Fianna Fáil Government would have got it at less than 5 per cent.

It is only a ridiculous misuse of words to say that my predecessor stated that he intended to go for a loan.

I will leave it to you to twist his words. I am telling you what is on record. The fact is that you did not go for a loan and, unfortunately, this country is paying for that through the nose. Unfortunately, everybody who has to raise a loan for the purchase of a house will pay through the nose for it. Unfortunately, every local authority which has to raise money for any local scheme, whether sewerage, drainage, house building or anything else, will pay through the nose for it. The Minister's bad judgment in relation to the timing of the loan has cost this country a great deal of money. Not merely has it cost the State a great deal of money, not merely will it cost local authorities and others who have to raise money and those who have to borrow from them a great deal of money, but it has made money dearer for every citizen in this State.

Deputy Cogan talked a lot of clap-trap about the Government not carrying out the recommendations made in the Central Bank Report. He proceeded to tell us there were more employed on forestry and more employed here, there and everywhere else. The fact of the matter is theGovernment has produced here the results that the directors of the Central Bank recommended them to produce: dearer money, fewer capital schemes and a greater pool of unemployment. These were the main recommendations of the Central Bank Report and these are the results of the effect given to those recommendations by this Government.

I am satisfied, indeed I would be very sorry to think otherwise, that the Government must be perturbed at the economic position. I am satisfied the Government must be particularly perturbed because of the great increase in unemployment. That is a matter that would cause grave concern to any Government with a sense of responsibility. While this Government may not have as great a sense of responsibility as I would like to see, they have, I hope, some sense of responsibility. We would like to hear what steps, if any, the Government proposes to take to deal with the unemployment menace. We would like to hear what steps, if any, they propose to take to restore confidence and faith in this country and in its future —the confidence and faith that they have to a great extent destroyed. I am perfectly satisfied—mark you, unlike a lot of politicians I am not falling over myself in my anxiety to have a general election; I do not like general elections; I have no hesitation in saying that——

The Deputy was calling for one a little while ago.

Will the Minister ever have the sense to wait until I have finished? I was saying that to give more emphasis to what I was about to say when the Minister interrupted. I am perfectly satisfied that there is a demand to-day for a change of Government, such a demand as was never known since the foundation of this State. There is no question about that. If this Government were to do its duty it would throw off the deadweight of the Deputy Cowans and the Deputy Cogans, would take its courage in its hands, as it has done before, and go to the people. Then we will know who is right and who iswrong. Until that is done the situation here will not improve.

We did that before and you did not accept the verdict.

Whenever the voice of the people was challenged it was not challenged from this side of the House. I say the country wants to get rid of Fianna Fáil.

They want you back.

They certainly do and if the Deputy has any doubt about it I challenge him to try it out.

What about your resigning in Tipperary then?

Will you resign in Dublin and fight it out with me?

I will resign to-morrow morning if the Minister resigns in Dublin and the two of us can fight out the issue in North Tipperary. I will hand my resignation to the Ceann Comhairle to-morrow if the Minister is prepared to do the same.

Deputies have been continually interrupting for the last half-hour. Deputy Morrissey is entitled to make his speech without interruption. All interruptions are disorderly. Deputy Morrissey on the Vote on Account now.

Let the Minister sleep on that to-night and if he is prepared to go on he can ring me in the morning and the two of us will see the Ceann Comhairle in the afternoon. I would like to show some of the boys the hills and beauty spots of North Tipperary.(Interruption.)I will not resign for Deputy Allen because he is only a lightweight. I will resign for the Minister. The trouble about it is that if the Minister came down to North Tipperary he would get away with it.

The Deputy must come to the Vote on Account.

The trouble is I am very easily led astray. Deputies on the Government Benches know what ishappening. They know the reaction in the country and they are trying to put the best face they can on it. It is very different, however, from the policy they pursued for 25 years. Then they were always asserting their readiness to go to the country. They were always reminding us of the number of occasions on which they went to the people, asked for their support and got it. They were ever ready to take up the gauntlet immediately it was thrown down. Why the strange reluctance during the last 12 months? Surely the Minister is not growing modest in his old age. The Minister has no doubts regarding his own position but I think he would find it very hard to convince that astute old war horse, the Taoiseach, that this is a favourable time to take a ramble up to the Park, whatever the Fianna Fáil Party wants.

We will come back now to the Vote on Account.

Let me repeat: whatever the Fianna Fáil Party wants, the people in the country want them to get out.

And let you in.

Exactly, because then they will have what they had for three and a half years—the unity, peace, prosperity and employment that you have taken away from them.

Having listened to Deputy Morrissey I am rather intrigued to know what policy he proposes to put before the electorate when the next by-election takes place. In the last four by-elections Fine Gael have not had a policy to put before the people. It is not Deputy Cowan or Deputy Cogan who is whining. It is the front benchers of the Fine Gael Party and they have been whining ever since they were run out of this House under cover of darkness in May, 1951. Surely they do not think the people are so simple as to believe that Fine Gael or any other Party on the Opposition Benches could restore food subsidies, reduce taxation and at the same time maintain full employment. The inter-Party Government was notable to do that despite borrowing on a heavy scale and with £40,000,000 from Uncle Sam. They succeeded, too, in raising the equivalent of that sum internally at a cheap rate, but they were not able to maintain employment even on a respectable scale. Deputy Morrissey has suggested, as his Party has suggested, that we are out to create unemployment, that we want to restrict credit and that we want to injure the economy of the country. I notice at every county council meeting down the country, and particularly at the estimates meeting, that it was the hatchet men of the Fine Gael Party who refused to face the responsibility in their own counties of striking a rate. I was present at a meeting of the Longford County Council last Saturday and, to use an ugly expression, it would make one puke to listen to the pious platitudes of the hatchet men of Fine Gael, who refused to face their responsibilities and strike a rate. It fell to the lot of Independents and Fianna Fáil to strike a rate to maintain the services of the county. I do not think that that attitude of Fine Gael either inside this House or outside is calculated to impress the electorate. I do not care how juvenile they may be.

Deputy Morrissey referred to the increased cost of living and alleged that it had increased more since we took over the Government than it had during their term of office. It was demonstrated here last week by Deputy Cogan that the increase in the cost of living has not been any steeper during our period than it was in the time of the Coalition. It increased 11 points during the time of the Coalition or inter-Party Government as you were pleased to call yourselves.

You have a coalition now.

We have a Fianna Fáil Government supported by Independents.

People who were thrown out of every other Party.

Will the Deputy allow Deputy Carter to make his statement?

We would not keep them.

Will Deputy O'Leary please restrain himself?

Other Deputies are interrupting. If they are not checked——

That remark should not have been made. All Deputies are checked, as far as the Chair can possibly do it. I would ask Deputies to restrain themselves and to preserve order.

Only some of them obey.

If we take it that the former Government carry as much responsibility as we do for the increased cost of living, there can be no bones broken on either side. It has been suggested here that Fianna Fáil were responsible for slowing down housing. The record of Fianna Fáil in the field of housing can bear comparison with that of any other Party in any country in Europe, because in regard to housing activities in my county, at any rate, and I assume in regard to every other county, any work that was done was carried out under the direction of a Fianna Fáil Government. Every housing scheme in the County of Longford stands to our credit.

It has been suggested that we increased the rate in respect of borrowing in aid of housing. I remember back in 1931 if the Longford Urban Council or any other council wanted a loan from the Cumann na nGaedheal Government, they paid 6¼ per cent. for it and very often they were refused it. Therefore, it is not the first time in the history of this country that the moneys borrowed under the Small Dwellings (Acquisition) Act, were borrowed at 5 per cent., 6 per cent., or 6¼ per cent.

The Minister for Finance has given a very accurate account of the position regarding the finances of the State when he took over. It is very easy for Fine Gael, I suppose, being the strongest Party in the Opposition, to say that we removed the food subsidies.We did, because we had to. The inter-Party Government left us with many commitments to honour. We cannot do as they did in May, 1951. We cannot dissolve the House and run away from the demands of the Civil Service. We cannot send out letters to them three or four days before the election and say: "We will grant you your request but we are not going to honour it. We will let some other Government do that."

If the Opposition suggest that we put back subsidies on the previous scale, are they prepared to say what should be taxed? Where are we going to find the £10,000,000 that will be necessary to pay those subsidies? I have not heard from Deputy Morrissey a single sentence as to where this money is to be found. He blamed Deputy Cowan for not speaking to the Vote on Account but, similarly, I can say that Deputy Morrissey did not refer to the Vote on Account during his speech.

As far as I can see Fine Gael want to create an air of unreality. They accused us of cutting down on the grants for various works, forestry, lands, schemes connected with Bord na Móna and various other activities which Fianna Fáil started and maintain. We do not claim any special credit for housing or for works of a capital nature in this country but we do say that we have been honest with the people and that we have kept, if you like, trust with them. We told them at every stage where the difficulties lay and we did not seek to surround the financial situation with mist as the former Government did.

It has been said that the price of butter has been increased and it has been suggested that there was some way by which the Government could give an increased price for milk to the farmers and at the same time keep the price of butter below 4/- per lb.—at 3/9 or 3/10 per lb. It is apparent that that charge is unfounded. Any Deputy who argues against increasing the price of butter is arguing against the increased wage that was granted to the agricultural workers some time ago. In any industry, whether it be agriculture or any other form of industry, if youdo not take costings into account, you are bound to get into trouble. There was no way that I could see by which the price of butter could be kept down except perhaps by subsidising it, and the system of subsidisation has been tried and found wanting. People found that they were paying more in taxes than they received as benefits through subsidies.

With regard to employment, Fianna Fáil has been accused of adopting the policy of the Central Bank, of restricting credit and of cutting down on housing. To rebut that, we have only to look at the total number of houses built in each of the last two or three years. For the year 1950, the total number of houses built was 12,048, for 1951, 12,135 and for 1952, 13,018. That, to my mind, does not denote any falling off in the rate of house building. We cannot be accused, therefore, of slowing down the rate of housing. There must inevitably be, at some stage, a falling-off in housing activities because, like an army, if you advance in any given sector and do not wait some time to consolidate your ground now and again, you cannot keep advancing indefinitely.

Having regard to the extent of the public purse and the amount of money in it, I think the Government devoted a fair amount of money towards that activity. The number of grant houses completed by private persons and public utility societies was 4,867 in 1951 and the figure rose to 6,080 in 1952. The number of houses reconstructed with State aid was 1,963 in 1951 and 2,647 in 1952. That again does not denote any falling off in housing activity. Taking hospital construction, the erection of new hospitals has been speeded up as the following figures will show. Expenditure on the construction of hospitals in 1951-52 was £3,581,000 and in 1952-53 was £4,250,000. There again we cannot be accused of paring down on hospitalisation.

Turning to the industrial side, if Deputies want to talk about Bord na Móna and the activities of the E.S.B., they will observe that the total production of turf by Bord na Móna in1950 amounted to 214,528 tons and the figure rose to 700,000 tons in 1952. With regard to the production of electricity, notwithstanding the shortage of materials and higher costs, the total number of consumers connected in 1949-50 amounted to 13,686 while in 1951 the number had reached 15,803 and in 1951-52, 18,067. As well as that the Government encouraged the erection of stations for the generation of electricity at Bangor-Erris, at Lanesboro', at Arigna and on the Clady River in Donegal. I therefore reject the charge that we cut down on the capital side of the programme.

Turning to forestry, the numbers employed in the Forestry Department at the end of January, 1950 were 2,346, in 1951, 2,786 and in 1952 3,612. Taking the acreage, the acreage in 1950 was 7,610 and that had increased in 1952 to 15,000 acres.

I indicated before that the acreage of forestry was not relevant in this debate, as it was a matter for the main Estimate. I do not mind the Deputy giving the numbers employed but the acreage is not relevant.

Does the Deputy not know that the Estimate for forestry has been cut down?

We have been accused of cutting down on the capital side of the programme and I was merely trying to answer that accusation.

I am not preventing the Deputy making a statement with regard to the amount of capital or the amount of employment involved but details as to the acreage are surely more relevant to the main Estimate.

If the Fianna Fáil Government are making an effort to promote the capital side of the programme and to maintain employment as far as possible—as they are—then I cannot see where the charge of cutting down on capital services comes in. I cannot see how it is going to be sustained. It is well known that, in the past year or so, business has slowed up in everycountry in the world. Surely it will be admitted that world events can have a very great impact on our economy. The price of raw materials has increased. Transport charges have increased. Labour costs have increased. These three items, in themselves, create a very difficult situation for any Government. Having regard to those obstacles, I think that this Government have done a reasonable job of work in even keeping employment at the point to which it has been kept and in keeping the capital services moving.

Some months ago I asked the Minister for Local Government to give me particulars as to housing costs. I was told that a house in a rural area in 1939, either serviced or unserviced, cost £370. In 1948 the same house cost £968. In 1949 it cost £1,000 and in 1951 it cost £1,500. Now let us examine the figures in respect of an urban area. In 1939 the cost of a house in an urban area, either serviced or unserviced, was £408. In 1947 it cost £966. In 1948 it cost between £1,000 and £1,300. Between 1949 and 1951 the price ranged from £1,100 to £1,500.

I take it that that is not an ordinary working man's house.

These are figures in respect of an ordinary house?

I take it that they are not for a labourer's cottage?

You could build a cottage in 1939 for £370 or less.

You will build it to-day for £900. That is the cost in County Wexford.

Deputy O'Leary must stop interrupting.

He is only looking for information.

Deputy O'Leary is interrupting and is, therefore, disorderly.

I further inquired what proportion of the cost was borne by the State, the ratepayer and the tenant. I was given the following figures. I was told that the State contributed 46.2 percent.; that the ratepayer contributed 14.2 per cent., and that the tenant contributed 39.4 per cent. It will be seen, therefore, that when you talk about encouraging the building of houses, it takes money to build them. You must have the money and you must be prepared for a long-term plan.

Before I conclude, I want to say that I reject the charge made by Deputy Morrissey and other Fine Gael Deputies that Fianna Fáil are out to create a pool of unemployment, that they are out to restrict credit or to injure trade or industry in any way. Surely a Government with the record of service from 1932 onwards which Fianna Fáil have, and who succeeded in establishing most of the major schemes in this country, would not, at this stage, restrict the one or the other. I have not heard from any Deputy on the Opposition Benches a plan or a suggestion or a potential scheme by which they would better our methods. I am quite satisfied that if the Fine Gael Party could come into this House and say: "We will restore the food subsidies, we will decrease taxation, we will re-employ 60,000 of the 80,000 persons now unemployed," they would carry the country before them—but they cannot do it. That is the rub.

You guaranteed them full employment.

I think we did not guarantee full employment but we guaranteed that we would do our best.

Your best is very bad.

In all the circumstances, I think we have done our best.

The difficulty is that this Government is suffering from confused financial thought. That is reflected in the speeches of the various Fianna Fáil Deputies who have spoken in this debate and in the various policies which the Government have followed in the course of the past 20 months.

Deputy Carter concluded his speech with a plea to the Opposition to provide some plan. On the face of it, that seems quite a reasonable request but, in actual fact, it is not. In thefirst place, the Government have at their disposal information and figures which no Opposition Deputy has. Not even the leaders of the Opposition Parties have these facts and figures at their disposal to enable them to put a cut and dried policy before the Government. That, in effect, is what Deputy Carter's and, indeed, other Deputies' plea has been. In the second place, the present Government, by the extraordinary policy which they inaugurated when they introduced the Budget last year, took the lid off the jar which contained the demon. You all remember the old Eastern fable in which the demon was kept in the jar. If it got out of the jar all sorts of terrible things would happen to the world. That was the fable—but there was a moral in it.

I am afraid the Fianna Fáil Government have let out of the jar the demons of a higher cost of living, increased taxation, increased unemployment and a more stringent financial policy coupled with the restriction of credit. The emergence of all these factors at the one time has brought about a situation in this country which, unfortunately, it will be very difficult for any subsequent Government to control. Certainly, it renders it impossible for any Deputy to put forward what appears to be a clear cut policy to deal with the situation. If we are returned to power as a Government, we propose to deal with that situation in certain ways which, we believe, will have a beneficial effect on the country.

I have said that the Government is suffering from confused financial thinking. I propose, in support of that, to quote two utterances by two different Ministers. The Minister for Industry and Commerce says that: "All economic progress is the result of a gradual inflationary trend." He believes that gradual inflation is necessary for economic progress. I must say that I am inclined to agree with him. The Minister for Finance on the other hand says that it is necesary to curb inflation and reduce taxation, and by these two methods to bring about a financial and economic situation which, he thinks,will benefit the country. There you have one Minister saying that gradual inflation is the secret of economic progress, while another Minister says that inflation must be curbed. When you have two principal Ministers in the Government holding these disparate views and putting them forward in public, how on earth can the financial policy of the country proceed in a smooth way or how can the ship of State keep an even keel?

Deputy Carter gave figures of the number of houses built in 1951 and 1952, but did not indicate the type of house he was referring to. I am sure the figures he gave are quite correct. They indicate an increase. What he did not give was the number of houses, the building of which commenced in 1952. At the moment there is widespread unemployment in all branches of the building industry. That is borne out by the industrial analysis of the live register which reached every Deputy by post this morning. It shows that on building, contracting and works of construction, there are at the moment 22,000 unemployed, representing an increase of 4,444 over the figures for February, 1952. These figures show that a large number of men are not in employment in that trade—one which was cited to us as giving continuous employment. How can those figures be reconciled with the statement made by Deputy Carter? I am sure the figures he gave were quoted honestly. The point about them is that the building of the houses had not been commenced in 1952. We know that it usually takes a couple of months to complete a house. I ask Deputies to be very wary, and not to trust figures put forward to prove that employment is as high at present as it was 12 months ago.

The Minister for Posts and Telegraphs spoke in this debate last week. In the course of his speech, he said that at the moment the Government were carrying out increased public works and that the Fianna Fáil Government, in fact, had not cut down on public works of any sort. Despite the Minister's statement, we have the industrial analysis of the live registerwhich has a heading: "Construction and maintenance of roads, bridges, railways, tramways, etc.", where it is pointed out that, at the moment, there are 12,000 unemployed representing an increase of practically 2,000 over last year. I am sure the Minister made his statement in all good faith, and that he wanted to prove that building was going on just as merrily this year as in the time of the inter-Party Government. The figures on the live register seem to belie that.

The Minister also said that we were quite wrong, in fact that we were dishonest, when we blamed the Government for emigration. He said that this country always had an emigration problem which no Government had ever been able to solve. That, of course, is partly true. It is rather hard on those who sit on this side of the House to have to listen to a statement like that from a member of the Government, particularly when we remember the Fianna Fáil Party saying that it would be necessary to build extra ships to bring back those who had emigrated, because there would be so much work for them to do in this country. Fianna Fáil were to create so much work that it would be necessary to do that. Of course, everyone realised at the time that that was an absurd statement to make. It shows how the pendulum has swung. We have now a responsible member of the Cabinet pleading that it is not fair to blame this Government for emigration —that it is a problem which has always confronted the country. Admittedly, we always have had emigration but was it not dishonest, years ago, to keep talking about emigration as being something which that particular Party would rectify when they got into power?

Perhaps, as a result of that attitude of the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs, we may see emigration being treated as something which is outside and above Party politics. The contribution to the alleviation of emigration made by the present Government has not been very great, considering that there are now upwards of 90,000 persons unemployed in this country.

Deputy Briscoe made a long speechin this debate. He referred to the shortage of skilled labour. He denied that there was a shortage four years ago. As a member of the Housing Council established by the late Minister for Local Government, Mr. Murphy, as part of the housing drive which he inaugurated and for which he did such very great work, I can remember very clearly the problem of getting sufficient plasterers, carpenters, plumbers and many other skilled tradesmen to carry out work for the Dublin Corporation. At that time, very stringent building regulations were introduced so that there would be sufficient skilled tradesmen for work on corporation houses and so that they would not be drawn into the pool of workers available for private builders who, in many cases, were prepared to pay a higher price for a workman. That was felt to be against the public interest. It is absurd, therefore, to say that the inter-Party Government had not a problem of labour shortage. That statement has been made in this House.

Deputy Cowan made a long speech this evening. He talked about the two schools of thought. I have shown that there are two diametrically opposite schools of thought in the Government. Until the Government Party make up their minds on that question, a financial policy which can lead to better conditions will not be introduced.

Deputy Cowan referred to Deputy Dillon and misquoted Deputy Dillon's statement in connection with Newfoundland. Deputy Dillon was making the case that Newfoundland lost its liberty because the Government of that country had so neglected their chief industry, fishing, that Newfoundland was in great financial danger and ceased to be free. Deputy Dillon made the case that this Government had so mishandled our financial and agricultural economy that we were in danger of being put in the same position. That was his case. Deputy Cowan misquoted him and tried to make out that Deputy Dillon in some way was almost in favour of this country losing its independence. That, of course, was quite absurd. Deputy Dillon was making the clear case that we were liable to be brought to the same sorrypass as Newfoundland was brought to owing to the way in which the Government is handling our economic and financial affairs.

In connection with the Civil Service and the arbitration award, we on this side of the House and I, personally, think that as the Government had so altered the economic situation by allowing the cost of living to increase it is only common justice to implement the award made by the Civil Service Arbitration Board. That is my own personal opinion and it is the opinion of the Fine Gael Party. We think the Government should have honoured that award. Not having kept the cost of living down they must give justice to the people who suffer as a result of that.

The Minister for Lands, in the course of a speech in this debate, referred to the £30,000,000 drop in imports of which he said £15,000,000 were consumer goods, the balance being goods of various other sorts. I am a businessman, I am not an economist; but as far as one can bring common sense to bear on economic matters and on matters like imports and exports, I think we are suffering very much because of the drop in our imports. That may suit for financial reasons, but I consider that it certainly has had a most disastrous effect on our economy.

As I look at it as a businessman, this country does a certain amount of trade in exports and imports. Of course there are invisible exports and invisible imports also. But we have dropped £32,000,000 in our turn-over and that means that £32,000,000 less of goods of various sorts came into this country in 1952. That is one of the reasons why our unemployment figures have jumped up. We made money by selling those goods, if they were consumer goods, and we gave employment to shop assistants of various sorts. In fact, men and women got employment in handling those goods, from the dockers and railway men at the ports to the shop assistant, who handed them across the counter. People got employment through theimport of consumer goods and they got still more employment as a result of the raw materials which came in. That is one of the reasons why our unemployment figures are up by 20,000 over last year. If we have a drop of £32,000,000 in our imports, we are bound to pay for it by increased unemployment, and I do not think that the financial benefit which was gained justified the human suffering which was brought about by that policy.

It is that question of policy which is the vital one in connection with this Vote on Account. The Government have inaugurated a financial system which has meant restriction of credit and financial stringency. That has inevitably resulted in less business being done in the country and less business possible to be done, because there is not the necessary financial accommodation to carry it out. That has had its inevitable result in the unemployment which we have at the present moment and the reduction in trade generally. This country finds itself at the present moment with increased unemployment, a higher cost-of-living, a higher level of taxation, and restriction of credit. Trade has decreased, and business has fallen off. It has been stated that the yield from the spirits, beer and tobacco duties has fallen. Certainly property values have fallen. It is not now possible to sell properties at the prices they realised a couple of years ago, even 12 months ago. Properties are harder to sell.

Another sign of the difficulties through which we are passing at present is the various drapers' sales which have been held at the most unusal times of the year. Drapers are people who follow the purchasing power of the community very closely and carry stocks which go out of fashion and lose their value very quickly. One of the signs, therefore, of difficult times is the increased number of drapers' sales. We have seen any number of these taking place in Dublin and in the other cities and towns of the country, heralded by large notices such as "Drastic Reductions". As individuals we may feel rather glad of this opportunity to buy something cheaply, but the drapers do not hand out thingsunless they have to and it is a sign that everything is not well in the community when these sales take place.

The Government have put forward a certain plea and will put it forward again. I am sure other Ministers who are still to speak will follow the same lines as the previous speakers who have stated that it is not the Government's fault entirely, that of course there have been financial difficulties in other countries, there have been restrictions of credit, there have been trade difficulties, and that we are suffering now from the difficulties consequent on the Korean War and the buying in of stocks by various belligerents. That is of course partly true. It is true that the Government are not entirely to blame and I would be very sorry to blame them for anything which I did not honestly consider to be their fault, but I do honestly consider that the financial policy which the Government inaugurated has had a most severe effect on the people. To my mind, the tragedy is that it was unnecessary.

I know that there is a school of thought which thinks that it was absolutely necessary, but I believe that men and women have suffered because that conservative school of thought considered that the Government should go on the lines on which they are going at present. I, and many other people like me who are conservative at heart in many ways, consider that we have been sacrificed here for an unnecessary financial and economic policy.

I want to say a few words on the question of the Estimates Committee that Deputy Sheldon proposes. I am very glad to see the Government taking up that question but I cannot help thinking that is has been taken up partly because it is a very convenient smokescreen in the present financial difficulties confronting the Government. I would have liked the Minister to discuss it somewhat more widely than he did. I would have liked to have heard it discussed by some members of his Party. In fact it has not received any real discussion at all.

The idea is that this Committee willconsist of 17 members—I may be wrong in that—but I think 17 members would be a very large Committee. I am a little bit nervous in connection with certain aspects of it. Such a Committee has been used very effectively in other countries, notably in the British House of Commons. I do not hold that because something works well in another Parliament it will necessarily work well here. The House of Commons has 620 members. We have 147 and out of that 147 the Government has to find its Ministers and its Parliamentary Secretaries. Presumably those who are more talented—I do not say that this holds good entirely—are selected for ministerial and other posts. The same applies to the Opposition. There are a number of Deputies actively engaged in the business of the House. I think it would be very difficult to get 17 members, qualified and competent to do the work, who will be able to give the time and the necessary interest to the financial matters with which it is suggested this Committee should deal. The work will be extremely difficult. Members who take up the work will find they will have very little time to spend here in the House at certain times of the year. Indeed they may well find they will have very little time to spend in their constituencies.

Other Parliaments have three, four and five times the number we have here and through sheer weight of numbers they may find that a certain method suits them. It may not, however, suit us. I do not intend to crab this Committee. I think it is an excellent idea and I would like it to get serious consideration. Discussing it with the Vote on Account is somewhat unfortunate because it is being discussed in a political atmosphere and at a time when financial business is very important. It is not, therefore, getting the attention it deserves in the way of discussion. Possibly other front bench members of the Government will discuss it later and give it the attention and consideration it deserves.

I think the Government has failed grievously in its conduct of the affairs of the nation. We have a highlyincreased cost of living; it is up by 23 per cent. We have unemployment at the rate of 88,000 and the figures are still rising. We have increased emigration. We have increased financial stringency. We have what business people call tightness of money. It is difficult to collect accounts. These are facts. Every man who has a shop or a business knows they are facts irrespective of his political opinions. The Government has failed in its policy. It has let the jinn or the demon out of the bottle—higher living costs, unemployment, increased emigration and financial stringency. It will be very difficult for any Government to put the demon back into the bottle again. The Government should either inaugurate a policy capable of dealing seriously with unemployment, with financial stringency and the high cost of living or resign and let the country decide who is best qualified to deal with these very pressing and tragic problems.

So far as I have been able to follow this debate, the Opposition has been labouring very hard to sustain the myth or the pretence created about this time last year that all the ills from which it can be said we suffer are attributable to the financial policy of the Government, while the Opposition holds a magic policy which, if adopted, would change the whole course of things. I have been trying to discover what this magic policy is and in what respect our policy differs from it. Let us start with the policy of the Government. It is a simple policy and one aimed at balancing current expenditure and current revenue. Do the Opposition agree with that, or do they hold that the current housekeeping expenses should be met by Government borrowing or by the realisation of Government assets? I find it very hard to induce them to answer that question in a straightforward manner. We do stand by it. Do they?

The next matter is in relation to capital investment. We believe it is permissible to use present assets, sterling or other, provided they can be used productively—that is, thatthey can be used in such a way that their produce under the new set of circumstances will be at least equivalent to that of the old. As far as our international trade and the balance of payments are concerned, we are aiming at balancing—that is, paying for our imports, visible and invisible, by our exports, visible and invisible, except to such extent that the balance represents a realisation of assets, in the manner I have indicated, for the community as a whole.

I have stated in general terms what we have been aiming at and I have asked whether the Opposition have different aims. The first question I have asked—and I repeat it—is: Do they believe in balancing current expenditure by current revenue? If they do, and if they go back to the position with which the Minister for Finance was faced in connection with the last Budget, they will find that there was a deficit of £15,000,000 which had to be met. Estimated expenditure exceeded estimated revenue by £15,000,000. What were they going to do about the £15,000,000? Were they going to reduce expenditure by that amount or increase revenue— which could only be got by taxation— by that amount, or were they going to try to do both—that is, on the one hand to try to reduce expenditure and, on the other hand, to increase revenue?

One of those courses had to be adopted but the Opposition did not want to face any of them. It was much more convenient for the Opposition to pretend there was no deficit, to pretend that the gap which was still left when we had reduced expenditure through the reduction of food subsidies —and to meet which we tried to get the necessary taxation—did not exist. They produced bogus arguments and figures here which, almost as soon as they were uttered, were demolished. Nevertheless it was a useful line on which to proceed. It could only be finally proved false when we came to the end of the year. Of course, they still stuck to these myths that we were looking for a revenue of £10,000,000 beyond what we required. We weretold that the Estimates of expenditure were written up; that they contained many items on which there would be a saving; that we were budgeting, in fact, for a surplus, so that when we came along to the next Budget we might be able to talk about the relief from taxation which we would bring to the community.

At the time when they were made, those suggestions were absurd, so absurd indeed that I found it very hard to believe that any person with any ordinary feeling of respect for argument would try to sustain them or bring them forward. They kept it up, however, and we have had an echo of it in some of the statements made even here in this debate. We were imposing unnecessary and unjust taxation—as if any democratic Government was likely to impose unnecessary taxation. As I pointed out last year, all the temptations were in the opposite direction. The temptation to democratic Governments is not to impose unnecessary taxation. The temptation is not to meet your current commitments by imposing the taxation necessary to provide the revenue.

The Opposition must think there are a lot of very foolish people in this country who can be misled by arguments of that sort. They think that when they indulge in their sophistries and get into what are commonly called the realms of high finance, the people can be fooled. The people are not so easily fooled. There is nobody in the country who will believe for one moment that any Government is likely to impose unnecessary or unjust taxation. It is a very hard thing for any Government to impose the taxation which is necessary in order to meet the commitments of the State. The position is that we found this £15,000,000 deficit and we had to make up our minds to meet it.

We are now coming close to the end of the financial year. Where is the surplus of millions of pounds at which we were supposed to be aiming? As far as can be judged at this stage, we are not even going to balance. The steps we have taken were not merely not more than enough; theyhave not been sufficient to meet the needs. The indication at the moment is that we will have a deficit.

What about all the saving through overestimation in the various items that were referred to last year? We pointed out that the experience of the previous years had shown that any such saving would be more than eaten up by the Supplementary Estimates that were almost certain to be introduced. There again our forecast has been proved right, to the extent that these supplementaries had to be introduced, and that over and above contingencies or forecasts for which provision was made, there were certain items for which provision could not have been made and which could only have been met by the savings that might accrue on various other items. At any rate, this myth of £10,000,000 unnecessary taxation has been blown to the winds as we knew it would be, as any intelligent person knew it would be, by the events of the year.

It is all book-keeping, we are told. I wonder is the suggestion that we should not keep accounts and that we should ignore what these accounts reveal to us? Are we to get into the position of the businessman who does not keep accounts? We often find fault with farmers for not keeping accounts and for keeping cattle that would be a source of loss to them because they did not pay for their keep. Are we to resort to that? When I was away recently, I heard a story on the radio, of a pioneer of the railway business, a man in England—I forget his name at the moment. He did a good deal of enterprising work in starting the English railways, particularly in Yorkshire. He prided himself that he did not keep accounts. According to the story to which I listened—I had never heard of it anywhere else—he did marvellously well for a time but then came the inevitable crash. Is that what the Opposition want to happen here—that we should not keep accounts, that we should go on in the blind assurance that everything is all right and then just wait for the crash?

I do not think any reasonable personwould maintain that. If, then, we get accounts, if we get an expert staff to keep these accounts, if our experts are experts in accountancy and in administering the affairs of the State, if they come along with a considered and impartial judgment—the servants of the State have not to bear any of the responsibilities that the Government have to bear; their sole responsibility is to present the truth as they see it to the Government—and if the Revenue Commisioners, in their forecast, and the officers of the Department of Finance present the Government with their considered statement of affairs as they find them, surely we ought to regard these accounts as worthy of credence.

I am not going to pretend that mistakes cannot take place, or that the most experienced person in estimating revenue or the total amount of expenditure in a particular Department or section may not make a mistake, but we surely should be able in that case to point out these mistakes and to ask an explanation of them. If there is an explanation, surely it should satisfy us and we should not put against it merely the statement, "I think differently," without any basis whatever. We have had in this debate, as we had in the debate on the Budget and the Vote on Account last year, a whole set of unsupported statements and assertions, unsupported by any tittle of fact. That is not the way in which business can be carried on. The person who would rely on unsupported statements like those for settling his policy, turning away from the position as revealed by careful accounts, would be just a fool.

So far as the current Budget is concerned, the position is that all the taxation and the reduction in expenditure were necessary in order to balance current expenditure with current revenue. Do the Opposition say we should borrow for that? I wish that that question were answered. Do they advocate in these circumstances deficit budgeting—that is, deliberately refraining from meeting current expenditure by current revenue? If that is the policy, I should like to hear about it.

For what purpose is deficit financing resorted to? We have heard a gooddeal of the dual Budget they proposed. They have not proposed anything of the kind, as far as I can see. What the Opposition did was to segregate in the Book of Estimates items of a capital character, or that they regarded a a capital character, from those which they regarded as of a non-capital character. They separated the items of a capital character which were to be voted year by year, as opposed to what are called below-the-line items which are authorised by various statutes. The Book of Estimates when they were in office gave us a total exactly in the same way as we have the total now.

It is true that in the Book of Estimates there were notes indicating that certain items were regarded as capital items. As for this segregation—I do not know that my colleague the Minister for Finance would quite agree with me—it is a mere presentation of the Estimates. I would not object to the segregation personally. There would be something to be said for the segregation provided we were all of one mind and that we all really agreed as to what were items of capital expenditure. If there could be agreement as to the items that could be regarded as of a capital character, then the segregation of these could be agreed to. The trouble is that when you have from year to year new items, there will be a difference of opinion and the Minister for Finance has to make up his mind as to whether certain items of expenditure are of a capital nature or not. All that was done by the previous Government, after all this talk about a dual Budget, was the segregation of the items in the book that were of a capital nature from the others. That segregation had always been done at Budget time because the Minister for Finance at Budget time indicated what items of expenditure he regarded as being of a capital character.

I am asked what was the purpose of this deficit budgeting. As I take it, the purpose is to put more purchasing power in the hands of the community. But remember that when you do that you necessarily deflate the buying value of the past savings and the current savings of individuals. As a matter of fact, there has been deficit budgeting in that sense because wehave not met our capital expenditure from savings. It is suggested that, by extra taxation, we have taken up purchasing power from the community. The fact is that money is being given back to the community as well. There has not been the diminution, by that taxation, of the total purchasing power of the community that has been suggested by the Opposition. The money has largely gone back again to the community. There has to a large extent been a redistribution of it. It will be seen, therefore, that the total purchasing power of the community has not been diminished to the extent of the extra taxation. There has been deficit budgeting. Take, for instance, capital expenditure. That capital expenditure has not been met by current savings. To a considerable extent, it has had to be met by the realisation of assets. The moment you realise assets and give that fresh purchasing power to the community, you do, in effect, what anybody who advocates deficit budgeting desires.

My first question to the Opposition, then, is: "Do you stand for balancing current expenditure by current revenue?" Next, they suggest that we, on our part, are against expenditure on capital investment. Nothing of the kind. We have been doing it for years. Before the Coalition Government took office we had for years been investing capital in various enterprises. The greater part of the total capital Budget is made up of the items classed as below-the-line issues. Last year the total anticipated capital expenditure was about £34,000,000. Of that, the ratio between voted capital items and below-the-line issue is roughly 9 to 25—£9,000,000 of the voted capital to £25,000,000 of the other, roughly. That shows the order of magnitude of the voted capital items to the below-the-line items. There has been no diminution of capital investment since we resumed office.

On the contrary, there has been an increase. My recollection is that in the year 1950-51 provision was made by the Coalition Government for the expenditure of £32,000,000 on capitalinvestment. They spent £22,000,000— £10,000,000 less. The next year they provided a sum of £29,000,000. We had the spending of it. The total amount that was spent was £32,000,000 and, as I have already pointed out, £34,000,000 was provided last year for capital purposes. Where is the reduction of capital expenditure there? At no time have we invested less than the Coalition Government. The pretence all the time is that somehow or other we have cut down capital expenditure. These are the two main divisions of the expenditure—current expenditure and capital expenditure. The difference between us is that we know that our capacity for prudent capital investment, as the Leader of the Opposition put it, is limited and that we have to be very careful indeed—much more careful, as has been made evident, than the Coalition Government were while they were in office.

When we look at the balance of international payments, we see at once that not more than one-half of the increase in the realisation of external assets was accompanied by a corresponding increase by way of capital investment. The rest of it, therefore, was used for consumption purposes and did not represent any capital investment. We have heard the Opposition talk about the "prudent realisation of our sterling assets." We do not regard it as a prudent realisation of our sterling assets if only one-half of the amounts realised are going to be used as capital investment. Then, if you take even that half and consider it, you will find that the proportion of expenditure which is nonproductive from a financial point of view but which is, of course, valuable from other points of view, is high; you will find that the proportion of what I might call expenditure of an economically productive nature is much too small. Therefore, we would say, and we are now trying to aim at it, that if we are to have a realisation of our sterling assets we must see that a higher proportion represents capital investment and a still higher proportion than in the past represents assets of a productive character.

The balance of payments statementhas been criticised. As far as I can find out, the Opposition are now trying to slide into the position of suggesting that the realisation of external assets was brought about by deliberate action on their part. There is no evidence that it was brought about by deliberate action on their part. The deliberate action was supposed to represent controlled and prudent realisation of these assets. There is nothing to suggest that it was either controlled or prudent. In fact, one of the desiderataof the present situation is that there should be a scheme in which there will be a controlled and prudent realisation of these assets.

Our complaint against the Opposition is that, when they were in office, the realisation was absolutely haphazard. There was no control, and of course, having no control, there could be no prudence shown in the matter. The £61.6 million was the deficit that we had to consider as having taken place in the year 1951. It was so great that if it were to continue for two or three years we would thereby have exhausted our net sterling reserves. That was the situation that we had to face and that the Minister for Finance in particular had to face. He faced it by taking the measures which, in the circumstances, he thought would result in a considerable diminution. If outside events helped us, we would do better than he set out to do, but if outside events, being beyond his control, were such as to move in the opposite direction, then his forecast would not be realised. But now, seeing that the situation has been changed and drastically changed, the £61.6 million seems to be taken as a matter of no consequence by the Opposition. That was not their attitude when they were in office and had responsibility themselves. When there was a question of only half that amount, of only £30,000,000, it was "alarming": it was a situation that was a cause for "the utmost concern". If that was so when it was only £30,000,000, surely it should be very much more so when the amount was double that and had come after this "alarming" £30,000,000 had been realised.

I think that there can be no real sincerity about arguments of that sort. It was "alarming" at £30,000,000. It was doubly alarming when it became £61.6 million because, as I have said, if that balance were continued for a few years, our net reserves, which gave us the position of being a creditor nation as against the unfortunate position of being a debtor nation, would have been exhausted.

What, then, is the point of difference: what is it that the Opposition have to say with regard to this whole matter? It is easy to talk of various things such as financial stringency and loss of purchasing power. All these things can be easily talked about by people who have not the responsibility of dealing with the situation of which they are the consequence. There has been a world trend. Deputy Dockrell rightly said that this Government were likely to point that out. Of course, we pointed it out. We cannot isolate ourselves in this country. We are not sufficiently large to do so. Even the largest countries do not seem to be able to isolate themselves from certain recurring slumps and booms or from changes that take place through conditions such as those which followed immediately the outbreak of the Korean war.

The Korean war suggested the likelihood of another World War. There was tremendous buying of things that were necessary to meet that at very high prices. Prices went up as the need grew or seemed to grow. That created a situation which had to redress itself, once it appeared that this immediate danger of a new World War was not being realised. The rectifying of that situation, the change from boom buying to that of having stocks which were bought at high prices and the disposal of them to unwilling buyers, was not easy. The buyers saw, as well as those who had built up the stocks, that the situation was not going to be exactly as it had been, and that prices were likely to come down. The result was that they withheld buying and it was that which brought about the general recession in trade as it is called.

We are suffering from that becausewe cannot isolate ourselves. Because these things happen, the Opposition want to force all that as a necessary consequence on what they call a financial policy as if there was anything new or strange about the financial policy of the Government. It certainly is nothing new or different from the policy that was advocated by the Opposition as far as they addressed themselves at all to arguments on the matter.

This year, as I have said, we are likely to end with a Budget that has not been balanced on current account, and certainly with a Budget that will not have been balanced on capital account, because although we did get a substantial loan from savings, it had to be added to considerably to meet capital expenditure. Therefore, more money was put into circulation— injected, so to speak, into the community.

What is the prospect for the coming year? I do not want to anticipate the budgetary statement by going into details. From the best information I have been able to get, it would look as if our expenditure on the Central Fund services is certain to go up by some £2,000,000. That is mainly due to debt charges. Some people think that they can borrow indefinitely, that they can borrow with no immediate consequences. Borrowing has consequences very soon afterwards, because the debt charges, the sinking fund and interest charges, have to be met. As I have said, the Central Fund services, due mainly to an increase in the debt charges, will be £2,000,000 more than last year.

As regards the Supply Services on the non-capital side, I want to stress again that no item that was regarded as a capital item by the Opposition when they were in office was treated by us as one to be met from current revenue. That was so as regards capital items that were held by them to be capital items, even though we did not agree that they were so. One of the reasons for doing that was that we wanted to make clear what the position was. We did not want to give an opportunity to people to misrepresentus. A second reason was that in the general situation we were not anxious to put on more taxation than was absolutely and incontrovertibly necessary.

The Central Fund services, as I say, are going up by £2,000,000. Substracting in this Book of Estimates not merely the £9? million on items that correspond to the items which the Opposition, when a Government, regarded as capital, but also other items of capital expenditure such as have been mentioned, there still remains a sum to be met in excess of the amount that is being expended this year on current items. Whatever that excess may be, it must be added to the £2,000,000 which I have indicated is likely to arise from the increased charges on the Central Fund services. That is, on the expenditure side, an increase of over £2,000,000; some would put the total at nearly £4,000,000, but at any rate, we will know fairly definitely when the end of the month comes. The present indications are of the order I have mentioned.

We shall have, then, an increase in expenditure next year. Can we look for an increase in revenue? The present rates of taxation have not given us the yields that we anticipated last year. When we were looking forward last year we expected that there would be a certain yield from taxation. The yield was estimated by the officers who have long experience of these things and their best estimate has been proved to be over the mark. We certainly will not have, therefore, at present rates of taxation, the revenue which will meet this increased expenditure. On the non-tax side there may be some increase of revenue that could be used to a certain extent as a set off but, looking forward, we do not see that, on the existing rates of taxation, revenue will meet expenditure.

The Minister for Finance is again faced with a difficult problem— fortunately, the problem as far as I can see, is not of the magnitude that it was last year—in making current revenue meet current expenditure. It will be a problem because we believe that taxation generally is as high as the community can afford, as high as it is wise,in the general interests of the community and even in the interests of the Exchequer, to push it. I do not want to say that we have absolutely reached the limit of taxation but we have reached a point at which every step forward must be watched with the greatest possible care.

Have we any possible reductions in these services that we can point to? The Opposition tell us that they will avoid all waste. That is a grand, easy way of talking—avoid waste. Let us see any items where there is waste. If waste can be discovered, certainly, it should ruthlessly be cut out. But it is not there that any really significant reduction can be made. If a reduction in expenditure is to be achieved, it must it seems to me, be a reduction in services.

Are we prepared to face such reduction of services? Will the Opposition stand in on that? That is not their record. I am not saying that Oppositions as a rule do it. I do not want to pretend that the present Opposition is very different from most Oppositions in that respect because the characteristic of Oppositions generally is that they want to achieve popularity by voting for the things which appear to give service to the community but they very rigorously oppose the voting of moneys that are necessary to finance them. That is characteristic of Oppositions and the present Opposition certainly, to say the least of it, is not an exception to the rule.

Look at the record. Will they point out to us any place where they have opposed services because we cannot afford them or because of the money that is necessary to meet them? I have not seen any evidence of that. Again, I am talking in general; I am not suggesting that the present Opposition is any worse than other Oppositions would be but the fact is that the Government, no matter what Government is in office, has to bear the full responsibility, the full unpopularity, of trying to raise the money to meet the services. They are fine fellows, both with the Opposition and with such people abroad as do not think of the day ofreckoning, as long as they are voting services but the moment they try to meet the cost of those services by securing through taxation generally the revenue that is necessary to meet the bill, then, of course, every ill that can be imagined is due to them.

We have no evidence that we will be supported in any measure that might be taken to reduce expenditure. We have our experience of last year. Last year, to reduce expenditure, we reduced the amount of the food subsidies. From the social point of view, it was the best point to deal with. They were originally put on for the purpose of tiding the State over a special situation which we expected would not last for any length of time and which would be non-recurrent. We were then the Government and when we introduced the subsidies we had the full blast of the Opposition, as it is to-day, bearing down upon us. These things which were regarded as so precious last year were scoffed at as being make-believe for the community in 1947. Now that we are carrying out our original view we are met with all the opposition possible and the suggestion that everything that has happened in this country in the last year has been the result of the reduction of the food subsidies.

We tried to find out what were the views of the Opposition with regard to subsidies. They were very coy about stating their attitude towards them. They are accusing us of doing things for the purpose of securing votes. I think I could with truth say that their change of attitude in regard to the subsidies was mainly due to the desire to capture votes, because most of the responsible people on the Front Bench had already given evidence that they regarded subsidies as an undesirable form of social service. Unlimited expenditure without tears—that is their policy. There can be no such thing.

If we are to have these social services we must find the money to meet them, and the question always to be decided is whether the services are worth the money spent upon them. If they are, if, generally, they make for the well-being of the community, then they are right and proper. If they donot make for the well-being of the community, if they are putting upon the community burdens which are too heavy for the community to bear, then they are not good. We ought in all these cases apply that test. Where we have brought in social services we have done so in the belief that these social services are on the whole of benefit to the community, but we have not been so foolish as to suggest that these services can be rendered and that the cost of them is not to be recovered from the community.

I do not think that there is very much more that I want to say at this time. When we come with more definite figures at the time of the Budget, I will have something more to say. But at the present time I am convinced that the policy which the Government are pursuing is the only policy possible, even assuming that one had a number of policies to choose from. There was no other policy possible for any Government which regarded itself as a responsible Government, responsible for the well-being of the community.

If we were so inclined, of course we could have continued realising our external assets. We could have continued having the "good time" which it was suggested by the former Minister for Finance had been given to the community. A good deal of that was something which had flowed in the natural order of events from the conditions which followed when the postwar recovery had taken place. We could continue a spendthrift policy, utilise all the existing savings of the past, spend them, and then what? Surely as a Government we ought to look forward a little bit beyond tomorrow or the next year. Our aim ought to be to secure the continued well-being of this community. If the continued well-being of the community is our aim, then we cannot lightly exhaust our reserves imprudently, as had been done over the couple of years in which the former Government was in office.

The costliest thing we can have is 89,000 unemployed.

You might havethree times that number of unemployed in a year or two if you were to go on with the wrong policy.

You are doing that.

We are not doing that. We have heard a lot about unemployment, that the Opposition had created full employment. It is an absurdity to say that they created full employment when shortly before they left office there were 61,000 unemployed, unless they say 61,000 is a solid core of unemployable persons. It is true that a seasonal reduction took place shortly afterwards, but that was due to the Employment Period Order of that time. Our view is this, and it is a common-sense view which any private individual or firm would take, that if you live beyond your means and beyond your income you will ultimately face a situation in which you will not be able to do the things which you could ordinarily do.

I am asking why there are so many thousands of people unemployed?

Deputy Hickey will get an opportunity of making a statement later.

Whatever is the cause, it is not because we are balancing our Budget. That is not the cause of it. If it is, then will you say whether you want to balance your Budget? When there are reserves being realised, these reserves must be properly employed and not used for the consumption of the day. We have to look forward like a father of a family will look forward or anyone in charge of a business will look forward. A person with a couple of thousand pounds in the Bank can go on spending it and not earn anything until it is gone, but when it is gone, he will have to work twice as hard as he would have had to work if he had used these reserves reasonably. It is such an obvious thing that I am ashamed that in a deliberative assembly we should have to deal with it in this way, as if it were a matter of high finance above the heads of the ordinary people. We should approach these things in acommon-sense way and you will find that high finance in the long run is reasonable, informed common sense and nothing more.

We have the situation that we have either to give up some of these services or get money to finance them. There is no way out of that. If we are to borrow, then we will be only able to borrow for a relatively short time. As to the question of borrowing even for capital purposes, it will not be so easy at all to find the capital necessary to finance our capital programme. I have said that our capital programme has never been less than the capital programme of the Coalition. The whole capital programme has grown out of the plans for development which we originated after the war.

A Deputy

Nonsense.

It is not nonsense; it is the truth. Will you point out any of them that has not originated from these plans, with the exception, possibly, of one, the Local Authorities (Works) Act? That is about the only one and, indeed, from a capital point of view, it was of very poor content, to say the least of it.

It gave good employment.

There were other things which would have been much more valuable. Drainage, as such, was being envisaged by us and set going. As far as other services are concerned, they were services which were much more valuable and gave a much better return for the employment than some of the schemes under the Works Act did.

As to emigration, we were accustomed to the cry about emigration in 1947. We were told in 1947 by various members of the Opposition that emigration had reached a level that had only been exceeded in the Famine years or in the years immediately following the Famine. When the figures came to be known, the truth was that there had been a reduction in emigration in that particular year. It was shown that it was only about 10,000 roughly—I am giving the round figure.The next year, when the Opposition, who had been crying out about the great increase in emigration, got into office, it increased from 10,000 to 28,000 in the very first year they were in office and in the next year it went up to 34,000. The next year after that it was estimated that it had gone up to 41,000. Some of these figures were given by the present Leader of the Opposition, when he was Taoiseach, and were then apparently regarded as fairly reliable. They were accepted as all right then, but the moment we gave them they were all wrong.

The position about emigration to-day is that, unfortunately, we have no real check which will tell us what is the emigration from the country at the moment. We could do it by having a yearly census. The question is whether the information is of sufficient value to warrant that. That would cost a certain number of thousands of pounds. Would it be warranted? If it is regarded as being warranted, we can have it, but, again, like other things, we have to pay for it. The question is, having obtained the information, is it worth what we have to pay for it? That matter is being examined by the Central Statistics Office to see if there is any way in which we can get a reasonably reliable figure, because only by means of a census can one get a figure which is reliable down to the last unit. Otherwise, one can, at best, only get a fair approximation.

We have a situation now in which we cannot get reliable figures because certain war-time checks have disappeared and the Opposition feels once more at liberty to mention any figure that comes into their heads and to make any far-fetched statement they see fit to make about emigration. It is again, according to the Opposition, soaring to the highest figure since the days immediately following upon the Famine.

We have been referred to as bookkeepers. If we had not kept our national accounts and if we did not indulge in this so-called book-keeping, I suppose the Opposition would be at liberty to play about with any figures they liked. One of the reasons why they dislike our book-keeping is becausethe figures are there and they cannot talk at random.

There is unemployment due mainly to a recession in various trades. We do not regard our financial policy as being responsible for either that unemployment or that recession.

You do not?

We do not. Neither is it responsible for it.

And that is the end of it.

It is as much the end of it as the statements made by the Opposition. As far as we are concerned, we do not look upon unemployment as being due to our financial policy. Our financial policy is the only policy possible for any responsible Government here. It is the only policy that has been put forward here. We have had all sorts of suggestions about money markets and so on. There are, I think, only about three or four places in the whole world sufficiently large to have money markets of the kind referred to. Personally, I would like to see a money market and this is not the first occasion on which that idea of a money market has been put forward. It was referred to and considered as far back as 1932. I think it was also considered by the Banking Commission. There are difficulties here. There are many countries that have no money market. I do not think there is a money market in Paris. There is one in London, one in New York and, I think, one in Amsterdam. There is no money market in Canada, which is a very well-developed country with a considerable trade and considerable economic strength. We will not get out of the difficulties of the present situation by adopting suggestions of that nature. Indeed, it would be delightful if we could.

We are supposed also to be responsible for financial stringency at the present time. We are supposed to be dictating to the commercial banks the policy they should follow. We are doing nothing of the kind. Neither have we dictated to the Central Bank as to what its policy should be. TheCentral Bank publishes its views and I take it they are the views of the directorate of the Central Bank. These views are put forward by people who have no political axe to grind and no purpose to serve except the purpose of giving truly the situation as they see it.

And with no power to do anything effective with our own currency.

They are doing the best they can—

The best they can, and that is all.

They are doing the best they can to preserve the integrity of our currency. They are ensuring that the position is maintained in which our currency will not depreciate. Is that not something?

How can the Taoiseach claim that when our money has depreciated and will probably depreciate still further?

And so has money in other countries depreciated. Does the Deputy think one can pay for wars, for the maintenance of large bodies of men, for the production of weapons of destruction and so on without some hardship being caused?

I do not, but we had no war.

Then, remember that the effect of wars is that one has a situation in which the value of money is continually depreciating. Money has depreciated to-day in practically every country, because it is largely by utilising, so to speak, the capital values that have accumulated and the productive capacity which has been built up that wars are paid for. So long as we have wars, we will have certain evils following in their train. In the same way, one cannot have very high expenditure without some tears following in its train.

I was referring to financial stringency and the restrictions of credit. Of ourselves, we have done nothing tocause that. We did not wish for that. Financial stringency has been caused by matters outside our control. The only reason why we permitted such financial stringency or did not definitely oppose it was because we were satisfied that the evils that would follow from attempting to do that would be greater than the evils that have followed as a result of the policy that has, in fact, been pursued.

That has often been repeated here.

Of course, it has when it is a matter of a choice between two courses of action.

In other words, do nothing.

Deputy Hickey must cease interrupting.

When there is a choice, one has to envisage the outcome of two particular courses of action. One has to ask oneself: if I do so and so to meet a certain set of circumstances, what will be the outcome? What will be the good? What will be the evil? If I take one course, I will have certain advantages and possibly certain disadvantages. Prudence in judgment consists in striking a proper balance, in choosing the lesser of two evils. That is precisely what human judgment is for, and we had to strike a balance between the evils that would flow even though we did not wish to adopt this course. We regretted that it should be so. We were not out for dear money or anything of that kind. We regretted the consequences of dear money, but we had to consider the consequences that would flow if we took positive steps in opposition to it, and we were satisfied that the community would suffer more had we adopted that alternative course.

If there are projects of a productive character which cannot be undertaken or pursued because the necessary capital is not forthcoming, that is undoubtedly a disadvantage, but very often that is not the case that comes to our notice. Very often, when weexamine some of these cases, we find that credit has not been given because those looking for credit were not creditworthy and there was, therefore, no likelihood that the money would be used in a really productive way. Wherever money is likely to be used in a productive way, I think the banks are only too anxious to have money spent in that way because they reap a certain advantage from it.

Is that the experience we have had? Are the banks anxious to give credit, even to people who can produce good security?

I will not go into the history of banking and the position of our banks, though it might be useful for certain members if I did. It might be useful to consider how banks grew up, what their original function was, how they became possessed of the assets they have, what inducement there was to pay to induce people to put their money on deposit in the bank so that they can use those assets for productive purposes. The opportunities for them at home were not very great and the opportunities for using them elsewhere were greater. Is it right that we should direct the banks as if they were some State institution whose primary responsibility was to the community as a whole? Through the Central Bank one of our purposes was to see that the community interest in regard to the creation of credit, and so on, would be primarily served and primarily kept in mind.

In regard to the banks I have made it clear that there is no desire on the part of the Government to restrict credit. I have been looking for definite examples and have not been able to find any where, with a reasonable prospect of productive use, accommodation was denied. If we had such examples, I would have felt very differently about it. I do know that the total amount for advances has diminished but there are reasons which can be given for that. I do not want to go into detail but there are reasons of various kinds that can be given for the reduction in the total amount of advances that took place a short whileago. It certainly was not taking place at the time this cry was first made even if the present figures prove the assertion that there has since been a diminution of bank advances.

I have heard Deputy Dockrell speaking here this evening about this restriction. I was wondering whether he had something to complain of in that regard from personal knowledge of his own business affairs or the affairs of some other people with whom he was connected in business. I would like to get these business examples because it is not our policy or our desire either to have dear money or restricted credit. These things—if they have happened— have happened without our desire but certain consequences do flow from them and some of these consequences are not entirely and wholly bad. That is one of the things the Central Bank and others who have spoken from the conservative point of view have been trying to stress, that in the long run— and it is only in the long run that these things can be judged—these have certain rectifying and beneficial effects for the community.

I agree that there may be certain temporary hardships and things we would have wished to avoid. I would be very glad and the Government would be very glad if there were steps that could be taken which would not have created evils worse than those we were trying to eradicate so that the cure would be worse than the disease, and we would have been very glad if there were ways in which there would be employment given to any people who in the present situation have become unemployed.

I am afraid this is a very wide subject in which there are so many aspects and so many reactions of one kind or another, that it would take a very long time indeed to deal with them satisfactorily as a whole. My challenge to the Opposition is: how any other policy but the policy we have pursued could be pursued, having the interest of the country at heart? If I were in Opposition and the present Opposition were advocating any of the policies they have indicated, I would oppose them as strongly as I could, in so faras I have been able to understand them as having any policy on the matter. It seems to me that their policy was a policy of careless spending. It was a spendthrift policy and very much the case of the prodigal wasting his substance. If it be said that the prodigal did not fare too badly, I would say it was because there was somebody else doing the work; he had a home to come back to when he had exhausted his substance and there was somebody else there, both the father and the other sons, who tried to have a place to which he was able to return. If the prodigal were the only person, there would be no place to come back to.

We are urging on the Dáil to pass this Vote on Account as an interim measure, indicating the expenditure that is necessary, and awaiting the Budget for a statement of the accounts as a whole.

I would like to take advantage of this Vote to draw the attention of the House to a number of problems that are facing the country. There are almost 90,000 unemployed people signing on the register of unemployed, men and women, boys and girls. Ninety thousand people, seeking work and wages to buy the necessities of life, are in this country at the present moment deprived of the work that is their right as human beings in this world. Still we have a problem like that glossed over by the Leader of the Government in his speech lasting well over one hour. It is quite true he mentioned unemployment but he did not mention any solution for unemployment. That is only half the number, I suggest. We must add to that those who are flying out of this country night by night, week by week and month by month.

In dealing with emigration, the Taoiseach said that in 1947 it was much less than a number of years after when the inter-Party Government were in power. That is quite correct but it is to the credit of nobody. What we in the Labour Party are anxious to see irrespective of what Government is there, is that the people will get work at home. It is quite true that there will be a natural emigration ofpeople who wish to go abroad, who wish to see other countries and who have a spirit of adventure. However, no political reasoning will convince me that there are not flying from my own county——

Where are they going to?

To Britain.

They are not going to Birmingham or Manchester where they have large numbers of unemployed.

They are flying to London as well as to other parts of England. In my own town I can produce the figures kept by trade unions of unemployed men and women who have left within the past 12 months. I agree with the Taoiseach that nobody can at the moment indicate the exact number or even the approximate number leaving the country, but it must be clear to everybody that there are people being forced out of the country because there is no work here for them.

In regard to the increase in the number of people taken into the Army, had that not happened would it not be clear that those very people would now be unemployed? They went into the Army probably to escape from unemployment. I wish to cast no aspersions on life in the Army or on anybody who takes up that as a profession, but it must be pretty clear that a number of boys throughout the country have decided that sooner than emigrate, they would join the Defence Forces. I think that the need for such an Army is not there but it is preferable to see these young men in the Army, actively engaged in training and in exercises, rather than standing in queues at the labour exchanges as they otherwise would.

It was reported in the newspapers a short time ago that the people of this country are eating much more in comparison with the people of a large number of other countries. If that is correct—and I have no reason to doubt it—then the 90,000 people who are unemployed must be eating very little because I am quite positive that thesepeople find that all they can do on unemployment assistance, ordinary unemployment benefit or disablement benefit under the national health, is to provide tea, bread and sugar never mind eating to an extent that is higher or better than the consumption of the inhabitants of any other country in the world. As well as the 90,000 unemployed plus those who are forced to flee the country, plus those who went into the Army, there is another army of boys and girls leaving school yearly who have not registered or who will not register for employment, some perhaps through a sense of shame at having to go to the labour exchange. For whatever reason, it is quite clear that 90,000 is nowhere near the number of people who are living in this country and who are unable to secure work and the wages that go with it.

I suggest that this country or the Government that is running it has no room for complacency, no room for congratulating itself that such a position exists. The cost of living is such that even those of us who are lucky enough to be able to earn a living in the country, and who through our trade union movement are lucky enough to have some sort of a decent wage, find it utterly impossible to provide the ordinary necessities of life for ourselves and our families. On the Government, and the Government alone, in my opinion, is the blame to be laid for such a state of affairs. Notwithstanding the promises given at the time of the 1951 election—point No. 15—that they would not remove food subsidies, immediately they got the chance they removed the subsidies on tea, sugar and butter. Within recent weeks, by a decision of the Government, the price of butter has again been increased, and if one can believe indications, in the near future the subsidy on bread will either be totally or partially removed.

The Government may now say: "It is in the interests of the people to do that or worse would befall them," but why were the people not told: "If we are returned to power we shall remove the subsidies"? The Taoiseach said in the course of his speech—at least I am fairly sure it was the Taoiseach said it—that the Opposition Parties did not indicate at Front Bench level their policy in connection with subsidies. He suggested that perhaps a number of back benchers with the idea of vote catching made certain promises. Let it be said clearly that it was stated on behalf of the Labour Party officially in this House that following an election, if such took place, they would not be associated in a Government with any Party who was not pledged to restore in full the subsidies removed by the present Government. That promise was made in this House on behalf of the Labour Party.

That would mean extra taxation, would it not?

I am quite sure it would mean extra taxation or a saving on something else.

Is the Labour Party not against extra taxation?

If my friend is seeking information, I am prepared to say to him that the Labour Party is not against extra taxation on everything if the purpose justifies what they are going to do. For instance should it be necessary to impose increased taxation on incomes so that the sick would have a little more, so that the unemployed could have better benefits or so that the food subsidies could be restored, I would have no hesitation, and I am quite sure no other Labour representative would have any hesitation, in voting for increased taxation.

Will you tell the people that down the country?

Absolutely. I hope it will be published so that it will be known throughout the country.

I should like to hear what Deputy Norton would have to say on that.

It is part of Labour policy.

We should like to hear Deputy Norton.

Deputy Norton makes his own statements.

We are anxious to hear Deputy Kyne.

Deputy Norton, I repeat, makes his own statements, but he will make that statement on behalf of the Labour Party any time he feels like it and no member of the Labour Party and no supporter of the Party will quarrel with him. In connection with the restriction of credit by the banks, the Taoiseach said, and perhaps it is quite true, that the Government have given no directions to the banks. In fact, I heard the Minister for Finance in the inter-Party Government make the same statement, but whether or not a direction has been given, there is no doubt but that there has been a very grave restriction of credit during the past year and a half. Many of us have received complaints in the matter—complaints about which the Taoiseach has asked for details. We have heard complaints that loans for creditworthy schemes—not loans to accommodate individuals for private luxury schemes but loans for credit-worthy schemes which would create employment—were hit on the head by bank managers or their directors without any reasons being given.

I should like to get particulars of cases of the type to which the Deputy refers.

I offered to give the Minister for Industry and Commerce details of a specific case—and I may say that the man concerned is a prominent supporter of the Fianna Fáil Party.

Maybe that was why he did not get it.

This man was in a position to obtain a dollar market for wool but when he sought a loan to enable him to purchase the wool in this country and to export it to America, for which he would receive a dollarpayment, he was refused. On a previous occasion in this House, I mentioned the circumstances of this case to the Minister for Industry and Commerce and I offered to give him the name of the individual concerned if he wished to hear it. I have not received any request in that matter from the Minister for Industry and Commerce. I now make the same offer to the Taoiseach. He will receive details of what happened in Limerick only 12 months ago.

We all know about it.

I shall be glad to get the particulars.

A loan of £20,000,000 at 5 per cent. was recently floated in this country. As far as I can see, the result is that anybody who had hopes of getting an advance for house building will not be able to take advantage of the 1952 Housing (Amendment) Act by reason of the increased rate of interest. In my county, in particular, full advantage was taken of the earlier rate. Working people for whom, normally, it might have been the duty of the local authority to provide houses, were bestirring themselves, seeking Government grant and local authority grant and a loan over a 35-year period. In addition, they were using their own labour and providing houses for themselves and their families at no cost to the local authority. Since the flotation of that loan and since the announcement in regard to the increased rate of interest, that initiative has practically stopped. What, between the increased rate of interest, certain sections of the 1952 Act and the way in which they are interpreted by county managers, the working-class individual has not got an opportunity of building a home for himself.

I should like to give one typical instance of what can happen. A working man who earns over £8 a week is deprived of the grant from the county council. Should he prove that his income is under £8 a week he will get the grant but the county manager will refuse the loan. Should he prove that his income is over £8 a week he will get the loan but he will lose the grant.It is very obvious that the Housing (Amendment) Act, 1952, is of little use because it gives a full grant to the man who has not the money to build the house while the man who has the money to build a house gets either a reduced grant or no grant at all.

The Deputy appreciates that we cannot have a detailed discussion on that now.

The Taoiseach claimed— perhaps rightly, to a certain extent— that world conditions have tended to increase the cost of living and to cause unemployment. I suggest, however, that the implementation of the Central Bank Report of the year before last by the Government is the cause of unemployment and of the high cost of living—notwithstanding the assurance given by the present Government.

It was clearly stated in the Central Bank report that a reduction of the gap between our imports and exports is desirable for this country and, to do that, they advised that as little employment be given by the Government as possible and that food subsidies be removed so that the ordinary people would have to go without, thus permitting the possible export of some food. Significantly enough, these things happened following upon the publication of the Central Bank Report. Unemployment has increased considerably. The cost of living has jumped up. The gap between imports and exports has been reduced. All is right in heaven for the Central Bank but all is wrong for the ordinary people of this country.

If you only knew.

"If you only knew", the Taoiseach says to me. Perhaps they have new troubles which have come as a result of their false teachings. It appeared to them on that particular September that the ideal thing was to reduce to starvation level the ordinary people of this country. Certainly, at book value, things are perfect in Ireland. We are reducing the gap between imports and exports but we are increasing the stream of emigration and we have hungry men, women, boys and girls who must pay for thebeautiful things which have happened. Unless a very speedy change takes place in this country, you will have a social revolution. The working people are being driven too far. "—isms" that should be foreign to this country are receiving a fillip because of the hunger, want and unemployment which prevail at present.

There is very little use in trying to tell a hungry unemployed man who has a hungry wife and family at home that because of the Korean war or some other circumstances outside the control of the Government he is unemployed and food is dear. Professional troublemakers and paid agents of a foreign power will reap a rich harvest in this country unless the Government face facts and find a remedy or else admit that they have no solution and say that they are prepared to face the country in a general election. The Labour Party will issue a challenge in Wicklow —a rural constituency—against the background of the present position within a very short time.

I suggest to the Taoiseach that he should accept the result in Wicklow as the wish of the people of the country—that if he should win that seat he should continue in Government, but that should he lose it he should give the people the opportunity of electing a new Government.

I must confess that I listened to the speech of the Taoiseach with a considerable amount of amazement. I envy the Taoiseach. I think he must be the happiest man in public life, because whether he faces to the right or to the left he is able to convince himself all the time that he is right. Even if the whole world is against him, well then the world is wrong and he, nevertheless, is right. He can advocate, with every appearance of sincerity and conviction, one policy to-day, and a diametrically opposite policy in twelve months' time or less—sometimes in two months' time.

We heard the Taoiseach's references this evening to food subsidies—that they were a purely temporary expedient, a bad social service only justified on a very temporary basis tobe removed by a brave and honest Government at the earliest possible moment. Let us leave out the honesty. That was from the same man who subscribed his name to point 17 of the manifesto, the litany of pledges by himself and his Party, on the eve of his re-election to Government—no reduction or removal of food subsidies.

That was his considered opinion in the second week of June. Because of that manifesto, and because of that particular pledge, to a very great extent, he was elected Taoiseach. With an equal appearance of sincerity and conviction, he scoffs at food subsidies now on the grounds of bad finance, dishonest administration and that they are only a temporary expedient in a real emergency. Coincident with that set of gymnastics, he presumes to lecture Dáil Éireann and all its Parties on straightforwardness and honesty in public administration.

I listened to the Taoiseach this evening, to his scoffs at the magic secret of how other Parties could increase, or claim to increase, benefits of any kind and not increase taxation. I listened to the same Taoiseach, not once but many times, during the election campaign of 1948. What was his stock speech? What was it that always got the cheer and the laugh from the back-bench boys? "Oh, here are Parties, Fine Gael, Labour and others going around the country saying that they will reduce the taxes on tobacco and beer, and at the same time will increase the old age pensions"? He says: "Where is the magic trick? How can you increase benefits without increasing taxation?" That was the stock speech then. It was a popular speech, the type of speech that would go down in a child's school of simple juvenile arguments.

In the following three years—in the following year—we proved that it could be done by increasing production and stimulating trade. We proved that we could remove £5,000,000 of brutal taxation. We did that by giving confidence to the country and to the people in it. Trade and business boomed; the revenue was buoyant; everyone had more money; more was taken in in customs and excise duties,and there was less drawing out of the unemployed pool. We did all that without imposing any new taxation.

Now we have the same old cant: "How can you do it? What is the magic trick? Will you not let us know your trick?" Of course, the ballet boys behind will cheer the same as ever. They have been well drilled in their part; they know that the principal actor is up and that he has to be supported; but the tricks are getting a bit old, the audience is beginning to see through them, and there is the fact that he was proved wrong. He has faced two or three different ways in the last two years.

I have mentioned the food subsidies. What was the gist of his campaign and of his attack on the Government 18 months ago? "That the people were overtaxed; that the cost of living was too high; that we were borrowing money at a lunatic rate and were spending the borrowed money at an even greater rate of lunacy," the implication, of course, being: "Give us a chance and down will come the cost of living; the lunatic borrowing will be stopped and down will come taxation and expenditure." That was the attack made on us, and those were our crimes four years ago—borrowing money and spending it too quickly, taxation and the cost of living too high. Because of those crimes we were to be turfed out of public life.

With the same appearance of sincerity as we had here to-night, that was the gospel that was laid down—"the food subsidies are going to reduce the cost of living and we definitely cannot reduce them." Then he takes over, with all the money already borrowed and in the kitty. That money was borrowed not at 5¼ per cent. but at the cheapest rate at which money was ever borrowed here. Well over £20,000,000 was there. It had been left there unspent. Under £20,000,000 had been spent soundly and prudently by us in two years. We spent it in a way that got the admiration of the whole world. There was a special comment on the way that we spent it by the American European Mission. The balance that was left by us was spentin half the time that it took us to spend the sum I have mentioned, and then another £20,000,000 had to be borrowed by this Government. I do not say that that spending or that borrowing was unsound. We still stand, unlike the Taoiseach, for the things we stood for a couple of years ago—sound borrowing and investment of the money in sound projects. We do not change.

The next thing was the cost of living. The food subsidies were withdrawn. Up went the cost of living. The Prices Section of the Department of Industry and Commerce began to break down on their job. The hardest task we had for three years was to hold a line on the cost of living. It was a struggle that required whole-time alertness, where you had to turn your back on friends, where you had to turn your back on powerful syndicates and very mighty influences, but that line was held.

Those who had attacked us with regard to the cost of living and who then took over, what was their first despicable smoke-screen when they started, as the profiteers' pals, to let up the cost of living, what was the roguish, dishonest smoke-screen that they put up, knowing it could only be a temporary fog? That discredited lie that the cost of living rose immediately they took over because of the immense stack of recommendations in the Prices Advisory Body which were not acted on by me, but which I left for my unfortunate successor. With tears in their eyes they told the poor mugs that there was Deputy Lemass, the new Minister, trying to grope his way into his office amongst the stacks of files where the Prices Advisory Body had recommended increases and that were all left there for the new Minister for Industry and Commerce.

Diligently and persistently, parliamentary questions were put down week after week, the questioners knowing that civil servants do not lie and that in reply to a question the truth would come out. What came out? That the things remaining over where recommendations had been made and not dealt with were dried peas, beans, advertisements in certain newspapers, coal in certain provincial towns andmeat. That was the total. Those were the piles. Those were the stacks.

The next thing was that I was accused of getting into cahoots with the butchers and saying: "Charge what you like, boys; there will be no prosecutions." A lie that has a substratum, even a very thin line of truth at the foundation, is the most dangerous type of lie, the type of lie that is hardest to kill. That particular lie was used, spread and disseminated by the back bench boys at a time when I was not in a position to reply.

The facts were that I delayed acting on that recommendation which was for an increase all round in every lb. of meat over the whole beast. It was a recommendation that I was not prepared to approve of, no matter what it cost. The alternative claim was complete decontrol. That was more unthinkable, to give them a free hand to charge what they liked, the sky is the limit. That was the recommendation and that was the alternative claim.

At the same time, there was a certain amount of agitation about the low price fixed for hides as against the market price. I wanted to see to what extent I could meet part of the claim by giving a better price for hides, and during that couple of weeks' delay we got notice of two butchers caught overcharging and, by unanimous agreement at a departmental conference, we decided not to prosecute because the defence would be that the Prices Advisory Body had already recommended a substantial increase, and that was lying on my table. They wanted to get the whole thing investigated and explored, and during that fortnight there was no increase.

From that you get the build-up of the tale you had from the Minister for Industry and Commerce the other day. What was the gist, what was the point in the accusation? The point was, if everything he said was true, that, for a fortnight, I gave a free hand to the butchers. What was his action? To go in and investigate nothing, neither hides nor anything else, but to give a thing that was never contemplated— complete decontrol.

This is the second or third time thatI have contradicted those particular stories and I am not going to waste any more time. They will be repeated. To misquote an old saying: He who lies and runs away will live to lie another day and some people, certainly, will lie as centenarians.

The first charge against us was the excessive borrowing. The second was the high cost of living. The third was the high rate of taxation.

The British had their difficulties, quite different difficulties from those that we had. They had gone through a world war. They had come out with a mountain of debt. Their external trade was practically gone. Their livelihood in normal times was the sale externally of their industrial goods. They had to recapture the world market for the sale of their industrial goods. They had to reduce that mountain of debt. That was their problem.

Our problem was, if you like, the opposite. We had not a mountain of debt but we had a mountain of money and that mountain of money was paper money. For seven or eight years the country was starved of essential commodities—fertilisers, machinery, one hundred and one items of that kind. The solution of the British problem was to export more and more so as to reduce the mountain of debt. The solution of our problem was, within reason and within limits, the opposite—to convert a substantial amount of that paper money into goods of a durable kind, those that would increase production and those that were necessary in that direction.

But there was definitely a confusion between the British problems and the Irish problems. Even though our problems might be different and the solutions different, as a matter of prestige, etc., Great Britain would like to see us going the same road as they went. Therefore there was a conference between Mr. Butler and our Minister for Finance. Our Minister for Finance returned and this country had a deluge of Butlerism. We had austerity as severe as the Government could make it. We had it on all fronts—increased taxation, dearer money, restriction of credit, removal of subsidies, no matter whatthe consequence, a reduction of imports. Following the British line, keeping in perfect step, we had the Republican gosling doing the goose-step alongside Mr. Butler and his Commonwealth Ministers, although our situation was completely different.

Having taken that turn towards Butlerism, the Taoiseach and every one of them have had to change their tune. They have got to paint a different picture completely on the platform and in the Dáil from the one they had been painting six months earlier. With an air of conviction and simulated temper, with every appearance of sincerity, we had the Taoiseach making exactly opposite speeches from those which he had been making a few weeks before, but presenting himself as the only honest one amongst us, the only consistent person amongst us, and saying that we would all be on his side if we were only sufficiently honest. He makes the typical remark that we could do this if we were all of one mind. But history teaches us that the one mind must always be his mind and then, of course, there can always be agreement, but in any other set of conditions there cannot be agreement.

The Taoiseach tells us, too, that in fact taxation does not matter; that taxation does not matter as long as it is for current purposes; that in fact it all goes back; that it is merely taking it from the people and giving it back to the people again. That is the kind of stuff you would hear in an infant school. The cost of ammunition for the Army is current expenditure. We handed out £1,000,000 for ammunition. That is all going back into the pockets of the people in Macroom and elsewhere. We buy Tulyar and send the money out to India and "Mrs. Mulligan" will get the benefit of that.

We have that kind of talk here which is entirely unworthy of the Taoiseach and the position he occupies and the fact that we are dealing with a record-breaking Book of Estimates. The £100,000,000 mark is passed. That is a landmark behind us. We pass that with this Book of Estimates and we are facing into the straight now for the second £100,000,000. Commensurate with the growth there, we havethe cost of living going up into the stratosphere, to a great extent by the deliberate and calculated actions of the Government. We have the removal of subsidies, increased prices of butter and milk, decontrol of the essential commodities of livelihood, a licence to rob being given all round the place, with the cost of living reaching fantastic heights by the deliberate and calculated actions of the Government; with taxation, on the other hand, taking more out of the pockets of the people than they ever thought they would have to subscribe, with credit withdrawn and restricted, with the number of unemployed keeping steady and with the jump in our public expenditure.

In that situation we have them talking about expensive Health Bills. What is the good of spending millions on better health services if you double the price of butter, jump up the price of milk, jump up the price of meat, jump down the incomes of the people and put tens and tens of thousands more of them out of work? The best health measure that could be taken is to see that the people get all the necessaries of life. The way things are going, the one bit of expenditure under the Health Bill that will be more necessary in the future than it was in the past will be for the increased and rapid expansion of our hospital services.

Nobody who has spoken on this Vote on Account has denied that a very serious economic situation confronts us. It would be futile to deny that that situation exists and calls for early attention. It would be equally futile for Deputies to waste the time of the House and the money of the taxpayers by trying to fix responsibility for that situation. I do not think that that matter is important. What is really important is, how we are to remedy that situation. On neither the Government nor the Opposition side has it been suggested that the situation is not serious. But, frankly, I have not heard up to the present any remedy that holds out any prospect for the ordinary people of the country for the next 12 months.

I think I detected in the speech of the Taoiseach this evening what is, ina measure, responsible for that situation. He said that to increase taxation is the only way to increase revenue. I disagree with him entirely, and I confess I am astonished at the Taoiseach, after his long experience in public life and in Government, making such a statement, because the very facts this year prove how wrong that opinion is. Anybody who read the report of the recent meeting of the Licensed Vintners' and Grocers' Association knows quite well that that is an erroneous policy. If you want to increase revenue, you will not necessarily increase it by increased taxation, but by increasing the spending power of the citizen so that he will purchase these commodities on which the revenue tax is put.

That is the sensible approach. I have often wondered why this Government failed so badly during the past year and now I pin that failure down to the fact that the Government acted on the principle that one cannot produce revenue without increasing taxation. That is the kernel of the present mistaken policy and it will be a sorry day for the people if the Government continues to pursue that policy.

Rising taxation and rising expenditure have been bewailed by people on both sides of the House. High taxation is not in itself an evil so long as the national income keeps abreast of that taxation and so long as it does not impose an intolerable burden on the citizens. In fact, far from being an evil, it might be a good thing. It must be a good thing to have increased Government expenditure but one must always ensure that the people providing that expenditure are in a position to pay and there must be a corresponding increase in the national income.

Any Government at any time can reduce taxation. The present Government could reduce taxation. The last Government did. The present Government could reduce taxation by removing the social services the State provides. Would anybody suggest that would be a good remedy? The acid test of a Government's success will be gauged by the extent of its taxation provided revenue remains buoyant andprovided the citizens are in a position to pay for the amenities. In that case one has no reason for worry.

Our present problem is mainly due to rising prices and rising prices call for immediate and early attention. The last Government set up the Prices Advisory Body. As far as one can see their activities are confined to dealing with applications for increases. I think it is time they got to work to see whether there cannot be reductions in prices. The prices charged to-day for many household commodities cannot be justified. The staple food, bread and flour, is one item in which there should be drastic reductions and the Prices Advisory Body should be directed to investigate the profits being made by the flour millers. There are many other household commodities which could clearly be reduced in price. It is obvious from the variations which occur from shop to shop that there is room for reductions.

That is the obvious way in which to solve the problem of the cost of living. It is childish to suggest that one can meet the effect of rising costs by increasing wages because invariably wage increases are passed on to the consumer. Prices must have reached a ceiling by this. It is time they took a downward trend. I suggest that is a matter for consideration by the Prices Advisory Body. I know cases can be made for increases particularly in connection with imported goods. There are, however, commodities produced within the country from our own natural resources and the prices at which these are retailed to the consumer should be examined.

The Taoiseach and the Minister for Finance have on various occasions admitted that agriculture is our basic industry. I do not think the Taoiseach or the Minister for Finance has altered his opinion in that regard. The Tánaiste has, however, altered his opinion because for a long time he was inclined to shove agriculture into the second place. I am glad he now recognises he can no longer do that. Long after the Tánaiste and I have passed away agriculture will remain the predominant industry here. Recognising that fact the Government should now concentrate its efforts on puttingthe soil into a condition where it will produce the maximum of our requirements. Hitherto the facilities to operate the land in order to bring about that situation have not been placed at the disposal of our farmers.

People talk about our adverse trade balance. Has anyone stopped to consider what that adverse balance would be if we did not have our agricultural exports? What situation would the country be in were it not for our agricultural exports? Even Deputy Hickey could hardly contemplate that situation with complacence. Every schoolboy knows that agriculture is our main industry. Recognising that, is it not a cause of grave dissatisfaction that when economies had to be effected this year they were done in relation to the soil? The Government has reduced the grants under the Local Authorities (Works) Act by £250,000. They have, at the same time, increased the grants for land rehabilitation. Everybody knows that these two schemes are inter-dependent and one cannot operate successfully without the other. The Government is not approaching this matter in a sensible way when it curtails the money given to local authorities to put the main outfall in a proper condition in order to drain the farmers' land.

I am sure the Deputy has a good idea why they had to cut it down.

We will not go into that now. It is a waste of money increasing the grants for land reclamation if work under the Local Authorities (Works) Act is cut down. If one adopts my theory that rising taxation is in itself an evil the natural corollary to that is that one must keep as many people as possible in the country to pay taxation, and for that reason one must stem emigration.

Emigration is not entirely due to economics. In the area from which I come emigration is a terrible drain, and it has been particularly noticeable during the last five or six years. I think the reason for it is more or less social. Some of the people who emigrate are not those out of employment. Many go for the sake ofemployment. Many others go because employment in England is more congenial. A certain percentage goes because Irishmen are following their natural bent of wanting to see more of the world. There is the remainder who must, through force of economic circumstances, cross to England. I suggest that, in the West of Ireland, work could be found at home for those who follow mainly manual, outdoor work if a proper afforestation system were developed there.

As long as I can remember, people have been demandng the planting of a belt of trees from Donegal down the west coast to Kerry. It was not altogether for the purpose of employment or for the purpose entirely of stopping emigration. There are people who believe, rightly or wrongly, that the climate we have here would be improved and the vast amount of rain which falls lessened, if a proper shelter belt were planted down the west coast of Ireland. To what extent that is true I am not in a position to say but I have heard intelligent people admitting that there was something in it.

Whether that be a sufficient reason in itself or not, I consider there are certain justifications for it in other respects. First of all, you would provide employment for the very people who could most usefully be put to that type of employment. At the same time you are building up the national assets because in 20 or 25 years' time the trees you plant there will yield a good capital profit and they will provide the basis for different kinds of employment in that particular area which has been neglected for a long number of years. That is the area from which most of the emigration takes place.

If the Government were to decide to provide in this Estimate a huge sum of money for that purpose I do not think any Deputy on this side of the House would oppose it. That is the type of expenditure to which I would subscribe even though it swelled the national taxation bill because I believe you are providing the very basis of a sound economy for a country which could not only provide £150,000,000 butconsiderably more because the national income and the spending power of the citizens would be increasing; consequently the imposition of taxation would not be felt. Even high prices are not evil provided you have sufficient income to buy essential commodities. I have often said this to people: "Is it better to have a loaf of bread available at 6d. if you have only 3d. in your pocket or a loaf available at 1/- if you have 2/6?"

That is the way we must approach this problem. Monetary values have changed very considerably over the past five or six years. I do not think there is anyone foolish enough to suggest that we will ever revert to prewar standards. The people must adjust their minds to the money alterations. To sigh for the days when 1/- or £1 would buy so much more than it will buy to-day, is just waste of time. It is not at all likely that prices will revert to the comparatively low level of 1939. After all, if you compare the level of 1939 with the level of 1914 you get another shock. Every war seems to produce its own effects on the purchasing power of money and probably when the next war is over people will be sighing for the good old days of 1952-53.

The Taoiseach said it is permissible to use our assets provided they can be used productively. Frankly, I have no recollection that there was any use made of our external assets within the past 12 months. That is one of the greatest grievances we have. When any farmer of the country thinks that as a result of his labour from the year 1939 to 1945 or 1946, we built up something in the region of £400,000,000 or £500,000,000 credit in Great Britain, and he is told to-day that money is being utilised to improve the British farmers' land, to provide houses for the British people and to do all the things he wants to do at home, I do not think you could expect him to approve of that policy.

We have still considerable assets in England. We know that those assets are being used to develop the British farmers' land by way of grants, to provide houses and hospitals and weknow there is a shortage of money here for these purposes. It is time that we liquidated our external assets in the interests of our own people. I thoroughly agree with all Deputy Dr. O'Higgins has said, that from the point of view of public health and national health there are a few essentials. A man must have a good house for his children and good food. He must have good clothing for them and a decent school to which to send them. If he has those requirements I think God and nature and the child will provide for public health. But if you have a child reared in a bad house on bad food, with scanty clothing, no amount of expenditure of public money will make that child a strong and healthy one. We are moving in the wrong direction. We are putting the cart before the horse. Until we have arrived at a situation where every man has a good house for his children and has the necessary money to provide them with good food and clothing, there is no use in talking about spending millions of pounds of public money. Prevention is at all times better than cure and it is very false economy to allow a situation to exist which produces the very evils which we must spend millions of pounds to eradicate. It is a far better proposition to ensure that those diseases would not grow and then there would be no necessity for this expenditure on their eradication.

I do not wish to detain the House any longer on this matter. Lest I should not have an opportunity later, I would direct the Minister's attention to what I would call a serious error in economising to the extent of £250,000 in relation to local authorities works. Good work was being done under that particular scheme, and good work remains to be done. The restoration of that £250,000 might mean bringing into full production a goodly number of acres of land that are now no use to the State or the owner, and would be a far better proposition than expenditure in other directions.

Having listened to the leading speakers of both major political parties, it would indeed be very presumptuous for an independentDeputy to stand up to prove that he had a cure for the obvious evils which have tried the ingenuity of the best brains and the best abilities which have been from time to time in the last 30 years at the disposal of different Governments. I do not propose to do so. I should like merely, on this Vote on Account, to take my opportunity of attempting to influence to whatever extent I can the policy of the Government in a democratic Parliament. I think in this regard that one can answer to a certain extent Deputy Sheldon's motion. We must have regard and respect for the motion which has been put down by Deputy Sheldon because he has had a long experience during his membership of the Public Accounts Committee, on which, I understand, he has done extremely good work. I feel that a similar purpose to that which he is trying to achieve is at present being served—the "vetting" of Estimates and their reduction to a minimum consonant with the carrying out of policy. Here we have an opportunity on the Vote on Account of trying to halt the Minister in mid-air, as it were, in the process of framing his Budget, in the process of implementing his policy, and of formulating his proposals for the year to come.

I supported the Minister's policy last year with my eyes open. There were certain aspects of which, obviously, I, as an individual, might have disapproved. At the same time I think it is very unwise, and it would be very wrong of any Party to refuse to give a trial to the financial policy of the Government in power. What we must do now is to try to review the effects of that policy and to find out from the Minister whether he is quite content about the effects which his policy has achieved, and if he proposes to continue that policy, generally speaking.

I suggested in my Budget speech last year that it was not really possible to get away with a deflationary Budget. I suggested at the time that the inevitable result of last year's Budget would be—a result which has since taken place—a fairly substantialincrease in wages all round. Short of a stand-still policy for all wages, a deflationary policy by any Government was quite impossible. The increases in wages have had certain effects. The result has been an increase in the cost to the consumer, of the product of the industries concerned, the mopping up of excess moneys which might have been available to the consumer, a restriction in buying, the reduction in trade to which Deputy Dockrell referred, the laying-off of workers and that deflationary vicious circle to which I have already referred. I am not an economist, and do not pretend to be an economist, but a deflationary circle of that kind appears to me to be an equally dangerous event facing any Government. The Government have to face that situation now.

I have listened to the apologies of the different leading speakers for the Government. It is their job to gild the lily to the best of their ability, to put a good face on things, to reassure the people that things are not quite as bad as they imagine them to be. I was interested in the attempt made by the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs. He appears to have a magnificent facility in the manipulation of figures—I say that as no reflection on him—in such a way as simply to prove anything.

Let us accept the case made by Government speakers that unemployment is not as high as it is represented to be. The number of unemployed is about 90,000. A whole lot of trick-of-the-loop explanations have been put forward to prove that it is not quite 90,000. Let us agree with them that it is 80,000, or even go further along the road with them and say that it is 70,000, or come down to the inter-Party figure of 60,000. Surely if you go back even as far as that— and we are not invited to go that far— it is a completely reprehensible state of affairs that there are 60,000, 70,000, 80,000 or 90,000 unemployed. I do not mind what the figure is but you have that number of unemployed men, men willing and able to give their contribution to the building-up of the wealth of the community and they are denied that right by the ineptitude of whatever Government is in power. It doesnot matter what Government. I am criticising both Governments equally.

I think one of the dangers of a discussion of this kind in a democratic Parliament of this nature is that the Government distrusts the Opposition, probably with a certain amount of justification, because the Opposition's job is not to make things comfortable; it is to criticise, to make the best capital they can out of the situation, in the honest or dishonest belief—it does not matter which—that they would do better if given the chance. The Minister for Posts and Telegraphs quoted many figures to demonstrate that things were not quite as bad as they seemed—figures in relation to housing, land development and agricultural statistics of different kinds, the general claim being that these capital investments of different kinds had increased during the two years' office of the Government.

In passing I should like to say that I think he was being a little unfair to the late Deputy Timothy Murphy, in his references to the housing programme. I think he was the man who was responsible for the planning of a long-term housing programme which, as the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs well knows, is a programme which gradually moves away and has little or nothing to do with the Minister of the time after the initial organisation has taken place. The Minister for Posts and Telegraphs made one other rather frightening remark, and that was that the housing drive was falling away in the natural way—that it had nothing to do with the restriction of credit or any action of the Government but was due to the fact that our housing needs are largely becoming filled. He then went on to say that the inter-Party Government had left no plans to take up the slack of the unemployment which is inevitable. I consider that to be a very unfair and unrealistic comment. Two years is a long time: one and a half years is a longish time. Anticipation of this falling-off in employment in the building industry was a relatively simple thing. The Minister for Posts and Telegraphs has always told us with facility of the plans which weredrawn up in the emergency years, and which could be put into operation on the pressing of a button, to provide employment in the different aspects of our industries throughout the country.

I think it is the duty of the Government, once it takes over, to plan ahead, to look ahead. A Government can live from day to day or from year to year. A weakness in all our Governments is that we do not plan on, say, a five or a seven year basis. It is ridiculous for a Government to run, as we do, on a year to year basis without considering that the absorption of employment by different industries must tend to stop —as is happening now in the case of the building industry and some other projects. The Minister for Posts and Telegraphs tried to console us also with the reflection that all the other countries—even countries with Socialist Governments—are finding themselves in much the same position. I do not think that is a completely fair statement. Most of the other countries in Europe have just been through a devastating war. Socialists, Conservatives, Liberals, Radicals—whatever they were—spent millions of pounds blasting one another to bits throughout Europe. That is none of our business now but it was an expensive pastime while it lasted. They had to reorganise their industries and to arrange the redistribution of the working potential towards the reconstruction of their States. There was a rebuilding of their factories and a re-establishment of their industries. They had all these preoccupations. In addition in the Socialist countries, at any rate—if they are hard up to-day they are hard up with excellent conditions of employment for their people, excellent educational facilities and excellent health services. They have spent a lot of money. Many of them are hard up but their people have known the benefit of the money which has been well spent. I am afraid we cannot say that we have a similar situation here.

When one is in Government one has friends who think that the sun shines out of you, who tell you everything you want to hear until you are sick of it. That is the case, no matter what Government may be in office. Then thereare your natural enemies—the Opposition; you cannot blame them. When a problem has defeated you, you tend to put the best side on it for public consumption. The tragedy is when you believe the fairy stories which you are putting across for public consumption. I think a little bit of this extraordinary insensitiveness to the unemployment figures by the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs arises from his lack of appreciation of what unemployment means. Possibly, it has the same effect that we have often seen in regard to headlines about devastation from bombing during war time, and so forth. "A hundred thousand people bombed out of their homes,""Floods in Western Europe,""War in Korea," and so forth.

These headlines scarcely move you at all, but if you see a child knocked down by a car you realise in a flash the appalling hardship that affects people as a result of such a catastrophe. I think it is somewhat similar in relation to unemployment. People get so used to hearing about 60,000, 70,000, 80,000 or 90,000 unemployed that they do not realise that it means that 90,000 men are anxious to work to support their families but are deprived of the opportunity of doing so. It is the Government's job to find that opportunity for them. I know many a man in my own area who, if he is not already unemployed, is facing unemployment. The Minister for Posts and Telegraphs agrees, apparently, that unemployment will increase. Apparently, too, there are no plans which would help to take up the slack as a result of the falling-off in the building of houses. Consequently, more people will become unemployed. I do not think the position is disastrous but it is terribly serious. It cannot be solved by digging your head in the sand. I would remind the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs that the political ostrich with his head in the sand is in a very delicate position vis-á-visthe public, especially during a general election or some similar occasion. He is quite at liberty to defend the Government: that is his job. He gave the impression, however, that these realproblems had not sunk deeply into his understanding and that, having explained the position here, having overcome the problems, having solved our difficulties by producing sets of figures, he could then go off and finish his job in Radio Éireann.

An aspect of our financial policy to which I should like to refer is the feeling that the attitude of the Department of Finance to financial matters is one which they appear to have assimilated from too close contact with what Deputy Dillon calls his Treasury counterparts across the water. I deprecate in the strongest terms any attempt, even by innuendo, to attack Civil Service groups: I think it is quite unforgivable. The suggestion that any Minister is dominated by his civil servants is an insult to ourselves because we appoint the Ministers—and I have no intention of doing it. At the same time, there is the impression abroad that we are trying to run Ireland on lines very similar to those adopted in Great Britain. I think the Opposition made a fair case for the suggestion that Tory policies in the last Budget in Great Britain had a considerable effect on policies here.

I do not think that is very important at this stage, but I have been slightly worried by references which I have read recently to this question of taxation—that the burden of taxation has reached its limit. We have heard the Leader of the Opposition, Deputy Costello, and Deputy Dr. O'Higgins refer to that. Reference has also been made to it by the Taoiseach and other Government speakers. My attitude to taxation generally is this: that, where you have quite satisfied yourself that there is no wastage in the administration of the money raised through taxation from the community for the maintenance of State services, it is money which the taxpayers have contributed because they are conscious of their responsibility to the weaker members of the community— that is to say, to provide good conditions for our old people in their own homes or in the institutions, to provide good conditions in our hospitals, good health services, old age pensions,widows' and orphans' pensions, and other amenities.

I am not one who is terribly moved by the vehement rejection of increased taxation, which we have had from both sides of the House. I know, of course, that it is a popular political catchcry on which to go to the people who are paying the taxation by saying to them: "We will reduce it." It is likely to get votes. At the same time, I think that, if you are going to establish a social order in our society here, it must be accepted that taxation, direct or indirect, will have to be maintained at a very high rate.

It has been suggested that the taxation of industry is too heavy and will have to be mitigated to some extent. I have read that ad nauseamin the English Tory newspapers about the situation in Great Britain, of Mr. Butler going from one end of England to the other and in the House of Parliament there and continually saying that industry is over taxed, that the burden on it is too heavy. That may be true of Great Britain. I have not sufficient knowledge of the situation there to speak with any authority on that subject, but I think it would be quite wrong if we were to take that suggestion from Great Britain, and from their Chancellor of the Exchequer, and accept that it must be axiomatic, that it is a cure for our ills here.

Let us not fool ourselves about our industries. Our industries are wonderful and grand things to have, but they are largely pocket industries, largely, as I have said, subsidiaries of English companies which have come in here to get the protection of our tariffs and quotas. They are not our main source of revenue or our main source of employment. Consequently, to order your fiscal policy on the assumption that what is good for England is good for Ireland is I think, completely erroneous, and is likely to lead to disastrous results.

If it is the policy to have a reduction in indirect taxation, that is all to the good, but I doubt very much if a good case can be made for a reduction in direct taxation on people in industry who are already doing pretty well forthemselves. Most of our industrialists— I am not one of their greatest critics— have, I think, been doing pretty well for themselves. Consequently, if there is not any likelihood of a mitigation of taxation, they are, I think, the people who should bear most of the burden, and not the lower income groups, or the old age pensioners, the widows, orphans and others.

On this question of tax relief, I feel that it is not a necessarily sound suggestion for adoption here. The Minister may be able to give us an explanation as to how the question of tax relief can be reconciled with his continuous exhortations to save. Tax relief will allow more money into circulation, and in that way will prevent people from saving—the objective which the Minister has in mind.

I listened with particular care to Deputy Costello, the Leader of the Opposition, in order to hear the policies of the Fine Gael Party expounded. I also heard Deputy T. F. O'Higgins on the same subject. I am quite prepared to believe that miracles can happen. The English Tory Party of to-day is only a pale shadow of what that Party was 20 years ago. It is possible that you can get a progressive Fine Gael Party. I believe, as I have said, that miracles can happen. Consequently, I was prepared to hear that the Fine Gael Party had a solution for our present ills. I must be forgiven for being sceptical and cynical of them, but, at the same time, I am not sufficiently sceptical or cynical not to believe that they could not turn over a new leaf.

The conditions put forward by Deputy Costello seemed to resolve themselves into the repatriation of sterling assets, of having increased savings here and of the investment of those savings in a prudent way, and in the establishment of money markets. There was an important condition which was not dealt with at any length, and that was the emendation of the Central Bank Act. First of all, I could get no views at all, good, bad or indifferent, on this question of subsidies. He admitted that the wage increases appeared to have met to a certain extent the taking away of the subsidies. At the same time, Fine Gaeldo not appear to have any clear policy in relation to those subsidies, whether they are going to restore the subsidies, even in an attenuated form, or completely to the level at which they were before the Minister took over, that is, if they were ever returned by the people again into power.

My difficulty, of course is, that Deputy Costello insists, as a good Tory must insist, that taxation is already too heavy and must be reduced. I have asked a number of very reputable economists about this matter. The question I put to them last year, when Fine Gael said it was possible, was, how could you reduce taxation or keep taxation at its present level and restore subsidies? I understand that it is impossible. If it is not impossible, I am prepared to be convinced that it is possible but nobody on the Fine Gael benches has made any attempt to convince me that it is possible. Consequently and naturally I must remain unconvinced.

The repatriation of sterling assets and the prudent investment of funds is a tremendously important proposition. There is nothing new in it. It has gone on for some time. I see difficulties with it. Under Marshall Aid a lot of money was made available to the inter-Party Government, of which I was a member. A lot of that money was spent in the country. It was pumped into circulation. There was this great drawback that I saw in it. What the country needed at the time and still needs was what you might call a blood transfusion, and, instead of that, it got what you might call a champagne cocktail. I may explain it in this way. I think the Minister for Finance at the time was very anxious that the money should be spent in a prudent way, but the trouble was that the only people who seemed to want to take up the dollars were the wireless-set sellers, the luxury consumer goods sellers, the washing-machine people, the lipstick and hair-curler sellers. Money was put into all these silly things, which, of course, could not make any contribution at all to the betterment of the community generally. It appeared that the people who sell these productscould use the money and that the tractor owners, the farm equipment retailers, for whatever reason, could not use that money. They were perfectly at liberty to use it if they wanted to, but, whatever the cause, that money did not go into the projects which most of the then Government had at heart, the buying of farm equipment, the land.

Nobody has explained to me how it will be possible, in our free economy, to insist that, if you do get another large loan, if you do raise large sums of money by an intensive savings campaign or if you do lay your hand on more of the sterling assets, that the money will be prudently spent. It has not been demonstrated to me by Deputy Costello or any of the Fine Gael speakers how they will ensure that that money will be prudently spent. Of course, the alternative, money imprudently spent, has tremendous political attractions — the wonderful feeling of plenty of money in circulation which, I am afraid, the American Loan did give, plenty of luxury goods in the shops, plenty of buying and selling, plenty of people employed in the distributive and drapery trade—a completely unhealthy economy. Most of the things were produced by America or Great Britain. They kept young Americans and young Britons in occupations, but they did nothing at all to produce a healthy economy in Ireland. It just gave that superficial facade of prosperity which is all very pleasant. Now, there is no doubt about it, the Government has right on its side there.

Now the hangover, now the realisation that that money was borrowed money, not one penny of which should have gone in any way except the creation of wealth, either by capital goods in industry or the mechanisation of agriculture. That of course seems to me to be one of the major problems facing the country, it does not matter which Government is in power —the fact that they have no right of direction or no right of control of the expenditure of money, no matter how much they may like to have it.

It is silly of the Opposition to accuse the Government of deliberately having created unemployment. It is aludicrous suggestion. No sane politician who has to face the public, as the members of the Government will have to do, would deliberately create times of shortage or of unemployment or of restrictive credit or any of these other things. At the same time, it is wrong of the Government to say that unemployment, restricted credit or emigration are not the results of their policy. I do not think that is quite fair either. If there had been a considerable rise in employment figures and a reduction in emigration, the Government would have been quick, and rightly quick, to claim the credit for those improvements in the state of the country. While they would be at liberty to claim credit for those improvements if they had taken place, I am afraid they cannot evade their responsibility in relation to the rise in unemployment figures which has taken place over the last year.

I said in the beginning that I have no remedy, mythical or otherwise, that I can put forward as being guaranteed to solve the problems of the country. It is no use for the Government to tell the Opposition that they did not do any better or for the Opposition merely to criticise without being constructive at the same time. The responsibility rests on the shoulders of the men in power and they must freely and fully accept that responsibility.

We do tend to become rather too interested in the clever dialectics of this whole business of parliamentary control, democratic government, and to overlook the fact that our failures in government have disastrous, serious, hurtful and painful results on our people.

One of the most serious results which everybody foretold was in relation to the food subsidies. I wonder if the Minister would explain a statement in relation to the food subsidies which was made by the Minister for Lands, as reported in column 442 of the Official Report for the 13th March, in which he said:—

"The food subsidies were only cut down by over £4,000,000, but the Government lost more by the provision of the compensatory benefits to the sections of the community most in need, to the extent even of1/6 per week per person. These benefits cost the Exchequer more than it gained by the reduction in the food subsidies...."

That to me is rather a peculiar statement. If that is true, I cannot see why the Government, as a sane, adult political Party which is a long time on the road, should have gone to the extraordinary strategem, having removed the food subsidies, of paying out that money. What did they gain by the removal of the food subsidies? The political results, of course, were disastrous. Many of the results took effect before the compensatory rise in wages. Why were these hardships imposed by the Government, if, as they must have anticipated, the consequences would just be the same in the end, that they would lose the same amount in the end? There may be an explanation for that, but I should like to hear it, because it was forecast by people that the removal of the subsidies would have to be met. It seems to me an extraordinary operation which was carried out with very little apparent benefit and that it was a disastrous, hurtful and harmful measure.

For what it is worth, I will try to offer constructive or helpful suggestions to the extent that I can. Our problem is a very serious one and must be solved. Other nations have done it before. There is no doubt that the solution of our problem needs more than just good intentions. Nobody, I presume, has any doubt as to the good intentions of the Minister and the Government. I think they have the best interests of the people at heart. They have shown that in the past. But it does need more than good intentions in running the country; you must show results as well. Listening to the Taoiseach, I could not help feeling that the most important matter is not whether the Government policy is the same or very much the same as that of the Opposition. I do not give a damn whether it is or not. The only interest I have is whether the policy works, and the policy of the last year, I respectfully submit, has not worked. I believe that the results of the policy have been too serious for many of ourpeople to allow anybody to feel in any way complacent about it.

In the solution of the problem, they might go back to the problem facing the late Mr. Roosevelt in America in 1929 and 1930, when he adopted the device of getting together a "brains trust", as he called it, in an attempt to provide employment by capital projects of different kinds, such as the Tennessee Valley projects and projects of that nature. As to afforestation, our approach to that has not been as dynamic as it could have been. A tremendous amount of wealth lay there if previous Governments had attacked that problem in a forthright way.

Then there is another thorny problem, the use of turf or coal. One of the things which the Minister and the Government have done is that, without doubt, they have given us a hair-shirt policy. I do not think any people worth their salt mind stringency, mind a hard time or short rations. No nation has ever minded that if they knew that these things would pass and that there would be an end to them. When Sir Stafford Cripps was dealing with the British people they went on short commons. They went without the luxuries which we wallowed in at the time, with the proviso that there would be an end to these short commons. He promised that the results of his policy would be a better life for them and for their children. That, I think, is what we have felt, that we have had restriction, that we have had a hard time and hardship. I do not think anybody minds these things very much as long as they know there is to be an end to them. Listening to the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs the other night, I do not think he anticipated that there will be an end to them. He anticipated a further rise in unemployment.

I want to make a suggestion in relation to the use of turf. I believe that any other nation facing such a problem as ours would not allow coal into the country—I represent a city constituency where this, I think, will be unpopular—as long as there wasturf available, which is a good fuel, and which is produced from the sweat and labour of our own people and which can work boilers and machinery and keep our industries going. That has been demonstrated in Athlone. Anything that can provide employment for our people, particularly in rural Ireland, is a sound policy and is worthy of consideration. I know that that is a terribly unpopular proposal to make, but it will provide more employment for our young men in the rural areas.

Some group of experts should be there to advise the Minister. I am sure most of our experts would be very willing to help in any way they could as to useful capital projects designed to provide employment, apart altogether from their overall value to the nation. The hydro-electric and the turbo-electric schemes are somewhat lackadaisical, perhaps, in their progress at the moment. I see no reason why many more such schemes should not be put into operation simultaneously. I see no reason why more rapid progress could not be made in that direction.

Industry is in the very capable hands of the Minister for Industry and Commerce. He certainly needs no advice. I doubt if any Government has the courage to tackle the main problem with which we are confronted. I doubt if any Government is prepared to take the risks involved in relation to increasing the productivity of our land. The farmers have many loud-mouthed and articulate advocates here. They have plenty of people to defend them. I am interested only in facts and in finding a solution to our present problem. I have no particular animus against any group or section.

Irish agriculture is stagnant. It has been so for many years past. No real attempt has been made to increase production under any Government. Everybody knows my views on social services. It is not realistic for people to talk of social services and a proper social order until a solution has been found to our present problem by the creation of new wealth. Nobody seems to consider that aspect of the problem at all. Each Minister for Finance triesto go on performing the miracle of the loaves and fishes, dividing the same amount of money between larger and larger groups of people demanding better health and social services, increased old age pensions and blind pensions, improved educational facilities and so on. It is absurd to think that these aims can ever reach fruition unless there is a vast increase in the national wealth of the community. It is only playing with the problem to say that taxation has reached its limits, that there is no more money and that we must cut down on social services. That is an evasion of our problem.

The whole world is giving better social services to its people. Our people will demand such services. They will expect to get them. It is no use blaming them for wanting them because they will go on wanting them and they will go on blaming whoever is in power for not giving them. One cannot possibly give them in the present context of our national resources. Like a benevolent parent both sides of the House are anxious to give our people the best possible in every sphere of activity, social, educational, health and so forth. The cost of living is rising and our income is fixed. That is a problem which relates to everyone in his or her own private life just as much as it relates to the Government.

Neither side has said how the national wealth can be increased. One must do something about agriculture. One must tax the farmers. One must get more of the money that passes between farmers at fairs and that never goes near the banks. Everybody knows that that money is there. Everybody denies it is there. Nobody will make any attempt to get it. The larger part of our farming community pays no income tax. It is living in the 18th century. Yet, it is the farmers who get free grants and all sorts of other benefits provided for them, which Deputy Finan wants increased still further.

I did not say so.

But you want it.

I did not say so.

Do you not want increased grants for the farmers?

I will make my own speech.

It is quite obvious that no attempt has been made to cut into the one real source of wealth in the country, the wealth that can be created from the land by the proper utilisation of the land and by the establishment of co-operative holdings. The present small holding is not an economic unit. The owner of such a holding cannot produce food at competitive prices. New Zealand can undersell the Irish farmer in relation to butter after shipping it across the world. The same is true of other commodities produced from the land. Some other country can always undersell us.

This is largely due to the failure of farming policy. It may be due to the fact that the farmer has not enough capital in some cases. It may be due to the fact that he cannot lay his hands on sufficient capital. It may be due to the fact that he is not prepared to sink whatever capital he has in his farm. It may be due to the fact that he has not the proper know-how. It may be due to the fact that his farm is not big enough. Agricultural policy has failed. The present Government has created no new approach. The present Minister has given us no reason to hope that he will increase the output from the land. There are too many large holdings not being worked at the present time. That is true of County Wicklow. It is also true of the Midlands, of Meath and Kildare and other counties as well. These people should not be allowed to continue sitting on the land. The land should be taken from them on the payment of proper compensation and given to those who are prepared to use it in order to produce the wealth we so badly need.

It is no good dodging around the problem. We must face it. We must accept it. There can be no increase in our standard of living, no real improvement in our social services, no real advance in any social sphere until we accept as axiomatic the fact that wehave a reserve of wealth waiting to be worked, waiting to produce, waiting to swell the nation's coffers so that we can give our people the things our people need.

I throw out these suggestions in order to remove the gag that is put on any discussion in relation to the land. Let somebody find a solution for our problem. Let somebody do something about our land. We are at the moment talking in vacuo.We are having a magnificent time with University dialectics, spitting fire at one another and doing nothing to solve the problem of the unemployed man who only asks for three meals a day and a job so that he can stay at home and support his family and not have to emigrate. We are doing nothing to give our people the things our people need, the things that we deny them at present. That is the first responsibility of any Government. That is the main responsibility facing the Government in the coming financial year.

It is, if I may say so, a privilege to speak after Deputy Dr. Browne's very thoughtful contribution to this debate. In the last part of his speech he mentioned the farming community and that there were many loud-mouthed and articulate representatives of that community in the House. I represent a constituency which is composed in large measure of small farmers and I am sure Deputy Dr. Browne would be interested to know that I agree with a great deal of what he has said. It is dangerous in these matters to speak in a way that might be misunderstood; worse still in a way that might be misrepresented by your political opponents. I do hope that whatever remarks I make now will be accepted in the same spirit as Deputy Dr. Browne's remarks were made.

It does not become a politician ever to sermonise and I certainly will make no attempt to sermonise. I cannot help remembering the message of the Gospel of the national feast day about the men who were sent out with different numbers of talents, one with five, one with three, and a third who was given only one. You all know thestory of the man who was given one talent and who put it in the ground and hid it. Deputy Dr. Browne threw out several suggestions to explain the lack of productivity by the farming community of this country and among them he mentioned the failure to utilise capital which they have. He also mentioned lack of capital.

It is undoubtedly true, and I do not think this statement will be denied by my political opponents, that very many of the smallest farming families in the West of Ireland have large sums of money at their back, usually, unfortunately, in the bank. It would be idle to suggest that this money was made out of the land which they own. It is the proceeds of decades of contributions by sons and daughters who have emigrated to America and England.

I very strongly agree with Deputy Dr. Browne that the small farming community and the middle farming community of the West of Ireland and elsewhere are burying their talents in the ground. They are keeping their money in the stocking because they are afraid to speculate it. There is usually a reason why a man should have money and should be afraid to speculate it. The reason, I submit, why these men are afraid to use the money which most of them undoubtedly have lies in the heritage of several centuries of occupation. It is not easy for a man to make the transition from servitude to freedom. It is not easy for a man to root out an attitude to life which has permeated his forbears for many generations. It can hardly be denied that if a man possessed a little wealth in the olden days the best, the safest and, in fact, the only course he could take was to hide that fact from the world at large. If it were known he had anything or if he showed by his industry that he was possessed of anything other than the merest essentials of life, his landlords or some other grabbing class who controlled him saw to it that he would be made pay.

In many other respects the Irish people have yet fully to realise that we now, in fact, are free. Most of the younger generations find it difficult to realise that what we are fighting fornow is the economic independence of the country, not portion of the British Empire or the British Commonwealth but their own free, independent, republican country to which each one of them not only can make a contribution but, if he can, is in duty bound to do so.

I do hope that my remarks in this respect will not be deliberately misunderstood or deliberately misinterpreted by my political opponents. The Clann na Talún Party, which is supposed to represent the farming community, has always inveighed against the people mentioned by Deputy Dr. Browne, the big ranchers of the Midlands and of certain portions of the West of Ireland. I do not intend to bring this debate back to the mudslinging level by saying that nothing very significant was done in their term of office as compared with what was done previously or subsequently. I will say that I have thought both Governments could concentrate more on afforestation.

I am very pleased to notice that the Estimate for expenditure for afforestation for the year 1953-54 has been increased not only beyond the figure for 1952-53 but also beyond any previous figure. I do think it is a great pity that any Deputy should try to make the case that this Government is not making any effort as regards afforestation and is cutting down upon the quota. It is simply not true to say that and I strongly submit that whatever Government is in power should double and redouble its efforts in this particular direction.

Another remark made by Deputy Dr. Browne was to the effect that in his opinion no nation minds stringency or having to do without things provided they know that there will be an end to it, provided they know that when the end does come, their sacrifices will have been worthwhile.

The Irish people have always shown that they are particularly well adapted to meeting emergencies when they know that the end aimed at is worth fighting for. I have the greatest confidence in the ability of the people to adopt the same attitude now or at any time in the future, but I do hope that now, that we have an essentiallyand predominantly economic rather than a political problem, the attitude of people of the Deputy O'Higgins type who always insist on introducing a political atmosphere, will not so cloud and confuse the mind of the Irish people that they will not know what they are striving for. I repeat that it is a privilege to be in this House in an atmosphere created by a thoughtful and impartial speech delivered by a man who believes sincerely in the future of the country and who tells this House frankly what his views are. We may disagree with some of them and agree with others.

I submit to the House that, for the first time in the history of our independent nation, we have now a predominantly economic problem as opposed to a predominantly political problem. This nation was divided following the civil war and the attitude of two totally divergent elements as regards its political future. I say that the people showed in no uncertain way where their sympathies lay as soon as they collected their thoughts following the civil war. As a result, a political programme was put through by the Fianna Fáil Party and it was given a mandate such as I believe it would be impossible to get in any country in the world during the period in question, under a system of proportional representation. I do not think anybody can say that Fianna Fáil fell down on the job they were given by the people.

They fell asleep.

We now find ourselves confronted by what is predominantly an economic problem. Much of the mud which was slung by members of the Opposition following the Budget measures of 1952 was certainly not designed to give the Irish people a real grasp of the problems they were faced with. The result was that you found them confused and doubtful about matters which should be perfectly clear and straightforward to them. I speak again on a difficult matter, from a political point of view, but I have no fear of speaking here or elsewhere about any matter, since I am speaking honestly and in perfect sincerity. I am referring to the matter of unemployment assistance. I havebeen told, time and time again, that no politician in the West of Ireland would dare raise the question of the dole in this House because he would be thereby committing political suicide. So long as I am here, I shall speak my mind and I shall not be sorry for having spoken it. I hear on every side of me criticism of the system of unemployment assistance. Why should men who are known to have money in the bank be given State assistance? Why should others have to pay more for essential commodities in order to supply certain sections of the community who do not need it with assistance from the State?

Before dealing fully with this question, it might be well to get the importance of it into its true perspective. These people who speak about unemployment assistance as a national scandal would give you the impression that vast sums of money, relative to the total revenue of the State, were being given out unnecessarily in doles. The Estimate for the coming year in respect to unemployment assistance is £1,538,000, an increase of about £70,000 over the Estimate for last year. As compared with that, the total Estimate for old age pensions for the coming year is £9,500,000.

The total Estimate for widows' and orphans' non-contributory pensions is £1,788,000. I think few people realise that old age pensions cost the State £9,500,000 a year. A comparison can be made in other ways, but perhaps it might be better to keep within the sphere of social assistance generally. I think nobody will deny that there are certain members of the community who must be assisted out of central funds. I think the day has long passed when any democratic State would be allowed to adopt the attitude of "every man for himself". I think that any sort of honest examination of this matter brings one to the conclusion that some amount should be paid by way of unemployment assistance or, failing that, that assistance under a different name, but of the same nature, should be paid to men who through no fault of their own genuinely cannot make ends meet.

I feel it my duty, however, to say that I have heard a great number of complaints in various parts of my constituency about abuses of a system which, I submit, is in itself just. I feel bound to say that a great number of people now consider that the abuses are so great that some alternative system of benefit should be devised and that the present unemployment assistance code should be abolished. Obviously people who say that are not themselves in receipt of unemployment assistance. Obviously those people who are in receipt of unemployment assistance have a very great power in the ballot-box. Be that as it may, I submit to the Government that it is the opinion of the majority of the people in my constituency that the system of unemployment assistance should be revised because of the abuses which have crept into the system, particularly over the period of the past five years.

I am inclined to agree with Deputy Dr. Browne's suggestion that drastic measures should be taken regarding the importation of coal. I believe that that is not a step that can be taken at once but it is a goal at which we should aim at the earliest possible opportunity. In the same way, I think—and this idea was not born as a result of a leading article in yesterday's or today's Evening Mail—that some effort should be made to prevent the sale of religious souvenirs at our shrines, such as Knock—souvenirs which have been imported from countries behind the Iron Curtain. I do not see why a country such as this should tolerate the importation of religious or other souvenirs from a country behind the Iron Curtain. Irish people have to find the money to purchase these souvenirs—souvenirs which, I may say, could very well be manufactured at home.

During the course of the debate this evening my mind travelled back to another debate which took place in this House. When I was speaking during that other debate, Deputy Coburn, who has now left the House, interrupted me. I made the suggestion that the land project as it then operated was not designed for the smaller farmers inthe West of Ireland. Deputy Coburn took pains to point out that I was taking a line contrary to that taken by the Taoiseach. He said that the Taoiseach suggested that the larger groupings required to be drained and that money should be directed towards an immediate increase in national production by increasing the productivity of the larger farms in the Midlands and elsewhere. Since that time, the Department have made a change in the system and it is gratifying to be able to say that the land project is now designed to suit, more particularly, the small farmers in the West of Ireland. Although, from a national point of view, they are not likely to affect national productivity as dramatically as the bigger farmers, the small farmers can and will make their significant contribution to the increased production which ought to follow from a more widespread use of the land project.

I think that that matter could, more appropriately be raised on the main Estimate.

I will conclude my remarks on that subject by saying that I hope that no member of the Opposition will again attempt to make the case that we, as a Government, directed the sale of agricultural implements because we are a bankrupt nation. It might be better to remind the people who made that allegation that we voted an extra £274,000 for the land project at the time the Minister made that difficult but, I think, advantageous decision. I think, too, that it does not help the people of this country to understand the difficult economic problems that face us when they hear certain Deputies try to make the case that unemployment has been created by Fianna Fáil. One should not speak in this House without being able to give the appropriate references.

I sat in this House not very long ago and I heard a Deputy state—I think it was Deputy MacBride—that there was no unemployment problem during the period of office of the Coalition Government. That statement was made either last week or the weekbefore that: if I am challenged to produce the reference, I am confident that I can do so. May I ask, of what benefit is such a statement to the ordinary citizen who is trying to understand the economic problems of this State? As the Taoiseach pointed out this evening, the average number of unemployed in this country in 1950 was over 60,000. The average number in 1952 was also—and very unfortunately—over 60,000.

Surely it is no contribution to the solution of the problems of this country that a person should make a statement so patently false in the hope that it will be believed by the people and that, acting on it, they will vote accordingly. Undoubtedly, it is a very grave problem that there should be 60,000—much less a greater number —unemployed in this country at any given time. I can only hope that, in future, and particularly in the 12 months that lie ahead. Deputies sitting on the opposite benches will not appeal, as they appealed unsuccessfully, to the lowest aspects of mentality, saying: "Do you want to pay more for this, that or the other? If you do, vote Fianna Fáil." The people said: "Yes, we do," and they voted for Fianna Fáil, thereby proving that such Opposition tactics would not fool them, not even for two months. I have heard nothing from the Opposition in the course of the past fortnight or three weeks which would indicate any change of heart on their part. I have heard nothing from them which would achieve anything other than the making of political capital out of what are very real difficulties for our people. Fine Gael hope, as a result of their adroit manoeuvring, to build up a Party big enough to enable them to form a Government by themselves. But in case they should fail to do that, they want to keep Labour and Clann na Talún stringing along with them under a common name.

I think history has proved that, however genuine the men may be who form coalitions, they lead to nothing but political disaster. I think that has been proved in the case of Spain where they had 33 Cabinets in 15 years, inItaly where they had 30 years of coalition governments prior to Mussolini walking into Rome, and in France where, even though they had a good Prime Minister, he could not get enough support for a period that would enable him to do something good for his country. The Opposition should be honest enough to admit that, whatever they might expect to be able to do by taking their stand on good principles and on a good policy, there is nothing to be gained by them when they are prepared to abandon or compromise on their policy.

On a point of order. What relation has all this to the Vote on Account?

I am waiting for the Deputy to relate his remarks to the Vote on Account.

At any rate, this Government has taken its stand on a certain financial policy. That policy produced dramatic results in the last 12 months by a reduction in our very serious adverse trade balance, while internally it has gone a certain distance towards restoring stability in the State. The Government, in order to make that policy effective, recently asked certain sections of the community to make temporary sacrifices. Those who have read the various reports of O.E.E.C. will understand the reasons which the Government had for doing that—in asking certain sections of the community not to press their claims so that their budgetary policy might be carried into full effect.

I am suggesting that no alternative policy has been offered as an inter-Party policy or as a coalition policy, and that, consequently, it is very dishonest, from the political point of view, of the members of the Opposition to pretend to the Irish people that they, in fact, have a coalition or an inter-Party policy common to themselves which would solve the country's difficulties if the people were to put this combination of Parties back into power. They say that, despite the fact, as we all know, that these Partiescannot get promises binding each other or binding even members of these Parties to each other or to the country.

Some Deputy suggested that it was absurd that a small State like Ireland should have so many Embassies and Legations scattered all over the world. I am sure that suggestion will not be treated seriously by the people. It surely is as important for us to preserve our position internationally as it is to preserve it nationally. I hope that no member of the Opposition will ever again stoop to that type of tactic. When all is said and done, all that the Department of External Affairs is costing the country is £480,400 a year.

I will conclude by pointing out, as I did at the outset of my remarks, that it takes a long time for people to root out an attitude of mind born during centuries of foreign occupation and born of a want of faith. The best service that we can render to the Irish people is to persuade them to use all the money they have and that it is as important now, as never before, to put into operation the old maxim that you must speculate in order to accumulate. The politicians, too, should do their utmost to persuade the people that, by making false declarations in order to secure a State service or State assistance, or by giving false information or otherwise misleading investigating officers, they are not damaging the alien, but are damaging their own country, their consciences, their civic pride and their ability, not only to build up the country, but, having done so, to preserve it. If that civic pride, that sense of responsibility can be sedulously engendered in the younger generation, then they will be prepared to make whatever sacrifices are necessary. They will be able to consolidate, politically and economically, the enormous gains made by those who have immediately preceded them, particularly those great Irishmen who won for this country its freedom over the past 30 or 40 years.

Deputy Flanagan appealed to the Opposition not to attempt to ask the people in the future whether they were prepared to vote for this or the other increase. Does heforget the photograph that appeared in his newspaper of a poor housewife, bent with grief because she had to pay 2/10 per lb. for butter? He forgets that. All the Government Deputies have forgotten the unemployed. Deputies on the Government Benches have remained silent about the problem of the 90,000 unemployed. The Taoiseach stated to-night that the problem was not of his making. There is a problem. They have no solution.

Various Deputies have pointed to increases in Estimates. I am very perturbed about the effect on my constituency of the reduction of £55,000 in respect of mineral development. We know that mineral development is confined more or less to the Avoca area. If a large number of men are unemployed in that area in addition to the 800 who are already unemployed in Bray, I do not know what the position will be in County Wicklow. I am not speaking now from the point of view of the by-election.

What solution have the Government for the problem of unemployment? Instead of a reduction in the sub-head, mineral development, of £55,000 there should be an increase. Deputy Seán Flanagan advocates production of turf. Rather strangely, he omitted to mention that last year there was a provision of £364,000 for turf production which is being reduced this year to £125,000. We are told that people will not burn it. Perhaps the people in the cities will not burn it. There is a serious problem facing County Wicklow.

Who closed down the ochre mine in Avoca?

They did. The coalition closed it down.

We did not. We got a report from the expert. We kept men employed. You are reducing the provision by £55,000. Even if the inter-Party Government did close it down, I hope you will not follow the example.

Oh, no. We did not close it.

There is a reduction of £55,000. Does that mean that more men will be unemployed in addition to the 800 already unemployed in Bray, that there will be more unemployment in rural areas? Deputy Briscoe gave us a lecture on the housing problem. He represents a Dublin constituency. People who represent Dublin have no knowledge whatever, I submit, of the problem of rural housing. Dublin Corporation arrange their loan. The county council must go to the Local Loans Fund and the interest in respect of loans from that fund has been increased to 5¼ per cent. Neither Deputy Briscoe nor the Minister for Lands can suggest that Wicklow County Council is a political body. The members of all Parties in the Wicklow County Council for 20 years, to my knowledge, have gone out of their way to provide decent housing for the people. What is the problem now with the increase in the rate of interest? On a £1,100 house there would be an extra charge of 8/6 per week. What public body will build houses in a rural area and ask an unfortunate farm labourer to pay 15/- or 18/- per week?

Does the Government not refund any part of the interest charges?

Of course.

I am dealing with what we have to pay and what it is costing. A scheme of direct labour was operated for the past 30 years and was approved by both Governments. We were able to build good houses for the people. The position has changed since two years ago. Tradesmen, skilled men and labourers have been dismissed, not because our schemes are completed but because the council are unable to proceed with any further schemes owing to the high cost of the houses as a result of the interest charge. If we were in the position that Dublin Corporation is in, naturally, we might go ahead.

We are building a scheme now that the Minister has sanctioned for the white-collar workers who will pay the economic rent. We have built more houses in County Wicklow in proportionto the population than any other county in Ireland. Unfortunately, now we are unable to proceed with the housing scheme. I would ask Deputy Briscoe to use his power with the Government. I know that, like myself, he has been interested in social development for the last 20 or 30 years. If he comes down to Wicklow we will explain the position there to him. We have a scheme in operation. We have the machinery in perfect order. We are dispensing with men week after week as each house is completed. What is the cause of that? The high rate of interest charged by the Government.

A Deputy from Wicklow gets up and says that the farmers must get a cheaper rate of interest. He is supporting the Government that have put 1 or 2 per cent. on loans for the farmers. He pointed out here to-day that the farmer must get a special rate of interest, cheap credit. The Government put a 20 per cent. tariff on fertilisers coming into the country. He is supporting that Government. He pointed out in other speeches that you cannot give money at a cheaper rate than you borrow, but he wants cheaper money for the farmers.

The Minister for Finance pointed out that for political purposes the Opposition had complained about the building of houses. For 20 or 30 years all Parties joined together in an endeavour to provide houses for the people. That could not be termed political. The Minister asked why could not the Labour Party act in the same way as the T.U.C. acted towards the Tory Government in England, who promised that they would not look for any further increase in wages. The Labour Party or the trade unions tried to secure 12/6 for all sections of workers to compensate for the increase in the cost of living, but many men in the rural areas could not secure 12/6, or half the amount. That is the Central Bank's idea—create unemployment and the men that are in employment will quieten down and not look for any money and you will not have to import the food that the men would buy if they were in employment. The positionis so bad that we are told by the Minister for Lands that we are eating too much, that there is too much butter consumed in the country.

Of course, he said nothing of the sort.

He referred to a statement made by the American experts that Ireland was consuming more butter and more food than any other country, even more than America.

He did not say they were consuming too much. That is the Deputy's attempt to interpret what he said.

"Falsify" is the word to use, not "interpret."

The Minister will have an opportunity very soon in Wicklow of explaining and, if he is on the other side of the House, I am sure we will get our desires in County Wicklow. I would prefer him to be in the House what he is outside and not to become a different man when he comes into the House. We will deal with him when he comes to Wicklow, but not in any antagonistic way. They want us to eat less and they secured that.

That was never said.

What did the Minister for Lands state?

You will not find that in it.

He referred to the statement which was published that Ireland was consuming too much butter. There is less consumed now when we are paying 4/2 a lb. for stuff from New Zealand. The Government are making £200,000 a year by charging the poor people 4/2 a lb. for it. Deputy Briscoe on another occasion would be loud in his appeals for the Government to do their duty by the unemployed. One supporter of the Government to-night stated that he was very perturbed owing to the serious position and I am sure the Government must be very perturbed. If they have given any consideration to the problem, either the Taoiseach or theMinister should announce it to the House. Even members of their own Party are met with this problem of the unemployed in their constituency. Those who are in employment are not able to make ends meet. With the wages they receive, they are not able to buy sufficient food.

I have got the Minister for Lands statement now. As reported in column 447 of the Official Report of 13th March, the Minister stated:—

"In that connection, the Government are aware, and have been deeply affected by the fact, that butter output has declined substantially in this country, but consumption, on the other hand, has increased."

He referred to the T.U.C. in England. The Minister took his instructions from the English T.U.C. I am surprised that the Minister should refer to anything in that country as being good. The Minister for Finance went over and had a long interview with the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and we know what happened here as a result of that. No paragraphs appeared in the Press about it, but the paragraphs appeared when the Budget was introduced. We have been told that the Budget has not affected the unemployment problem. We know very well that the Budget and the extra taxation created unemployment. Deputy Briscoe and other Deputies are aware that the banks have restricted credit, not through the bank managers, but on the instructions of the directors.

Not from the Government.

The Minister for Finance adopted the recommendations in the Central Bank's Report, but they were not accepted by the Minister for Industry and Commerce. When the Minister for Industry and Commerce at the Ard-Fheis found that the delegates were not in favour of the Central Bank Report, he agreed with the delegates, but when it came to the Cabinet meeting he agreed with the Minister for Finance. In this country at present we have a policy of austerity; 90,000 persons are unemployedand many more will be unemployed. We had two or three Ministers going round the country telling us that we were on the verge of bankruptcy. If that was true, we should not be spending £50,000 a year on the President's establishment. He is a modest citizen, and if he had his own way I am sure he would be the last to agree to have £50,000 spent on that establishment while there is so much unemployment in the country.

That is a statutory provision.

It comes under the Estimates.

It employs a good many people.

About 10,000 of the idle rich go up there once in the year. I do not want to speak disrespectfully of the occupant of that establishment, but he is living on an imperial scale. The traffic in the streets was stopped for hours when he went to be sworn in and thousands of people went up to the Phoenix Park to get their lemonade. We are trying to imitate what takes place in wealthy countries at a time when we are supposed to be on the verge of bankruptcy. If we are on the verge of bankruptcy, why not try and save money on the various Departments? Why not give a lead, instead of spending money in that way without having any solution for the unemployment problem? I do not want to say a word against the respected occupant of the position, but I am criticising the Government for the holding of the procession for the swearing in ceremony. Some Deputies got into a black coat for that occasion and they have been wearing it since. If we are in such a poor state we should not be spending money as we are spending it as present on the President's establishment.

Deputy Briscoe wants a couple of million pounds for the knocking down of the buildings in Dublin Castle and providing accommodation for all the officials.

I want the unemployed people employed on a construction scheme.

Your policy has caused 4,000 or 5,000 skilled men in the building industry to be unemployed.

I hope when the Minister gets the work under way that you will not oppose it.

I hope you will get them back into employment. We brought them back from England to work on housing schemes. Why have housing schemes been stopped all over the country? If the Deputy inquires he will see that what I am stating is true.

The Deputy must not be interrupted. There is a continual buzz of conversation all round.

Unemployment presents a serious problem in my own constituency. There are at least 800 unemployed in Bray. Mineral development has been reduced by £55,000. That means probably there will be large numbers unemployed in Avoca because there will be no work available there.

Does the £55,000 apply to Avoca?

It applies to mineral development.

Will Deputy Briscoe please allow Deputy Everett to make his speech in his own way. Deputy Briscoe is continually interrupting.

I am trying to help him.

Interruptions do not help either the Deputy or the House.

Will the Minister give some assurance that the unemployment problem will not be aggravated by the dismissal of men on mineral development in Avoca?

We will open it for you.

Deputy Briscoe must cease interrupting.

I want some assurance that some solution will be found. Large numbers are willing to work and the present situation must be remedied. Increased grants for the unemployed is not the proper solution. If the Government is really in earnest they will initiate some projects. There was a time when they felt so optimistic about development here that they were talking of bringing back those who had gone abroad for work. At that time they accepted it as their duty to provide work for the people. I admit that the solution is not an easy one. This problem should be dealt with on a co-operative basis by all Parties and not merely from a political point of view.

Unemployment can breed trouble. The Government should take its courage in its hands and try to solve the problem. The inter-Party Government left a residue of 30,000 unemployed. I admit that was a large number, but it is not so large as the number that are unemployed to-day. One Deputy mentioned that we were paying back the Marshall loan and that we had put this country into pawn with America. In actual fact, the country has been pawned to the English insurance companies.

The Royal Liver.

With Deputy Alfred Byrne.

There are other insurance companies and they must have their 5 per cent. It is odd that in England a huge loan could be raised at 4½ per cent. Was the Minister afraid he would not get the money at 3 per cent.? If money had been got at 3 per cent. we would not have large-scale unemployment at the moment. We would not have large numbers emigrating to work for other countries when they should really be working at home for their own people.

Did the Deputy's Government get money at 3½ per cent.?Was the loan fully subscribed at that rate?

Not fully subscribed, but almost fully. Certainly, the Government should not raise money at more than 4½ per cent. The difficulty we have with housing in County Wicklow is that the grants are not yet available on houses that were reconstructed over 12 months ago. Last week I received a letter saying that the people were still waiting for the money. Local authorities are paying an enormous sum in interest because the Government has failed to make available the money due to these authorities on housing schemes over the past three months, on road development and other public works.

That is purely administration and has reference only to the main Estimate.

The Minister should ensure that the Departments responsible should forward the moneys owing to local authorities and not have these public bodies paying 5 per cent. on their overdrafts.

Even if the Minister has that overriding authority, the matter does not arise on this Vote on Account.

The people have been promised that the money would be sent on and they are still waiting for it. Is the Government holding back the money? Is that the policy?

Why not ask a parliamentary question about that?

I am sure that what is true of Wicklow is true of every other country, but I am merely dealing with the grievances that exist in my own constituency. I will give theDeputy the names of those who have completed the reconstruction of their houses and are waiting for the grants.

That is purely administration and should be raised on the main Estimate and not on the Vote on Account.

I will not bother writing any more to the Department. I got so many definite assurances and yet nothing ever happened. I do not blame the Government for taking credit for the good they have done but that does not mean that we should not criticise when criticism is necessary. I am criticising the Government for its failure to solve the unemployment problem. I think all Parties should co-operate with the trade unions and other representative bodies in order to find a solution to this problem. Some Deputies have talked about certain people trying to take advantage of the serious situation that exists in regard to unemployment. That is the kind of situation in which certain people like to do their particular work, a situation of hunger, want, discontent and no hope for the future. Some people are taking advantage of the unemployment that exists to achieve their own ends. The Government should not allow that situation to arise. A speedy solution to the problem must be found and I hope there will be some statement of policy on the matter before this debate closes.

Progress reported; the Committee to sit again.
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