8/-. The person whose family emolument is £600 has now an income equal to only £240 pre-war. Such persons, we are told, are in the midddle income group and not at all in the category of destitute people who have got to get free medical services because of their own industry or other lawful means they cannot provide these things for themselves.
Those who support this Government find it impossible to pay the award of an arbitration board which the members of the Government allowed to be set up and, by allowing it to be set up, certainly there was a guarantee to any thinking person, any honest person, that the award would be met. They find it impossible to provide the money. A question was asked here recently and drew the reply that 86 per cent. of 36,000 civil servants we have in the State did not rise above the salary of £5 10s. per week. That £5 10s., again using the standard of 9/- to the £ ascompared with pre-war values, is now worth only 50/-. Eighty-six per cent. of the 36,000 are in receipt of a wage, which measured in terms of 1938-39 values, is worth only £2 10s. per week. Yet the State cannot afford to meet the arbitrator's award, the arbitrator having been chosen by an agreement of the staff themselves and of the Government.
Our standard of life has, I suppose, to be regarded as increased by the introduction to this country of the great Tulyar. The standard of living will certainly not have to rise very much, even for the 1,500,000 people on the destitution line, to put them in a position which, if measured in terms of money, will be much higher than that of the 86 per cent. of the civil servants with their present pay of about £5 10/-per week which, measured in terms of 1938-39 values, is 50/- per week. Tulyar may be a great acquisition to this country if he serves only to show up the way in which humans are treated, as compared with what is permitted and thought to be normal for a valuable animal.
Last year, as I say, the Budget was framed on the basis that the Government were satisfied that incomes had generally advanced more than the cost of living and that therefore subsidies should be cut, and subsidies were cut. In this debate the cry has been repeated, in a parrot-like way, that those who complain of the Budget restrictions and hardships have avoided indicating how relief might be granted. We, in this House, indicated last year our view that taxation has been imposed which was unnecessary and we put the figure of overtaxation at £10,000,000. The events that have happened since have justified that claim of ours. May I put the matter as simply as I can to this House, because it is always difficult to get an understanding about these figures? When a Minister frames his Budget proposal, he is subject to possible fluctuation from any of three sources. His revenue may prove better than was estimated. That was generally the situation in my time. On the other hand, it may prove worse. We have been told by those who appeared against the Civil Serviceat the arbitration board that the Estimates have been very definitely exaggerated although properly made, that revenue was not coming up to the Estimate, and that it was going to be very much below it.
The second thing that might complicate the Estimates of the Minister for Finance in his Budget are Supplementary Estimates. Within the year just coming to a close Supplementary Estimates aggregating £9,250,000 were introduced. If revenue is not yielding as much as it was thought it would, and if £9,250,000 extra of Supplementary Estimates were brought in towards the end of the year, is it not clear that it has been found, unless it is going to be found by deficit, because of the padding in the original Estimates? If at this time of the year the country is to take it that a new £9,250,000 can be brought in in the last month of the financial year, without a corresponding demand made on the taxpayer, unless, as I say, the Government is going to run into a deficit, the £9,250,000 must be coming from somewhere. We said last year that between overestimation of expenditure and underestimation of the revenue there was £10,000,000 of hidden taxation that was unnecessary.
I believe that events have proved that to be the case. Remember, the revenue is not running so far below at all. In the last three weeks about £6,000,000 has come in. That represents an average of about £2,000,000 a week. At the moment the revenue is £91,250,000. We have two weeks and a bit to go from the time that estimate was brought in. Certainly, £5,000,000 should have come in during that period and that would mean a revenue of £96,250,000. What we looked for was £97,750,000. Despite all the moaning and wailing about the reduced revenue and about how the Estimates had been falsified, unless there will be a greater carry-over than last year—secretly made—the worst the revenue will be down will be by £1,750,000. That is the position, despite all the moaning and wailingand the refusal, so far, to act on the Civil Service arbitration award.
Were we not quite right in thinking, as we thought last year when the Budget was introduced, that the revenue would be much greater? Nobody foresaw the business depression. Nobody foresaw the amount of unemployment. Nobody foresaw the short-time employment. It was feared— but, in any event, the Estimates were on the basis that there would still be the same purchasing power in people's hands. It was not expected that there would be a cut from full wages to the dole or from full wages to half-wages. It was expected that the people would have the same moneys to spend as they had in the previous year. It was expected that trade would be good and that there would be the same buoyancy as there was during the years 1948, 1949, 1950 and 1951. If there had been a normal year, is it not quite clear that the revenue would have exceeded the Estimate? We felt that the same favourable conditions could again be expected. That forecast has been falsified by the turn of events. The Government did not realise the harm they were doing to the community—and particularly to the business community—by their clumsy handling of affairs in the Budget last year. In any event, the revenue was not going to be achieved. We were told that if £9,250,000 were substracted there was still £98,000,000 to be looked for.
We were told that the revenue would bring in £97,750,000—that is, without touching subsidies or social security payments at all. Where is the Minister finding the money for the £9,250,000? If the answer will be that part of that £9,250,000 has already been thought of in the Budget, then may I ask how much was not thought of? I submit that at least £4,500,000 to £5,000,000 was not thought of. Where is that £5,000,000 to come from? Is it not quite clear that the Estimates of expenditure were padded out fiercely last year and that we were right when we said, looking forward—and with things being normal—that, either through increased revenue or through economy on the expenditure side, the Government would get £10,000,000? But that meant £10,000,000 exaction from the publicthat should never have been made on them.
The Government have a fortnight to go. Are they going to run a deficit? If they think of doing that, then let them read all the things they said, and falsely said, about the deficits which they alleged I had in my last Budget. I do not think the Government will run a deficit. They have not looked for new revenue. It is down only a little bit. Where did they get the money for the supplementary services which are, to within a few hundred pounds, the same as the capital services which they said—I think falsely—they had subtracted from their arrangements last year? The people can ponder on that before the 31st March comes along but it shows up the fact that the calculations we made last year were properly made and that, instead of disproving what we said, events are proving up to the hilt our forecast for a full year ahead.
The difficulty with regard to last year's Budget was fairly clear. The Budget could have been stopped at that point. Suppose the Estimates had properly been scrutinised. If the likely economies or, possibly, the fraudulent items put in on the Estimates side had been pruned out and the economies allowed for, then that Book of Estimates—instead of standing at £94,000,000 odd—could have been presented as at £84,000,000. Then, with the subtraction of the capital services, the revenue—without any additions from beer, tobacco, spirits or anything else—was running at about £2,000,000 more than what was required. Of course, the difficulty that then faced the members of the Government was how the social security payments were to be presented. It would not do to have a Budget that was balanced at every point—and with a couple of million pounds over—and then to have to speak of social security payments and in the end, boldly and nakedly, to say to the people:—"We are finding these social security payments out of your bread, butter, sugar and tea"— because that is what has been done.
Those people who may pride themselves on the increase in social services must also remember the other side tothe story. The Government found the money for this—and £1,000,000 more— from the cuts in the subsidies. The Government's action in regard to cutting the subsidies had to be justified so as not to appear to be too inhuman—and that justification was along the lines that the people were too well off, that their incomes had risen more than the cost of living and that, therefore, the Government could take a bite here and there. There were cuts in the subsidies and millions were exacted from the public. I will leave out income-tax and petrol but there was £5,500,000 from tobacco, £2? million from beer and £1,000,000 from spirits. That, added to the £6,668,000 gross which the savings and subsidies were to bring in, gave, of course, plenty of money, not merely for the increases arising from the Social Insurance Bill, but also, possibly, for what had to be found under the health legislation before the new thought struck the Government of off-loading the greater part of the costs under the health scheme to the local authorities. There is the plan! Make the Estimates: blow them up: inflate them on the expenditure side and diminish your hope of revenue. You can prune the Estimates later, if your revenue happens to be greater than it should have been.
If there had not been the disaster of the past year, the Government this year would have been in the position of being able to give great remissions of taxation and of trying to sweeten the people again. Or else they could have had the plan which, I suggest, was the plan of last year—to hide what had happened once more, to stop money getting into circulation through the policy that the inter-Party Government had adopted and furthered, the policy of capital development, the policy of spending money on the schemes that we found suitable for the application of such moneys.
The only other thing that was mentioned in the Budget was the playing up of the position with regard to the balance of payments, a position that has been entirely falsified by the events of last year, and a forecast that was outrageously wide of the mark.We had the statement that taking everything into consideration and weighing, in particular, all the bad things that might be foreseen, that balance was going to be at least £50,000,000 down. Of course, it is nothing like that, and let no member of the Fianna Fáil Administration claim any credit for what has happened in that regard during the year. There has been an improvement along lines on which they said it could not take place. There was no possibility, the Tánaiste said, of any increase in exports. The only value in the improvement that has come about in the year in that connection has been the great increase in agricultural exports.
The decrease in imports was, I consider, a cowardly method of dealing with them. It is a method which appeals to some people because, if you keep imports low, then, in order to avoid an increase in prices, you must diminish the spending power the people have. That was the second excuse for cutting the incomes of people last year, that if they got too much money to spend they would spend it on goods that were coming in across the frontier, and so there would be great importations and at the end of the year the balance of trade would be very badly out. That was the policy adopted, and that was the philosophy that was behind the last Budget.
I am asked what is my suggestion for an improvement. I say cut the fake out of the Estimates. In the book which has been presented there is provision for over £100,000,000. There was one ejaculation in connection with that figure, that £4,000,000 of it should not be in the book at all, that it should have been brought in as an element—a below-the-line or above-the-line—of capital services. Of course, it is better to put it in to frighten the people so that they will not be disappointed if the Budget does not reveal a great gloom, but is only slightly tinged with gloom.
What was done in connection with the bankers' advocacy was to move interest rates up, because, of course, if there is capital development, and particularly if that capital developmentis to cover such things as a housing policy, rural electrification and other policies, and if the rate at which money is borrowed is raised it removes some of the incentives, by way of cheapness, to those who are anxious to go into housebuilding, rural electrification, by raising the rates on them and making money dear. It is one of the old classical ways to stop spending and force people instead, because they cannot get their money employed in the way in which they would like, to put it into the more lucrative savings, such as a 5 per cent. national loan would give them. All that adds to the misery of the people, as we forecast it would.
The turn of the year has shown that we have an unemployment figure of 90,000. Emigration has excited comment, not merely from those who have charge of schools, the clerical managers of schools and those in charge of souls, but from those interested in the development of the rural areas. It has even drawn comment from those on the other side. We recently had the statement of a Parliamentary Secretary that there were thousands of people swarming into one of the industrial cities in England, and that this attracted attention to the point that the clerical advisers there want a social bureau established to direct these people to keep them away from what they call systems, methods and atmospheres which are alien to them and to their culture. That must be counted as part of the cost, and I assume part of the foreseen cost, of this policy of deflation: cutting out things, overtaxation, the raising of interest rates and of everything designed to make business more difficult, with employment far from easy to obtain and maintain.
We have been asked, what is to be done about it? Prune your Estimates. There is still padding in these Estimates. Let us get a statement as to what happened last year and get that without any secret carrying-over in excess—without any padding even of these Estimates or the supplementaries of the present year. Let us be told clearly what is the position, and whatit is that is required should be taken off the taxpayer this year and how success can be achieved in taking it off without any new Budget and without any increase in the method of extorting. After that, supposing the Government changed its mind and changed its direction and went out on the system that we left behind us, in which there was buoyancy everywhere. The revenue was buoyant because business and trade were good.
I do not think that, in the three years I was in Government lately, I got a forecast from the Revenue Commissioners of a decreased yield from the existing taxes. Year after year I got an estimate of a good increase, and that good increase lasted until last year, notwithstanding the blunderers who have come into office. I doubt if the Revenue Commissioners will give an estimate of an increased yield this year from present taxes because direct taxation, of course, will feel what has happened in the way of business depression. Traders' profits are bound to be down. All business activity, in so far as it yielded a return, is bound to show a smaller return. The yield from direct taxes, corporation profits tax and, in particular, income-tax and surtax from traders, probably for the first time since 1947 will show a decline.
If there was the same buoyancy as there had been, the money that is required for the civil servants, £2,000,000 odd, and for allied people—Guards, teachers and the Army—would almost automatically be covered by the increased revenue yield from old-time taxes. I am quite sure that the estimated yield presented to me in any one of the three years would, on the average, on the then existing taxes, carry more than the £2,000,000 odd required to pay all this State personnel. Of course, that is not an easy remedy to suggest to people who have their faces set in the opposite direction and followed the bankers' policy, and feel that they can run this country successfully by still holding fast to what those people advised them on.
The Taoiseach, on the 12th February, when speaking here, made no attempt, as some of his followers have done, tosay that there was not an increase in unemployment. There was, he regretted to say, an increase in unemployment and he confessed that there was no permanent cure. Well, that is a change. One does not like to go back to his apprentice years, but in 1932 the Taoiseach's only expression on unemployment was that the only thing wrong about employment in this country was that there should be any unemployment. Himself and his present Tánaiste agreed that in a year of Fianna Fáil Government all unemployment would be obliterated. In 1947 the present Taoiseach had a different view about the emigration that he used to decry.
He told us earlier that emigration was a crime against the State and in a famous advertisement for an election at that time he said that no country had an easier remedy at hand with regard to unemployment and emigration than this country, that the remedies were staring one in the face and it was only perversity on the part of the Government that prevented the use of them and the stoppage of unemployment and emigration.
In 1947 he told us he doubted whether emigration could be stopped. They had done their best in Fianna Fáil and there it was. He appealed to people in Opposition could they not give him some plan to stop the emigration that was then being accepted by him as more or less normal. In that same year, 1947, he appealed to the members of the Opposition to give him a plan for agriculture. He said what they had tried and done and, notwithstanding it all, agriculture was languishing, people were leaving the land, 25,000 to 30,000 a year, most of them drifting across to England. His plea to us was "Tell us what can be done". That was the end of 16 years. It meant not merely the end of a failure but the end of a policy. They had got in on the basis that they had a policy for these things.
The Tánaiste, speaking in October, 1951, spoke about the lowering of our standard of living. He put this rotund phrase into circulation:—
"Whether that took the form of rising unemployment or increasingemigration, higher prices or higher taxation, it would represent the defeat of all our hopes for the future of the country."
Recollect that litany—increasing emigration, rising unemployment, higher prices or higher taxation. We got them all last year when they voted for them as something that represented the defeat of all our hopes for the future of the country.
A member of the clergy, speaking here in the early stages of this month, spoke about the declining Irish race. The headline in this extract that I have is: "The Irish Becoming a Vanishing Race." The phrase that he used, as quoted in this paper is:—
"The decline in the Irish birth rate, one of the principal causes of which was unemployment, was particularly alarming and as a result the Irish were becoming a vanishing race."
He said that the race had been declining for the last 100 years and if the trend continued they would in another century be reduced to a handful of crocks, neurotics, and so on. According to his forecast, there will be more even than the 1,500,000 who will not find it possible, by industry and other lawful means, to provide their own medical and other necessary services.
He spoke of the low marriage rate. He said that marriages were too few and taking place too late in life. He added:—
"There is no incentive to anybody to get married at the present time. There is too much insecurity and no encouragement. You cannot be sure of your job and you cannot be sure of your house."
Those are the conditions that were definitely brought about by the proposals of last year's Budget.
The newspapers of the 13th January carried two comments. One was by a member of the present Government, who said, having boasted of some of the things the Government had done, that he had to admit that they had not been completely successful; they had only been partially successful. Almostcheek by jowl with that was a column relating to queues for the dole in Limerick and a statement there made by a member of the Limerick Corporation that the busiest industry in Limerick was the labour exchange, which was working a double shift because of unprecedented unemployment in the city.
Yet the Government were only partially successful in their efforts. Of course, they were only partially successful. The Budget plan last year did not include that workers would get any increase. They fought that outside this House and brought their claims before the Labour Court and got their awards. That was not part of the Budget. The Budget was framed on the point that incomes exceeded the rise in the cost of living and, therefore, people could bear the subsidies.
If the Government had been completely successful, supposing there had been no increase in wages, then, of course, there would have been less purchasing power. That might have had a better effect with regard to the balance of payments; there might have been fewer imports, but there would be more unemployed, more depression in trade. People would have less money to spend. There would be less frequenting of the shops. The turnover of the shops would decline and the shop employees might walk the plank or might find that they were working two or three days a week instead of full shift.
The plan was only partially successful. I suppose the ordinary bull that wanders through a china shop and does great damage there and is being hauled off to the local common to speak on: "My Efforts with Regard to the China Industry" could say: "I was only partially successful. If I had been left long enough I could have wrecked the whole shop." It is in that way I accept the view of a member of the Government that the Government were only partially successful. They did not succeed in closing down on everybody—there are some people who are still under their thumb—but they were beaten as far as those who made applications to the Labour Courtare concerned, and got increases that brought them up again to the new costs of living, the ones that were brought about by the Budget proposals of last year.
People who are suffering, accordingly, of course, at the moment, are those who could not get an increase in their emoluments to bring them up to the new increase in the cost of living. Some day or another the painful process of readjustment in connection with these people will have to be gone through again.
I wonder do the Government, look-in back on their achievements of last year, not now consider that last year's Budget was a mistake? After all, the main thing they did was to give certain increased social security moneys. The phrase has been £3,000,000. So far, I have seen no trace of the expenditure of £3,000,000 this year. At best, the expenditure in this service was never put beyond £2,000,000 and there was £1,000,000 in hand. The way that money was to be found, then, was by saving over £6,600,000 on the food subsidies and giving back certain compensatory social welfare benefits to the extent of £2,750,000, leaving the Government the gainer by £918,000 on all this.
Again, incidentally the Supplementary Estimates that are supposed to show the provision for the social welfare increases and the compensatory social benefits are £1,000,000 short of what this table indicated as likely to be the sum last year. I wonder would they not think over this, that, by reducing the subsidies to the extent they did—£6,000,000—they left these people with a grievance? In this case, first of all they had a provision of money somewhere for what they called the compensations and they did not compensate adequately at all, so those people were left with a grievance.
Secondly, they off-loaded some of those charges that appear ordinarily in the Estimates and in the Budget, to industry; but that has not made the situation in the country any better. The workers who found the cost of living increased sought an increase in wages and got a 12/- average, which istheir view of the least they could ask for, considering the peculiar state of the country, in order to get some approach to the equivalent. That has been a great disturbance to industry, and so far as industry presses down on agriculture, agriculture is bearing the full weight of that.
There are middle-class people who got no compensatory benefits that people who go through the Labour Court or any other pressure system may chance to get in increased earnings. They are suffering and will continue to suffer as long as this lopsided situation persists.
Finally, there is the great body of the State servants—civil servants—and to their approach to the arbitration court and the results they could get therefrom are attached the members of the Army, the members of the Garda and the teachers. They are all interrelated. There again, as during the war years and up to 1947, they are going to be kept down just because— and I always thought it was an immoral reason—they are under the thumb of the Government and can be coerced where other people cannot. Do not forget that this is merely carrying out in the year 1953 an old vendetta against the Civil Service. The Civil Service emoluments were closed down on earlier than even the Standstill Order in its application to the wages of industrial and other workers. They never got by increases anything like what was taken from them. They got an increase in 1947, another in 1948 and the arbitration award later. All those were measured by their increased cost of living. They were previously on a bonus system, which automatically gave them not the full cost of living but some percentage of it.
In 1947, when the autumn Budget was introduced, it was introduced with a definite hint, an approach to a threat, to all wage earners, but in particular to the civil servants, as to what was likely to happen. The Government wanted to control wages, they had a Bill ready for the control of wages. I quoted sections of it in the House when I had the file in my possession, and these quotations are on record. The Taoiseach himself said in publicin the Dáil here that the then Government "regarded the temporary limitation of wage increases as vitally necessary in present circumstances."
The Bill was ready, only the by-elections of 1947 dislodged the Government from its position of power. Then, during our period, the present Minister for Justice, Deputy Boland, in a speech that was quoted often in this House but will bear repetition, showed the mentality they had. This is a quotation from the Irish Pressof the 17th January, 1949:—
"The increase in Civil Service salaries is to cost about £700,000. That is the increase in a full year. The Army, the Gardaí and the teachers are also entitled to increases, but the total cost is not yet disclosed. The local government officials will naturally expect increases also, as will workers all over the country."
Take that for a horrible picture—the teachers, the Guards, the Army, the Civil Service, the local government employees and workers generally were likely to look for increases—and then the cap was put on it:—
"This was the situation which Fianna Fáil were determined to prevent and would have prevented if three of the six lost Dublin seats had been held, because that would have given Mr. de Valera a majority on the 18th February last."
There is an open declaration of policy. Fianna Fáil wanted to prevent increases in wages to all these State personnel groups and also hoped the rot would spread to the right to give the increase, to meet the cost of living, to local government officials and employees and to workers generally. That was what Fianna Fáil would have prevented if they had only held the seats. That is what they tried to prevent last year when the Budget policy was nothing more than an attempt to enforce the mentality that is behind that series of phrases. As I say, some broke through, because the workers generally could not be coerced by Budget proposals. But they are the only ones who escaped. All the others against whom this vendetta was carriedon are still being kept without their subsidies—and subsidies were at one time accepted by the Government as their contribution to stability in prices. They have got to live their unsubsidised lives now and get no return for the increased cost of living, because they are under the thumb of the Government and are completely at their mercy.
Not merely that, they were dishonestly treated. One could have had some admiration—though one could have criticised the ruthlessness and the heartlessness of it—for a Government that said they were not going to have arbitration and would go back to the old position of civil servants, through their representatives, meeting the Minister for Finance, he representing the Government, and seeing what they could screw out of him. But the Government put in an outside body to balance the staffs' allegations of increased costs and the official allegations that they did not weigh heavily on the Civil Service. Civil Service arbitration was accepted and a chairman was appointed by agreement between the staff and the Minister for Finance.
I wonder if people remember what happened in the election of 1951. During the course of the election, it became known that the then Civil Service Arbitration Board had made an award. The matter was first raised by the present Tánaiste, followed up by the present Minister for Finance and spoken of then by a whole gaggle of followers. The statement was: "There is an arbitration award and the present government do not intend to honour it; we will". That cry and the changes on it were wrung throughout the constituencies and definitely the dishonest pretence was made that Fianna Fáil were behind arbitration and would honour fully any award that was made. During the election, Deputy Lemass spoke at New Street, Dublin, as reported on the 26th May, 1951, and had with him a Deputy of this House, Deputy McCann. His speech, as reported in the Press, was that:—
"The Coalition groups were now saying that if Fianna Fáil were returned to office the Civil Servicearbitration award would not be put into operation."
Then he had a good deep breath and gave this out:—
"I can assure you that any award made by the arbitration board will be honoured by any future Fianna Fáil Government."
So I suppose they fooled certain civil servants into the belief that their honesty could be depended on. We have now an arbitration court set up and an award has been made and the Government's attitude towards it has been revealed.
I want to say something with regard to arbitration, because I understand there is some question made regarding our position. I spoke for many years in this House against the injustice and what I still describe as the immorality of the previous Government, before 1947, with regard to State personnel. I thought there was no excuse—and I understand they were approached by certain moralists to give the excuse and could not give it—for different treatment being imposed on the Civil Service from that imposed upon outside workers. I spoke against that injustice and said that, so far as I was concerned, it would be rectified if I got any chance or position of authority where I might rectify it.
It has been my luck in political life here through the run of office to have been in association with certain things that I think are for the good of the State. There was the beet sugar scheme; there was the electricity supply scheme; and, in my last period, there was what I think was the great and beneficial change with regard to capital development. I count these things amongst the good seminal things with which I was associated. Then there was the system of arbitration for the civil servants. I think it was a beneficial thing, a thing the civil servants were entitled to demand on account of the scandalous treatment meted out to them in the war years. They have never recovered what was taken from them over these years. They have got on to a new status, but they have had to put behind them the losses imposed on them during the war years.
Arbitration for the Civil Service was long overdue and I feel very glad indeed that luck gave me the chance to be associated with a Government that was determined to work out good arbitration conditions and to give them to the Civil Service. I am very glad also that there was attached to them the interrelationship with outside bodies like the Guards and the Army, and the arbitration scheme for teachers was modulated according to the scheme for the Civil Service. It gave these people a position in which they could feel that they were not under the thumb of any Government, that they had a right to make their case, to get an arbitrator before whom their case could be presented in public and public opinion swayed for or against them, according to the strength or weakness of their case. It has been nothing more than a public cheat to fool civil servants, by the setting up of arbitration machinery, into the belief that whatever decision that arbitration authority gave would be fully met and decently and honestly honoured. That is the position they are in now.
The Government make the reply: "Where are we to get the money?" There are ways of getting the money. If they could get back the old buoyancy of business and revenue, it would give all the money required for these State personnel, and if the costs of State personnel are too high, why take, with regard to State personnel, a course that is not taken with anybody else? Are C.I.E. being told to disband their workers because the State has to find money for C.I.E.? How many businesses which made their appearance before the Labour Court have been allowed to put forward the argument that they cannot pay? Why are civil servants and other State personnel to be put in a different position? There is no principle in the method of their treatment. There is nothing but dishonesty, and the mere fact that there is power which is going to be used ruthlessly against these people.
I feel that it is a continuance of the old vendetta, that there is annoyance that, for three years, civil servants got the treatment to which they were entitled and that there is now a showingagain of the claws, with people, because they have power, determined to use that power against folk who cannot strike, who are not very popular, or whose case can certainly be made unpopular by talking to people about the terrific taxation there will have to be in order to balance the moneys required for them. They are put at the end of the line away below C.I.E.—C.I.E. improvements and C.I.E. capital expenditure —below everything else that has to be found in this State and paid for out of taxes, such as warlike stores for the Army. They are to be kept at the very end of the line, huddled there with the Guards, the Army and the teachers, and nobody has yet tried to defend the attitude taken with regard to them. There is merely the whine: "We have not got the money, and we are just not going to find it for them."
Here we are now, after 16 years, and these extra two years, of Fianna Fáil Government. We have emigration running at an unparalleled rate. I often wonder what can people outside think of our protestations about the Six Counties when they stop to consider that, over the years since the State was founded, we have poured out, through emigration, more than the entire population, men, women and children, of the three Ulster counties left to us. Do we want the six other counties of Ulster to have more counties from which to pour out, or do we think that, if we get the six counties of Ulster back, we will have such a contented, hardworking, industrious and prosperous community that we will be able no longer to export emigrants from our part of the territory or even from the Six Counties? Remember that, over the years, we have lost the equivalent of the men, women and children of the three counties of Ulster that still remain to us.
We have unemployment recognised as being at the worst height at which it ever was. The Taoiseach is disturbed about it, but he has forgotten his old promises, or his old view, that unemploymentwas easy to be cured here and simply says: "We have no cure, no permanent cure, for it." We have gone through in the last year what, I suppose, has been the worst business depression that business folk in this country have encountered. Some of them say that 1931 might have been worse, the time when continental depression swung over here, but in those years we were preserved by our preoccupation with farming, and countries preoccupied with farming matters lived through that depression better than anybody else.
We have business depression at a point which has not been exceeded in 20 years. Industrial production is languishing and the index of industrial production has shown a fall almost month by month since the return to office of Fianna Fáil. Agricultural production, although it did increase and exports went up in the last three or four years, has been almost definitely priced out of the export highly competitive market in which it must find its solutions. If one looks through the trade returns, it is amazing to see the extent to which this country depends upon agricultural production even yet. There was a time when one could name a couple of industries— Guinness, Jacobs and a few others. We lost Jacobs exports for the reason, as they themselves stated, that their ingredients had become more and more dutiable—the cases in which they packed their goods and so on—and they found themselves, by our policy of protection, forced to sell their export trade to their Liverpool firm. We have lost that, through the policy of giving ourselves here a high-cost industry.
There is really only one thing that has kept the farming community alive and in any way prosperous, and that is an industry which Fianna Fáil, in 1930, came in determined to destroy, the cattle trade. If they had been as successful in that as they have been in the attainment of some of their other objectives, this country would be flat, but despite the venom against the cattle trade it is still the mainstay of the country. It provides the most lucrative single part of our exports,the goods that we send out to buy the imports we need to maintain our standards of living. Our taxes are at a height that is unprecedented. Rates are apparently not so bad as they are going to be, but they are going up.
The new policy in respect of which Deputy Dr. Browne is so much in favour is to tax the farmer if it cannot be done by direct methods, and that could hardly be done in this House. It will be done indirectly. You cannot tax the farmers by direct taxation. A farmer may subscribe something indirectly if he has enough money to smoke and drink and you can get the farmers on the rates. The new policy is that we will get the farmers on the rates through the new Health Bill service. Every day carries news of an increase in the rates. Rate-payers in any community are satisfied if they see there is only 2/- gone off. Rates are at an unprecedented level and as bad as they are, apparently they are going to be worse. The idea is to tax the farmers. Senator Quirke suggested a method of doing that by taxing the cattle exports.
We have a community as far as destitution is concerned defined in a way in which the White Paper shows it, 1,000,000 people, one-third of the population, availing themselves of the Public Assistance Act of 1939, the test being whether by their own industry or lawful means they cannot provide the necessary medical services. We have 1,000,000 availing themselves of that, but there must be 1,500,000 who are entitled to avail themselves of it, that is, half the population brought to the level of destitution—the level that used to be bluntly called pauperism. That is the result of 16 years of Fianna Fáil Government.
