The financial proposals which were given to the House yesterday by the Minister for Finance have been received by all sections of the people with disappointment, resentment and dismay.
Committee on Finance. - Resolution No. 3—General (Resumed).
Debate resumed on following motion:—
That it is expedient to amend the law relating to customs and inland revenue (including excise) and to make further provision in connection with Finance.—(Minister for Finance.)
On one side of the House anyhow.
I characterised last year's proposals as severe, hard and unjust because they were unnecessary. The phrases that I then used apply with all the more force to the present financial proposals of the Minister for Finance. They are all the more cruel, they are all the more unnecessary, because they are still more unnecessary this year than they were last year, they are still more unjust. Phrases have been applied in the past to Budgets introduced by different Ministers for Finance such as, "no change Budget", "standstill Budget", "the mixture as before", "dull Budget". None of these phrases is applicable to the present Budget or in any way apposite to the circumstances in which this Budget is imposed upon the people.
Last year I made and established the case that unnecessary taxation was being imposed and therefore the Budget was unjust. The Minister, in the course of his Budget speech yesterday, referred to the phantom surplus which we had conjured forth last year. In the course of the observations I have to make to-day I will be in a position to prove to demonstration that the Minister for Finance himself created the phantom and was guilty of the offence of concealment of the body. Last year the proposals of the Minister were heralded by long speeches emphasising that he and his colleagues were determined to have a Budget thatbalanced at all costs and that the most urgent task that faced the Government was the bringing, as he called it, of order into our so-called disorderly financial structure. What did we get yesterday from the Minister for Finance, by whom this phrase "bringing order into our disorderly finances" was so frequently employed, from a Minister who spent much of his time last year sneering at his predecessor, Deputy McGilligan, and dishonestly imputing to him unbalanced Budgets when he was Minister for Finance? Last year I iterated and reiterated that we stood for the principle of a balanced Budget. We were told, of course, that that was merely talk and that when it came to realities our Budgets were always out of balance. We were told that that was going to end and end for all time by the action taken by the present Minister for Finance.
Yesterday, he came in here and he had the shameless effrontery to state here to the House and, through the House, to the people, that the Budget which he introduced last year and for the balancing of which he imposed these cruel, harsh, unnecessary and unjust impositions was out of balance. He said that his aim was to secure a Budget which no more than balanced but that in the outcome even that limited objective was not realised. In his speech yesterday the Minister merely stated that he was presenting to the people this year the results of all the hardships they had gone through, of all the cruel impositions that were inflicted upon them, of all the misery that was suffered by them.
What was the result? The result of all those unjust and unnecessary impositions is an unbalanced Budget this year and not a single word of explanation was offered by the Minister as to the reason why it is unbalanced or as to the reason why he failed in that duty which he had so sanctimoniously imposed upon himself last year. He, being unlike other Ministers for Finance, was going to ensure that there was a balanced Budget at the end of all the human sufferings, the trials and the miseries.
Notwithstanding all the damage thatwas done to the credit of the country, notwithstanding the lack of confidence that was induced by the economic and financial policy of the Minister and his colleagues, we now arrive at a situation in which the Minister for Finance who, at all costs and come what might, was going to balance his Budget, comes in here with an unbalanced Budget. I think that fact when it seeps down through the people will by itself and in itself be sufficient to mark him out for what he really is.
At the conclusion of the last financial year we are now presented with an unbalanced Budget. Since yesterday afternoon I have been endeavouring to understand the point at which the Minister has arrived and I have sought to discover why he has arrived at it. Strange as it may seem, I have come to the conclusion that the Minister for Finance has deliberately presented to the country by the manipulation of the financial accounts and the public revenues and public expenditure an unbalanced Budget for purposes of his own. The Minister had two alternatives. He was in somewhat of a dilemma for he had to show the result of last year's financial operations and that the case we made then that he was budgeting for and aiming at a surplus was correct——
£10,000,000.
——or else he had to show that he was unable to balance his Budget notwithstanding all that he had said last year. He chose the latter disastrous course rather than face a situation in which he would have had to admit that we were right and he was wrong. I hope to establish to the satisfaction of reasonably-minded people here and elsewhere on the basis of the figures that we have that the case we made last year that the Minister was budgeting for a surplus of anything from £8,000,000 to £10,000,000 was correct. I am not doing that merely for the purpose of self-justification. I do it for the purpose of making it clear to the people that the Minister and his colleagues are no longer worthy, if they were ever worthy, of the slightest degree of confidence. Iwill prove the case I set out to make with figures which will establish the truth of the case that is being made by the people who are so resentful of the miseries that have been inflicted upon them.
Last year, after the first shock, they suffered from the impact of the financial impositions and burdens of the Budget. As the year wore on the effect of those financial burdens became increasingly apparent. The effect was more keenly felt by various sections of the community as time went on and when the year drew to a close they felt they were entitled to say: "We had to put up with it for one year. It cannot last. There must be some alleviation and there must be some relief this year."
It is because there is no such relief that there is to-day such resentment. As time passes there will be greater resentment still. This Budget has been described as a dull Budget. Probably the audiences in the amphitheatre in Rome looking at the torture inflicted upon the gladiators grew bored when an unfortunate victim was no longer able to stand up to his torturer and the performance became dull. An individual who likes to see torture inflicted upon his fellow beings grows satiated when the last screw of the rack has been turned to its last thread. It is in that sense that this Budget can be described as dull. It is in the sense of the late Tom Kettle's aphorism that "from the dull all things are dull" that this Budget can be described as dull.
It cannot be described as a standstill Budget because we are no longer standing still. If it were possible we would be lying down under it flatter than we were last year. It cannot be described as "the mixture as before" because it is poison worse than before. We are facing a situation now different from the situation that existed last year. We are facing the same cruel, harsh, unjust and unnecessary impositions in conditions in which the people are no longer able to bear them or not even so well able to bear them as they were last year.
One of the outstanding features of theMinister's speech yesterday was the blatant cynicism with which he announced his intention to continue these impositions on a hard-pressed, unduly suffering people. He spoke yesterday afternoon of the debt that was due to those people whom he described as "prudent and responsible citizens" who, despite the higher cost of living, had decided to spend less on consumer goods. Those people whose incomes, in so far as their effective purchasing power was concerned, were good and were reduced as a result of the Minister's operations last year will resent the cynicism of that phrase— that, despite the higher cost of living, they decided to spend less on consumer goods. They decided to spend less on consumer goods because the decision was forced upon them by cruel necessity and because they had not enough money to purchase even sufficient of necessary consumer goods.
The Minister for Industry and Commerce, in his glib way, stated last year that there would be an increase in the consumption of bread as a result of de-rationing. The actual fact is that because people are unemployed and because those who are employed are suffering from the dread of becoming unemployed and are suffering because their wages will not purchase the same amount of goods as they purchased before, they are not able to buy even necessary consumer goods. What degree of cynicism will be attributed to the Minister by thousands of people and by people who are trying to keep their industries going in difficult and trying circumstances for his statement that this Budget will stimulate trade? "This Budget will stimulate trade" he said in the course of his remarks yesterday. Cynicism could hardly descend lower.
The Minister balanced his Budget or helped to balance his Budget in order to pay a portion of the just amount that was due to public servants-civil servants, Gardaí, teachers and other public personnel. But could he leave that alone? He proceeded to announce that he was going, only in part, to honour the award of the arbitrationboard that was set up to determine the claims of public servants to increased wages and salaries consequent upon the Budget impositions of last year. Those demands, coming, as they did, close upon the increases that were given under the previous arbitration award, were not merely justified but were forced upon those public servants by the policy of the present Government enshrined in the Budget of last year. It was admitted that those proposals would increase the cost of living, that the prices of necessities would rise and that wages and salaries must rise. The justification from the Minister was: "Take away the subsidies. Let us see the real costs of essential commodities. Let wages and salaries rise up to their economic level to meet those increased charges, bringing the cost of necessities up to the economic cost." It was because of that policy that the public servants were forced to seek arbitration. They got a meagre award. They were asking for nothing but justice. They got hardly justice in the award. Whether they got justice or near justice, what they were awarded was the direct result and the inevitable consequence of ministerial policy.
On a point of order. I am raising this on a point of order— if the Leader of the Opposition will be good enough to sit down while I am on my feet.
A point of order is never a point of order when made by the Minister.
I assume the Leader of the Opposition will give way and allow me to put my point of order? Is is in order, by implication or directly, to attack the chairman of the Civil Service Arbitration Board?
Sit down.
That is blackguardism. It is a blackguardly suggestion.
I cannot read into Deputy Costello's statement any such attack.
He said the civilservants hardly got justice. What is that except to say that they did not get justice at the hands of the arbitration board?
I do not think Deputy Costello's remarks were addressed to the chairman of the arbitration board.
Certainly they were not.
The Minister is just acting the brat.
I think words of that kind should not be used in a parliamentary Assembly. I think Deputy Mulcahy should withdraw that remark.
I will withdraw it, Sir.
If there was any insult to the chairman of the arbitration board or his colleagues, that insult was not offered by me.
Hear, hear!
I was very largely responsible for the establishment of the principle of arbitration and its application in regard to Civil Service claims.
And its consequences.
This Government refuse to carry out the award and thereby cause grave injustice to public servants. That award, as I was emphasising, was a direct and inevitable consequence of the financial policy of the Minister and his colleagues in the Government. Instead of recognising that, instead of realising, as they ought, the justice of the demands made upon them when the award was made, instead of doing what Deputy McGilligan told them they could have done-by resorting for this comparatively small amount of money necessary to honour the award retrospectively to the "till money", as the Minister used to delight so much in calling it last year-the Minister leaves it over until the present financial yearfor payment and then belatedly agrees that the award should be carried out not in full, not retrospectively but only from the 1st April. That small amount of arrears was denied to public servants.
If the award were given effect to retrospectively, these individuals would get the arrears to which they were looking forward to enable them to pay debts they had accumulated over the months while they were waiting for their case to be heard by the arbitration tribunal and subsequently for the award to be honoured. Then the last and final insult was offered to those public servants by the innuendo contained in the Minister's statement in his speech yesterday afternoon. He announced his intention to approve of the payment of the amount settled by the arbitration board to members of the Civil Service and also to the Army, the Garda Síochána and teachers. He ended up by saying—and I quote from page 64 of the script of his speech which was furnished to me yesterday—"It is estimated that the cost in the current financial year of all these increases will be £2.4 million, which will in effect absorb the amount which otherwise might have been available for reducing taxation." There is the clearest innunendo to those people down the country whose feelings against the civil servants have been exacerbated by speeches by some of the Minister's followers. One of the Minister's followers, Deputy Corry, called civil servants "unproductive drones". They were called drones by one of his followers in the back benches. Civil servants were called unproductive drones by Deputy Corry. There is a hint to Deputy Corry to go down the country and say, as doubtless he will say, that only for the fact that civil servants, Gardaí and teachers had to be paid a miserable increase in salary to meet the rising cost of living caused by the present Government, it would have been possible to give easement in taxation to the extent of £2.4 million and, therefore, do not blame the Minister for Finance but blame the Civil Service, blame the Gardaí and blame the teachers. That is an insultand it is the last cynical utterance in a cynical speech of a purely political character that was made yesterday afternoon by the Minister in introducing this continuance of his harsh, unjust and unnecessary impositions of taxation.
I have said that these epithets or descriptions "standstill,""dull Budget,""as you were" and the rest of it have no application to the circumstances of this Budget because of the fact that last year's taxation which was in itself gross and excessive, is now to be maintained without any portion whatever of that burden being lifted from the shoulders of our people who are now even less able to bear that burden than they were last year. There are further differences because there are other matters which have to be taken into account in connection with the continuance of these cruel impositions by the Budget. Along with the burden of taxation imposed for the benefit of the Central Exchequer there must be taken into account the huge increase in local taxation, the enormous increase in rates, due directly to the financial policy of the Minister as promulgated in his Budget last year and as intended to be continued in his Budget of this year.
There must also be taken into account the increase in the rate of bank interest that took place last year with the consent of the Minister and its consequences upon business confidence and employment. There must also be taken into account nearly £750,000 which was given its first stage in imposition here, the increased Post Office charges. Whether they are taxes or not in the technical sense they are burdens which will fall upon every section of the community in one way or another.
All those items must be added to the continuance of the taxation from last year. Not merely have we the taxes that were put on last year, which were cruel and unjust and brought in their train economic disruption of this country—unemployment, emigration, lack of confidence and public uneasiness—but we have these othermatters to which I have referred, additional costs of one kind or another, whether by way of Post Office impositions or increased rates, all adding their burden to an already over-pressed and oppressed people. We must also add to all that the higher prices and costs of commodities flowing from last year's budgetary errors—because they are nothing else but errors.
In the course of his Budget speech yesterday the Minister for Finance preened himself upon his so-called achievement of bringing into balance or nearly into balance our external trade. He stated triumphantly that the adverse balance for last year was only £9,900,000. He has forgotten we said it would be only £10,000,000 and that he announced that they were facing at the beginning of last year a deficit of £50,000,000. I will return to that in the observations I have to make later. The point I wish to make now is that last year when the Minister introduced his revolutionary proposals, when he tried to justify the cruelties and severities of his Budget, he justified them largely if not entirely upon the urgent necessity for bringing into balance our external trade accounts.
Let us assume that the Minister is entitled to credit for bringing these accounts into balance. There is now only an adverse trade balance of £9,000,000. That means that last year's adverse trade balance was nil, in effect, because that £9,000,000 was incurred in the first three months of the year. Therefore, the Minister is entitled to say that there really was no effective adverse balance in our trade last year. That is what he set out to achieve according to himself and that is what he described as the greatest anxiety of the Government, the rectification of the state of our international balance of payments accounts.
That policy was directed, as the Minister well knew and stated specifically, towards reducing consumption, in other words, towards putting an end to the policy that had been in operation up to then, seeing that the people would eat less and live less comfortably and that the standard of living which had been secured for them by the policy for which we had been responsiblewould be decreased. He put the country through a period of austere financial control. There were, it appears, measures taken called "corrective" measures to see that imports were drastically cut so far as they possibly could be. The measures that were taken and, generally speaking, the kind of impositions that were imposed by the last Budget were described as severe and harsh. Those very terms were accepted by the Taoiseach in his own speech on last year's Budget and accepted by the Minister for Finance and all his colleagues. They were justified merely because they had to take those measures to bring our adverse trade balance into equilibrium. That has been achieved now according to the Minister. If that was his greatest anxiety, to rectify our adverse trade balance and our international accounts, what is the justification for continuing the policy which he justified as being necessary for the purpose of ending that undesirable position?
It is curious to note that while all these corrective measures of an austere character were in operation last year, the sterling holdings of the banking system actually increased. The Irish people have to suffer austerity, to eat less and live less well in order that the Irish banking system should increase its holdings of sterling assets and so that these people can lend our comparatively well-off neighbours in London the money that would have been better employed here at home, even in creating an adverse trade balance, provided it gave employment to our people and provided it stimulated trade. Yet this year that policy is to be maintained. The policy of austerity is to be continued notwithstanding the fact that its justification has gone, notwithstanding the injury which that policy will bring to national production and the effect it will have on costs, prices and employment, on agriculture and industry, and notwithstanding the fact that it will continue to cause even more evil effects this year than last year.
Continuing, as the Minister and his colleagues are, in that policy of austerity, with its cruelties and unjust impositions, we look in vain to this Budget speech for any indication whateverof any clear or constructive economic policy. The principle was enunciated that the Budget must be taken as a whole, as an entity. We had divided it into two parts—a capital Budget and a Budget for current services. The Minister threw scorn on that when he was in opposition, and since he came into office. It surely must be considered a compliment to us now that in his Budget speech he divided the present Budget into a capital Budget and a current Budget. Of course, he would not have the dual Budget that we had. It is, I think, true to say that to copy a person in anything is the best compliment one can pay to that person.
As I do not think I shall have time to deal with this matter as fully as I should like, may I content myself with thanking the Minister for one thing, and it is the only thing for which I shall thank him? That is for the compliment he paid to me in devoting four pages of his Budget speech to denouncing my proposal and the policy of my Party in regard to the setting up of a capital investment board. A proposal cannot be regarded as being not worthy of consideration if, out of all the topics with which the Minister had to deal, he takes that one proposal that forms only one part of our policy, namely, the proposal to set up a capital investment board, and singles it out for attack. I find much satisfaction in the thought that there was something even more valuable than we thought in that proposal when we included it in our policy because of the implied compliment in the Minister's denunciation. We take some consolation from the fact that the germ of the idea, if not indeed the scheme itself, came from a body that might hardly be called too progressive, the Banking Commission set up by the present Taoiseach and his colleagues some years ago, and that it was approved of also by the Vocational Organisation Commission. While he spent himself denouncing that particular point in our policy, where was his own policy?
Again he indulged in that peculiar feature of governmental activity which is so characteristic of the present Government for some years past andto which frequently I had occasion to direct attention. He talked about more production. The Minister is always exhorting people to work harder and to produce more, but neither he nor any single one of his colleagues attempted to produce a policy for production or a policy that would make it worth while for our people to work harder. I have had, as I say, frequent occasion to refer to the fact that Ministers of the present Government indulge in repeated exhortations to increase production while at the same time pursuing a financial policy which has the inevitable effect of reducing production and of increasing unemployment.
I have pointed out repeatedly that we cannot be content with mere exhortations to harder work and increased production, that instead we must take steps to change the conditions of production in such a way as to help to a greater creation of wealth, which alone can bring a greater measure of prosperity. We did not content ourselves with mere platitudinous observations about greater production and hope for greater prosperity. We have indicated in outline at least, if not in fair detail, our proposals to bring about greater production and the greater creation of wealth which alone can bring a greater measure of prosperity. Out of these proposals made inside and outside this House by members of this Party, proposals which formed a productive programme, the only one singled out for comment by the Minister was one that had got the benediction of that not too liberal body, the Banking Commission.
Do we find in this Budget any indication by the Minister that the Budget should be the instrument of economic policy which we made it, or any hope of developing production still further? Do we find that there is any intention by the Minister or his colleagues to use the Budget as a means of repatriation of our external assets, to bring these external assets home here and utilise them for the benefit of the Irish people rather than allow them to be frittered away through depreciationand other causes, or probably used abroad for the benefit of people who are not Irish citizens? Where is there a policy for the repatriation of these assets? There was not a word said about that in the course of the Budget speech. Has the Minister yet realised that these assets can be repatriated by the Government so as to provide money to be spent here which will stimulate trade, give employment and cure the unemployment position from which we are suffering at the present time?
The Minister, in the course of his speech, made another reference to savings and to the necessity for financing capital expenditure out of current savings. We believe that the proper policy is to maintain the level of investment beyond the present saving capacity of the community and that that can be done by the conscious, deliberate but prudent creation of an adverse balance in the international payments between this country and Great Britain. But there is no indication of an economic policy in this Budget. The Budget speech was a cynically political utterance of the Minister and one that took no account whatever of the problems that had to be faced or the sufferings that have been endured during the last 12 months as a result of this policy and the impositions he had imposed on the people. It gave no indication whatever of any hope of any alleviation.
Last year we were criticised for maintaining and charging the Minister with budgeting for a surplus. I repeat that charge. That charge was sustained by me by the figures that I gave. I now propose to demonstrate by the figures which I now produce that those charges which were made last year have been substantially realised. Deputies will remember last year the unctuous manner in which the Minister and his colleagues told this House that they were not like their predecessors: that they had examined the proposed expenditure in the Book of Estimates with the greatest detail. The Tánaiste said they had been gone through with a fine comb and that there could not be anything taken off the amount that was being budgeted for.
How was the £4,135,000 of unforeseen Supplementary Estimates paid for if there was not a surplus in last year's Budget? There is not a penny additional taxation. Let me again repeat the phrase I quoted this morning from the Minister's speech: "Our aim was to secure a Budget which no more than balanced." It was just in balance last April when the Minister made his proposals. In those Budget proposals there were arrangements made for Supplementary Estimates, but yesterday the Minister confessed that he himself introduced the sum of £4,135,000 of Supplementary Estimates unforeseen by him. Where did he get the money to pay for that if there was not a surplus? Is not that the clearest demonstration and proof of the truth and accuracy of the charges we made last year that the Minister was budgeting for a surplus and imposing unnecessary taxation?
Let me go into the matter in much further detail than that. Last year one of the items on which I based that charge had reference to overtaxation caused by overestimation on the Estimates for the Public Services amounting to £2,000,000. It was in reference to that charge that the Tánaiste stated that these Estimates had been gone through with a fine comb; that they could not be pruned any more; that there was not any room for it; that they had cut them down to the bone and that there was no room for any pruning except the small amount of pruning for overestimation. I pointed out at that time that these Estimates consisted of a series of items each of which had been carefully and conservatively estimated on the basis that the project for expenditure proposed would require to be financed and proceeded with within the year. I pointed out that, whether or not that was so financed, was a matter which was entirely within the control of the Minister concerned, who was also in control of the degree to which it would, in fact, be proceeded with; that it would turn also upon contingencies outside anyone's control and that when there was a host of such items, each of which had been conservatively estimated, it was clear that there would be on an average a conservative overestimatewhich on the total of the items would amount to a substantial over-all saving. I was told that I was talking through my hat and that there could not be any allowance made for overestimation.
How does the Minister propose to balance his Budget this year? He proposes to balance it by taking £3,500,000 off the Book of Estimates which he presented to the Dáil within the last few months. That is the way he is going to balance the Budget this year according to his statement yesterday. This is what he said at page 57 of the script with which he furnished me yesterday afternoon:—
"While economies affecting the living standards of the weaker sections of the community are out of the question and will not be sought, this does not apply to other sectors of the administration. There is little reason to doubt that within the framework of an expenditure of over £100,000,000 significant economies can be made without impairing efficiency or curtailing essential or useful services. Accordingly, the Government have decided that a general economy of at least £3,500,000 in the cost of the public administration must be secured."
What is the meaning of that? Overestimation in this Book of Estimates to the extent of £3,500,000 and nothing else.
Deputies
Hear, hear!
These are not economies he is seeking. They are cuts for overestimation. He can have his choice. It was put to the people that it was necessary expenditure for the coming year and that the amount necessary for the Supply Services was £100,548,106 and either that was a fraudulent statement to the public or else he will have to admit—that what he is doing this year is what we told him he could do last year and what we believe he did, in fact, last year. If we are entitled to say the Minister is going to balance his Budget by taking £3,500,000 of that £100,548,106 and whatever has to be added for centralservices—there is not very much scope for economy in regard to central services—and if he cannot point out—he has not done so in detail—where those economies are going to be effected, then the inescapable conclusion is that those economies can only be effected because of the fact that there was overestimation in the Book of Estimates published this year.
That is what this Government has done. The deputy-Leader of the Government last year stated that when they brought the Book of Estimates out for 1952-53 they had fine combed the figures and that there was not any room for overestimation or any allowance for overestimation. I charge the Government now that last year they made those economies by overestimation.
We call them what they really are— overestimations. The Minister calls them economies this year. They are not economies. They are allowances, because they have overestimated expenditure in the Book of Estimates that is presented to us. If they are economies, let the Minister state what he failed to state yesterday afternoon in his Budget statement: of what is it proposed these economies shall consist? Will he also explain, if they are economies and not as we say they are, allowances for overestimation, why did he not make the same economies last year? It is, I think, relevant to ask why, if the Minister for Finance can this year, facing as he is now a year coming after a year in which he failed, as he says himself, to balance his Budget, make economies why was he not able to make them last year? There is only one answer to that, and it is that he did make them and made them because there was overestimation to the extent of at least the conservative amount of £2,000,000 that we said was in the Book of Estimates.
You said £10,000,000.
I said £2,000,000 of overestimation. It is the £2,000,000 I am dealing with. I will work it up to more than £10,000,000 by the time I am finished, and the Minister will be sorry that he interrupted.
Of course you will.
The Minister rubs his nose, but he should try to avoid further inaccuracies. What I said was that there was overestimation of £2,000,000. I want an answer to my question. The public will want an answer to it, too, and no grinning or laughing either from the Taoiseach or the Minister will satisfy the demands of the public on this point. I want an answer to this : if it is possible, in order to balance the Budget this year, to have £3,500,000 of economies why was it not possible last year? If the Minister can get economies of £3,500,000 in a Book of Estimates of £101,500,000 why could he not get £2,000,000 in a Book of Estimates of £94,871,623?
One of the charges that got home to every person in every walk of life in this country was the charge that we made and proved that there was unnecessary taxation in last year's Budget. The Minister will not get that out of their heads now. By the time that I am finished with these figures, I am quite satisfied that the truth and accuracy not merely of what we charged and proved last year but what we are charging this year will again be proved. The Minister can have it any way he likes, but he cannot have it both ways. He can have his choice. Either last year there was a surplus or this year there is not a balance. Last year, in spite of the fact that his colleague the Minister for Industry and Commerce said that the Estimates were cut to the bone, and in spite of the fact that he himself had pledged his word to this House and to the people of the country that he was doing no more than creating a balance, yet he was able to pay for £4,135,000 worth of unforeseen Supplementary Estimates.
Where did the £4.1 million come from if he had only budgeted for what would just balance? How was that miracle achieved? It was worked last year. How is it going to be worked next year because, recollect, there is to be no additional taxation this year? The Minister says there are going to be economies to the extent of £3,500,000,but he is going to do something more: he is going to pay all the expenditure that he had to meet last year and something like £10,000,000 more. In addition to that, he is going to pay the civil servants, the Guards, the Army, the teachers and other public personnel £2,500,000. Where is that money going to come from if it does not come from the surplus in this Budget? There was a surplus in last year's Budget. There is no additional taxation over last year. There was £94,871,623 in the Book of Estimates last year and the Minister says he was not able to balance his Budget. This year we have a Book of Estimates with additional expenditure, amounting to £101,500,000. The Minister says that he was not able to balance his Budget last year when the figure in the Book of Estimates was £94.8 million, but this year he says he is able to balance his Budget on a Book of Estimates of £101,500,000 without additional taxation and, in addition to that, he is facing a liability of £2,500,000 to pay the civil servants, the Guards and the others.
The only way that can be explained is that in the present Budget there is a surplus, if not to the same extent, as there was in last year's Budget. The Minister can have it any way he likes, but he cannot have it both ways. Either he can do what he said he would not to last year, have a deficit in the Budget, or be guilty of a fraud on the public. He cannot have it both ways and say that last year he balanced the Budget and that there was no surplus. He must admit that there was a surplus and he did balance the Budget. The same cheque cannot discharge two different bills. Either last year the amount of the debt was not as big as the Minister pretended or this year the amount due is not being paid off.
I think that when the Minister talks of economies, sensible and reasonable people amongst the public will pay very little heed to him. They will pay very little heed to the garrulous and talkative Minister for Finance when he talks and jabbers about the economies he is going to effect. If he is going to effect them they are going to come out of overestimation andnothing else. The Minister cannot have it both ways. Either he got a draw back on the bill last year or this year he is not going to pay it. There is a surplus in this Budget or a deficit. The Minister for Finance preened himself last year as being the one Minister who stood for the principle of a balanced Budget. He says himself that he did not balance it last year. If he is standing for the principle of a balanced Budget, are we facing an unbalanced Budget again this year or is there a surplus in it? We say there is a surplus. Will the Minister explain how the miracle is to be achieved? Is there to be, in the year we are facing, higher Government expenditure on the same taxation and greater commitments? Are there to be greater commitments and higher expenditure to be discharged out of the same outcome of revenue as last year?
I pass now to another item to which I made reference last year. It is one of the items on which I based the charge of overtaxation and unnecessary and unjust impositions. I refer to the fact that in connection with the excess provision for interest on the public debt there was overtaxation which I very conservatively estimated at the sum of £500,000. Last year when I gave details in connection with that item I stated that my estimate of £500,000 was a conservative estimate.
In last year's accounts provision was made for an increase of £2,000,000 in relation to interest on the public debt over and above what had been paid in the previous year. When we were discussing the Financial Resolutions in the Budget last year, I directed attention to the fact that there was to be an issue of a public national loan. I did not know then that the Minister had in his mind to do what he subsequently did. I did not know that he had planned to pay an improvident and excessive rate of interest on national borrowings, a rate of interest much greater than had to be paid by certain local authorities in Great Britain and elsewhere. I did not know then that he intended to make a present to the investors in that public loan of a premium of £4 per £100 worth of stock. I did not know that he had itin his mind to give that particular present to the investors at the expense of the taxpayers. Notwithstanding all that, I conservatively estimated the sum at £500,000. The Tánaiste commented upon that proposition at columns 1293 and 1294 of the Official Report of 3rd April, 1952, volume 130:—
"I do not know if any Deputy seriously believes that the Department of Finance cannot calculate the interest that will have to be paid during this year upon the national debt. Deputy Costello, I think, was not very confident about that figure. He did, during the course of his remarks, begin to see that a new charge would arise this year, a charge of £600,000 in respect of interest upon the dollar loan."
I want now to emphasise the next bright gem of the Tánaiste's oratory, a characteristic type of statement, a brazen utterance of the Minister for Industry and Commerce:—
"I think that the outcome of the year will show that the estimated cost of the interest on public debt is accurate to a £."
That is a very characteristic statement certainly, characteristic of the brazenness of the Minister for Industry and Commerce. He is always positive about these things and sometimes he gets away with them. He said there that I was not very confident of my charge with reference to the figure for overestimation in connection with the interest payable on the public debt. I was not very confident: I grossly underestimated the figure because I took no account of an overcharge and no account of overtaxation in reference to sinking fund charges for the payment of public debt. Let us get at the facts as they emerge from the accounts but, first, let me emphasise again what the Tánaiste said because it is such a gem of accuracy:—
"I think that the outcome of the year will show that the estimated cost of the interest on public debt is accurate to a £."
It was inaccurate not to the extent of £500,000 but to the extent of £900,000. In the Estimate of the Receipts andExpenditure in the White Paper circulated under the Constitution and bearing the title "Estimates of Receipts and Expenditure for the year ending 31st March, 1953," there will be found at page 4, of Part III in the second column a figure of £6,389,000 which was the estimate for the interest on the public debt for the year 1952-1953. We find in the same estimate for Receipts and Expenditure for the year ending 31st March, 1954, there is recorded the actual amount of money that was paid for interest on public debt; instead of being £6,389,000, accurate to a £ according to the Minister for Industry and Commerce, the actual payment out was £5,474,543, leaving an inaccuracy to the tune of £914,467 so that my conservative estimate of £500,000 as overtaxation in respect of provision for interest on the public debt should have been over £900,000. That is nearly £1,000,000 that was taxed for last year and taken out of the pockets of the people. Where did it go? It was overtaxation. It was unnecessary taxation. It was unjust taxation. There is another item of nearly £1,000,000. I estimated last year that it was £500,000. In actual fact it is nearly £1,000,000.
Let us come now to the other figures in connection with other matters that I spoke about last year, other items on which I justify the charge that there was overtaxation to the extent of £8,000,000 or £10,000,000. That is not the end of the story so far as public debt is concerned, because that is only the overestimation and overtaxation for interest on public debt. Recollect that the answer was given by the Tánaiste: "I think that the outcome of that year will show that the estimated cost of the interest. on public debt is accurate to a £." I repeat that, so far as interest is concerned, the documents given to us in connection with this Budget show that it is inaccurate to the extent of £914,000 odd.
Let us look at the position with regard to sinking fund. In the same table it will be seen that the estimate for 1952-53 in respect of the provision for sinking fund to pay off public debt or, as the jargon is, to retire publicdebt, was £1,790,000. That is the figure in the second column under the figure I have already quoted of £600,000 odd for estimated interest. This was the estimate of the amount of money to be provided for the retirement of debt and we find, by going to the latest document circulated to us in the last day or so, that the actual amount paid for sinking fund was £2,639,609. In other words, instead of paying off £1,790,000 by way of retirement of debt, a sum of £2,639,609 was paid, £849,609 over and above what was estimated for in last year's Budget, so that there is a sum of nearly £1,500,000 between interest and sinking fund instead of the £500,000 I mentioned.
Let me come now to some more interesting items. There was—it will be found in Table 4 of the tables in connection with the financial statement, 1953—a sum of £287,600 raised by taxation on motor vehicles, more than was spent on the roads. Deputies will remember the unctuous satisfaction with which the Minister for Finance last year announced that again he was not like the rest of Ministers for Finance—he was not going to raid the Road Fund; it was all to be left there. A sum of £300,000 was the traditional sum taken by Ministers for Finance from the Road Fund for general Exchequer purposes—but the Minister would not touch that. It was all to be spent on the roads, but, according to their own figures and tables, this sum of £287,000 was levied by taxation more than was spent on the roads, and that sum, instead of being put in ease of the taxpayer and the discharge of some of the current liabilities of that year, was employed in the retirement of debt. If that figure had been taken into account, as it ought to have been taken into account, in connection with current expenditure in ease of the taxpayer, there would have been less of a deficit and more of a surplus than the Minister has disclosed in his Budget statement.
The Deputy is now advocating that we should raid the Road Fund.
I want to come now to the next item of interest in thisconnection, the famous reserve fund. Scorn was poured upon me last year when I suggested that there was a little item there in connection with that reserve fund which was concealing a little pocket of money for the Minister's surplus. I pointed out in connection with that reserve fund that provision had been made for reserve stocks in the year 1951, estimated at a figure of £1.8 million, of which £.9 million was, in fact, only spent because of the impossibility of getting supplies. Proof of the Minister's treatment of these figures is contained in his Budget statement of 2nd April 1952, at column 1131 under the heading "Outcome on Capital Account, 1951-52." There, in a little part to itself, there appear the magic words "reserve stocks—actual issues, £.9 million and estimates, £1.8 million," not realised because of the impossibility of getting stocks.
When we came last year to the Budget, although in the previous year reserve stocks had been dealt with, and when we got the table explanatory of the current Budget and looked at the expenditure side to see if any provision had been made in last year's Budget for the usual deduction for these reserve stocks, we found that there was no reference whatever to them. I raised the point that it was fair to say that £1.8 million could be saved in connection with that matter by proper handling and that there was overtaxation in relation to that amount. The Tánaiste tried to deal with the point by suggesting that the reserve stock were in the Votes for capital services, whereas the financial documents show that they are clearly separate from such services.
The Minister for Social Welfare was a little franker because he said he did not know enough about the matter to deal with the point and the Taoiseach then proceeded to confuse the issue by endeavouring to show that the suggestion I had made was that the provision for reserve stocks ought to be the same as the previous year, 1951, whereas my point was, not that the figure for last year, 1952-53, should be the same as the figure for 1951-52, but that in fact there was no figure at all for the year. The position is that, in1951-52, according to the Budget statement at column 1131 of the Dáil Debates of 2nd April, 1952, reserve stocks appear and provision is made for them in the way we say it should have been made in the following year. Nothing was done about that. What do we find this year? Looking at the explanatory table of the Budget we do not find the magic phrase "reserve stocks." It would not do at all for the Minister to give himself away that way. What we do find is that they appear under another name. They appear as "defensive equipment," if you please. Last year he had nothing either for defensive equipment although he had about the same extent of a problem last year as this year. The magic phrase "reserve stocks" does not appear in the explanatory table of the Budget last year. It appeared the year before. For the year we are facing now they appear, not as "reserve stocks" but as "defensive equipment" to the extent of £900,000.
How much did you put to reserve to defend the Republic?
The expenditure side of this year's table explanatory of the Budget has two deductions in it. Last year's table contained only one deduction. The year before that it contained the "reserve stocks" as well as other deductions. They did it in 1951-52; they are going to do it next year but they left it out last year. Reasonable persons can draw their own conclusions as to what happened that. It was taken from the taxpayer last year, instead of being spread over a period of years, as he is doing this year and in 1951-52 agreed to as proper to be done. It is just the same old trick. This year, he calls the £3,500,000 with which he proposes to help to balance his Budget economies although he would not call them economies and would not have anything to do with economies last year. Now, instead of calling this deduction what he agreed to call it in 1951-52—"reserve stocks," he puts a new name on them and calls them "defensive equipment." What he did in 1951 and what he is goingto do in 1953-54 he would not do in 1952-53, because he wanted a surplus.
In connection with the case I made last year I referred to subsidies, particularly in connection with bread and flour, and I said that there was overtaxation in last year's Budget on the subsidy proposals amounting to at least £1,500,000. One of the most remarkable features of this very curious Budget introduced by the Minister is the fact that there is not one single word in the 66 typewritten pages of his Budget statement about subsidies. Last year he was eloquent. He repudiated the notion that he could any longer stand over the principle of subsidising bread, butter, tea or anything else. That had to be got rid of at once as a vicious principle in the economic atmosphere of the country. Away with subsidies. They were going to let wages rise to meet the situation that would be brought about by it. He has not told us a single thing this year as to how much he saved on subsidies or given any indication to the country as to what the effect of his policy last year in saving on subsidies was or how much he saved.
I charged that he was going to save £1,500,000 last year. He spoke in his Budget statement about the phantom surplus I had conjured up last year— out of my heated imagination, I suppose. He spoke at length in his statement about this surplus and how he had only wanted just to balance the Budget. If I was wrong that Minister for Finance, who is not taciturn to say the least of it, would have hit me good and strong and hard with the figures if he was able to show me from the figures he has at his disposal that I was wrong when I said he was going to save £1,500,000 in subsidies. Not a word about it. He did say that my charge about a surplus was wrong. There was the point I had made that they were going to save £1,500,000 on subsidies. Not a word about it. I can feel sure, and so can the country, that if these figures were wrong the Minister would rush to overwhelm me and bring confusion upon my head by saying how wrong I was and how fraudulent the case I had made. But not a word about subsidies, not a wordabout figures, no figures shown at all about what was saved on subsidies last year. We can draw our own conclusion, and the conclusion I personally draw and ask the country to draw is that the charge I made was substantiated and was correct.
I have referred to the statement of the Minister for Industry and Commerce already but I want to give the reference to it. In his speech on my charges he referred to the question of the bread and flour subsidy. At columns 1301-2 of the debates of 3rd April, 1952, Volume 130, No. 9, he made this remarkable utterance:—
"It is not easy to estimate to what extent the consumption of flour and bread may increase by reason of the abolition of rationing. In calculating the cost of the flour and bread subsidy under the new conditions and at the new rate we have assumed that there will be some increase in consumption—and that fact also invalidates Deputy Costello's calculations as to the saving following upon the subsidy alterations. I have had some concern about the possibility of a substantial increase in the consumption of flour and bread."
There the Tánaiste, the Minister for Industry and Commerce, makes these remarkable statements, that he anticipates, because of the abolition of rationing, some increase in consumption. I have referred to the fact, and it bears repetition, that the whole policy of the Minister was to cause a decrease in consumption and the Minister was taking the money out of the pockets of the poor, preventing an increased consumption. The result is, we all know, it is common knowledge, that instead of there being an increased consumption in bread and flour following upon the abolition of rationing, there has, in fact, been a reduction in consumption of bread and flour of something in the nature of 10 to 12½ per cent.
Those of us who had some connection with Government know the extraordinary, curious system of accounting or adjustment of account between the Department of Industry and Commerceand the millers and bakers in the manner in which subsidies are administered. By that adjustment of account savings on subsidies might have been concealed in either of two ways: (1)— and I do not think it was concealed and I do not suggest it was concealed by this method but it could have been —by an adjustment of costs of the miller-bakers to help to increase their profits; or (2) by seeing that any benefit that they were given has been carried as a credit into next year instead of this year getting credit for it. So much for bread.
Butter was also an item to which I referred in this connection of overtaxation and the subsidy proposals. I pointed out in connection with butter that the calculations of savings to be made from the removal of the butter subsidy are entirely dependent on the Minister incurring a loss on butter which may be imported from abroad during the winter equivalent to the loss incurred last year, which amounted to £320,000.
I also pointed out that one of the objects of the removal of the subsidy was, by increasing the price, to lessen the pressure on imports and therefore it must be assumed that imported butter would be sold at its economic price as a commercial proposition and a profit made out of it and that it was reasonable to assume that on this head an overcharge in taxation amounting to £400,000 was made in the Budget. I was correct in that charge, substantially correct in the details. The Minister for Social Welfare (Dr. Ryan), speaking on the Budget Resolutions last year, as reported in column 1525 of the Dáil Debates, Volume 130, No. 10, made this statement:—
"It is estimated that there will be losses, as there have been in the last few years, on imported butter to the extent of £.320 million."
That is to say, the Minister for Social Welfare stated here, having prefaced his remarks by saying that he was going to talk about butter because it was something he knew about, that there would be a loss on imported butter last year of £320,000. The actualfact is that there has been a profit on imported butter. Instead of that profit being given in relief of the taxpayer who was taxed because of the removal of the subsidies, I understand the profit was put into the Dairy Produce (Price Stabilisation) Fund. Wherever it was put, it was not put to the credit of the taxpayer. It was put to the benefit of the surplus which the Minister was creating, as we stated he was creating.
Now we come to one of the many remarkable features in the Budget, the Minister's raid on the till money. The phrase was the Minister's own. The technical phrase I believe is "revenue balances carried forward at the end of the year". The Minister dealt with this question of revenue balances at page 53 of his speech. He proposed to make a raid upon them to the tune of £500,000. Having stated that as his intention, he went on to say:—
"In recent times, however, the balances have tended to exceed the £2,000,000 or so which is regarded as a reasonable carry-over. On 1st April, 1948, the cash balances in the hands of the Revenue Commissioners amounted to almost £1.9 million..."
I want to emphasise the next sentence because it contains a very serious inaccuracy, I hope not deliberate. The Minister went on:—
"and over the three years to 1st April, 1951, they were maintained around this level."
Then he said:—
"As a result of fortuitous accretions over the past two years, however, the figure at 1st April last had risen to £2.5 million."
I turn now to the Finance Accounts to deal with this matter. I refer to the Finance Accounts for the financial year 1951-52 ending on 31st March, 1952, and in Account No. 2 on pages 6 and 7 of that document it will be found that the balance outstanding at the 31st March, 1951, was not the figure mentioned by the Minister in his speech yesterday of £1.9 million but a figure of £2,543,690 7s. 6d. The Minister told theDáil yesterday that the figure was £1.9 million. His own documents show that that is an incorrect figure. I hope that was not put in deliberately as it is a matter of considerable importance to this House, because the Minister said last year that that till money, as he called it, was something sacrosanct. He said: "You must not touch that; that has to be kept for the purpose of tiding you over the first weeks or months of the new financial year." If that balance, instead of being £1.9 million as the Minister stated yesterday, was £2,543,690, there is a serious difference of £600,000. Where did that £2,600,000 go?
Let me direct the attention of Deputies to the fact that the Minister's statement jumped from the 1st April, 1951, to the 1st April, 1953. He said nothing about the 1st April, 1952. At page 7 of the account to which I have referred that till money is shown to have risen from £2,543,690 7s. 6d. to £2,860,634 2s. 9½d. So that in the year we are dealing with, the year which has just ended, the year in which he said there was a deficit, that he could not balance the Budget and the year in which we said, and say, there was a surplus, there is £300,000 unaccounted for. Where is it? What was done with it? It was all right for the Minister for Finance when he was accusing Deputy McGilligan of not balancing the Budget, of juggling with figures, of juggling with the "till money", the money which was sacrosanct. The fact is that Deputy McGilligan left £600,000 there which he could have used if he wanted to use at a time when the present Minister for Finance thought it was good politics to accuse Deputy McGilligan of having left an unbalanced Budget. That is a serious matter that requires explanation.
This year, what is it the Minister intends to do? He has got that money there now—over £2,000,000. He says himself now he will not know the figure until another few months have passed, but he says it is £2,500,000. What is he going to do with it? He is going to raid it in order to balance the Budget. But when it suited himhe accused Deputy McGilligan of helping himself to balance the Budget by that "till money." It was sacrosanct, according to him at the time it suited him to denigrate Deputy McGilligan's financial probity. He is going to do it himself this year. He is going to do it for the purpose of getting more money out of the taxpayer than he need necessarily take.
I have dealt with some of the outstanding points that I raised in the speech I made last year, justifying the charge I made then, that I proved then, that I repeat now and that I have proven now, that there was a surplus last year, that there is a surplus this year, that there was unjust and unnecessary taxation last year and there will be unjust and unnecessary taxation this year. The Minister can make any specious argument he likes about what he as a democratic Minister may do, but I say that it is a fact, a proved fact and it is because he will not admit that we were right and he was wrong last year that I believe firmly that the expectations of the people, all sections of the people, have been disappointed and that there has been no remission of taxation.
The Minister has to face up to it. If he had a deficit last year, if that is an honest statement of the accounts—and I believe he has so manipulated the accounts in the way open to him as to show a deficit where really it was a surplus—then he is in this position. How, if he had a deficit last year, is the same amount of money going to meet an additional expense of a very serious character in the next financial year?
One of the matters on which we were entitled to rely last year and on which we did rely was that the Minister's estimate of yield of revenue would be substantially accurate. I think we were entitled to rely upon that, otherwise
You have to be a Blueshirt before you can be a prophet.
The revenue was £1.9 million less than he anticipated. He got £1.1 million more in income-his whole scheme is wrong.
tax and the allied taxes, supertax and other charges of that kind. In other words, if he had got his yield of revenue and the additional buoyancy of the income-tax revenue, then there would have been £3,000,000 more. We were entitled to assume that he would get that revenue. It is on that assumption, which we were entitled to make, that another of the proofs of the charge I made is based. We have a remarkable feature in the Budget in connection with income-tax. Before I deal specifically with income-tax, I want to draw attention to the fact that this is the first year for many years in which the yield of taxation showed a disappointing return. In this financial year which has just ended, we find for the first time for many years and certainly since the war, that less was received in revenue than was estimated. In the year that we are facing, the financial year 1953-1954, the estimate—which includes this planned raid to which I have referred of £500,000 upon the "till money"—for the first time projects an actual fall in the receipts from income-tax, notwithstanding that in this year which we are facing the high rate will be payable on a full year.
Between the years 1947-48 and 1951-52, the yield from income-tax went up from under £12,000,000 to nearly £19,000,000. That is an increase by over 50 per cent., despite the fact that it was reduced in one year by 6d. in the £ and income-tax reliefs of various characters were given. That demonstrated the strength of our policy and that it was a right policy. What has happened since they came in? For the first time, this coming year the Minister for Finance—although he has a full year—now estimates that he is going to get less from income-tax. In 1947-48 £11.902 million was collected in income-tax; in 1948-49, £14.664 million was collected; in 1949-50, £15.476 million was collected; in 1950-51, £16.195 million was collected; and in 1951-52, £18.75 million was collected. That was consequent upon our policy, which looked to the buoyancy of the revenue, to which I referred last year, which looked for yield of revenue not to imposing burdensome taxation to the point where the Head of the Governmenthad to admit recently that the "limit of the taxable capacity of the people had been reached". That was not our policy. Our policy was to reduce taxation and, by taking measures to increase the national income, to get more income, more revenue from decreased taxation. That is an exactly opposite policy to that of the present Government. We had the policy of expansion: they have a policy of austerity. They have a policy of high, unnecessary, cruel and unjust taxation which yields them less than they estimated. We had a policy which allowed us to reduce taxation and still get greater revenue. We had an economic policy on which to base our hopes for the future and build an economic fabric that would last for a long time, had we been allowed to build it.
In the course of his remarks, the Minister took satisfaction from one or two matters. He took satisfaction from the fact that he had succeeded by his corrective measures, as they were called, in restoring the equilibrium in the balance of national payments. He also took some queer attitude—I would not say one of pride—in regard to housing. His references to housing had rather the echo of the phraseology and certainly the intent of the report of the Central Bank.
At last!
Having given an account of the number of houses erected or in course of erection, and entirely overlooking the fact that these were largely buildings under the auspices of his predecessors—the housing for which he is responsible is the housing for 1953 and that is down-wards and not upwards as it was in our time—he adds a further point, which gives the measure of his outlook on this matter. We had a policy which I expressed again and again, that no financial consideration within reason-or rather, no consideration, and I think I never made any qualification on it —was going to stand between our Government and the provision of a house for every family in this country that needed it. That was our objectiveand we set it out in our housing programme. Since the present Government came into office, there has been a slowing-down in the housing programme; there has been a restriction of credit for housing and there has been an incapacity on the part of the people to buy houses and make provision for themselves in reference to houses. As I was about to say, the Minister's mentality on this matter is revealed by his concluding statement on page 34 of his speech. Referring to housing he says:—
"There is a fact which I ought to mention before I pass on. It is that in recent years new dwellings in this country have accounted for a much higher proportion of domestic capital outlay than in most European countries, even those which suffered the devastation of war."
Is that not an echo of the innuendoes or suggestions, if not the statements, of the reports of the Central Bank to the following effect: "You are spending too much money on houses. It is creating inflation." That is the outlook of the Minister for Finance in connection with houses.
I want now to make just a few remarks upon the Minister's comments in connection with the balance of payments. The Minister took pride in the achievement of bringing equilibrium to our balance of payments and bringing the sum down to £9,000,000. I have already pointed out in another place— I am not sure that I did not repeat it here in this House in another context —that for whatever the Minister can claim credit he certainly is not responsible for the beef, cattle and other agricultural produce exported in 1952. Every £ that was derived from additional exports in that year must have come as a surprise to the Minister for Finance and his colleagues. Every unit sold and exported in that year was produced before he came into office. His Budget was framed not on the assumption that there would be increased exports but that there would be a drop in the volume of exported agricultural produce. The Minister claims that there was an increase in exported agricultural produce. There was. Therewas a record amount in value of our exports of agricultural produce last year. It amounted, for the first time in the history of this country, to over £101,000,000. That was due to the coming to full fruition of the policy of the inter-Party Government in relation to agriculture. Did the Minister anticipate, when he was bringing this country to its knees and causing unnecessary suffering by additional taxation, that exports of agricultural produce would reach over £101,000,000 in value? He did not, because in column 1123 of his Budget statement of last year he gave the basis on which he intended to apply corrective measures in relation to the export of agricultural produce. I quote now from column 1123 of the Official Report of the 2nd April, 1952. The Minister stated: "The opening months of this year showed virtually no improvement." That is all he said about the position that was facing them in connection with imports and exports: "The opening months of 1952 showed virtually no improvement."
We changed that.
At column 1124, the Minister continued:—
"Allowing for a favourable turn in the terms of trade, for some drawing down of stocks and for increased tourist income, the balance of payments deficit which we faced at the beginning of 1952 was about £50,000,000."
We changed that.
That was the value of his estimate. The Minister says that they changed that. Now let us see the validity of the Minister's assumptions on which he brought this policy of unnecessary and cruel suffering to bear on the people of this country.
Ninety thousand persons unemployed.
He overlooked, either deliberately or otherwise, the actual statistics which were available to him because, in fact, the opening months of that particular year showedexactly the opposite position to that which the Minister stated and on which he based his assumptions for austerities. So far from showing virtually no improvement in the first quarter of 1952, the volume of exports rose by 34 per cent. and the volume of imports declined by 4 per cent. So much for the value of the Minister's assumptions on which he based his austerities, cruel taxation and unjust and oppressive measures—all of which he still intends to continue this year. Even in the second half of 1951, although apparently the Minister did not examine it, the position showed a drop of 15 per cent in monthly averages over the first half of the year. We have explained all that ad nauseam.We told the Minister that there was no need for concern about our adverse balance of trade during that year because we had deliberately created that adverse balance of trade consequent upon the Korean war and the upset in the economic conditions of the country.
Consequent upon your panic.
Due to that, we had to stockpile—on which the Minister has battened in the past 12 months and on which he was able to base his economy because of our foresight in that respect. We told the Minister that that would right itself. Yesterday, in his Budget statement, he quoted what Deputy McGilligan said about the topic of the adverse balance of trade. On pages two and three of the Budget statement which the Minister read yesterday, he quoted Deputy McGilligan as follows:—
"The present position"
—that is at 2nd May, 1951—
"on external account is by no means satisfactory and if it continues to develop unfavourably the application of corrective measures will be called for.
"If it continues" was the relevant phrase there.
And it did.
It did not. We told the Minister last year that thecorrective measures were being put in operation. The Minister stated last year on the debate on the White Paper —that extraordinary and disreputable document that emanated from him and from which he and his colleagues ran away—that there would be an adverse trade balance of £70,000,000. The best he could do was to bring it up to £61,000,000 odd.
I had nothing to do with that figure. It was compiled by the Statistics Office.
It did not continue. We told him that that year was an exceptional year, due to stockpiling. We told him that trends of the second half of the year showed that the adverse balance was going down rapidly—and it did, as I have showed from a quotation of the figures. We also said that correctives were automatically applying themselves because our export and agricultural policy was then coming into fruition. We were proved right. Last year, for the first time, we had a record export of agricultural produce of over £101,000,000. That was due to the policy of the inter-Party Government. Whatever the Minister for Finance may do he could not produce two-year-old cows just after coming into office.
He could not produce a Korean War two months after saying there was going to be peace.
I want to refer to another assumption made by the Minister. I proved him wrong in his statement that the opening months of this year showed no improvement. Now at column 1123 of the Official Debates of 2nd April, 1952, he says:—
"Similarly, on the earnings side, while we may expect some increase in export prices the immediate outlook in agriculture would not justify us in counting upon any material increase in the quantity exported."
We actually got a record export in that year. On the 2nd April last year the Minister presented his austerity Budget on assumptions of that kind, that you could not count upon any material increase in the quantity ofagricultural products exported from this country, when we actually had a record. Does anybody think there can be the smallest value attached to a Minister who bases his austerity Budget and the proposals which have wrecked the economy of this country upon assumptions of that kind?
I charge that this year's Budget is as cruel, unnecessary and unjust as, and even more cruel, unnecessary and unjust than the Budget of last year. It represents the final abdication by the Government of its duty to deal with the real problems of the country, problems of employment, of the creation of wealth, of remedying the many social ills which we inherited and from which we still suffer, of gearing up production by means of a proper policy to make production adequate for Irish opportunity, of maintaining our investment projects and schedules at a level permitting of expansion and progress and of dissipating, if possible, for ever the dismay and uneasiness lingering around the Irish economy at the present moment, making it so distasteful for the whole community who are suffering so deeply that we are losing the cream of our people through emigration by reason of lack of employment.
Taking the phrase that the Minister used yesterday, I say that instead of doing what I said was his duty to do, he apparently is happily poised between inflation and deflation, endeavouring to see that investment, necessary for the production of wealth, the creation of employment and the ending of unemployment, is effected mainly out of savings. Consequently, our economic progress is to be limited by the amount of savings that people may make in the current year out of their slender resources and a stagnant economy.
I have already spoken about the criticism that can be made and must be made of the Minister's Budget this year. It contains no economic policy; it contains no indication of appreciation of the fact that the Budget is an entirety, that it must be looked at as a whole and that it must be used as an instrument of economic policy. Thepolicy we initiated and pursued as long as we were in office of prudent and careful repatriation of external assets through a controlled deficit in the balance of payments for the purpose of productive capital enterprises in this country is the only policy that can bring us out of the muck and the mire into which the Minister and his colleagues have placed this country during the last two years. We have no economic policy from the Minister or his colleagues. The country is bid cynically and without apology—there is no note even of regret in the Minister's statement yesterday—to continue to suffer the austerities and miseries which he imposed upon them last year and which he intends top continue this year. Those austerities are unnecessary and unjust. The sooner the Minister and his colleagues clear out and let people who are able to look after and who appreciate the interests of the country and who will take upon themselves the courageous employment of the resources of this country, the better it will be for the unemployed and for the middle classes who are suffering very deeply at the hands of the Minister and his colleagues through their policy.
To follow Deputy Costello immediately does not give me an adequate opportunity of examining all the figures he presented to the House, but I can immediately take up one of his last arguments, that is, with regard to his comment on the increase in the output in the agricultural industry.
Deal with the increase in the exports of agricultural produce.
Mr. Lynch
The Deputy referred to the fact that the Minister for Finance, even after his two years of office, could not produce two-year-old cows——
In a year.
Mr. Lynch
In one year even. Between 1950 and 1951 the number of cattle under one year had declined by 3,700 head; milch cows by 20,000; heifers in-calf by 33,000; pigs haddecreased by 87,000 and poultry had declined by 2,300,000. On top of all that, tillage had decreased by 53,000 acres. I wonder how, in the light of these figures, Fine Gael could suggest that, as a result of their part in Coalition policy, agricultural output and agricultural exports increased. Some increase was naturally effected as a result of increasing agricultural prices; nevertheless, in view of these hard, cold and miserable figures, as far as Deputy Dillon's agricultural policy is concerned, they cannot claim with any degree of justification that during their term of office agricultural output had increased.
The latter part of Deputy Costello's speech I take it was intended by him to sum up all that he had said during the presentation of the figures he mentioned. He made the comment that Fianna Fáil as a Government had shown no policy in this Budget for the creation of employment and for the rehabilitation of this country's economy. During their term of office we heard so much of capital development that one without knowledge of the facts might be for given if he believed that capital development in Ireland had never been heard of until they came into office. Nevertheless, capital development had gone on during the years before they ever dreamt of assuming office and, what is more important, capital development assumed proportions after they had left office that could never have been achieved by the Coalition Government during their term of office, judging by their own figures and their own achievements.
I shall take a few of the items and confine what I have to say to this particular aspect. Starting with land reclamation, one of the things about which we heard most and for which so much assistance was afforded through the Coalition Government which is not available now to the Fianna Fáil Government, in the financial year 1950-51, the last year of the Coalition administration, there was spent on land reclamation a sum of £569,000, despite the fact that the proposed expenditure according to the Estimates was £3,100,000. The expenditure thus fellshort of their target by five-sixths—in other words they spent one-sixth of their proposed expenditure on land reclamation and land rehabilitation. In the last calendar year of the Fianna Fáil Government, there was spent exactly five times as much on land reclamation. In other words, for every £1 spent by Deputy Dillon, £5 was spent by the present Minister for Agriculture on that scheme. In section A, the part of the scheme whereby farmers do the work themselves, double work was done and in Section B, four times the work was done. In the coming year it is proposed considerably to increase the moneys available for that scheme and thus considerably increase the area of land reclaimed and put into production.
In regard to the expansion of our electricity resources we heard a lot of lip service during the three and a half years of the Coalition administration to the necessity of depending on our own natural resources. So far as this House was concerned it was a common case. No member of this Party is going to criticise the Coalition Government for any worth-while effort they made to develop our own resources. There was no better field in which that development could be embarked upon than that of electrification. After their three and a half years of office, during which we were told our natural resources would be developed to the full, what was the result of Coalition policy? In the expansion of electricity services, the result was the erection of two stations to be driven by imported coal and imported oil. Since then, fortunately, the real meaning of depending on our own resources has been comprehended and the value attached to it has been realised and a policy has been and is being put into effect. Everybody knows the value of the Bangor Erris scheme which will provide two generating stations fired by milled turf. Work has already commenced on the Lee hydro-electric scheme and the much-talked-of Clady hydro-electric scheme, which had been shelved for the three and a half years the Coalition were in office, is now about to take practical shape.
What does the Parliamentary Secretary mean by "now"?
Mr. Lynch
Plans are being pushed forward. Nothing was done in regard to the Clady scheme while the Coalition were in office.
That is not true.
The Parliamentary Secretary did not hear the reply from the Tánaiste to my question to-day.
Mr. Lynch
So far as the generation of electricity by turf power stations is concerned, to say that the record of the Coalition Government was miserable, would be an overstatement because there was no record in existence. Already the E.S.B. and Bord na Móna, as a result of the Government decision last February, are surveying areas along the western seaboard— one in Kerry, near Kells, adjacent to Cahirciveen; one in Clare, near Miltown-Malbay; one in Connemara, near Maam Cross as well as one in Donegal near Dungloe. I know Deputies are waiting for me to indicate what practical work is being done at present. I know questions have been asked for the last two or three weeks in an endeavour to elicit information as to the exact location of the stations. They can take it from me that the exact location is being worked out, particularly by the E.S.B. in collaboration with Bord na Móna and that information as to the exact location will not be long delayed from Deputies.
I do not wish to interrupt the Parliamentary Secretary but could he give us the location within the nearest five miles of the proposed site?
Mr. Lynch
The Government decision was, I think, clear enough to enable Deputies concerned to see that the locations would be within their particular constituencies. The locations I have just mentioned, near Kells in Kerry and near Dungloe in Donegal, with which the Deputy is most concerned, are contained in Government decisions and there can be no departure from them. If circumstances show that it would be advisable to move alittle further from Dungloe, if the Deputy would prefer it, I am sure all considerations will be taken into account.
The Deputy would not prefer it. He wants it in the town if possible.
Mr. Lynch
The best location will ultimately be selected. Another earnest of our desire to develop home resources and to utilise them, particularly for the generation of electricity, is the decision to use coal won by our own miners in the Arigna area. A generating station is being located there.
Who started that?
Mr. Lynch
It has not been started at all yet.
Who first suggested the location of a generating station at Arigna?
Mr. Lynch
I know that Deputy Boland, the Minister for Justice, has been pursuing the matter almost as long as he has been a member of this House.
Before the point was mentioned by anybody else, I raised it in this House five years ago.
Mr. Lynch
Apparently the Deputy did not get much help from the Coalition Government. Deputy Boland, the Minister for Justice, has been a member of the House for a much longer period than the Deputy. The effective point is that it is only the Fianna Fáil Government took the decision to locate a station there. The Deputy had more influence with the last Government than Deputy Boland but nevertheless the decision was taken by the Fianna Fáil Government.
I have been anxious at all times to have a scheme started there.
Deputy McQuillan will get every opportunity later to make his own speech.
Mr. Lynch
In the industrial field generally there has been considerableprogress and, much as we have been hearing about unemployment, there is no denying the fact that employment in several of our existing factories has been expanded in recent months. Since the change of Government there have been 140 new industries created, by way of new buildings or expansions of existing buildings established in the country.
It is difficult at this stage to refrain from commenting upon Deputy Costello's mention of stockpiling. He literally boasted of the prudence of his Government in the stockpiling they undertook during the year 1950. I think that in no field did he wreak greater havoc through that stockpiling than in the field of textile employment. Everybody knows the condition of the textile factories immediately after the change of Government and for some months until such time as effective remedial measures were taken. Eight million yards of foreign manufactured cloth were imported. An even better type of cloth could have been made in this country. The remedial measures that were taken soon put the factories back into production and soon had the effect of clearing the shelves of the shopkeepers of their overstocking. The result is that at the present time there is scarcely a textile factory in the country able to meet its demands. In several instances output is behind demand by six months. If proof is required that these factories are working to their full capacity one need only inquire from the various concerns that make up wearing apparel and who are seeking supplies from the textile factories. In many cases when their orders cannot be supplied within a reasonable time they seek quota import facilities from the Department of Industry and Commerce.
I suppose few people, except those resident in East Cork, know the history of the steel factory of Irish Steel Holdings at Haulbowline, but that is one aspect of Coalition policy that the people of that area will not look back upon with any warm feelings. Before they came into office, some machinery had been purchased to make that factorymore efficient and to carry out certain improvements and extensions. Because the money was required and because the Coalition Government refused the money, the machinery that had already been bought was left to rust on the wharves beside Haulbowline steel mills. Until the Tánaiste, Deputy Lemass, took over the reins of control in the Department of Industry and Commerce, that machinery was left there. Now, due to his foresight and to the support he got from his colleagues in the Government and the confidence they had in the capacity of our people to produce rolled steel, these mills are again in full production. Over 600 people are employed and, as we heard from the Minister for Finance in his present Budget, £250,000 has been set aside for the further capitalisation of that concern.
I again refer to another rather miserable performance by the Coalition Government in the manner in which they extended the cement factories. Shortly after they came into office, the need for the extension of these factories was seen, and I think that Deputy Morrissey, as Minister for Industry and Commerce, realised this. He brought proposals to his Government, but they were delayed. There was prevarication. There was discussion and possibly disagreement to the extent that at one stage he announced the extensions were going ahead and, 12 months later, on being asked what was the result, he was told that the extensions had not yet commenced. Immediately after the change of Government, these extensions were carried out. The need to expand the factories was apparent from the fact that during the three and a half years the Coalition Government was in office over 500,000 tons of cement had to be imported at a price far in excess of that at which the cement could have been produced at home. There is now proceeding in Drogheda and in Limerick extensions to the existing factories at a cost of £2,080,000. Apart from the fact that this will double the output of cement, it will create much needed employment for our own people.
One does not have to be a partisanpolitician to realise how much work is being undertaken on the roads of the country at the present time. On almost every route one takes leaving Dublin there is hardly a dangerous corner in existence now that has not been removed or is in process of being removed. There is hardly an uneven surface which has not only been resurfaced but excavated and relaid all over the country. In addition to that there is, as Deputies now know, in the West of Ireland an annual scheme for the expenditure of £400,000 on tourist roads in the Gaeltacht areas. The scheme will extend for at least eight years. Everybody realises what a boon that will be to those areas. In the first place it will provide an easement for the ratepayers to their local authorities and county councils and in the second place it will provide employment in areas where it is possibly more needed than in any other part of the country.
There are roads in these areas on which, were it not for some special effort expenditure would never be made for their proper maintenance or for putting them into a proper condition to carry the traffic that would go on them. It would never be met because the areas in which they are are so poorly represented on the county councils that it was very difficult to secure the money from those councils for spending on them. The result is that many of these roads are being put into a state which will allow them to carry not only the traffic that is on them at present but also increased tourist traffic which will benefit these remote but very beautiful areas.
I have picked out the points I mentioned rather at random but they show that there is a policy for the creation and expansion of employment and for the improvement of our capital resources. I do not want to refer to housing or hospitalisation. I have always tried in public life to make housing, in so far as that can be done, common case between political Parties. That certainly applies to most of the local authorities throughout the country. The fact is that more houses were built last year than at any time since the early years of the war.
Now the Parliamentary Secretary is bringing in politics.
Mr. Lynch
Both Governments are entitled to take credit for their housing policies.
All the houses which the Parliamentary Secretary is talking about were planned and sanctioned in our time.
Mr. Lynch
The Deputy is stretching his imagination. He must know, if he is a member of a local authority and I do not know whether he is or not, how long it takes to develop sites.
A couple of years sometimes.
Mr. Lynch
That is true. We all know how long it takes to acquire sites if any difficulty arises. I think that, as a member of a corporation, I know a little more about the acquisition of sites than Deputy Blowick does. It takes quite a length of time to acquire them.
Therefore, your Government cannot take credit for the houses which were built last year?
Mr. Lynch
I am coupling the performances of the two Governments in the acquisition of sites and in the provision of materials in so far as they were provided, because everybody knows that there is a limit to our productive capacity in housing beyond which we cannot go. In the city areas, for example, land is limited, while in the country areas labour is limited. I am referring now to local authority housing.
Hospitalisation has gone on apace and it is intended to keep that up until such time that nobody who requires a bed for hospital treatment will be denied it. Their is no truth in the suggestion that Fianna Fáil, either since their advent to office or in the present Budget, have not planned for a solution of the emigration and unemployment problems. In the schemes which I have outlined—many of them have already been started—there is provision, possibly not ample provision, for the solution of the unemploymentproblem. In these various schemes there are means for creating employment so as to absorb a good many of the present number of people on the live register.
A few nights ago I had the privilege of listening to a debate entitled "Well Fares the State". Deputy J.A. Costello spoke there and so did the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs. The debate was mostly concerned, however, with the question as to what extent we were moving towards the modern concept of the Welfare State. I think I can borrow the title in concluding what I have to say as far as our country is concerned: Under the Fianna Fáil Government we can safely say the State fares well and we hope it will fare better in the immediate future.
The Parliamentary Secretary has made a very poor and sloppy defence of the Budget that we have before us. Indeed, one may say that it was no defence. He told us that the Government propose to spend £400,000 on roads in the Gaeltacht areas. That is supposed to be a magnificent gift. It is supposed to reduce the rates. It will not do so by one penny.
He did not say that.
When he said it I was tempted to interrupt him.
He never said that.
Let us see how Fianna Fáil is treating the Gaeltacht which it seems to have discovered very recently. If Deputy Killilea wants to see how the Gaeltacht is being treated by the Government he should have a look at the Book of Estimates. If he does, he will find a few things there to surprise him. First of all, he will find that the grants under the Local Authorities (Works) Act have been cut down from the £1,900,000 which the inter-Party Government was providing to £400,000 in this year. That is all the Government is giving in the way of grants for drainage under that Act. If one adds that sum of £400,000 to the £400,000 which is being provided for roads inthe Gaeltacht areas, the total is £800,000. These two sums show a reduction of £1,100,000 on the grants which the inter-Party Government gave for drainage under the Local Authorities (Works) Act.
The Parliamentary Secretary seemed conscious of the poor case he tried to make, and had to try and bolster it up as best he could. As a member of the Government, his speech was remarkable for the absence of any mention whatever of the three national problems which are facing the domestic economy of the country to-day. He made no mention whatever of these. The first is the burning question of the cost of living—the way our people are being blistered by taxation and deprived of the ordinary necessaries of life. The second is the 90,000 unemployed that we have. The present Government seem to be determined to keep the unemployed—perhaps for political reasons. The third main problem concerns the 78,000 able-bodied men who have left the land since 1946. I am sure Deputy Killilea's constituency has suffered as much in that respect as mine. I regard these as the three burning questions which are facing the country to-day, and I suggest that any Government with a sense of its responsibilities, should, without delay, try to find a remedy for them. I do not expect the present Minister for Finance to do that. From his attitude here yesterday, he seems incapable of getting away from that facetious attitude which he displays on every occasion. He seems to have no sense of responsibility and is incapable of showing any common sense.
During the last 12 months every home and individual in the country have been blistered with taxation. No relief whatever is given to them under this Budget, although I believe some relief could have been given. Under the Minister's Budget, every device—every three-card trick and every thimble rigging device—is to be employed to pick money out of the people's pockets. One of the latest things that has happened is that ordinary county council workers, road workers and forestry workers, are being called upon to payincome-tax. There is also the fact that the commissioners of valuation seem to have got very definite instructions from the Minister for Finance to increase the valuations on farmers' lands, as well as on business houses and shops.
Surely, that is a matter of administration. It could hardly be described as relevant to Budget policy.
I am referring to it as one of the means by which the present Government is raising money.
The Deputy could travel very far on that line. The revaluation of houses and buildings and ordinary current administration which can be raised on the Estimate for a particular Department, are not relevant on the Budget statement.
Budgetary policy and the administration of the Department of Finance are so closely related that I submit it is almost impossible to separate the two. I had always understood that the administration of the Minister's Department was under review when he opened his Budget speech.
No. The Minister has to come to the Dáil and explain the administration of his Department as Ministers of other Departments do. Administration does not arise on the Budget statement. That has been common form for years.
Very good. I will deal with the question of increased valuation when the administration of the Department comes up.
We now come to another device that has been employed, the cutting down of those who are in receipt of unemployment assistance or "dole" as we know it. Every trick in the bag has been used against these people in order to save money in the last 12 months for the Minister for Finance. People who were entitled to some State assistance —and if the law were correct that assistance should not be described as "dole"— were cut down and in some cases their unemployment assistance was completely removed. Every knowntrick in the bag was used in order to pick the people's pockets during the last 12 months. It was not alone the cost of living—of bread, butter, tea, sugar, tobacco, drink, petrol. the tax on cars and lorries—that was increased, but further devices were used. Apparently the officials of the various Departments had very strict instructions, as they seemed to have been let loose like a storm of locusts on the people of the country, determined to pick the last farthing out of their pockets if it could be found.
Speaking on the Supplies and Services Bill last November 12 months, on the 23rd November 1951, I made the following statement, which I submit is relevant to a point I am going to make:—
"Let me utter this final warning: If there is any attempt made to increase exports by cutting down on the standard of living of the people, I want to say that I will object strongly. The people are using more butter, beef, bacon and eggs to-day than ever before. I want to draw the attention of the Labour Deputies in particular to this point, because some of them are under a misapprehension: agricultural production has not dropped but increased. It has not only increased in value but in volume. The volume has increased very substantially. Owing to the prosperity which the people enjoyed under the inter-Party Government they are consuming more of the agricultural production, the result being that the exportable surplus has remained fairly static. If we are going to increase exports by cutting down the standard of living of our people here in Dublin and down the country I, for one, will be for condemning that policy."
That is taken from the Dáil Debates, Volume 127, column 1432.
Yesterday in his Budget speech the Minister referred to exports and said:—
"Last year, for the first time, exports exceeded £100,000,000. The actual total was £101.5 million or £20,000,000 more than in 1951."
The next sentence is of peculiar significance:—
"Of the rise in value, only £2,500,000 can be attributed to higher prices; most of the increase was due to greater volume."
The warning that I issued in November, 1951, which I had to utter as the result of a very sinister statement the Minister for Industry and Commerce had made a short time previously— that warning has come true. We now find the Minister for Finance coming in yesterday and actually boasting that £20,000,000 worth of agricultural produce was exported in the last 12 months, more than previously. He takes good care to point out that there has not been an increase in value —£2,500,000 is the increase. Where is all this extra agricultural export coming from? There has not been an increase in volume. May I remind him where it came from—from the very carefully calculated policy of the present Government to deny our own people the right to purchase our own produce from our own farms, denying the working man and the housewife in the City of Dublin, the working people down the country, the small shopkeepers and the small farmers, the food of our own farms? The policy of pocket picking which the present Government has followed and has brought to a fine art has denied these people the right to purchase from the Irish farmers the home-produced food and has sent instead £20,000,000 more of it across to England.
If our own people had been fully fed, if it was within their power to buy fully all they wanted within reason, then I would be the first to compliment the Minister on increasing agricultural exports by £20,000,000. But when I know that that increased export—going across the water, going to the United States, to Germany and other countries with which we trade— is the result of the present Government denying our own people the purchasing power to buy that food, and that it has lowered their standard of living accordingly, then I want to tell this House and tell the country what is happening. It cannot be hidden orcloaked under the nice verbiage the Minister used yesterday.
It does not seem to have had any great effect on the Deputy that he could not buy what is produced in this country.
I am sorry I cannot return the compliment to the Deputy who has made that remark. He seems to be suffering a little from the effects of Deputy MacEntee's policy—so long as he has given to making personal remarks. The Minister continued and said:—
"Nevertheless there has since been no falling back and, indeed, exports in March of this year were the highest ever recorded for a single month."
No wonder they would. With 90,000 unemployed and 78,000 of our best and most able-bodied men having fled from agricultural occupations, and the price of food being kept up to the extent it has been kept up, does the Minister think there should be a drop? The very fact that it has been increasing and reached a climax in the month of March last should be sufficient warning to the Minister, if he or other Fianna Fáil Deputies moved about amongst the people to hear some of the harrowing stories that I hear and that the Parliamentary Secretary opposite would hear. If he moved around in his constituency amongst the plain people, the working people, he would know that it is nothing to wonder at that exports of agricultural produce reached an all-time high in the month of March last. The Parliamentary Secretary may laugh. I am not quite sure that many people in this country would enjoy that laugh or not think it a very cynical laugh. I do not think it is fair to rub salt into the wounds inflicted by last year's Budget by coming along now to laugh.
I would like to know what the Government plans to do to absorb some of the 90,000 unemployed. There are 87,000 or 88,000 unemployed, according to the figures published by the Department of Social Welfare in the last few days. Deputy Lynch, the ParliamentarySecretary to the Government, told us there were 140 new factories or extensions to factories in the last 12 months. If that had not happened, what would the unemployment figure be? Probably another 4,000 or 5,000 added to this swollen list.
I repeat that the three most important questions facing us at present are the high cost of living, the 90,000 unemployed and the disastrous flight from the land. As an agricultural country, we are depending for our very existence on the maintenance of agricultural production. If inside the next five or six years another 78,000 of the youngest and most able-bodied male population working that land flee from it, agricultural production will drop. The only one saving may be an unfortunate saving in the Irish Land Commission, which is at present engaged in relieving congestion. Very soon that policy will go completely into reverse, and, instead of relieving congestion, they will have to devote their attention to considering how to keep people on the land or place people on the derelict farms all over the country.
If agriculture is to lose another 78,000 able-bodied population between the ages of 15 and 45 as the census figures reveal left the land within the past six or seven years, I am beginning to wonder if this country was worth the fight for freedom, if that is what this generation are going to do and what this Government are going to do. If, when we have secured the freedom of this country and the right to handle our own affairs, the best solution we can offer is high prices for everything we want to buy, starvation for anybody who stays in the country and either certain unemployment for most of the able-bodied male population or flight to England, it is a sorry picture. I often wonder what some of those who made sacrifices in order that this country might be free and that we could be elected here by the Irish people to manage the country's affairs would think, if they could come back from their graves to-day. I feel that they would take much more stern action with the present Government than we on the Opposition side are taking to-day.
I want to ask the Parliamentary Secretary in charge of this new office which has been established lately if he is serious when he talks about rehabilitating the Gaeltacht in the way he has talked. The amount set aside in sub-head D (2) of the vote for Gaeltacht services for manufacturing materials for rural industries has been cut down by £94,479. That money is for the supply of materials without which these industries and factories cannot survive. The figure last year was £283,009 and this year the figure is cut down to £188,530, a decrease, as I say, of £94,479. The Parliamentary Secretary comes in here and tries to convince us that all is well in the Gaeltacht at least. I want to say that it is not. He talks about the land rehabilitation scheme, Deputy Dillon's scheme, and says that the present Government are spending more money on it this year than was ever spent on it before. Does he expect us to clap him on the back for that?
This new scheme was started a few years ago under immense difficulties and in face of the full fire of the Opposition. One of the tricks used at the time was that certain Fianna Fáil Deputies secretly told the farmers that it was an inter-Party manoeuvre to increase their valuations in order to discourage them having anything to do with it. It was started about 1949. Deputy Dillon, the then Minister, had to purchase machinery, had to recruit staff and had to wait until they were trained or had some working knowledge of what they were doing and how to do it, both economically and efficiently. The Parliamentary Secretary now expects us to clap him on the back because they are spending more money on it. What were they doing last year? The figures tell the tale, in that respect. There is an increase of £397,304 in respect of the land rehabilitation project this year and an increase of £115,000 in the ground limestone subsidy. To anybody with a knowledge of the land, with a knowledge of how production can be increased by the proper use of the land rehabilitation project and the ground limestone facilities, these meagre increases in respect of a very important branch of the work are a sheer joke. Itwill not deceive me and I am sure it will not deceive many Deputies.
With regard to the Government's announcement of its intention to do something about the Civil Service arbitration award, my opinion is that the Government have done serious damage to the morale of the whole Civil Service by their action in this matter. I do not propose to speak on the merits or the demerits of the award, but I want to speak of what occurred during the past year. The Government sent their representatives before the Civil Service Arbitration Board; they sent their heaviest artillery and fought the case out there. The understanding of everybody is that when two people go to a third, the fact that they do so is a tacit admission that both sides will accept the findings of the third person to whom they appeal. That board was established as the one safety valve the Civil Service had, because the strike weapon is a weapon which the Civil Service cannot or will not ever use. In order to enable their grievances to be aired that arbitration board was established.
The Civil Service claimed they had a grievance and the Government claimed they had not and the case went to the arbitration board, before which both sides fought their case through their representatives. Evidently, the final award was not in keeping with the Government's wishes and the next thing the Government do is to say: "It does not matter two hoots what the award is—to the devil with it. When it was not in our favour, we are going to disregard it." That is a very bad example for the Government to set because it is undermining not alone the Civil Service Arbitration Board but the very traditions which the people of this country have established in their courts of justice. In these circumstances, it is very hard to blame the ordinary man who is sued by a neighbour. If the decision in the District Court, the Circuit Court or the High Court goes against him, he now has an excellent precedent for disregarding the court's findings, and the Government's action is an open invitation to the Civil Service to resort to what they never resorted to before, the strikeweapon. They were left so long in the balance that a great number of them feel that they have been badly cheated and meanly treated by the Government.
The Minister has said that he intends to use the heavy hand and save £3,500,000 in administration costs in the Civil Service in the coming year. I want to say that I believe that to be nothing more than sheer bluff. The sum of £3,500,000 which the Minister hopes to save is in this Book of Estimates, in one way or other, as overestimation in the calculation of the amount required to run the country for the coming year. I can point to one item in respect of which I know there is underestimation —the Appropriations-in-Aid in the Forestry Department. These are set down at a figure of £172,000, but I know that these Appropriations-in-Aid will be over £220,000 in the coming year. In sums of £40,000, £50,000 and £60,000, there is overestimation this year to the extent of at least £3,500,000 in this Book, but the Minister, if he is still in office this time next year, will be able to walk in here, puff out his chest and tell the House with his usual smirk that he has saved £3,500,000 on this year's administration of the Civil Service. That kind of bluff—I would like to use a stiffer word, fraud—does not create a feeling of security in the country.
The Minister for Posts and Telegraphs spent a quarter of an hour last night telling us that, no matter what Deputy Kennedy, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Social Welfare, or the Minister for Finance might say, there was no redundancy in the Department of Posts and Telegraphs and that Deputies on this side of the House should not imagine that there were any officials in that Department or in the post offices throughout the country doing nothing but idle pen-pushing.
If the Minister is going to save £3,500,000, as I hope he will, he has paved the way for himself by overestimating in odds and ends. For instance, there is an amount of £903,500 in sub-head C (2)—Forestry Development and Maintenance, etc., although the Minister for Lands told us there would be a lower acreageplanted this year than ever. The forestry workers got no increase in wages. Where will the £903,500 be spent under that sub-head this year?
These are the little tell-tales. There is £10,000 here, £20,000 there, £40,000 in another place. All these add up. I have no hesitation in saying that there is a bluff or fraud in that Book of Estimates to the tune of £3,500,000 and possibly more if one could have the means of knowing exactly what is happening. That is the saving the Minister for Finance tells us he will make in this year. He has simply put figures in that book, leading us to believe that it will cost £100,548,106 to run this country, when the truth is that between £96,000,000 and £97,000,000 would be far nearer the correct figure.
The Minister says that imports dropped. In reference to that he said that for this we have in the main to thank once more the Irish public who, despite the higher cost of living, decided to spend less on consumer goods so as to save more and have more to invest. The Minister for Finance seems to have a rather bitter humour or irony in him. Not alone had the people to spend less on consumer goods, they had to spend less on the very bare necessities of life, less on the food that went on their table.
The Minister is again trying to take credit for the drop in imports. I ask the Minister for Finance what steps he took to cut down imports of luxury goods. Did he make any effort to cut down on luxury motor cars? I am sure the ordinary plain people, the business people and professionals would not shed many tears if there was a cut in the imports of luxury motor cars, luxury clothing of one kind or another, luxury drinks of one kind or another. What has his colleague, the Minister for Industry and Commerce, done to cut down these items, to prohibit them altogether if he is afraid that the balance of trade may get into disequilibrium? What has he done or what does he propose to do about that? I do not think he has done anything. The wealthy friends of the Minister for Finance have not been denied any of these extremely costly luxury goods which form a considerable part of our imports.
On page 21 of his speech the Minister told us of the money they had to find for difficult things during the year. He said that he had to make an additional provision of £860,000 for defensive equipment for the Army. Then he said:
"We had then to provide agriculture with £555,000 as a further advance against the importation of superphosphate."
I hope no Deputy believes that the Government has paid £555,000 towards fertiliser for the farmers, because such is not the case. Of course, he puts it very cunningly:
"We had then to provide agriculture with £555,000 as a further advance against the importation of superphosphate."
That is purely a book-keeping figure. The farmers never benefited one farthing. Even if a farmer bought 1,000 tons of superphosphate, he never benefited one farthing by that advance nor was the Department of Finance or the Minister one farthing out of pocket by that £555,000 which he guaranteed to the importers of superphosphate. In other words, he told them to go ahead and get it in; it was quite safe. These are misleading tactics. When there is that much that is misleading, we do not know how much else there is scattered throughout the 66 pages of the Minister's Budget speech that we can rely on.
The Minister said that he had also to provide an extra £150,000 for the ground limestone subsidy. That is a very small amount spread over the Twenty-Six Counties for the principal industry of this country.
The Government have decided to leave taxation for the coming year exactly as it was last year, with the exception, of course, of the postal charges, amounting to over £800,000, which the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs will present to the Minister for Finance in the coming year. If Deputies think the present Budget is not full of increases, they are very far from the mark. The Minister for Local Government, in petrol and motor taxation of various kinds, the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs and all the otherMinisters have been made to contribute their share. The Minister for Finance must have been kicking over the traces at Government meetings because he felt the finger was being pointed at him as being the chief pocket-picker of this country and decided on the subtle device of getting the other Ministers to do a little bit of the dirty work. That will not deceive anybody. It will not deceive the person who has to pay 3d. instead of 2½d. to post a letter, the hackney-man who has to pay more for petrol and road tax, the lorry owner who is trying to make a living and to feed and clothe a family on the earnings of his lorry. They all know that the Minister for Local Government is handing the money collected in increased petrol tax and road tax over to the Minister for Finance. All these things add up. Then there are the four items in respect of which the people received such a terrific blow in last year's Budget—bread, tea, butter and sugar.
Tea is now cheaper.
How much cheaper?
Cheaper than it was.
I wonder does Deputy Briscoe move amongst the lower-paid workmen. Does he hear what their wives have to say? Does he go into shops when they are trying to buy their weekly purchases for the household, when they are trying to make the weekly pay packet cover the week's outgoings? If he went into a shop down the country and listened to some of the tales being told by the wives of small farmers, working people and others who are trying to make ends meet, he would not sit there quite so complacently.
Tea is cheaper.
You might as well tell me that pepper is cheaper. Tea does not form a very big item in the household budget. Bread, meat, milk and butter are the four heaviest items in the average household budget. That may not be the case in the homes of the wealthy.
Does the Deputy suggest that we should make meat cheaper?
I am trying to speak seriously. I do not think it is fair to the working people that Deputy Briscoe should try to convert this discussion into a joke.
I am not. I am serious.
Deputy Briscoe should give up his running comment.
I am trying to bring home to the Deputy that for the vast majority of the people bread, meat, milk and butter are the four heaviest items for which the housewife has to budget. The Government should see to it that it will be within the power of the ordinary workingman, the small farmer and the small businessman to provide these essential commodities for the household. I am not taking drink or tobacco into account although they enter largely into the budgetary expenditure of practically every household. Rates have gone up. Most householders have to pay rates in one form or another. All this has happened within the last 12 months. The Government and the Deputies opposite contend that the people of this country are living under as good conditions to-day as obtained in the period of the inter-Party Government. They have their minds very firmly made up as to what to do.
They have.
Deputy Briscoe will know that when he goes to the hustings. There was a slight foretaste of that when Deputy Byrne was elected in North-West Dublin, an area that formerly was practically Fianna Fáil to the last man. The people there did not wait even until 10 o'clock in the morning to cast their votes in order to show disapproval of last year's Budget. That feeling is still there, because the people are saying: "Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me." The people will not be fooled a second time. They expected reliefs in this Budget which they did not get. Iam trying to show where the shoe pinches in the case of the ordinary man and woman who have no alternative except to emigrate. Deputy Briscoe would not understand that sort of thing. That applies to the vast bulk of the people in rural Ireland and also to the small shopkeepers, whether they are publicans, drapers or grocers. They are being crushed out of existence. Their business is completely at a standstill because the customers who had the money to spend two years ago now find that they must count every penny and halfpenny very carefully.
That is a desperate situation which has been brought about. That should not happen in a country like this. In spite of the gloomy speeches that we have heard for years past, I still believe that this could be the best and the most fortunate country in the world if it were only managed properly and if the people were given a fair chance. They are not getting that. The Government seem to be determined to pick the pockets of the people and think that by grinding them down they will get the best results. They are not getting the best results. The emigration figures, the flight from the land and the number of unemployed are the three big things which are showing the red light as to where this country is going. The Government should take the very earliest opportunity of putting their present policy to the people. To-day we had to vote against the introduction of a Local Elections Bill which is nothing more than a dodge to escape the anger of the people at the local elections.
It is not relevant to this debate.
The Minister for Finance and the Taoiseach should seek the opinion of the people on this Budget and on last year's carry over at the very earliest opportunity, not by means of local elections, but by a general election. If they did, some of the complacency and perhaps a little bit of the cynical humour which the Minister for Finance displayed yesterday might vanish.
The last Deputy's appearance belies the statement which hemade about poor starved hungry people who are not able to get enough to eat.
Notice taken that 20 Deputies were not present; House counted and 20 Deputies being present,
The first complaint made by Deputy Blowick was in connection with the reduction of the Local Authorities (Works) Act grant. The Deputy should remember the statement made by Deputy McGilligan about the Local Authorities (Works) Act grant when introducing his last Budget. By way of excuse for taking £500,000 off that amount he told us that "the more urgent works had been completed and that that fact accounted for the lower provision made in that year." According to Deputy McGilligan all the more urgent works under the Local Authorities (Works) Act had been completed in 1951. Deputy Blowick was then a member of the inter-Party Government, and I take it that he approved of the Budget statement of Deputy McGilligan, Minister for Finance, in that year. Deputy Blowick will find that recorded in Volume 125 of the Official Report, column 1900. My reason for bringing this matter up now is because we have heard so much complaint about the reduction in the grants under the Local Authorities (Works) Act. It has been dragged in here so often that it is just as well to know what Jack said when he was in office. That is what Jack said when he was in office.
On a point of order. To whom is the Deputy referring to as Jack?
I think it is a metaphorical reference.
Jack is not the Deputy who has changed his coat so often that no one now knows what he is.
You will get a twist in another fortnight or three weeks' time in Wicklow.
Deputy Corry on the Financial Resolutions.
Deputy Blowick closes his eyes to one important fact. This Government since it came back into office has restored the full amount of motor taxation to local authorities for the construction, maintenance and upkeep of roads. That was the first job it had to do. With the other legacies left to us by the inter-Party Government is a sum of £280,000 a year, the first claim on that motor taxation, due to the £2,500,000 borrowed by the inter-Party Government in 1948 to give the people cheap fags and cheap pints. It is just as well to be clear on these things.
Before Deputy MacEntee left office in 1948 he made provision to the extent of £4,000,000 odd in grants for roads in that year. What became of the other £2,000,000? When the change of Government came in 1948 the inter-Party Government borrowed more than half that money on the strength of the Road Fund. They left us that legacy with all the other legacies.
Deputy Blowick told us about Deputy T. Byrne's election in North-West Dublin. Apparently Deputy Blowick is like many other Ministers of State who, the moment they become Ministers, cannot see beyond Inchicore. The rest of the country does not matter. Apparently that is Deputy Blowick's outlook now. If Deputy Blowick wanted the opinion of the ordinary people in the country, could he not tell us what happened in his own county, Mayo?
What happened in Mayo was that the Government lost a seat there and has never got it back.
What happened in Mayo was that this gentleman came in here as the one chicken for Deputy MacBride.
(Interruptions.)
Order.
Two sections of the people were giving their decisions at that time. The people in the small agricultural holdings in Mayo and the farmers in County Waterford were giving their decisions. They decided as soon as they realised what had happened and as soon as they appreciated thenecessity for whatever Government was in office paying its way and even paying the debts of the squanderers who had gone before them and they gave us two extra Deputies here.
Deputy Blowick told us about the plenty that existed during the three and a half years that the inter-Party Government was in office; having borrowed £95,000,000 and scattered it broadcast everybody had some of it. But the day of reckoning came, the day on which it has to be paid. I believe the Minister has done a splendid job this year in being able to hold taxation within its present limits, remembering the £6,000,000 per year he has to find in extra taxation to pay the principal and interest on the moneys borrowed by the inter-Party Government. In addition to that £6,000,000 another little legacy showed itself this year in the shape of the repayment of the American loan squandered by the inter-Party Government and £1,200,000 has to be found this year for interest and sinking fund in connection with that.
These moneys will not be found on the side of the road. There is only one place they can be found and that is in the pockets of the people. That is where they have to be found.
Deputy Blowick comes along then and tells us everybody was prosperous when the inter-Party Government was in office. The man who gets a loan from the bank is all smiles when he is coming out; then the manager writes to him and asks him to give him a call at his earliest convenience; he goes in and the manager asks him when he will repay the loan and this time the smile on his face when he is coming out is very sour. That is what has happened with this country. Deputy Blowick was pleading to-day on behalf of the civil servants.
Those are the drones you talked about.
The Civil Service Arbitration award in 1951 was on the Minister's table but no provision was made for it in the Budget. There was no provision made for the £3,600,000 necessary to implement that award. Ithad to be found unless we were going to leave the drones do without payment, if the Deputy wants them to be drones. That was the situation. That was the position when the Minister introduced his Budget last year. Do Deputies ever consider that if that £95,000,000 was devoted to the establishment of industries in order to provide employment for our people there would not now be one unemployed man in the country? There would be employment for everybody.
Biscuit factories.
Yes, or any other factory that would give employment to our people—instead of the policy of the Deputies opposite who came along and increased the number of civil servants by 5,400. I am quite ready to admit that during the period of the emergency, when there was rationing, coupons, compulsory tillage and all those other things, it was necessary to employ extra civil servants. The war ended and the emergency was over when the Coalition Government came into office. Did they reduce the number of civil servants? No. They actually recruited another 5,400 during the three and a half years they were in office. As a result, we have 9,800 more civil servants now than we had in 1939. The State is now compelled to find roughly £3,800,000 to pay that extra number. That money has to be got out of the price of the pint, cigarettes and a reduction in the bread subsidy. Let us be clear on these things and know where we are. As a matter of fact, only a couple of days ago I heard a story in that connection. Two lions escaped from the Zoo and were roaming around the countryside in search of a meal. They met after a couple of days and the first lion said to the second lion: "How are you managing?" The second lion said: "Not so well. I am rather hungry." The first lion said: "I am doing all right, I have a civil servant every morning for my breakfast." They met again a few days afterwards and the first lion asked the second lion how he had been getting on since they last met. The second lion said: "I am afraid I made a mistake this morning. I ate the lady who makes the tea and I am afraid theywill miss her." The only one that would be missed would be the lady who makes the tea! In my opinion, the Minister can save sufficient to pay the Civil Service arbitration award by reducing the number of civil servants to a figure which this country can afford. Frankly, we cannot afford to pay them——
You are still recruiting them, you know.
Stop recruiting.
I agree.
Let us have no more Civil Service examinations for a couple of years until the numbers are brought down. I am sure any honest Deputy over there on the Opposition Benches will agree with me. I do not want to put anybody out of employment, but certainly I think that is one thing which should be done.
Deputy Blowick alluded to what he was pleased to term the "dishonesty" of the Fianna Fáil Government in their dealings with the civil servants. We have had some examples of dishonesty as regards civil servants and as regards local officials during the time the Coalition Government were in office. I happen to be a member of a local authority and when the cost of living rises I have to consider the employees with whom we are dealing. If the cost of living rises, I have to see that my board makes provision to pay extra money to them. We have to make that provision. I remember what happened when the Coalition Government were in office. We came along and made the provision and we sent that extra provision up to the Department of Social Welfare—up to Deputy Norton. This is what Deputy Norton told us in his letter of 3rd February, 1951:—
"With reference to your letter ... of the 26th January enclosing a copy of the county manager's order No. 46/51 proposing a further increase in the remuneration of superintendent assistance officers and assistance officers by a temporary allowance of 12½ per cent. of their annual salaries, I am directed by the Minister for Social Welfare to informyou that the revision of salaries which took effect from the 1st June, 1948, is regarded as a comprehensive adjustment and he is not prepared to sanction the proposed further increase."
That was in February, 1951. The Coalition Government left office on 4th May, 1951. Three days after leaving office—when Deputy Norton was still over the Department of Social Welfare as the caretaker, waiting for his successor—here is what he sent out. The letter is dated 7th May, 1951:
"I am directed by the Minister for Social Welfare to state that he has under consideration proposals from local authorities for the payment of a bonus allowance to meet the increased cost of living——"
——he admitted that the cost of living went up——
"——to superintendent assistance officers and assistance officers. I am to state that he approves of the proposal to increase as from a date not earlier than 1st November, 1950, the salaries of these officers by 12½ per cent. Where a proposal for an increase has not already been submitted by a public assistance authority, the Minister will be prepared to consider favourably a proposal on the foregoing basis."
That was written when he had left office. The men who were not entitled in the month of February, 1951, to an increase in salary—according to the Minister's letter of 3rd February, 1951 —were going to be given it on 7th May, 1951. A week before the voting was to take place in the general election, that Minister wrote and said he would date it back to the previous November. That meant that these officials would have six months' back money—money which, as events turned out, had to be found by Deputy MacEntee, the Fianna Fáil Minister for Finance. It amounted to £835,000 of a bribe for the votes of local authority officials.
The Deputy should not refer to any Minister as giving a bribe.
I read the two letters and I hope they will be published. I can solemnly depend on the sound judgment of the people of this country to say what they are.
A Leas-Cheann Comhairle, the House appreciates that Deputy Corry is irresponsible.
What is wrong with the ginger duck? That is one example of the way the Coalition Government carried on. Lest anybody in this House should think that it was an isolated action on the part of the Minister for Social Welfare, another letter to the same effect was sent out by Deputy J.A. Costello, as Minister for Health. and another was sent out by the then Minister for Local Government, Deputy Keyes. In all they cost the ratepayers of this country £2,000,000 last year and, as I said, they cost the taxpayer over £835,000 as well. Despite these facts, we hear talk now from members of the Opposition—Deputies who formed the Coalition Government and who, no doubt, were well aware of these matters—about our breach of faith with the civil servants.
I have also heard Deputy Blowick talking about the amount of money that was expended in the form of subsidy for ground limestone. If Deputy Blowick knows anything at all about the country—and he is supposed to be a farmers' representative, God help them—he knows that extra limestone plants are going up all over this country as fast as ever they can be erected.
Is that another election promise?
Poor little chicken over there. Every time I look at the Deputy he reminds me of Deputy Dillon's day old chicks, except that he is the only one chicken Deputy MacBride has left.
You are mistaking me for somebody else.
I am sorry.
He is irresponsible.
Of course Deputy Cafferky was experienced in other fields besides this. I do not want tosay anything because I would not like to.
Say what you like.
Hyde Park would be more suitable to the Deputy than this House.
You would not be allowed in there.
The soap box was too heavy for you.
Deputy Cafferky will cease interrupting. Deputy Corry should come to the Financial Resolution.
I will keep to it if I am left alone. I have heard claims made here in connection with ground limestone. I well remember the occasion on which the representatives of the Beet Growers' Association had to come to General Costello in connection with ground limestone. That was when we had cleared out every pound of sludge lime that was left in the Mallow factory. On our application at that time General Costello, in collaboration with the present Minister for Local Government, Deputy Smith, purchased Ballybeg factory and put it into operation when Deputy Dillon was only a small boy down here. Therefore, let us have an end, once and for all, to this kind of bluff that has been passed along here. During the past two months another limestone plant has come into my constituency and is now in full operation, giving good employment and providing what we farmers want, ground limestone for all our land.
You would want to get one in Wicklow.
We have another just being established in Cashel, County Tipperary, where there is no by-election in the offing unless somebody would oblige us.
We will oblige you all right.
Deputy Morrissey gave you a challenge in that direction.
However, I would likeDeputies over there to get one thing into their heads, that is, that we have made up our minds that until we have at least some portion of the debts that they piled on this country paid, we have no intention except to remain here and pay them. It is not because we had a fairly good year last year and got rid of some of the burden that Deputies opposite should think they can come in again and have another six or 12 months' spree and then clear out leaving the people to pay. We have no intention of doing that at all.
Go bhfhoiridh Dia ort.
The people of Deputy Cafferky's area gave us a mandate to continue here and pay the debts that Deputy Cafferky and other lads like him piled up.
We have more seats in Mayo than you have, although you are of the Government Party.
You know the result as represented in the ballot box and we have one sound vote because of that. That was the result in Mayo. We would not like to lose Deputy Cafferky over there. I get a certain amount of amusement from him sometimes. As I was saying before being interrupted, I am very glad that the Minister has succeeded in providing for the next 12 months the extra money for the civil servants, the extra amount that is needed in principal and interest to continue paying the debts incurred by the Deputies opposite, and the extra money for social services. I think it is a very big achievement without extra taxation.
There are a few other matters to which I would like the Minister to give attention. He has made a statement here in connection with the steel works. Representing that constituency, I am very well aware of what the position is there, and I would urge on the Minister my opinion that the amount provided will not be sufficient to cover the capital outlay that should be carried on there in order to provide further employment for our people. In November, 1947, the Minister for Industry and Commerce, Deputy Lemass, guaranteed a sum of £180,000 for thatpurpose. I admit it would have been far easier to provide that amount out of the £95,000,000 that was squandered by the inter-Party Government, but it was left undone. As a matter of fact, all the bigwigs went down there on one occasion to see if they could find an excuse for closing it down and were very disappointed when they found it was being operated so successfully by a Cobh man that they could find no excuse for closing it down. That £180,000 would have done the job nicely. Unfortunately, during the three and a half years that passed the cost of machinery went up and whilst the bulk of the building up of the sheet mill is now finished, I would still urge on the Minister the necessity for speeding up work on that particular job.
When I was speaking here last on the Budget, I drew the Minister's attention to the fact that there is being imported into this country each year over £2,500,000 worth of tin plate used for the making of cans for meat, peas and commodities of that description. I would point out that portion of the machinery and plant for the manufacture of that tin plate is also lying in Haulbowline. These were three separate industries that were visualised and started by the Minister for Industry and Commerce. I would urge that instead of importing £2,000,000 worth of material, we should provide employment for our own people by manufacturing that material here.
I should also like to pay tribute to the Ministers of at least three Departments with whom I had to deal during the past few months in negotiations for the starting of further industries in my constituency. I am glad to avail of this opportunity to inform the Minister that it was only last week we dispatched one man to England for machinery for a new industry and another to Antwerp for a like purpose. Both these industries will give employment to some 70 workers and will be welcomed in my constituency. That does not look like any dread of the financial position or any appearance of the dangers of which Deputy Costello spoke. I consider it the duty of any Government to endeavour to provide employment for the people generally.
So far as the agricultural community are concerned, there has been a pretty big change since we had Deputy J.A. Costello as Taoiseach and since the time when he proudly announced that he would walk out of office before he would give a penny increase in the price of milk. Deputies over there who were giving a kind of underground support to the farmers in looking for an increased price for milk a few months ago, should remember that the inter-Party Government left office before they would agree to give them another penny. If Deputies doubt my word they have the word of Deputy Costello, the ex-Taoiseach. We have also, thank God, got over the rather contemptible, insidious manoeuvre made last year to sabotage the beet industry. This year, thank God, we have an increase of 11,000 acres in the area under beet. It does not seem from that as if the farmers were of opinion that they were not getting a sufficient price for beet. It will put an end to the condition of affairs under which we had to send £3,000,000 out to foreigners to purchase foreign sugar. The year before the late Minister left office, 74,000 tons of sugar were purchased at £12 per ton more than the price at which sugar could have been produced at home.
The subsidised lime is good you know.
These are the changes that have taken place. We had a Fine Gael Deputy standing up in this House last year and proudly boasting: "I grew 20 acres of beet every year; I grew one acre this year". That was the proud boast made in this House by Deputy Hughes.
He gave us his reasons.
Sabotage.
He told us that he had reduced the acreage from 20 acres to one as an example to the people he represented.
On a point of order, is the Minister for Finance entitled to accuse a Deputy of sabotage?
I was merely trying to convey to Deputy O'Sullivan what I believe was behind Deputy Hughes's action.
The Minister is accusing Deputy Hughes of sabotage.
Certainly. He tried to prevent beet growing in Carlow last year.
He was trying to overcome a political racket.
It is a political charge in regard to which the Chair has no function.
We are entitled to accuse a Deputy on the opposite side of sabotage on political grounds?
That is for the Chair to decide. Deputy Corry.
The same manoeuvre was being worked as was worked in 1933 when they went about in blue blouses collecting beet contracts to prevent the growing of beet.
Deputy Corry must relate his remarks to the proposals before the House. He is travelling very wide.
He is irresponsible.
He is getting under Deputy O'Sullivan's shirt.
He did not try to join the British Army or was not disappointed when he missed the train.
I am giving the changes I have seen.
They do not seem to be relevant. They may be interesting, but they are certainly not relevant.
They are not even interesting.
The Deputy is discussing shirts at the moment.
Hair shirts.
I shall leave the blue boys alone. The last time I saw a blue shirt, it was out in the garden frightening the crows.
You will be facing them again in East Cork, so do not say too much.
I am glad that in one industry in this country we can have that co-operation between the factory's end of the industry and the agricultural end of the industry which has enabled that triumph to be accomplished this year. I consider it a big triumph.
Will we have it again this year?
Would the Deputy mind his tomatoes or his dual purpose hen and see if he will get anything out of them?
That comes well from a cuckoo.
Deputy Corry might now come to the matter before the House.
I cannot help wandering with all these interruptions. Let us take that message of confidence that we have got from the agricultural community and examine it. You will find that all around this year there is an enormously increased area under tillage, that the ordinary farmers of the country have gone back to tillage and thank God for it.
Where have the dairy cows gone?
They are gone with the Deputy's dual purpose hen.
That comes well from this cuckoo.
The Deputy will get an opportunity of making his own statement. He should allow Deputy Corry to proceed.
I am sorry for him. Deputy Blowick referred to the unfortunate people who could not find the necessaries of life. He also told usabout the luxury cars coming into the country and spoke about luxuries in the way of clothes and drink which were also coming into the country. I do not know who are driving round in the luxury cars unless it is the unfortunate civil servants he was crying about a while ago. I do not know who was wearing the luxury clothes about which Deputy Blowick complained.
The Deputy is the best dressed man in the Dáil.
Are you a rival?
I do not know who are enjoying the luxury drinks in this country to-day. Anybody who lives in and comes from a rural constituency knows the circumstances in which the people live in those areas and they know that the burden on those people is already too heavy.
Deputies
Hear, hear!
They are not driving round in cars.
We will have to do the paring down and unfortunately there are items which we cannot pare down. We have to honour the commitments of our predecessors. Our predecessors borrowed £95,000,000 and guaranteed to repay it at so much per cent. over a number of years but they left it to their successors to find that money or else welsh on it.
Where did they get it?
You might as well ask how much is that doggie in the window.
I think it was this time 12 months that the Minister for Finance gave an answer in regard to the borrowings for the previous three years and the extra amount of principal and interest to which these borrowings by the inter-Party Government committed this country. If the Deputy looks up the answer he will find therein the reference to the £95,000,000 and the extra £6,000,000 per annum in interest that has to be found. That will only take him ten minutes in the Library. He will be better engaged doing that than asking idiotic questions.
That is absolute nonsense.
How much did they borrow?
They did not pay £6,000,000 in interest. They paid 2½ per cent.
According to the Minister's reply to me the amount to be paid by this country in the way of interest and sinking fund was increased from 1948 to 1952 by over £6,000,000 per year.
The Deputy is embarrassing the Minister.
You can add to that now the interest of £1,200,000 that has to be found in regard to portion of the American loan. That means we will have to find £7,200,000 a year to pay for the spree those gentlemen had for the three and a half years they were in office.
You only got the smell of it.
Can they show me for that £95,000,000 where one single man has been put into permanent employment? Can they show me where one single factory was erected?
What about Clondulane?
I opened Clondulane and kept it open after Deputy Paddy McGilligan closed it.
And you closed it.
This month 20 years ago I opened Clondulane and we found employment for 40 families. Deputy McGilligan closed it when he was Minister for Industry and Commerce and the Deputy should not forget that but we took the matter in hands. We have in this Government a Minister for Industry and Commerce who catered for these things. These things are not catered for by asking idiotic questions in this House either. Since this Government came into office they havemade further provision for employment in industry.
In England.
There is an extra 50,000 unemployed.
I will take you on a trip round East Cork before giving you the biggest kick in the tail you ever got. Perhaps, the visit may shake you up to do something at home.
The Deputy should now come back to the Financial Resolution.
The Minister is disgusted with him.
I am dealing with the problem of unemployment.
Do not mention unemployment. The Minister did not mention it.
Talk about the dual purpose hen. Every day I get producer of the Government we have when I remember that the people who borrowed in their last year of office over £30,000,000 were unable to provide out of that one single industry to give employment to our people. God knows where that money went to. I do not know how they spent it but Deputy Dillon's only worry was how they could spend it before the 31st March. I admit they bought mouth-organs and lollipops.
Do not forget the hair-wavers.
Tin whistles would suit you.
And tin whistles.
And Dutch chocolate.
And fertilisers at £6 per ton.
They bought them all on borrowed money. It is because we have now ended the subsidy that Deputy Dillon paid to the Formosans for the foreign sugar that the Deputies opposite are so upset with themselves.We ended that completely by providing 11,000 extra acres of beet. We managed to do these things because the farmers took our advice rather than the advice of the Deputies opposite. These are the things which count in the economy and prosperity of the country. I would far rather see a couple of million pounds extra given to the farmers for the growing of beet and to the workers employed in the sugar factories in turning it into sugar than see that money given to the Formosans for foreign sugar at £12 10s. a ton above the price which was given to the Irish farmer and factory worker.
Will the Deputy deal with the Cubans. How much would you give to them?
If the Deputy will give me time I will deal with his tomatoes and with the bricks which Deputy Dillon threw into the tomato house. If the Deputy has patience I will deal with all these things. Despite the fact that we have more people in employment now than were in employment during the régime of the inter-Party Government, we are worried about the employment position. I suggest that if the Deputies opposite would give a little of their time to an examination of the various problems in their own constituencies and in trying to find remedies for them by having industries established which would give permanent employment in the way that I can boast I have done in my constituency——
Out of your own pocket?
I did that, and the industries are there and the employment is there. Every penny that I ever had and every penny that I ever will have, will go down into the soil of this country.
I hope you will dig it up again.
I would advise Deputy Giles not to interrupt me. He will have an opportunity to speak later. At times I have a bad temper and if he would take a friend's advice he would not draw me. I consider that Deputieshave a responsibility and a duty to the constituents whom they represent here. I suggest that they should take that responsibility seriously. There is not one of them who, if he looks around his constituency, will not find opportunities there of putting people into constant employment. I would say that applies to every constituency.
I was interrupted a while ago by a sneer about the Clondulane mills. It is some 20 years ago since we took over a legacy that was left by the then Cumann na nGaedheal Government which had closed down flour mills such as Clondulane.
The Deputy is now travelling back a long way.
It is over 20 years now since we took it over. Thank God, we had it reopened in 1933. In that particular town, there is an urgent need for the establishment of more industries so that the people there, when their sons and daughters grow up, will be able to find employment for them and they will not be obliged to go elsewhere. There is plenty of scope for the establishment of more industries to provide us with our essential requirements. It is the duty of every Deputy, no matter what Party he belongs to, to give attention to that problem in his own constituency and endeavour to rectify it. My personal view is that, if the problem is properly tackled, the thing can be done. I maintain that I have proved it can be done if Deputies use their heads. I admit that some of you have nothing for brains except sawdust. If we are to improve conditions in the country and provide from our own resources our essential requirements, then we must use our brains and provide for our people so many of the things which at present we are purchasing from the foreigner. If any member of the House will spend an hour or half an hour in the Library studying the lists of imports he will see for himself that we are importing many essentials which, if we tried, we could produce at home and thereby make more employment available for the people.
I do not wish to hold up the House. I have dealt with things as I see them.I am quite happy about the condition of affairs in my own constituency at the present time.
With your factory closed down?
Will that poor fellow go home and mind his hen and not be trying to draw me out? The Deputy was very interested in tomatoes for a while until Deputy Dillon threw two big bricks into the tomato house. He then began to cluck and turned out a dual purpose hen.
He gave them protection anyway.
That will remain with the Deputy for a long time. I do not claim, nor would I wish to claim, credit as far as the housing position is concerned, because I am proud to say that all Parties here worked together for that end. As chairman of the Cork South Board of Health, I found that the Fine Gael, the Labour, the farmer and the Fianna Fáil representatives all pulled together as far as housing is concerned. I would like to say that the number of houses built in any local authority area is due solely to the work of that local authority. Certain statements have been made here, with one Party claiming credit for housing and another Party claiming credit for it. I can take the records over the last ten or 12 years of the board of health of which I have been chairman, and can compare these records year after year.
We had proposals for some 80 or 100 houses to be built at the time the inter-Party Government came in and Deputy Keyes had the pleasure of opening them. We were very glad to see Deputy Keyes there as Minister for Local Government to open them. Those were started in the time of the Fianna Fáil Government. In the same way, we had Deputy Smith down there opening houses that were put under way during the reign of the inter-Party Government. Therefore, housing is not a matter that should enter into politics at all, one way or another. The fact that houses are being built and progressis being made in the housing drive is the complete responsibility of the local authority, in my opinion.
That is a crack at Deputy McGrath.
A lot of young fellows over there cannot get their minds back any length of time.
You will answer for this.
I would advise them to drop down to the Library in their spare time. The Official Reports are there and they will see questions asked by old-timers like Deputy Keyes and others of the Labour Party and also questions asked by members who, I am glad to say, are here on these benches still, appealing to the Cumann na nGaedheal Government—it was before the change of name—to bring out some housing scheme for the rural areas. There was not a labourer's cottage built in this country from 1921 to 1933.
Were you not knocking them down?
The Deputy should relate his remarks to the Financial Resolutions. Travelling back to 1921 does not arise.
It was only the interruptions——
A Deputy
You were shooting down State officials.
—— that made me go as far as I went. I did not wish to bring it in. These facts cannot be contradicted. There may be some Deputies angling for a general election. Well, I am anxious to oblige. I get a certain amount of amusement out of an election. No one enjoys a by-election as much as I do.
The question of elections does not arise.
I am only answering the statements Deputy Blowick made about by-elections and general elections. The responsibility is on us to make certain that never again will our financial position or the freedom ourcomrades died for be put in jeopardy by squandermania. We are going to see that opportunity is never again given to the gentlemen opposite.
Or to the Central Bank.
Listening to the Minister's Budget speech yesterday, it seemed to me that the most outstanding characteristic was that, like a famous line of French kings, he appeared to have learned nothing and forgotten nothing in the interval since the Budget of last year. Whatever might have been the weakness in the arguments presented by the Opposition and whatever reluctance there might have been on the part of Government spokesmen to accept the weight of points made in arguments across the floor of the House, one would at least have imagined that the experience and the results which have shown themselves in the past 12 months would have been referred to by the Minister yesterday. Yet, listening to that lengthy, elaborate and very carefully presented speech, one got the picture of a little boy doing an exercise in book-keeping, trying to strike his balance between expenditure and income and, finding that his tots do not balance, striking out an item on one side in order to get a balance.
The whole tenor of the speech was to get as far away as possible from the actual realities of Irish economy and industry to-day and above all from the condition of a great mass of the people. It was an endeavour to keep us on a very high and remote level of State finances measured in millions of pounds. That seems to be indicative of the same failure as was pointed out in the course of the Budget debates last year, failure to appreciate that a Minister for Finance has got a greater and more responsible duty than that of balancing book-keeping entries. He has also the responsibility to give a reasonably accurate and detailed picture of the nation's economic health and to relate his measures to the particular needs of the nation's economy at the moment to which he addresses himself. The Minister's speech was probably as remote from many of thereal problems facing our people as any speech could be without going outside the realms of realism altogether. It was a very carefully prepared speech; it skated over some thin economic ice; it indulged in not deliberate untruths but some dangerous half-truths and unjustifiable implications; and it left gaps in essential knowledge, in the hope that listeners would draw conclusions which would not be justifiable if full knowledge were available.
The Minister's speech was based on the two main objectives he stated he had set out to attain in his Budget last year, namely, the rectification of the balance of payments and the balancing of the Budget so far as the State's domestic housekeeping was concerned. He has gone to particular lengths to take a great deal of credit for having achieved these two objectives, which he said he had set before himself last year and which he was still pursuing in the present Budget.
If we look at the first objective, the redressing of the unfavourable balance of payments, it is quite clear from his own speech that the measures taken by the Government last year were largely inspired by panic. If one listened very carefully or read the Minister's speech very carefully, one would find admissions in it which indicated that if many of the panic measures taken by the Government had not been resorted to, by this time a great deal of that adverse balance would have rectified itself by normal factors that would have come into play so far as our foreign trade is concerned. However, because of the measures taken by the Government, we now find ourselves with severe economic problems at home and, in addition, we find that the balance of payments in some aspects is nearly as bad from another point of view as the abnormal balance we had in 1951.
The balance in 1951 was abnormal. Nobody disputed that—it was generally accepted. It was also generally suggested that, in so far as there would be a using up or a consumption of goods which had been brought into stock in abnormal quantities at household level, at the level of ordinary retail and wholesale distribution andat State level, it would help to redress the balance. We have now got the admission in the Minister's speech that that was one of the large contributing factors towards bringing about the position in which the balance is now in the neighbourhood of £9,000,000; but so severe have been the Government's measures to deal with that problem, not being satisfied with the interactions of the normal factors which would go to redress the balance, we are now left with this balance of £9,000,000, and it may seem at first sight that the Minister is to be commended on achieving his objective and on the fact that we have now got the lowest adverse balance of any year since the war, ignoring the effect in respect of that figure of the considerable rise that has taken place in prices in the past two years.
When we relate that figure of £9,000,000, however, to the other aspect of our foreign trade position, we start to appreciate that all may not be quite as good in the garden as appears at first glance. In the year gone by, the external assets of the Irish banking system have again increased, and, whatever may be the differences of opinion on economic matters in the House, there has been a general acceptance that it is desirable to repatriate some portion of these external assets, particularly if the repatriation takes the form of bringing into this country capital goods that can help to strengthen our economy and add to our wealth producing abilities within our own country. Yet we have the peculiarity that, in respect of last year, the value of the goods imported in the form of producers' capital goods ready for use, some £17,000,000, is twice as high as the deficit on the balance of payments, so that from that point of view we are not making very much headway with regard to bringing about what is generally desired, the use of these accumulated assets which stand to the credit of this nation in the form of additional wealth producing factors here in our own domestic economy.
Even that figure of £17,000,000 is a very strictly limited figure and might quite well be extended, if we took intoaccount that, because of our economy and because of our lack of heavy industry, many goods which would normally be regarded as consumption goods can quite readily play a part as capital goods, in so far as they are used in the extension and development of Irish industries. If, therefore, in relation to the first objective, we could have had a somewhat normal rectification of that abnormal deficit in the balance of payments by allowing normal factors to take their course, it is all the more to be regretted, and therefore all the more necessary for the Minister to deal very lightly with the subject, that the measures taken by the Government last year and justified by the need to deal most drastically with the problem have been of such severity as not merely to bring about a position which, in fact, is too rigid but a position which in turn has given rise to other economic reactions and repercussions within the country in respect of our domestic economy.
In so far as the second objective is concerned, balancing the Budget, one must give credit to the Minister and the members of his Party for never ceasing to emphasise that their policy, expressed in the Budget last year and which has shown itself in certain aspects in relation to our economy on which I want to touch later, has found its justification in the term "the necessity to balance the State's Budget". If that objective had been secured, probably the Minister would at least be entitled to credit, even though the measures he adopted to achieve that object have led to a dire plight for many thousands of our people. It is, however, an interesting commentary that, despite the panicky measures taken last year and the results they have had in regard to employment, emigration, prices and the purchasing power of the mass of the people, he still has to come back to the House in 1953 and admit that he has again failed to balance his Budget.
That is the outstanding fact and I am wondering what would be the position if yesterday Deputy McGilligan had been delivering the speech which the Minister delivered and the Minister had been sitting on the oppositebenches and had heard Deputy McGilligan explain that he still required another £3,500,000 to meet his estimated expenditure for the coming year and that he proposed to secure that amount by making economies during the forthcoming 12 months. What a howl and what an outcry there would have been against the failure to balance the Budget and, worse still, the deliberate evasion in the suggestion that emphasising a determination to secure economies to the extent of £3,500,000 was not the very same as leaving a balance of £3,500,000 unprovided for in the balancing of the Budget.
There is always one peculiarity about Fianna Fáil and its spokesmen, that words to them have different meanings, depending on which side of the House they sit. We have seen that time after time. Every Fianna Fáil Deputy knows very well that, if they were sitting over here to-night, this House would resound with denunciations and outcries against the petty, mean trickery in which Deputy McGilligan, or whoever was Minister for Finance, was engaging in trying to fool the House and to mislead the people into believing the Budget was balanced, when there was still a sum of £3,500,000 to be found by economies to be secured during the next 12 months.
But even granting that that particular device is justifiable, we are still entitled to examine the matter of this sum of £3,500,000 which is to be secured by economies. It is quite a considerable sum. From recollection, I estimate that the, total salaries paid by the State to its direct employees is somewhere in the neighbourhood of £14,000,000 or £15,000,000 a year, and if there is to be a saving of £3,500,000, it is quite clear that it is only in relation to salaries and certain other administrative expenses that any scope exists for economies. The remainder of the items in the Government's book-keeping expenditure are items of such a character that the Government is in the main committed to making that expenditure irrespective of whether they feel it is fully justified or not. They have committed themselves to it publicly in the form of the provisionsfor the various social securities and social welfare payments, the grants and subsidies for housing, agriculture, et cetera, and it is only within the realm of the expenditure on salaries and general administrative expenditure that economies can in the normal way be looked for.
We are aware that it is the practice for the various Departments, under the guidance and direction of the Department of Finance, to commence their preparation of Estimates very greatly in advance of the Budget, probably a matter of some six or nine months. Within each of these Departments there are responsible officers charged with administering the affairs of that particular Department in a wise and economic manner. Their responsibility is to ensure that there is no waste or extravagance. The Minister on several occasions has gone on record by stating that he does not feel, particularly in relation to staff, that there is any great leeway that can be taken advantage of and that in the main the employment of staffs by the State is on a reasonably proper basis.
In addition to those departmental officers, it is the practice, particularly in recent years, of Ministers for Finance, when Estimates are being prepared, to send out general directives to all Departments advising and urging them to exercise particular care in the preparation of their Estimates and to keep those Estimates down to the smallest figures in consonance with the proper discharge of the functions of those Departments and the carrying out of Government policy.
It is also probably true to say that in recent years in the preliminary work of preparing Estimates more than one of those directions has been sent down by the Minister to the various Departments. All that has gone on over a period of six or nine months and the outcome is the Book of Estimates in which the Minister presents to the House and to the country the Government's estimate of expenditure, examined, checked, pruned and finally submitted as being, in the opinion of the Minister and the Government, the minimum on which the services of this country can be carried out and the policy of the Government can be giveneffect to. After six or nine months' careful preparatory work, now in the middle of his Budget difficulties, he suddenly realises that that preparatory work has not been so effective and that it is possible, between this and the next Budget, the end of the present accountancy period, to step in and make a saving of £3,500,000. There has been no indication as to where the saving will be made. Will it be made in so far as there will be reductions in the forms of expenditure which are the expression of the Government's social or economic policy or will there be savings in regard to administration and salaries?
The Minister said that they would not be touched.
The Minister said a lot of things in his time and we are quite entitled to pursue this interesting subject a little further than just a general figure of £3,500,000.
And when he said there would be a mother and child scheme, there is a mother and child scheme coming.
Ah, coming.
That is more than happened during the Deputy's support of a Government.
A mother and child scheme with a means test, with seven different means tests.
It is all right. It is coming, anyhow, and we have a social welfare scheme which the Coalition could not produce in three years.
It was there ready for you. You read it out word for word.
Deputy Larkin.
I am sorry.
We will give you your social welfare scheme. Nobody is disputing it, but let us examine a little later the figures of what you are providing. To get back to the question ofeconomies. I frankly do not believe the Minister will secure his £3,500,000 by sacking people, because it would be impossible. In order to secure that much saving he would probably have to dismiss something like one-fifth or one-sixth of the total employees of the State. It would be a physical impossibility. But, what I am concerned with is that he is balancing his Budget by the device of saying he is going to secure these economies of £3,500,000. I am interested to find where the economies are possible of achievement because there is no doubt at all that if the same statement were made by the Minister for Finance of another Party there would be no more scathing and relentless critic of such a device than the present Minister, and everybody knows it.
I think it is correct to say that, if there are to be any economies, somewhere down the line of State employment, down among the ranks of the unfortunate temporary employees of the State, there will be some hardship, because they are always the first to feel the pinch. Not merely are they temporary in employment, with no security, but even their rates of pay are such that, not only are they a disgrace to this Government, they are a disgrace to the inter-Party Government also. Frankly, I think any of us in this House should be ashamed to say that we bear any measure of responsibility for some of the rates we pay to the temporary clerks employed by our Government.
These are not men with temporary employment of six or nine months but men that I know of myself who have given up to 18 and 19 years' service. They are still temporary and they are still being paid less than an unskilled labourer. They are the unfortunate poor devils who, if there is a general pressure from the top to secure economies, are the first that will be weeded out. Probably it will not be done deliberately in the sense of instructing a particular Department to lay off ten, 20, 30, 40 or 50, but the pressure will start to be exercised and in the course of time it will be found that a certain number of temporary clerks will no longer be required, due to staff changes and so on, and, as has always happened,out they go and they will stay out until there is a further call for their services. That is their common experience year after year.
I wonder whether a peculiar rumour I heard is correct or not, that some civil servant, in the earnestness of his desire to try to meet with the Minister's wishes, to try to help him in solving this particular problem of balancing the Budget, suggested that one of the ways in which economies could be achieved was by terminating the existence of various State and semi-State bodies and concerns that do not seem particularly to be doing very much work. I saw a reference to that in one of the daily papers to-day but actually I heard this rumour before that. I heard that, in his misguided zeal, one of the institutions that he suggested might be done without was the Labour Court. I do not believe it. It seems to me the story is a bit too fantastic but I can see a good deal of justification for it because, quite clearly, a Government which sets up an arbitration board for its own employees, after very careful scrutiny and very careful examination of the constitution of that board, and then deliberately goes back, as they have done, on the award of that board and in a manner that no group of organised workers outside the State's employment would accept, the Government that does that in relation to his own constituted board and in relation to its own employees must find very little justification for the existence of a Labour Court, particularly a Labour Court which is setting a headline in the adjustment of industrial disputes and in the formulation of recommendations which, quite clearly, during the past six months must have proven somewhat embarrassing to the Government in dealing with its own employees.
However, be that as it may, it is very interesting to pursue this question of where the £3,500,000 economies are to be secured. Quite clearly, whether they are achieved or not, we are quite definitely entitled to point out, despite the Minister's text book lectures on the necessity for balancing a Budget, that he failed in his own objective and had resort to a device that he would not permit any other Minister forFinance to resort to without the strongest objection.
Again, the important question is, not merely the objective the Minister was trying to reach, but particularly the measures he took in the last 12 months to reach that objective and, in particular, the results that have flowed from these measures.
Listening to the Minister yesterday, it was interesting to note that probably the two most important factors of our economy to-day only got a passing reference. One was the general condition of our industries and the other was unemployment. It is correct that the Minister, when speaking of agriculture, mentioned that there had been an increase in volume, I think, of 1.7. In somewhat of an aside, one might almost say, he went on to state that there had been a slight fall in production in regard to industry, but that this did not indicate the full extent of the decline. We got nothing more from him. There was a decline, but it was nothing to pay very much attention to. Immediately, he went on to explain that there had been an improvement in regard to textiles, clothing, etc., a very nice picture, particularly if there was nothing else with which to fill in the blanks.
Let us look at some of the industries and see what happened during the past 12 months. Taking 1952 as compared with 1951, here are some percentages of the drop in industrial production in some of our most important industries. In the case of timber, the drop has been 30 per cent.; vehicles, 19 per cent.; furniture, 15 per cent.; metal, 16 per cent.; linen, cotton and rayon, 12 per cent.; woollen and worsteds, 16 per cent.; men's and boys' clothing, 12 per cent.; shirts, 13 per cent.; boots and shoes, 14 per cent.; paper, 13 per cent. I grant that in certain industries in the same year there was an increase.
Do these figures refer to volume or value?
Volume. But the important point is that in a considerable number of the branches of our industrial production there has been this percentage decline in volume. Whenwe take the percentage decline in volume for industrial and transportable goods as a whole, where the decline is 5 per cent., it does not look so great, but it is important when we start to break that up and examine individual industries. This is the type of picture I personally feel our attention should have been directed to by the Minister because, whatever else may be charged against Fianna Fáil, it is correct, and I have stated before, that over a period of years they have contributed very essentially to the extension and development of our industrial basis in this country. Both the Minister and the ordinary members of the Party should be concerned, therefore, when it was found that, after a period of years during which they have applied their policy of industrial development through a system of encouraging Irish industries by providing them with protection against foreign competition and giving them various forms of encouragement so far as the State was concerned, we have now witnessed an actual drop in the number of men and women employed in those very industries.
That in itself, I think, is a matter of even greater concern than possibly the drop in the number of men employed on the land or in road work or building, because if, after nearly 20 years of effort to build up those industries at very considerable cost to the mass of Irish consumers, we now find that there has been a falling off in the number employed in those industries and that the number employed and the volume of output in certain branches have declined considerably, it is essential that we should note that problem by something more than the slender reference which the Minister made to the fact that there was a slight decline in production which was not completely indicative of the actual drop. That is why I suggest that the Minister has been skating on thin ice because, below the ice, there is definitely a serious economic and industrial position which is the common concern of everybody here regardless of what Party we are members of.
Another matter referred to by the Minister which has a bearing on thematter which I have touched upon, the drop in the volume of industrial production in certain branches of industry, was the purchasing power of our wage earners, because, quite clearly, if the mass of Irish consumers, particularly the mass of workers and their families in the towns and cities who have to buy all of their goods, unlike the families engaged in agriculture who produce a certain quantity of what they require by their own direct labour, have not got the purchasing power to buy all of the goods that our industries can produce, then we will have a decline in output and a corresponding rise in unemployment. In many ways the purchasing power available in the hands of wage and salary earners is one of the most important factors in our whole economy.
The Minister recognises that because he went on to make the statement that the purchasing power of the earners, the average worker in the transportable goods industries had, by December, 1952, reached a point as high as in December, 1951. Again, nobody can quarrel with the actual figures used. Factually, they are correct, but as a picture of what the actual position is, they are all wrong. Again we have the Minister skating on thin ice. Let us get the picture straight first of all. As to the last round of wage increases, the actual increases were secured in various trades and industries in the period from October, 1951, up to as late as July, August and September, 1952.
But the period on which those plans were formulated and the basis on which they were settled was not the period between December, 1951, and December, 1952: it was the period between February, 1951, and the date of the settlement of the claim. It is important to remember that because the Minister is now seeking to make the same type of case as was made by almost every employer during the past 18 months in the course of wage discussions, namely to pick an arbitrary date and make a comparison as between wages and prices at that date arbitrarily selected by himself; whereas the actual relationship was in respect of wages and prices as at February, 1951, and that was the position ultimately accepted as the basis ofdiscussion both with individual employers and with the national organisations.
Making that comparison then we find that while prices as reflected in the index had risen by some 19 points during that period and taking into account the effect upon the price of the small luxuries of the workers, namely tobacco and drink, representing an over-all increase of probably some 18 or 19 per cent., the actual increase in wage rates according to official figures was 9 per cent., so that the cost of living in that period from February, 1951, to February, 1953, had risen roughly to the extent that the average worker would have to pay an additional 4/- for every £'s worth of goods he bought in February, 1951, when he went to buy the same goods in February, 1953; to assist him in meeting that increased bill he had an additional 2/-, instead of having an additional 4/- in every £.
That is one of the reasons why it is not now possible for a great many people to buy from our Irish industries the same quantities of clothing, food, furniture and household utensils to-day as they were buying two years ago. That is one of the reasons why when we examine the break-down in the figures of unemployment we find that the biggest increases are shown in these particular industries.
Finally, in relation to the building trade, on top of that general price situation we have the further difficulty of the increase in the price of money and we have the picture of the additional number of building trade workers put out of employment in the last two years. In so far as the problem of the unemployed is concerned, it has been touched upon so frequently of late I am not anxious to-night to go into it in any detail except to suggest that whether or not we agree on the causes which have brought about the very sharp rise in unemployment, an increase which is in the order of increasing by half the number of unemployed between March, 1951, and March, 1953, at least we should take sufficient note of it and the responsible Minister for Finance should regard it as one of the special features requiring particularlycareful detailed treatment by him in his presentation of the Government's review of the nation's economic position.
The important factor is not merely the round figures of some 88,000 unemployed. The important factor is where these unemployed men and women have come from. What industries have been compelled to send them to the labour exchange rather than retain them in employment? Reference has already been made by the Minister to an increase in the volume and output of textiles and clothing during 1952. Despite that increase in volume the number of unemployed in the textile trade was 9 per cent. higher in March of this year than it was in March, 1951. In the clothing trade it is 49 per cent. higher.
Quite clearly the object of establishing Irish industries is not merely to provide Irish men and women with the goods they need, though that is essential in itself, but it has always been accepted that it has equally the primary function of providing work for Irish men and women so that they will be in a position to earn wages with which to buy the goods produced by these industries. Yet, here we have a picture in two of our main industries, textiles and clothing, to the development and fostering of which the Minister for Industry and Commerce has given particular attention over the years, that in the year 1952, there was apparently an increase in the numbers employed in these industries, but in March of this year we find ourselves with 9 per cent. more textile workers unemployed than in March, 1951, and 49 per cent. more—roughly half—unemployed in our clothing industry as compared with March, 1951.
These figures are serious figures. Whether the Minister thought it desirable to leave them out from the point of view of not spoiling the even tenor of his remarks in his speech yesterday I do not know but, to the extent that they are left out, the Minister can quite readily be charged with evading some very portentous economic factors in our economy, factors that should not be ignored because they have a direct bearing onthe whole policy that goes to frame and condition the Budget.
Again, in the course of the Minister's statement, he referred to the number of houses built in 1952. Let us translate that again into the number of men who were not building houses in 1952. In 1951 we had 5,000 general building trade workers idle. In 1952 we had 6,700 and in 1953 the latest figure available is 9,400. Where, in the name of sense, is the use of any of us patting ourselves on the back and talking about the number of houses being built? I would be the last to deny any credit to any Party or any Government making its contribution to the provision of houses and I agree with Deputy Corry—goodness knows, I very seldom do—that all Parties have joined together in the local authorities to deal with this problem. What is the use of stressing the output of houses when we find that alongside that we have also an output of building workers on to the streets to the extent that the number of building trade workers now idle has grown from 5,000 to 9,400?
Even in the case of local authorities, the suggestion is again made that the output of houses by local authorities is being well maintained. Yet again, as against 11,000 employed on the building of houses by local authorities in March, 1952, the figure for March, 1953, has dropped to around 7,300—a drop of nearly one-third. These are the figures which are missing from the Minister's speech—figures which are vital in relation to our economy and to which the members of Fianna Fáil have got as much responsibility to refer and bring out as the members of any other Party. When they are not dealt with, when they are ignored by such a responsible Minister as the Minister for Finance, it is something more than mere forgetfulness or oversight. It is an indication, and a serious indication, of the type of policy that is being pursued and that has been pursued by the Government and that is conditioning the approach of the Government to many of these problems.
In Dublin itself, the problem ofunemployment has likewise grown. In a question which I addressed to the Taoiseach this week, I was told that the number of persons registered in the employment exchanges in Dublin City, Dún Laoghaire and County Dublin was 12,900 in 1951 and in 1953, for the latest date for which figures are available, the number has grown to 19,945, just 20,000.
Again, we see that there is an increase of almost half in the number of unemployed in a period of two years. Whatever may be the views of the Minister in relation to the budgetary policy that he pursued last year and which he is again pursuing this year, there is a widespread consensus of opinion, irrespective of Party, that these factors of industrial and trade recession, of unemployment and of its natural concomitant, the emigration of our people, are due in large measure to what is generally regarded either as panicky fiscal measures of the Government, or measures carried to too far a point and in too drastic a manner. I suppose the majority of citizens breathed a sigh of relief yesterday when they found that the Minister did not propose to impose any further taxation upon them, but as quickly as they got their second breath, they immediately realised that, whatever joy they might feel at having escaped the Minister's evil eye, there was still something missing and that was the positive features of a Budget which would help to ease the economic situation, assist in bringing about a revival of trade and industry and make easier the placing back in employment of the large body of men and women who have become idle in the past two years.
Yesterday the Labour Party voted against the first Financial Resolution in regard to income-tax. The irrepressible schoolboy, Deputy Major de Valera, wanted to know what the Labour Party was doing. He asked whether we wanted higher income-tax and surtax or lower income-tax or surtax. Deputy Major de Valera always likes to get his definitions correct. In this particular instance, he should not need any guidance. The Labour Party's attitude is plain. We think it is essential, by whatever votes we havein this House and influence outside, to ensure that a stop is put to the path that the present Government is pursuing. We think that is essential——
More Coalitions?
——in the interests of the country, of the Minister and of his Party. Probably the Minister will not believe me, but I have that sense of responsibility for the Fianna Fáil Party and for the Minister. The Fianna Fáil Party has a lot to its credit but there is no use burking the fact that now it is going back on its own policy. The tragedy is that so many of the good and fine things for which that Party stood and so many of their achievements are now being twisted in their hands. Granted that there are probably fundamental differences between the Labour Party and Fianna Fáil, members of Fianna Fáil might recall that those differences were not always so great. Whatever criticism is addressed to the Labour Party, it would be very difficult to suggest that in most of the basic economic problems of our people there has been any great change in the policy of the Labour Party. If, however, you examine the application of the Fianna Fáil Party's policy in recent years, it is very difficult at times to reconcile the speeches made and the policies advocated by members of that Party to-day with the speeches made and the policies advocated by the same spokesmen in the same Party ten, 15 and 20 years ago.
I suggest that Fianna Fáil have a duty to themselves as well as to the country. If they examine their consciences and come a little closer to the policy that they have been pursuing they may find an explanation of the attitude of many of us in recent years towards them. In so far as the vote of the Labour Party last night is concerned, we voted very deliberately. We did so because we feel it is necessary to use our votes in this House to afford the people of the country an opportunity of expressing their opinion of the Government's policy.
One might recall that during the days of the inter-Party Government— which gave such great joy to the Ministerwhen he was sitting on the opposite side of the House—hardly a week went by when there were not howls from Fianna Fáil spokesmen for the Government to go to the country and give the people an opportunity of exercising their democratic rights. They are all great democrats when they are in opposition.
Does that not cut both ways?
No, not both ways.
You were not so anxious to go to the country in 1951, were you?
I understood the accusation made in 1951 was that the Government ran away to the country. You made that accusation yourself.
Yes, but I did not think you had a hand in that.
However, in so far as our vote last night was concerned, it was a simple vote. We want to see the Government go to the country. We want to let the people make up their mind whether or not they like this Government. That is sufficient to justify the vote.
The second reason is completely in line with Labour Party policy. We were dealing with income-tax. We believe that, so far as the income-tax code in this country is concerned, there is a real need to give to the members of the lower-paid groups in the community some relief in respect of income-tax. We think, correspondingly, that the Minister or any Minister should have a further look at the top income groups both in respect of income-tax and surtax. We think, particularly, that it is remarkable and worth nothing that during the year 1952, when we had this period of trade recession, industrial set-back and growing unemployment, the amount of profits taken into consideration by the Revenue Commissioners—the assessment of corporation profits tax—could actually increase. Things must be pretty good for some of these gentlemen if, in that period, they could add a sum of nearly £2,000,000 on to their profits for assestment. It was done tomark our belief that there was the need in respect of taxation of having a look at some of the higher income groups in the community to see whether it was not possible to secure some additional revenue for very needy purposes. I am not going to go into the purposes at length for which we could do with that additional revenue, but I will deal with one point, and I leave that one point for the members of Fianna Fáil to think over, particularly those members who represent the large urban centres, such as Dublin, Cork, Limerick, etc.
In our Social Welfare Act at the present time we provide 24/- a week for an unemployed single man. In passing, we might comment that Deputy Dr. Ryan claimed credit in the House for having fixed that figure of 24/- as far back as the early days of 1947. In the meantime, the cost of living has gone up by 23 per cent., but the figure for benefit for the unemployed man is still 24/-. Let me put it in another form: on the basis of the pre-war value of the £, we are now providing for a single man a sum equal to 10/6 a week in the pre-war period. If the members of Fianna Fáil do not wish to accept the responsibility that other people place upon them in respect of this rapid growth in unemployment, at least they might sit down for a few moments and consider how they would have felt in 1938 and 1939 if they were asked to justify requiring a single unemployed man to maintain himself on a figure of 10/6 a week. I do not think many of them would have tried it. In fact, they did not because they provided much more than that in the form of benefit for a single unemployed man. But to-day, in 1953, that is the measure of assistance that the State is giving to the unemployed man through the Social Welfare Act.
Deputy Larkin voted against taxation for social welfare.
Deputy Davern must have been asleep for the last ten minutes. I do not intend to go back over my last explanation. It was explained quite clearly. The reason we voted in that way was in the hope oftransferring Deputy Davern from where he is sitting now to over here.
You have as much hope as a snowball in Hell.
Knowing you as we do, we are aware that you intend to make sure that you will stay where you are. We will give you an opportunity very soon of deciding whether you are going to move. Deputy Davern, I am sure, like the rest of us, has a social conscience, and may I ask him now to answer me: would he stand over the figure of 10/6 in 1939 for benefit for a single unemployed man?
I would ask Deputies to throw their minds back to two years ago this month. At that time, there was talk of a general election. The inter-Party Government was in power and immediately before the dissolution of that Dáil there was a whispering campaign all over the country, a whispering campaign of the cost of living. Every Fianna Fáil shopkeeper in the country when he served a customer cocked one eye over the counter and said: "My goodness, the cost of living has gone to blazes. The sooner we get this Government out of office the better." And the people were inclined to believe those Fianna Fáil supporters, and at that general election they returned Fianna Fáil to power in June, 1951. I beg your pardon; I stand corrected. They did not. But some Independent Deputies in this House did and the popular song of to-day reminds me of them. Every time I look at one of the five Deputies I think of the words of the popular song: "How much is the doggie in the window?"
Bow-wow!
You may say "bowwow" if you wish, but it costs more than that.
Do you think an Independent Deputy should only vote Fine Gael?
I am not suggesting that he should at all. It was an inter-Party Government they voted against, not Fine Gael.
May an Independent only vote inter-Party?
Not at all.
Then what are you talking about?
I am merely talking about the five gentlemen who voted to support that Party against all other Parties in the House.
Why should they not?
On the question of subsidies.
That is not correct.
I am afraid there is a lot to be said for "How much is the doggie" in the House.
They put you out of office.
I know I am annoying you gentlemen. I cannot help that. Bear with me now for a moment. When Fianna Fáil were returned to power we waited to hear when the prophecy of the Fianna Fáil shopkeeper would materialise and when the cost of living would fall. We waited for ten months. We thought that the Fianna Fáil Government of to-day would do what the inter-Party Government did when they came into power, namely, introduce ministerial Orders whereby they reduced the cost of living.
And the standard of living.
Never mind the standard; the standard was good then. They introduced legislation to reduce the cost of living, to reduce the working man's pint, to reduce the cost of the working man's pipeful of tobacco, the labourer's cigarettes. We thought that Fianna Fáil would do the same thing when they came into power this time two years ago, but they did nothing. They waited for ten months and then prior to the introduction oftheir Budget we found that same shopkeeper, that same Fianna Fáil propagandist, telling us we were going to have a hair-shirt Budget to pay for the squandermania of the inter-Party Government.
Is that not what happened?
The people have no shirts now.
Some have blue shirts.
And some have hair shirts.
Yes, some have hair shirts and they will not have them very long if this thing continues. The people believed the Minister when he said he was going to save every penny he possibly could to pay for the squandermania of the inter-Party Government. We heard a lot about that for some time; then suddenly the people realised that they had £250,000 to pay for a horse, that they had £500,000 to pay for the subsidisation of a transatlantic air line, that they had a considerable amount of money to pay to increase the personnel and strength of our Army.
And old age pensions.
We had done that.
You refused to do it.
If you want to count the 1/6 increase we will give it to you, but we had brought it up from 10/-, plus the relieving officer's 2/6.
To what?
To 17/6. Was that not something decent? We had done that immediately after reducing the price of the old age pensioner's tobacco and the price of his pint. We had increased it by more than 1/6. I know Deputy Davern has a better memory than I have.
Hear, hear!
I am referring only to what occurred recently and Deputieswill have no difficulty in remembering what I am referring to.
The refresher is good.
You could not have many refreshers at the price you people fixed. We gave them an opportunity of having that refresher, particularly the old age pensioners. The people, who, as I said, were looking forward to these economies to pay for our squadermania, found that money was being squandered in other directions, in some small ways if you wish, but when these small sums are gathered together they add up to a considerable amount. One of these items was £60,000 for three derelict German trawlers, another was £250,000 for a good horse, an excellent horse, but a horse we could have done without.
A horse that will repay——
Deputy Davern should refrain from interrupting.
Another item was £500,000 for a transatlantic air line. People began to say: "The Government evidently have money to spend on these things; we cannot believe them." The people then had been looking forward to some reductions in taxation in this Budget. They had been taxed so heavily by the last Budget that, to use the words of the Taoiseach, we had reached the limit of taxation. If we have reached the limit of taxation and continue at the limit something is going to happen. We had been looking forward to some reliefs from taxation and the Minister, astute politician that he is, decided to have no increase in taxation under the Budget but at the same time to grant no reliefs. Immediately prior to his introducing the Budget, however, his colleague, the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs, came in here and sought permission to raise money by way of increased postal, telephone and telegram charges. He denies that these increases represent new taxation, but so long as the money comes out of the pockets of the taxpayer, call it whatyou will, it is immaterial to the taxpayer how the money is raised.
How much?
Will the Minister for Finance tell us now that the taxpayer is going to suffer nothing as a result? By this back-door method, the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs seeks to impose these extra taxes on the people. While all this has been going on, as Deputy Larkin has stated, unemployment is on the increase. If I do not refer to unemployment in the cities, it is simply because I do not know very much about it, but I know what is happening in the congested areas along the western seaboard. I know that along the western seaboard from Donegal to Kerry unemployment and emigration are increasing. Only in to-day's Irish PressI saw an announcement of one of the methods which the Government propose to utilise for the relief of that unemployment. What was it? To send the No. 4 Army Band to the Aran Islands to encourage the unemployed there to join the National Army. That is the only solution I have seen offered for the unemployed in these areas, the only method offered by the present Government to solve the unemployment question in the congested Gaeltacht areas along the western seaboard.
Does the Deputy say that it is wrong to join the Army?
I say it is an excellent thing to join the Army but it is quite a different thing to have too big an Army when you do not require it. I have as much pride in the Irish Army as any member of this House. I am an ex-member of that Army and I have nothing but feelings of pride in our Army. If I say anything about the Army, it is not from any desire to degrade the members of that Army in any way, but I say that at this stage in our political and national history there is no necessity whatever for a standing Army of 12,500. That is my sole criticism of that portion of the Budget dealing with defence. I say, further, that a small standing Army— and I hope to deal at greater lengthwith this subject on the Estimate at a later stage—such as was suggested by Deputy Dillon, and capable of being 100 per cent. efficient in guerilla warfare, would be much more beneficial to the country than to have thousands of men kicking up the cobblestones of the Curragh with practically no arms or obsolete arms procured from Sweden or some of the other Norse countries. I say that is one of the directions in which money could be saved.
As I said at the outset, I do not mean to say anything derogatory about the Army and my remarks are entirely directed towards criticising the Government and the Minister for increasing the personnel at this particular time. Is it not a shame to think that to obtain recruits for that Army, we must send a band to the Aran Islands to try to persuade and inveigle the unemployed Irish speakers to join the premier battalion, the First Battalion?
Emigration along the western seaboard is increasing day by day. Up until quite recently we had a certain type of migrant, a type of migrant who migrated year after year, but unfortunately we are adding to that particular type. I know hackney car owners and motor lorry owners who have now emigrated to Scotland. I know shopkeepers who, owing to the general depression caused by last year's Budget, have had to emigrate to Scotland. I know fishermen who were unable to procure the price of nets from Bord Iascaigh Mhara and who have emigrated to Scotland. I know, further, that it is practically impossible to obtain fishermen along the western seaboard to man these obsolete German trawlers as crews. We ought to ask ourselves the reason for that. There must be some reason.
I see no inducement offered to these migrants to remain at home at the moment. For instance, under the Local Authorities (Works) Act a considerable amount of money was formerly voted each year to local authorities to provide employment for the unemployed in various localities. I am only speaking for the County of Donegal. In the days of the inter-Party Government—two years ago— the Government's contribution to theDonegal County Council was £80,000 for employment under the Local Authorities (Works) Act. That £80,000 was spent in the county. I am sorry that a colleague of mine said they were only putting it down the drain. I know that a considerable amount of good work was done in the expending of that £80,000. I know bog roads in tourist districts which were drained and built up. The road from Donegal town to Bundoran—one of the most dangerous of twisted roads and the one which is most frequently flooded in the entire county—is in process of being straightened out and raised up, all with money voted by the Oireachtas under the Local Authorities (Works) Act. The sum was £80,000 two years ago. What is it to-day?—it is only £10,500.
What was the road grant then and what is it now?
I do not know, but I can tell you what has been expended. We were told that there is £40,000 per year for expenditure on tourist roads in Gaeltacht areas. I think we were told that sometime about last October. I can tell you that not one penny has yet been spent in Donegal. I can tell you further that no sanction has come from the Minister for Local Government for the expenditure of one penny on any of the projects suggested by the Donegal County Council and that in the very year that this grant was reduced from £80,000 to £10,500 under the Local Authorities (Works) Act.
In my opinion that magnificent grant of £80,000, given by the inter-Party Government, did a considerable amount of good to absorb the unemployed in the western and congested area of Donegal. Deputy Jack Lynch, Parliamentary Secretary to the Government, referred to the increased expenditure under the land project all over the country. I was sitting in the House when he said that a few hours ago and I took the trouble of having a quick look at the Estimate. The Estimate this year is for £2,861,210. Last year it was for £2,463,906. £2,861,000 is provided for expenditure under the land project but listen to this. Out of that £2,861,000 the grants to farmers amount to only £720,000. The grants to the contractors amountto £1,200,000. That is a total of £1,920,000. Let us call it £2,000,000. Of that, £861,000 is being spent on travelling expenses, the purchase of machinery, grants towards the purchase of machinery, payments in respect of advertising, publicity, district offices and stores, miscellaneous expenses and payments to the Office of Public Works, etc. £861,000 is being so spent out of £2,000,000.
Surely it is not to be spent on the purchase of machinery?
I thought you had sold the machinery. What are you buying it for now? I thought you had sold it to the contractors. What was the machinery bought for?
I have not seen any sold yet.
One of your leaders, the Minister for Agriculture, told us the price it was being sold for. When pressed by Deputy Dillon to state the price at which it was purchased, we found it was being sold for approximately half the price for which it was purchased. What is this money for? What is the justification for spending £861,000 in administration out of an expenditure of £2,000,000? It is very difficult to understand it.
You must know little about the working of it.
You must know less when you threw it up and handed it over to the contractors.
The Deputy is talking about administration.
I merely mentioned the cost of administration.
The Deputy has taken quite a time.
It is a very interesting matter. I was merely replying to the Parliamentary Secretary who had a considerable amount to say on the matter. He was trying to explain to the House the amount of good the Government was doing and the amountof money they were expending under the land project.
I am only trying to guide the Deputy.
I am obliged to the Ceann Comhairle for his guidance. God knows there is need for it in problems such as this.
The Deputy is trying to introduce a few red herrings.
We heard a lot from the Parliamentary Secretary about the expenditure on electricity. I remember seeing almost four months ago a headline splashed across The Sunday Pressthat actually outshone the prize for the Sunday crossword puzzle. The heading was: “Turf-burning plant for County Donegal. Situation near Dungloe.”
I was immediately interested to know where this plant would be located. I thought I would not have time to ask a question before the plant would be almost in production. I put down a question in the month of February, immediately the House assembled, to know if the Minister and the E.S.B. had decided upon the actual site for this plant. I was told then that no decision had been taken as to the exact location of the plant.
Surely that is still administration?
With the greatest respect, a Ceann Comhairle, I am dealing with unemployment and with what the Government have stated to be their efforts to absorb the unemployed in the Gaeltacht area. I have tried to explain that one of the projects they are about to put into operation is purely a myth.
This is purely administration and is not relevant to discuss on a financial motion of this kind. The Deputy can raise the matter very relevantly on the Estimate and he can discuss it in detail.
Very good.
We have not heard one word about the Budget yet.
I will go back to the Budget then. Last year we were told by no less a personage than the Tánaiste, the Minister for Industry and Commerce, that he had fine-combed the Book of Estimates and that every possible penny that could be saved would be saved and that it would be difficult even with that to balance the Budget. Deputies McGilligan and Costello endeavoured to point out that the Minister was then budgeting for a surplus. We all know, as a result of the figures published by the Government, that revenue did not come up to expectations. Therefore, there should have been a deficit in the Budget. But despite that and without the introduction of any Supplementary Budget, Supplementary Estimates to the extent of £4,000,000 were brought into this House and were actually paid for out of last year's revenue. If the Supplementary Estimates which the Minister for Finance told us would not be required had not been brought in there would have been that surplus of £4,000,000. Also we are told that the increase of over £2,500,000 granted to the civil servants will be paid out of the coming year's revenue without any further taxation. Therefore, the Minister is hoping for an increase of £2,250,000 or £2,500,000 over last year's expected revenue. I suggest that justifies the claim of the present Opposition, that last year the Minister was budgeting for a surplus.
Of £10,000,000?
If all the little bits are added up the Deputy will find that the total reaches a fair amount. Not only have we this direct taxation, these hair-shirt Budgets of 1952 and 1953, but we have a side door kick at Seán Citizen by the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs. We also have an increase in local taxation which is collected by the local authorities. Every penny that is taken off the subsidies means an additional penny on the ratepayers. The institutions in which inmates are maintained must be kept up at the expense of the ratepayers. If the cost of foodstuffs goes up the inmates do not pay it but rather the ratepayers.
Increased rates will continue to be paid during the coming year. In one small town in the County Donegal, there was such an outcry against the amount of the rate demand made by the county manager that the town commissioners refused to strike a rate, and were eventually wiped out by a stroke of the pen of the Minister for Local Government. What is the position going to be next year? Apparently the present Minister does not visualise anything in the way of a reduction. The Minister cannot undo what he did yesterday, but I would make an appeal to him to be realistic. There is only one way in which he can undo the Budget which he introduced yesterday, and that is by getting out and permitting an inter-Party Government to get into power. It will immediately do what it did in February, 1948, and that is wipe out all the penal taxes imposed by the present Minister. I say to the Minister, give the working man a chance to seek the employment which he desires. Give the publican, too, an opportunity.
And the lawyers?
I beg the Deputy's pardon. I said something about publicans. I suggest to the Minister that the method by which he can improve the present position is by getting out and giving somebody else the chance of undoing the harm which he has done.
I am glad that the weather did not break before Deputy O'Donnell got on his feet, because otherwise he probably would have blamed Fianna Fáil for that, too. Invitations to get out bring us back to the game of one side calling to the other to "get out and give us the chance of showing what we can do." Many promises are made at election times and by opposition Parties between elections, promises which, certainly, are quite impossible to fulfil. I think that the people by now have reached the stage when they are no longer satisfied with the pipe dreams of those who wish to have power. They are happy to be able to face the reality, and to be assuredthat the country is under the control of good management.
The fact that this year's Budget is unchanged from that of last year is consistent with the statement of the Minister for Finance in his Budget of last year on the position of our economy. It means, too, that the expenditure of the country is such that it prohibits any remission in taxation. The fact that no further taxation is added this year means that we have reached the limit of possible taxation. To reduce taxation we would need to reduce our expenditure. That is the demand made by many of the Opposition speakers, while at the same time they are forever asking for increased services in many spheres of Governmental activity. How they can possibly expect to reduce expenditure and at the same time increase services, I cannot understand. I do not know whether they expect that this Government will allow itself to be pushed into the malpractice of living on borrowed money until the country crashes economically. I am sure that the most ardent supporters of the Opposition could hardly be convinced now that the country could live for ever on borrowings.
Last year we were forced to dwell at considerable length on the effects of the lax administration of the Coalition Government. My contribution on that occasion was not made for political gain because I deplore playing politics, but I found myself forced into a defensive position in relation to the Budget. I found myself forced to defend the corrective measures which had to be taken by the Fianna Fáil Administration to prevent what looked like certain disaster resulting from the incompetence of the previous Administration. I expected that this year the Opposition would be as unrepentant as ever. In fact, they seem to be gaining in their audacity as they move further away from the chaos they created.
I do not want to dwell too much on the aspect of the question: "Anything you can do, I can do better", but I do feel that among the Opposition, and among those on this side of the House, one will find people prepared to go away from their rigid "for" and"against" attitude towards the Budget and occupy themselves with trying to find some solution to meet a very real situation. If we accept it that the services now available to the people of the country must continue, and if we accept, as we must, that we pay as we go, we can only hope to get from taxation the money we spend, because, as I say, the limit of taxation has been reached. The people are no longer capable, at their present income, of supporting the burden of taxation if there is any increase. Logically, then, we are led to seek methods of increasing the income of our people. It cannot be said too often that the national income is as a common pool from which all sectors of the community draw their share. Any increase given to one section must result in a decrease in the other sections, if that common pool remains at the same size. The answer to our problems, therefore, is to increase the national income. We must impress on our people that this increase will benefit all and that if we do not have such an increase there cannot be increased incomes.
During the past few years we have been advised repeatedly of the possibility of increased production. It should be stressed that, though there is a possibility of improvement, there are limits to the extent to which we can go. We must adjust ourselves to a decent standard of living which is within our means. If we expect unlimited development, if we expect to live like a country developing oil and other natural resources, then we can have only national discontent. Our hope for development is in agriculture and our development there has been very slow. We made some progress last year, when there was a 1.7 per cent. increase. While politically we could point to that with pride, as compared with the backslide which occurred during the Coalition régime, we should direct our efforts to examining why agriculture is so slow in its development.
It is rather a puzzle for anybody who studies the activities of our Department of Agriculture to understand why agriculture does not develop, when we have so many schemes and grants and such guidance for the farmers. In thisHouse during the last two years, I have often heard farmers berated for not making use of these schemes. I wonder how far we are holding back the development of the land by encroaching too much on the individual responsibility of the farmers themselves. I know it is a general trend all over Europe to supply these aids, but I do think that many farmers feel that if work which they would now do, left to themselves, is left over, the Government will soon bring in a scheme to have it done for them free. I think, too, that the farming community has been demoralised to a great extent. It is a pity to have to say it, but I know farmers who, when applying for schemes and grants, ask first of all how much money they will get out of it. There is that attitude in our people which, I regret to say, is making them more and more inclined to depend on State Departments and State help. I am satisfied that a certain amount of increased productivity has come about from the use of schemes, such as they are, and that the land is more productive. Why, then, do we not get increased production? I can speak only for farmers in my own constituency and the position as I see it there is that to get increased production in County Clare would involve a wage bill which would more than offset any profit to the farmer himself.
We have this flight from the land, which appears to be a flight to foreign parts; but there is also a flight from the land to the employment exchange. The fact is that farmers in Clare cannot afford the labour necessary to in-increase production. For what money they can pay, it is not worth the while of a labouring man to take on the work. These men go on the dole. I think the actual administration of the dole could be seriously studied by any Government and I suggest it would benefit the country, from the point of view of production, if as well as, or instead of subsidising the increased productivity of the land, they allowed these dole men to work for the farmer and allowed the farmer to pay the difference between the dole money and what might be called an adequate pay —in other words, subsidise the labour on the land.
I think the Deputy could raise that on the Estimates. It would be more relevant than on the Budget.
I am concerned about increased production, which is absolutely essential if we are to go any further with our services. We have reached the limit of taxation and we cannot get anything else for our people unless we increase our income.
Deputy O'Donnell said that emigration is increasing every day. That is not true. Whatever about emigration and the various lip services we give it, I have come to the stage now where I am not so appalled at the prospect of our young men going abroad. Again, I look at this from the point of view that it is good for them, they go abroad to work, it is good for their manhood, it gives them a sense of values, they get work for wages, they learn the value of money, they get to see the world and they broaden their outlook. I have yet to see any of those young men who come back, who did not benefit and benefit a great deal from having left the country. While we have emigration—and we will have it until we have developed our country enough to give full employment at home—we should rather think of the benefits we get from it and think that these men will come back and improve our land, from having improved themselves.
The Minister has been courageous in introducing a Budget which makes no change this year. He has proved the prophets wrong. They said that he was estimating for a surplus, that he would bring in a popular Budget this year; and the general atmosphere was abroad amongst the people that the country was being played with in politics. Now we have a Budget which is consistent with the declared policy and with the analysis of the economic situation as revealed by Fianna Fáil last year; and the Minister has introduced an air of stability and reality which will be appreciated by the people.
There are some members of the Opposition who seem to be absolutelyirresponsible. They continue to say that Fianna Fáil caused the dropping off in housing, but the Minister was able to tell us that the number of houses built this year was 13,000 as compared with 12,000 last year. There will naturally be a slight tailing off as the needs of the community are satisfied.
The development of the western districts came in for some criticism here, as if nothing had been done since the Undeveloped Areas Act was passed. A period of two years is a very short period in which to expect any great development, but, in Clare, one of the areas declared to be an undeveloped area, we have seen factories started by private enterprise and other factories extended, as a result of that Act which subsidised industries setting up in these areas. We have also grants for tourist roads which have the double effect of giving local employment and encouraging tourists to come to our western coasts. More recently, a turf fire generating station has been planned to be established in the county. Of the very few natural resources we possess, turf is probably the most plentiful and, apart from fishing, I do not think any other industry would have been more welcome in our country. I do not wish to go into the various achievements of the Government on this Resolution, but I want to congratulate the Minister on having been consistent, on giving stability and reality to the people and making them feel that the administration of the country is secure and in competent hands.
The people of this country over the past few weeks took the nod given by the Taoiseach when he said that the limit of taxation had been reached. That, in itself, was an indication to the people that there would be no new taxation this year, and I think most of us felt that there would not be any further taxation, because we certainly agreed with the Taoiseach when he said the limit of taxation had been reached. I would go further, however, and say that the limit of taxation was more than exceeded last year and that the taxationimposed last year was a sufficient burden for the people to carry for at least the next two or three Budgets.
The people generally, I feel, have been genuinely disappointed because the trend of conversation, especially during the week or two preceding the Budget introduced yesterday, was an expression generally of the opinion that there would be reliefs and it was merely a speculation on the part of the people as to whether or not the Minister would restore, in part in any case, some of the subsidies he slashed last year. The publicans, in particular, for the good of their own trade and the brewers and workers employed in the breweries for their own good, did expect that the Minister would correct the big mistake he made last year in respect of taxation on spirits and beer.
The main contention of the Minister when introducing his Budget last year and his main boast this year was that the 1952 Budget was designed to resolve the difficulty into which he said this country had got itself with regard to the balance of payments. It was contended by the Opposition that the question of the balance of payments would resolve itself, that the abnormal balance of 1951 was due, in the main, to stockpiling which would not be continued in 1952 and that therefore the balance of payments figure would not be anything like what it was in 1951. That, the Minister boasts, has been achieved over the past year and, if it has, I think we are entitled to ask why there have been no reliefs from the burdens imposed on us in the name of resolving the difficulty with regard to the balance of payments.
The Minister attempted to tell us of the effects of last year's Budget. I do not think there is anybody in the country or, more particularly, in this House, who wants to listen to a Minister for Finance describing the effects of last year's Budget. Unfortunately, they are all too obvious. We said last year on the Budget, before the different burdens of taxation were imposed, so to speak, that the Budget would reduce the people's standard of living and we said that the effect of the taxes he imposed, together with the slashing of the subsidies, would be to createunemployment. While the Minister may gloss over in one paragraph the question of unemployment and while Deputies on the Government Benches may sheer away from it altogether, there is the stark reality of a total of over 84,000 people unemployed and the fact that, in the past year, we have had a figure of approximately 30,000 people who have emigrated. I charge the Government and the Minister for Finance with creating that situation.
I suppose it is futile at this stage to try to persuade the Minister for Finance, or to impress it strongly enough on his mind, that it is that policy, dictated by the Central Bank, which is responsible for the position I have described with regard especially to those who are unemployed. Last year's Budget slashed food subsidies; last year's Budget increased taxation on beer and spirits; and last year's Budget, while making a present of over £1,000,000 to cigarette manufacturers, imposed a tax of 6d. on the large packet of cigarettes. The action of the banks in raising the bank rate of interest had, in itself, an adverse effect, not alone on trade and house building but, more important, on the question of unemployment. Last year's Budget has been responsible for the unemployment in the distributive trades, and in that type of employment known as personal services.
I have here the industrial analysis of the live register for mid-March 1953. The Minister slashed food subsidies and it is significant that in that particular branch of employment there was an increase in the number on the live register of 1,279. Under the heading of malting, brewing, distilling, aerated waters, cider, minerals, etc., there was an increase in 12 months of 162; the number of unemployed in the tobacco manufacturing industry increased by 174; in woodworking and furniture there was an increase in the persons unemployed of 216; in building, contracting and works of construction there was an increase in the number of unemployed of 5,986. That makes a total increase of persons unemployed in these branches of employment of 10,314.
These branches of employment were drastically affected by the Budgetproposals of the Minister in 1952. The unemployment figures have been increased by over 10,000 due directly to the Budget proposals of the Minister for Finance in 1952. That is why there were protests last year, in the main from this side of the House, with regard to his proposals. We prophesised what the effect of the proposals would be and we are not happy to relate, 12 or 13 months afterwards, that the prophecies have come to pass. That is unfortunate, especially for those in these particular branches of employment who, because of the Minister's Budget proposals last year, find themselves out of employment. How many of us, without regard to figures, can name young men and young women who have had to emigrate to Great Britain and, to a smaller extent, to other countries because they could not get employment in this country?
If the Minister wants to talk about stability in the economy of this country he must relate it to the unemployment figures. It is not abnormal to say that the state of prosperity of a nation is clearly reflected in the number on the live register. In the 1930's the figure went sometimes to 120,000 or 130,000 because of changes in Social Welfare Acts or Unemployment Assistance or Insurance Acts. In those years the figures may have been swollen and exaggerated by reason of that but, in 1953, even taking into account the effect of the Social Welfare Act, 1952, we must be alarmed at a figure of over 84,000 unemployed in the month of May, when the Minister for Social Welfare operates an employment period Order which debars single men in a rural area from receiving unemployment assistance. In the spring and especially in the months of April and May one would think there would be sufficient work on the land and that business would be revived generally so that many of those who were unemployed in the winter months would be absorbed, particularly in agriculture.
The frightening thing is that the Taoiseach, in any of his recent statements, has not devoted any appreciable time to the problem of unemployment. It is not for me to twit him with whathe said in 1929 or 1932. It is not for me to say in this House, nor is it any consolation to the unemployed to read in the newspapers that Deputy Lemass said, in 1929, that the unemployment question could be solved in 24 hours. The frightening thing is that there has been no indication in statements in this House or outside the House, in public, by the Tánaiste, the Minister for Finance, or the Toiseach of any possible solution for the abnormal unemployment position.
The Minister in his Budget statement devoted a mere threequarters of a foolscap sheet to the matter. He did not hold out any hope that these people would be absorbed into employment. Any time a question has been asked of him in this House as to what will be done to attempt to reduce these figures the stock reply is that Government policy is designed to absorb these people or the greater number of them into employment. In the last year particularly and over the last two years generally there has been no sign of abatement in the rising figure of unemployed.
I would like to make this point: For a good number of years Britain has been at a low ebb. In this country there are 84,000 unemployed at present. That would be equivalent to 3,000,000 in Britain, having regard to the population. In Britain there are only 400,000 unemployed.
I suggest that the Government has not treated seriously this very important question. On the contrary, public works have been cut down in the last two years, despite protests from the Taoiseach in this House and from the Minister for Finance that such is not the case. In his Budget statement yesterday the Minister for Finance reluctantly admitted that there was a reduction in the amount provided for public works, reluctantly admitted that there was a decrease in the figures for houses in course of erection, that there was a big decrease in the number of skilled operatives and unskilled men working on house building at the present time. It is significant, as I have said, that thenumber registered as unemployed and ordinarily working on building and public works increased in 12 months by 5,986.
All of us will agree that the housing problem has been tackled with energy, enthusiasm and the goodwill of all Parties over the last five or six years, but there is still an urgent demand for houses. Some years ago the figure was given as a requirement of something like 100,000 houses. I would not venture to give the number of houses that have been provided in the last five or six years, but I would say that the back of the housing problem has not yet been broken. There is still work to be done. We have the carpenters, bricklayers, masons, plasterers and we certainly have the builders' labourers. It is the duty and responsibility of the Government, in order to prevent these people from emigrating to Great Britain or any other country, to provide the wherewithal so that they may engage in this work of national importance.
Deputy Larkin gave figures to show the alarming increase in the number of building trade workers at present idle in the City of Dublin. Yet we have overcrowding and slums in the City of Dublin. We have unfortunate people in the provincial towns and in the rural areas, especially, living in stables and outhouses. As long as that problem exists there is no use in talking about economies in one direction or another if these economies are to put a stop to public works, especially housing, which are of vital interest to progress and advancement in this country.
As Deputy O'Donnell said, while every demand for increased money from the Government for desirable expenditure is met with a blank refusal money can still be found quickly for other objects or purchases. Last year's Budget was defended by Fianna Fáil Deputies on the plea that the abnormal amount to be raised, the slashing of the food subsidies and the imposition of taxes were to repay the debts incurred by the inter-Party Government. That has been proved to be false. Deputy Corry charged us with borrowing a total of £95,000,000 in the period of three and a quarter years. Iventure to prophesy that if the present Minister borrows at the rate he has been borrowing and at the rate he intends to borrow this year that £95,000,000 will soon be put in the shade.
We will not be paying it back in dollars.
We will be paying it back at 5 per cent. I have expressed my views before about borrowing. I do not disagree with borrowing as long as it is for the benefit of the country. Whether it is for helping the agricultural industry or for the building of houses or other public works which require to be carried out, I am all for it. I am not in favour of the way in which money is being borrowed at present and certainly not for the price which is being paid for the money borrowed.
Some people seem to regard the Local Authorities (Works) Act as a scheme of relief. I place great importance on the provision of employment. Some people are very scornful about that Act. I do not think that anybody can deny that the money expended on the schemes under the Local Authorities (Works) Act was well spent. That scheme was linked up with the land rehabilitation project which was being proceeded with by the Department of Agriculture. It is wrong to say that that money was thrown down the drain, that it was expended on roads. The Minister for Local Government some time ago said that 80 per cent. of it was spent on the reconstruction or repair of roads. Some of it was, but the primary object of the work done under that Act was to put rivers into such a condition that they would take the drainage from the land which was being improved under the land rehabilitation project.
The cut made in the money provided for that Act was too drastic. You may call it what you like, you may call it a spending spree and say that we were throwing money down the drain, but men were being given employment and good work was being done. For the sake of argument, I will not call it excellent work or very good work, but it was good work.
Even if you were to say that fairly good work was being done, men were employed in that work and, as Deputy O'Donnell said, the money paid to them did not find its way into banks or into the post office. These people did not hoard the money; they spent it with the draper and the grocer. They paid their cottage rents, they bought cigarettes and they spent it with the publican. But that money was in circulation and did good for practically every section in each county. As I said, the cut has been too drastic. There are still many schemes which need to be done and which county councillors of all political affiliations agree still need to be done. The money was cut down from £3,000,000 to £1,750,000 by the inter-Party Government in their last year of office. It was cut down to £650,000 last year and this year it has been cut down to £400,000.
It is a principle of Labour Party policy that the Government have a responsibility for the provision of employment. That does not seem to be accepted by a good number of Deputies. It certainly is not accepted by representatives of local authorities that their primary function is to provide employment. But it is a secondary function or responsibility as long as there is work to be done. As I said in this House before, the people who object to increasing the rates for the purpose of repairing or maintaining roads or providing public facilities in one direction or another are the very first to demand that roads should be repaired and different public services provided for them as ratepayers.
I was speaking about the money provided during the last few years to carry out drainage schemes. During the last 12 months appeals have been made to the Government to provide more money so that men may be put in employment and the requirements of farmers with regard to drainage satisfied.
The inevitable reply is that they cannot give any money. I do not want to ride a racehorse around this arena any more. That may be a cause of amusement to certain people here, particularly certain people on the Government Benches, but it is not so veryamusing where others are concerned. It strikes others forcibly that a Government that cannot provide £5,000, or £10,000, or even £50,000 ought not to be able to engage in the luxury of purchasing a racehorse. Such a purchase is particularly disturbing when the unfortunate roadworker or the man engaged on drainage reads in one of the newspapers that it costs ten guineas per week to maintain this animal plus a bottle of stout per day. It is even more galling to those who are unemployed and to the members of local authorities who see work that should be done and who ask for a Grant-in-Aid for the provision of a water supply, the removal of a dangerous bend or the widening of a road and who are refused this money. Then they read the Government is in a position to spend £600,000 on the establishment of an air service between Shannon and New York.
Some people here may consider these things amusing but it strikes the unfortunate men who have not had a day's work since the inter-Party Government went out of office very forcibly that all cannot be well. These unfortunate people will not glean much hope from the speech made by the Minister for Finance yesterday. One would have thought that in summing up the economic position of the country particular attention would be paid to the 84,000 people who are unemployed and the thousands who are in Great Britain and who are only too anxious to return to their own country.
The Minister for Finance and the Taoiseach have both referred to the decrease in private building. Surely that does not come as a surprise to either of them. The reason for the decrease is quite obvious. Surely it does not come as a surprise to Deputies of the Fianna Fáil Party who voted for a certain policy. Surely they realise why people who want to build houses are slow to do so now because the interest charges on loans has increased to such an extent for the ordinary grant type of house that it takes 10/- to 12/- per week more to repay the loan over a period of 30 or 35 years. I know that employment inthe building trade has diminished rapidly over the last few months. The Taoiseach and the Minister for Finance are anxious to know why. They wonder if it is the local authorities that are responsible. I know it is not the local authorities who are responsible for that decrease. I could perhaps blame it on the system of county management, but I will not do so. The officials in the county management system seem to be anxious to build houses but there seems to be some sort of stay on house building. It is not so much that there is a demand or a decree that house building should be stopped or that it should be slowed down. There is a system of delay in sanctioning. There is a system of endless queries. There is a system of changing plans and changing the design of house building. All that has effectively slowed down building operations.
That is a matter of administration.
I do not want to go into the question of housing too deeply, because it can be raised more appropriately on the Vote for the Department of Local Government. I merely want to relate the building of houses by local authorities and by private enterprise to the abnormal figure of unemployment at the present time.
Some few months ago the Taoiseach said that one thing that Fianna Fáil would do while in office would be to balance the Budget. The Minister may have successfully budgeted last year, but I do not think anybody could agree that he balanced the Budget this year judging by the statement he made and the figures he produced. With regard to one particular economy that he mentioned it will be extremely difficult for civil servants in general to appreciate the proposed action. The Minister proposes to give a sum of approximately £2,250,000 to civil servants on foot of the arbitration award. On the other hand he proposes to effect economies in the Civil Service and in public administration to the tune of £3,500,000. It would be simple to understand the position if the Minister said he intended to tax this, that or the other in order to getan extra £3,500,000. I think it is unfair to the House to make a simple statement that he proposes to effect economies to the tune of £3,500,000 when he gives no information as to what the economies are.
Many of us will agree that economies can be effected and should be effected, but it is a shocking reflection on past Governments, on the present Government and on the Minister for Finance that he can say to the taxpayer this year that he proposes to save £3,500,000 on economies in the Civil Service. The taxpayer is entitled to ask himself why he had to pay that £3,500,000 last year and for all the years during which he suffered that burden, discovering now that economies can be effected to wipe out that burden of £3,500,000 or whatever the figure would be in the years gone by.
Will heads fall in the Civil Service? Will temporary staffs be dispensed with? Will some of the permanent officials be dismissed? I think the Minister should give us some indicationas to how he proposes to effect this economy of £3,500,000. If he intends to throw thousands of these temporaries on the dole there will be a further item of expenditure for the Department of Social Welfare and the Minister will find his £3,500,000 somewhat whittled down.
The Minister said that revenue had not come up to expectations and that there was a deficit in the region of £2,000,000. I do not think he anticipated that deficit in relation to certain items and in relation to certain proposals he introduced last year. I think he ought now to admit failure. He failed in connection with the tax he imposed on spirits in so far as he did not receive the amount for which he budgeted. I think it would have been honourable for the Minister to admit his failure in that respect this year.
Progress reported; Committee to sit again.
The Dáil adjourned at 10.30 p.m. until 10 a.m. on Friday, 8th May, 1953.