Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Wednesday, 1 Jul 1953

Vol. 140 No. 2

Vote of Confidence—Motion by Taoiseach (Resumed).

Dr. Browne

When the debate was adjourned, I was asking whether we should look forward to a period of multi-Party government or to a one-Party Government as at present. I am not opposed to novelty or new forms of government because I think it is quite right that we should look to every form of government in order to try and work out for ourselves something which would be particularly well suited for dealing with our own peculiar problems. We have had the advantage of experience of multi-Party government and must be guided in the future by that experience. I could not understand the reasoning of the last speaker in his suggestion that it would be possible for different political Parties to go forward deliberately at a general election and put forward varying views on the different problems that arise in the course of carrying on government: to put themselves forward as a group anxious to take over the running of the State, and to do that with the deliberate intent, at a later date, of coalescing with a completely different political group.

I could understand such a situation arising in certain circumstances inwhich it would be found necessary to accept the union of political Parties in the national interest, a time of emergency of one kind or another. But I do not understand the proposition of a Party going forward with the deliberate intent of at a later date coalescing with one or more other Parties. It seems to me quite obvious that while most of us on both sides of the House would find common ground on a number of the accepted practices of modern government, the necessity for good housing conditions for our people, good social services, good schools, good hospitals and good medical services and things like that—most of us could agree upon the superstructure of a modern society—there must be fundamental differences between us on the problems arising out of, say, agriculture. There could be very important differences between two different Ministers for Agriculture. Take the broad matters affecting our own country—beef and tillage. How could the two sit down around the table and hammer out a policy which would give effect to two completely diverse policies?

In the same way in relation to finance, how can the two economists, the orthodox economist and the progressive economist, come together and accept one another's policy and agree on a common policy which would give a reactionary and a progressive financial policy?

This problem has to be faced: if we are to raise the money to build houses, hospitals, schools and the other social amenities required in the modern State, how is that money to be raised? That problem would have to be faced and also the problem of raising money to finance industry—private enterprise or State investment? How can those completely diverse views—completely conflicting views—on economic policy be reconciled in one Government, in one Minister for Finance?

There are different views on social services. There is the ultra mundane American Republic type, of old age pensions being molly-coddling, that we should save for our old age, and so on, and that the State should not even provide old age pensions. You couldget that extreme and you could get the other extreme. How can persons fight an election on those two completely conflicting views and then sit around the table and come to an agreement on some other policy? There could be no common policy with those two very definite opposing views.

Take the question of health. There could be no via mediabetween, say, my views on health and, say, Deputy Dr. O'Higgins' views.

It is quite obvious that the whole conception of this form of politics is unrealistic. If we have our views, no matter what they may be, right, centre or left, we should believe in them. We believe in those views because we feel that if they are implemented they will affect the lives of the community in a way that will react to its benefit and not merely because we think that because we put forward these views we will be returned as a Government or as a Party.

Again, even in the Deputy's own sphere of activity, the Department of External Affairs, there could be very deeply dividing views on the attitude of, say, this country, as there were in the last war as to whether we should or should not take part in that war. There could be similarly conflicting views in relation to any future war.

I am afraid I am not impressed by the proposition that that would be a desirable form of Government in a real democracy and that it is one that should recommend itself to our people.

Mr. Morrissey

Let our people decide that for themselves.

Captain Cowan

Stop interrupting.

Mr. O'Higgins

Keep quiet.

Dr. Browne

The Deputy used the phrase that each member of the Government must know what he is talking about. I do not see that he could honestly say that that condition does not obtain in any form of government. Each Minister must know and is intended to know.

As to the general conclusion which the Deputy formed, that people like that form of government because it was there for three years, Fianna Fáil could come back, presumably, with the argument: "They liked us for 16years, consequently they like our form of government."

However, the most important consideration which I am concerned with is that in this multi-Party type of government—I know from my own experience—the pressures are used by each individual group to achieve its own end. If it has any loyalty whatsoever to the electorate, it must try to redeem the promises it made during the election and, consequently, the Labour Party, if it represents the working man, must try to press to the best of its ability for that which will redound best to the advantage of the working man. Equally, the Right or the Conservative wing of the multi-Party Government must try to do what it can for the industrialist, the bigger businessman, the wealthy person, the person whom they represent.

There are two hard straight questions which, if they were answered by one of the inter-Party spokesmen, could help many Deputies. In relation in the first place to this question of subsidies, there is no doubt at all in the world that the removal of the subsidies inflicted a considerable hardship on many people. My view on the subsidies at the time was that it was unfortunate that they should be removed. I felt to a certain extent the trade union movement might be able to balance or offset the hardship by an increase in wages in order to meet the increased cost of the essential commodities. It has transpired that the trade unions have not been able quite to meet the very considerable increased costs of these essential commodities and the result is that there are people certainly suffering hardship as a result of the removal of the subsidies.

Recently, Deputy Kyne, I understand, speaking on behalf of the Labour Party, has given us an assurance that he or the Labour Party would insist on the restoration of subsidies if they were to form part of a future Government. I do not know if that is Labour Party policy or whether it is Deputy Kyne's policy but it does not matter very much. I would like to know if theLabour Party are prepared to say whether, in their opinion, they would be effective, were they returned to power in a multi-Party Government, in making Fine Gael reintroduce subsidies. When Deputy Kyne made that statement was he committing Deputy Norton and the other shadow Ministers of the Labour Party? Was he committing the Labour Party. I honestly believe that the Labour Party would like the subsidies to be restored. Much more, was he committing Deputy McGilligan as the shadow Minister for Finance? We must be clear and a simple question can get a simple answer. Is Fine Gael, as Labour apparently is, committed to restore the subsidies in full or in part? It might be fairer to say that they were committed to restoring them in part in so far as wages had gone up. Are Fine Gael committed to restoring the subsidies if they are returned to power in an inter-Party Government?

Mr. O'Higgins

Will it assist the Deputy in voting to have an answer to the question which he poses?

Dr. Browne

It will assist me in voting and in making up my mind.

Captain Cowan

Please stop interrupting.

Dr. Browne

It is quite obvious that if one part of that Government is committed to such a serious fundamental policy and the other is not you cannot have real government. Secondly, there is the question of health legislation. The Health Bill is not yet on the Statute Book The Labour Party have given their blessing largely to the Health Bill at present before the House, with the proviso that the Bill does not go far enough. Fine Gael have been quite unequivocal and unrelenting in their fierce opposition to the passage of that Health Bill. Deputy Costello promised that he would fight every section, every line, every word of it, and he condemned it root and branch. The Labour Party have supported it. What is the position then in the proposed shadow Government in relation to health legislation? The Labour Party have expressed one view; Fine Gael haveexpressed a diametrically opposite view. Fine Gael are anxious, no doubt, to repeat their effort on the last occasion when they had a Fine Gael Health Minister, Deputy Costello, to restore the Irish Medical Association to the Custom House and give us a Bill which would be in accordance with their will. In my view, that is a complete negation of democratic usage, a delegation of powers to a nondemocratic group. That act was carried out by Fine Gael with the connivance of the Labour group in the Government at the time.

Mr. O'Leary

Speak for yourself, never mind the Labour Party.

Dr. Browne

Did the Labour Ministers and Parliamentary Secretary in that Government protest at that time? If they protested and were overborne, what hope have we that a similar position will not arise in the future? Remember that Fine Gael were a comparatively weak group in the inter-Party Government at that time. They had 31 members and they have now something like 45. Surely whatever chance there was of Labour controlling and influencing the inter-Party Government or the Fine Gael part of the inter-Party Government then, there seems to be none in the future. Therefore, as I see it, an inter-Party Government, if they were to come into power, would be one largely dominated by the Fine Gael group in this House, most likely, unfortunately, a greatly strengthened Fine Gael group and, equally unfortunately, with a greatly weakened Labour group. So that what we would be restoring to power would be a Fine Gael and Labour group with some other constituents of the inter-Party Government. Before voting, no matter what it may entail or involve, for the restoration of a strong Fine Gael, conservative Government one must bear in mind that the record of Fine Gael since the formation of their Party has been one which has set its face relentlessly and continuously against any real form of social programme any real concern for the under-privileged.

Mr. O'Higgins

Do you know anything about the formation of the State?

Captain Cowan

Do not interrupt.

Dr. Browne

The Deputy can listen to the facts I put forward and if he is able to refute them he is welcome.

Mr. O'Higgins

The people will refute them.

An Ceann Comhairle

Deputy Dr. Browne must be allowed to speak the same as any other Deputy.

Dr. Browne

What has been the record of the Fine Gael Party since they came into the political life of this country? What were their achievements in social legislation from 1992 to 1932. (Interruptions.) What were the advances in catering for the underprivileged and the weaker sections of our society? After ten years of Government, from 1922 to 1932, the total expenditure on social services was about £3,250,000, slightly less in 1932 than it was in 1922. There were no widows' and orphans' pensions, no unemployment assistance, no children's allowances. They were obviously little concerned with the widows and orphans and the unemployed. That was the record from 1922 to 1932.

What was the record of Fine Gael from 1948 to 1951? What did they achieve in the sphere of education? What were their achievements in defence? What was their achievement in justice? What did Fine Gael do with the Department of Justice—they ran away from the Legal Adoption Bill.

Mr. O'Higgins

Surely we are concerned with the question of the policy of this Government and not with the rubbish this Deputy now talks about the past. Is all this relevant?

Captain Cowan

It is, of course.

Mr. Boland

He is replying to the previous speaker.

Mr. D.J. O'Sullivan

Deputy Dr. Browne described Deputy Boland as "the Irish quisling" in West Cork.

An Ceann Comhairle

I have allowed the Deputy to proceed so far but I think he should try to come closer to the motion before the House.

Dr. Browne

We are discussing whether we will replace this Government by the Opposition——

Mr. O'Higgins

We are discussing whether this Government has the confidence of the House.

Dr. Browne

——and if the Government is removed——

Mr. O'Higgins

The people will decide that.

Dr. Browne

——and if the inter-Party Government were to be returned the most likely pattern they will take and it is this type of Government I would advise Deputies not to assist.

An Ceann Comhairle

Obviously we cannot debate the past 30 years.

Dr. Browne

No, Sir, I am coming to this motion.

Captain Cowan

If we keep to the last five years we will not be doing too badly.

Dr. Browne

I was asking, and I will ask again because the Fine Gael Deputies appear to be taking more interest in the debate than they were taking this morning when only one of them was present——

Mr. D.J. O'Sullivan

That is not true.

Dr. Browne

——what were the achievements of the Fine Gael Government? What did the different Ministers for Education, Defence—I hardly even remember them—and Justice achieve?

Mr. D.J. O'Sullivan

We gave back the bodies of those people you executed.

Dr. Browne

Deputy MacEoin ran away from the Legal Adoption Bill.

Mr. O'Leary

That is not a fair statement to make to say that a man who fought the British ran away from the Legal Adoption Bill. Coming from a young fellow like him, surely that is not fair.

Dr. Browne

Take the Minister for Finance. What did he do to releaseus from the difficulties they say are imposed on us by the Central Bank, the joint stock banks and paper credit? Surely the main achievement of the inter-Party group of that time was in relation to the employment in the building trade largely due to the efforts of the late Deputy Tim Murphy in his housing drive which provided most of the houses which are largely coming to fruition now. The greatest part of the employment was on building during that period. And that achievement of the inter-Party Government had nothing to do with any member of the Fine Gael Party.

Mr. Barry

Was not the Deputy a member of the inter-Party Government at that time?

Mr. Hughes

What about agriculture?

An Ceann Comhairle

I assume Deputies want to take part in the debate and the division, and I suggest they allow Deputy Dr. Browne to proceed the same as other Deputies were allowed to proceed.

Dr. Browne

Perhaps I am doing Fine Gael an injustice. Perhaps they have achieved something and have been particularly shy and not up and coming about it. The next speaker, if he is a Fine Gael speaker, can tell us what Fine Gael did in the period from 1922 to 1932 in relation to social services and then what the individual Ministers achieved in the period of the inter-Party Government which would justify the people in returning a Fine Gael dominated inter-Party Government. They achieved two things which I can tell them. Deputy McGilligan achieved the E.S.B. and the beet factory. Now the total number of people put into industrial employment between 1926 and 1951 was something in the neighbourhood of 159,000 persons. Perhaps the Fine Gael Deputies would tell us how many of those people do they claim credit for, how many industries did they start which would provide employment for how many of those men? The one point made by Fine Gael is the possibility of a capital investment board. Do they intend to set up a board which would direct capital investment both privateand State? If they intend to set up such a board they must know it involves interference with the private interests and investments, they must know that it must mean an incursion to a very much greater extent by the State in relation to private business. Do they intend to interfere with the ordinary methods of private investment that we have here in Ireland? That was not so under Marshall Aid. The money was spent as it was taken out by private investors.

Would Fine Gael insist on the direction of capital investment, the limitation of private investment in a particular way and insist on investment by private investors in order to help the common good rather than in the ordinary way of a private person who is merely interested in using money to make more money. That is the only proposition I can honestly extract from Fine Gael. Does Fine Gael intend to control the direction of private investment and increase the scope of Government investment, in that way increasing capital investment generally? Fine Gael cannot have it both ways, either you will leave private investment as it is, which is investment at a very low rate, or try to make it sufficient to absorb the 60,000 to 70,000 which are chronically unemployed in Ireland. That is one suggestion thrown up by Fine Gael. Perhaps one of the Deputies will elaborate on it when they deal with the policy of the Party in regard to health legislation and in relation to subsidies. As I said, I may have wronged them but I am merely going on their past record and their past achievements. It seems to me that it would be very unwise for any Deputy, anxious to see social and industrial progress in future years, to bank on Fine Gael changing its spots suddenly and taking on a form which it has not shown in the last 30 years.

On the other hand, we must consider the position and the record of the other side, their record between 1932 and 1948, when Exchequer expenditure on social services went up from £3,250,000 to about £11,500,000, when we saw the introduction of widows' and orphans' pensions, unemployment assistance, children's allowances, wettime insurance, etc.—all definite advances in the social legislation of the country. For some of these advances I think we were probably indebted to the influence of the Labour Party but at the same time that does not take away from the fact that always, during its long run as a Government Party, Fianna Fáil has tended to set its face towards helping the less well-off, the more deserving and the under-privileged.

Even if you come up to very recent times, we have seen under the present Government the introduction of the Legal Adoption Bill from which the former Government ran away. We saw the introduction of the Social Welfare Bill. We have seen the introduction of a definite policy. We have seen capital development in relation to housing, the provision of schools and so on extended and maintained. We have seen—and this is a matter in which I take a personal interest—the introduction of the Health Bill which is, at any rate, an advance on social legislation in relation to health matters. Again, these are definite achievements on the part of the Government —not promises but real hard facts as to what was achieved by the present Government even since 1951.

On the other side of the account, Fianna Fáil must admit that in the last three years there has been a restriction of credit. Whether that restriction of credit has led to the present high rate of unemployment of between 60,000 and 70,000, with its consequent lamentable emigration, broken homes and families, I do not know. The cost of living has gone up. Wages have not kept pace with the rise in the cost of living and there is a definite hardship amongst many poor people in the country at the moment. There has been a tendency by the Government to indulge in a kind of balance-sheet mentality. I know well it is easy for anyone not in the Government to criticise and to make fun of the problems of the Government. That is part of the Opposition's job, their duty. At the same time the balance of trade figures, statistics, balance sheets, debit and credit statements and so on are not read by the mother of a family. Theemigrant or the unemployed man has no interest in them. It is no consolation to any citizen on whom the cost of living bears oppressively to know that the balance of trade figures are satisfactory. Again these are more of the hard facts, the truth.

For the mother who has 5/- to spend, who has to pay 4/2 for a lb. of butter, and then has to buy a loaf of bread and gets a few pence back, I am afraid the balance of trade figures have no interest. Her husband, who is unemployed, or the members of her family who have to emigrate are not interested in statistics. They are not interested in whether the balance of our external trade is satisfactory or what the level of our external assets is. Life for them is too hard, circumstances difficult and even cruel. The Government will have to come back to a realisation of these facts but I do not think that any other Party has ever been closer, constantly and more consistently closer, to the ordinary man and woman than Fianna Fáil has been. Certainly they are a Party who have had the interests of the people more at heart over the last 30 years than Fine Gael.

Mr. O'Leary

They have forgotten them for the last two years.

Dr. Browne

I think it is important that they should come back again to that position. It is quite obvious that the results of the two by-elections are very important and furnish a very significant pointer. Members of the Government are not unintelligent mer and I am quite certain that they will appreciate the significance of these elections. I do not think there is any doubt but that the people are dissatisfied with the Government's economic policy. In a demorcracy one must have the support of the people.

Mr. O'Higgins

Hear, hear!

Dr. Browne

A Government cannot get on without it. It would be quite wrong however to suggest, I believe, that the people were dissatisfied with the national or industrial policy or the health policy of the present Government.It seems to me that pursuit of a policy on the Fine Gael Benches is a barren pastime and is likely to be a barren pastime. I wonder if it would be possible for us to get from the Labour leaders what are their intentions should the Government be defeated and if, following a general election, a multi-Party Government should be formed? Labour has laid it down, at a conference somewhere, that they will not join a multi-Party Government unless they get certain set points accepted as a policy. Is it possible for Deputy Norton, the Leader of the Labour Party or one of his Deputies, to tell us what are these points? Have they been agreed upon between himself and the Fine Gael Party? Is Fine Gael agreeable to these points? How many points are there? Would they cover social services, health services, an industrial policy, a policy related to agriculture, a policy to end unemployment and stop emigration? If Fine Gael knows, could Deputy Norton let other Deputies in this House know? This is very vital and important information. The decision which the House is asked to take to-morrow may affect the life of our country for many years to come. Certainly it will affect the lives of our people in the years to come. Surely Deputy Norton could give us some idea of the group of circumstances in which he would be prepared to join in an inter-Party Government. If he will not let the Government, the Opposition or the Independent Deputies know, certainly, as a democrat, it is his duty to let the people of the country know the terms upon which he is prepared to bring his Party into an inter-Party Government.

It seems to me to be quite obvious that the policy of the Fine Gael Party has been, quietly and consistently, to absorb the smaller political groups by a series of these forms of inter-Party government—to absorb one group after the other and gradually to build itself up into a Party large enough to take over complete control. Without a shadow of doubt, it does not believe in Deputy MacBride's Swiss form of government. It believes in government by Fine Gael and by nobody else. Thesmaller groups, quite obviously, are to be absorbed, one after the other, in so far as they represent any opposition to the Fine Gael policy of complete reaction and stagnation. Already one small Party has been immolated in order to satisfy the wishes of the conservative Fine Gael Party. Will Labour also find, in time, that a similar fate faces them? Remember, it will be too late to cry "Help!" from inside the belly of the whale when there is no longer a Labour Party.

Mr. O'Leary

We will look for the doctor, then.

Dr. Browne

Do not call on me, Deputy.

Mr. O'Higgins

He has better plans.

Captain Cowan

The Labour Party are going into the belly, anyway.

Dr. Browne

Deputy Norton told us that, at the end of the inter-Party régime, there was peace, quiet, no political prisoners, and so forth. Intelligent minds and intelligent Deputies will ask if, however, there was not a certain increase in intolerance, a certain increase in narrowminded bigotry and a certain increase in narrow-mindedness generally in our affairs. Recently we have had one of our ex-Ministers tell us that he is proud to be a Knight of Columbanus, an organisation which——

An Ceann Comhairle

Surely that is travelling away from the motion.

Mr. McMenamin

This is scandalous.

Dr. Browne

I will relate it in this way. If another inter-Party Government is formed——

Mr. O'Higgins

That is not the question. The question before the House is whether or not this Government has the confidence of the House.

General MacEoin

I think it would be very wise to let Deputy Dr. Browne proceed.

An Ceann Comhairle

I cannot see what the membership of an organisation, which is not a political organisation,has to do with the motion before the House.

Mr. O'Higgins

Deputy Dr. Browne will get a pat on the back from the Irish Timesfor that.

Dr. Browne

One of the unfortunate developments in the growth of strength of such an organisation would be that we would ultimately see the end of the true democratic forms of government in Ireland.

Deputies

Oh!

An Ceann Comhairle

We could discuss social organisations, trade union organisations, and so forth, if we travelled that road.

Dr. Browne

They are not secret organisations. However, what we should like to know is, in the event of a multi-Party Government being formed, which Party would be the real Government? Would it be a Fine Gael Government? Would it be a Labour Government? Would it be a Labour Party policy, would it be a Fine Gael Party policy—or would it be Knights of Columbanus policy? These are the questions we have to consider——

Mr. O'Leary

Or Independents' policy?

Dr. Browne

——in deciding whether we should remove one Government and replace it by another.

Mr. O'Higgins

You are all together now.

Mr. O'Leary

Deputy Dr. Browne let down the Clann na Poblachta Party although that Party brought him into this House.

Dr. Browne

There is no doubt that the problems facing the Government are very serious and very vast indeed. Unemployment, as has been pointed out by previous speakers, stands now between 60,000 and 70,000. The unfortunate thing about that unemployment figure is that, no matter what Government is in power, it seems to persist between 40,000 and 90,000 as the lowest and the highest figures. A chronic figure of unemployment is consistently there no matter what Governmentis in power. It is not the ordinary seasonal form of unemployment to which Deputy MacBride referred, improving in the summer and then getting worse in the winter. As the Taoiseach said, there is a hard core of 50,000 to 60,000 unemployed all the time.

Half a million people emigrated from this country between the years 1926 and 1951. In spite of that, a consistent figure of 50,000 to 60,000 unemployed has persisted. Although industrial employment, largely due to the efforts of the present Minister for Industry and Commerce and his Government, has increased by 159,000 since 1926, there has been a reduction of 147,000 in agricultural employment. Therefore, the net increase in employment since 1926 has been only 1 per cent—12,000 persons. Whichever Government wishes to take credit for that position is welcome to do so. That, largely, is the problem.

Half a million people emigrated between the years 1926 to 1951. Industrial employment has been offset by the flight from the land. Under the existing forms of government, jobs turn up at the rate of about 800 a year. At the moment, in the belief of the T.U.C., we require immediately at least 50,000 jobs. At present, we are producing jobs at the rate of 800 a year—that is, one man in every 30 requiring a job can get one under our present system. It is quite obvious that it is a fabulous problem facing this or any other Government. It seems to me that the problem is one in which there must be a conflict between the views of whether you exist on full employment or whether you accept the continuance of this hard core of unemployed for evermore. Of the total insured population, 12½ per cent. are unemployed at present. In Great Britain, the figure is 2½ per cent. We should like to hear from the Government whether it considers that that is a fair assessment of the problem—not that they should be satisfied with the taking up of employment which will occur in the next few months, the cyclical unemployed to whom Deputy MacBride referred who will be absorbed in the summer monthsand then facing again high unemployment rates next winter. Is the Government going to accept this as a continuing feature of our life? Is the Government going to continue to accept the consequent high emigration of our people, the best of our young people, as a continuing feature in the life of our society?

It is quite obvious that, under the present forms of government, private investment is not providing sufficient employment. No matter how magnificent have been its achievements, it is not, and, in my view, cannot be expected to make available sufficient capital to provide enough work for the immediate 50,000 jobs required, as put forward by the T.U.C., or the annual 25,000 in the years to come. Is the Government going to take steps to provide sufficient capital of its own accord to make employment available on the very vast scale required? It is quite obvious that private investors simply have not got the money, or will not invest the money, or do not wish to risk their money. Whatever the reasons, they are unimportant but they are not making available the capital to provide the work required for all these men and women.

We can ignore the problem. We can put up Government figures to show that unemployment is falling, on the basis of completely fallacious figures, due to the fact that unemployment always falls, or we can face the real problem of a chronic unemployed figure of from 40,000 to 70,000. The position needs very vigorous handling and obviously needs new methods and a new approach. No matter how much we may like the existing system or may wish to cling to it, we must be clear on the issue involved. We must be clear that if we cling to the existing forms of government, if we cling to the existing economic system accepted by us now, the existing economy and the existing financial policies, it is quite obvious that we are also accepting the continued existence as part of our life of high unemployment, varying between 40,000 and 78,000 together with high emigration. We have tested out the old systems long enough now to know that we can set down as a flatdogmatic assertion that chronic unemployment and chronic emigration will continue, so long as we continue to accept the existing economic system.

It is, therefore, obvious that the Government, if they are not going to accept that—and I hope they will not accept it—as necessary or essential in the life of our country, must more and more move into the sphere of capital investment and extend the already magnificent work done by many of the Government companies up to the present in relation to production, transport, air services, shipping, insurance and the many other Government-sponsored enterprises which have done such great work in years past. There is no reason in the world why private capital should not get every facility, every encouragement and every protection, where protection is desirable and necessary, but, far from private and public expenditure causing congestion, private expenditure and public expenditure are an absolute essential, if sufficient work is to be created to meet the tremendous demands bring made by the people for employment and improvement in the standard of living.

The Minister for Industry and Commerce recently told us that the Government is prepared to accept as the criterion of its success the number of people put into employment. Broadly, I must say that I would accept that as an excellent promise for the future. Probably nobody in any way has contributed more than the Minister to bring about that reality in the past. It would help many Deputies, however, if we could now be informed as to the Government's decisions in relation to the real problems which are here. The Opposition have not grossly exaggerated the picture in relation to the cost of living, unemployment or emigration. Their charges are substantially true. Their charges, which need not necessarily be answered, are charges, however, which must be met by the production of a scheme by the Government.

Does the Government intend to provide resources for the considerably increased public capital investment which will be required to provide jobs for the 50,000 unemployed which the T.U.C. say are wanted at once and forthe 25,000 unemployed which will be required annually, due to normal population increases in the years ahead?

It seems to me that is the problem: acceptance of unemployment and emigration, as a continuing feature of our society and our life—the most regrettable decision that could be taken by anyone—or, on the other hand, a determination by the Government to face the problem, to get the best brains of the country to bear on the problem and provide a solution for it. It does not matter really how long the solution takes.

In my view, the people are well able to stand the hair shirt policy. Our people are no softer, no weaker and no more lily-livered than any other people in any other nation. What upsets them is the thought that the hair shirt is put on merely for lack of thought or lack of consideration. They are prepared to take hardship and hard living if they know that there will be an end to it, if they know that what they are working for to-day is to provide good comfortable living for their children— for themselves preferably but eventually for their children. Unfortunately, the Government has created the impression that the hair shirt is here to stay and that is something the people will not tolerate. I think that the Fianna Fáil Government's record in the past would belie the suggestion that they are disinterested in hardship or in imposing unnecessary hardship on our people. That is simply not in accordance with their past record but they have got into the position of feeling that the ordinary man-in-the-street or the ordinary woman understands their reading of the situation, their reading of balance sheets, Exchequer returns and statistics as well as they do themselves.

The fact is that the people do not; the people are not clear as to where the Government is going, in what direction it is going or what it intends to do. The country owes a tremendous amount, as I have shown, to the present Government in its immediate past and in its more remote past and I am quite certain that, if the people were to understand more clearly what the Government has in mind in itsimmediate policy and in its long term policy, they would be prepared to give it their full confidence. There is no reason on any other score, except on economic policy, to reject the present Government because I am hopeful of the undertaking given by the Government, by Deputy Lemass——

An Ceann Comhairle

By the Minister for Industry and Commerce.

Dr. Browne

——and by the Taoiseach that the foundations have now been laid and that they will build a prosperous society on these foundations. I do not think any other Government or any proposed Government will do as much in the immediate future and it is for that reason that I am prepared to continue to support the Taoiseach and his Government.

Deputies Desmond, D.J. O'Sullivan, T.F. O'Higgins rose.

An Ceann Comhairle

Deputy O'Higgins.

Brendán Mac Fheórais

The Labour Party has had one speaker and this is the third Fine Gael speaker.

An Ceann Comhairle

I will endeavour to alternate the speakers as far as possible. So far the Government has had four speakers, Fine Gael two, Labour one, Independents one and Clann na Poblachta one. I will endeavour to give an opportunity to every Party so far as I can and to every Deputy in the House.

Mr. Desmond

On a point of information. Is a check made of the time taken by each speaker?

An Ceann Comhairle

That is a matter for the Chair, and as a matter of fact, the Chair is doing that. The Chair, however, has no control over the length of time a Deputy may takes. In other words, a Deputy may take as long as he thinks necessary to explain his point of view.

Captain Cowan

I take it, and I see no reason in the world to disagree, that you are calling Deputies from each side of the House as you believe they are supporting or opposing this motion.

An Ceann Comhairle

I am endeavouring to give the Government a number of speakers and the Opposition a number of speakers, as far as I can.

Mr. O'Higgins

Anyone who listened to the last speaker, Deputy Dr. Browne, and who knows anything about the people who sent that Deputy into this House and who recollects the position the Deputy occupied in the last House must come to the conclusion that politics in this 14th Dáil is now a very, very dirty business.

Mr. S. Flanagan

I will not sit here and listen to that, anyway.

Mr. D.J. O'Sullivan

You got only 1,900 votes at the last election.

Mr. O'Higgins

A situation has now been reached wherein a man who for three years occupied the position of Minister in the inter-Party Government comes in here stabbing in the back those with whom he worked as colleagues and he does that for the worst possible motive: he does it because he is fearful that if this vote goes against him and his new pets he will have to face the people. Political expediency has destroyed principle, and on the heels of Deputy Dr. Browne is the yapping lapdog of Fianna Fáil, Deputy Cowan.

An Ceann Comhairle

That remark must be withdrawn.

Mr. O'Higgins

I certainly withdraw if it is unparliamentary. Deputy Dr. Browne is, I suppose, older than I am but he is still a comparatively young man in Irish politics. He asked to-day what has Fine Gael done for this country?

Dr. Browne

For social services.

Mr. D.J. O'Sullivan

The Deputy did not say that.

Mr. O'Higgins

I would like to remind Deputy Dr. Browne that this Party, with the Irish Labour Party, contributed to the formation of this House and thereby established the right of Irish democracy to have a representative Government here. The leaders of the Irish Labour Party andof this Party gave more than merely talk to the service of the Irish nation. We established here principles that will remain despite the political charlatans and poseurs who try to abuse them.

Dr. Browne

Chiefly behind closed doors.

Mr. O'Higgins

The Deputy should not provoke me further or I may have to say what has been said here already: listening to speeches such as we heard to-day from Deputy Dr. Browne is an occasion of sin for all good Christians. We can forget the performance of Deputy Dr. Browne and others of that lily-livered ilk because their record on this vote will be decided not in accordance with the interests of the nation but in accordance with self-interest. Their concern is to prevent at all costs an angry people destroying this Government and every one of its fellow travellers. That can only be achieved by propping up the unstable foundation of the Taoiseach's present Government and keeping it there despite the will of the people in order that they and their colleagues may retain office and place. That attitude is contemptible and is so regarded by the people themselves. I should like to get back to a consideration of the motion before the House. References were made by different Deputies and even by Deputy Dr. Browne to the principles of democracy. I wonder do those who advocate this motion understand what democracy means? Does it mean that the people must be consulted provided it is in their interests to consult them or does it mean that at all times, no matter what the occasion may be, the right of our people to decide policy and elect a Government must be of paramount consideration?

It may be of interest to Deputies to remind them that we have a Constitution expressing many provisions that were established on the formation of this State in the blood, sweat and tears that the establishment of that foundation entailed. Article 6 of our Constitution, which was drafted by the Deputy who moved this motion here yesterday, lays down this solemn principle:—

"All powers of government, legislative, executive and judicial, derive, under God, from the people, whose right it is to designate the rulers of the State and, in final appeal, to decide all questions of national policy, according to the requirements of the common good."

That is Article 6 of the Constitution proposed for acceptance by the present Taoiseach as Leader of the country in 1936. Was that an aphorism? Was that a vague generality entitled to apply in 1936 but not be valid in 1953? I want to suggest that that particular principle incorporated in our Constitution and in the Constitution of 1922 was present in our people when they first formed a nation and will always remain as one of the paramount principles of our State that we the people of this country designate and nominate our rulers and that we decide all questions of national policy.

It is against the background of that Article and of that principle that we now discuss this motion. This Dáil, elected two years ago, has had a shameful existence. The rulers nominated by this Dáil were so nominated in the teeth of the people of this country. On the 30th May, 1951, by more than 100,000 votes, the Irish people decided that they did not want a Fianna Fáil Government in this country and those sent here to translate that will into action met in lobbies and in rooms around this building to nominate a Government in the teeth of the will of the people of this country. The present rulers of this State are designated by Deputy Dr. Browne, Deputy Cowan and Deputy Cogan—a handful of Deputies who do not reflect, and have never reflected in the last two years, the desires and the will of the ordinary people of this country. That is bad enough. That is shameful enough, but that is a particular situation that can be set right in God's good time but what about policy?

Can Deputies remember two short years ago before the present multifeathered Coalition scrambled into office, the statement of policy issued over the signature of the presentTaoiseach, Fianna Fáil's 17 points of policy for a new Government? Do Deputies remember that that programme and that plan contained many provisions but was designed to appeal not to the people—they did not matter; they had given their decision—but to the four or five Deputies who would decide who would sit on the right and who would sit on the left of the Ceann Comhairle in this House. That statement of policy contained in unqualified terms an assurance by the present Taoiseach that a rigid systems of price control would be maintained and that existing food subsidies would be maintained by the new Government.

Because of that particular promise I have no doubt and I give him honour if honour is due, the Independent Deputy promised his constituents that if elected by them he would focus attention constantly on the cost of living and press for increased subsidies on food and essential commodities. Because of that point and Fianna Fáil's statement of policy of June, 1951, I have no doubt that that Independent Deputy decided that he would vote for Deputy de Valera as Taoiseach and as Leader of the Government in this House.

Captain Cowan

Who is the Deputy?

Mr. O'Higgins

The Deputy is Deputy ffrench-O'Carroll.

Mr. D.J. O'Sullivan

In his election address.

Mr. O'Higgins

——which was published to the electorate of South-West Dublin. That Deputy in his democratic contact with his constituents promised not merely to maintain existing food subsidies but to press that they be substantially increased. Is it unreasonable to assume that when Deputy Dr. ffrench-O'Carroll and other Deputies, Deputy Cowan and Deputy Dr. Browne read point 15 of the promise of Deputy de Valera, as he then was, that the Fianna Fáil Government if formed would maintain existing food subsidies and would introduce an efficient system of price control they said: "that was in accordance with what we were sent here to do and wewill vote for this Government". I mention that as we are discussing the situation which developed two years later. The formation of the present Fianna Fáil Government was not in accordance with the will of the people, but let that pass.

It was formed by a Dáil muster to do a particular job of work, to carry out the 17 points that have been referred to. Point number one and the main one in the light of present circumstances was to maintain existing food subsidies. Now two years later that Government puts down a motion, which Deputy Norton very properly described as being like a telegram, that this House reaffirms its confidence in the Government.

Those who never affirmed cannot reaffirm, and the motion is directed to the 74 Deputies who voted for the formation of the present Government. They include the Deputy who has just concluded and who may have given his valedictory message to this House. They include Deputy Cowan who will make his own case. They also include Deputy Dr. ffrench-O'Carroll. I do not know what way Deputy Dr. ffrench-O'Carroll will vote, or rather I should say that, judging by the facts, there is only one way in which he could vote because, having formed the present Government, its Leader and its Ministers proceeded to depart from the policy they announced to the Deputies of this House two years ago. They did not maintain the existing food subsidies. On the contrary, they abolished them. They did not introduce an efficient system of price control. On the contrary, they decontrolled practically every article of common purchase by our people. They ignored completely the solemn promises which they had made for the purpose of obtaining the necessary support to form a Government.

In those circumstances, how could those who affirmed confidence two years ago reaffirm it and still remain men? I have sufficient confidence in the Deputies sent here by the people of this country to believe that, according to their lights, retaining their principles, they will still behave as men. For that reason, I do not believethat the reaffirmance will be so gladly signed by those who, perhaps in ignorance, did it two years ago.

I mention these matters because of the question posed by the Taoiseach in tabling this motion to the House. I want to make this point of view clear that here, from these benches on the Chair's right-hand side, we have no doubt that yesterday, to-day and for portion of to-morrow we are wasting the people's time and not doing the country's business. As regards the arguments advanced by the Taoiseach, and what was urged by the Minister for Lands and the Minister for External Affairs, I suggest that they have no business in saying them here. Outside the G.P.O., and other parts of the city and country, is the place to make your case for confidence at the present moment. This House is functus officio.This House has finished its business, and the people outside have declared that they have no confidence whatever in the 14th Dáil, and whether Deputy Brady, or any other Deputy, likes it or not, that is the situation which has developed.

In a series of by-elections, in a vehement and determined manner, the people of this country decided that they have no confidence in this Dáil. What is the Dáil asked to do in face of that situation? To say that it is very pleased with itself and to vote confidence in itself, and that in a democracy and in a country whose Constitution declares that the court of final appeal to designate rulers and decide policy shall be the people of Ireland. There never before in any country has been a more despicable and shame-making performance.

The Taoiseach, in proposing this motion, what is he doing? Grovelling here on hands and knees for support that he knows he cannot get outside Leinster House. I think that if we, or any Deputy professing democratic principles, spoke in a manner that was without considerable vehemence on this performance, we would be doing very serious harm to our institutions. We all know, it cannot be concealed and the people have not failed to note it, that this entire stunt—and it is nothing but a stunt—this entire gospelof convenience bethought of ten days ago when the election results came in from Cork and Wicklow, has deceived no one. With the tide flowing strongly and determinedly against Fianna Fáil, with the boat beginning to sink the planks have to be thrown from it. One plank will be grasped, I have no doubt, by Deputy Cowan and others will grasp their planks.

Captain Cowan

Throw a few to the Labour Party as well.

Mr. O'Higgins

The Deputy need not worry about the Labour Party. The Labour Party will come back, if I am a prophet, at least twice as strong in three weeks' time, and they will take one seat in North-East Dublin. We know that this stunt was decided upon for a particular petty political purpose. I am sure that the most unwilling actor in this performance has been, and is, the Taoiseach. The Taoiseach has played for over 30 years an important and commanding part in our political life. At one time he was the acknowledged and respected leader of our organised efforts prior to the formation of the State, and, in the years that followed, throughout them and despite them, he remained the leader of a large and important political organisation. When, 26 years ago, he and his Party entered this House they came in as gospellers of the will of the people of this country. In speech after speech, in year after year and in election after election, the Taoiseach has preached the importance at all times of consulting the people of this country. In the period from 1933 to 1948, a period of 15 years, the Taoiseach six times, by way of general election, went to the people of Ireland. A sparrow merely had to twitt to suggest that the Taoiseach had not a mandate and, hell for leather, he went to the country.

That is the member of this House, and that is the political leader who is compelled now—I have no doubt against his wishes by those who would suffer in a general election—to put down this motion and to deny the people the opportunity they are entitled to under Article 6 of the Constitution to designate their ownrulers and decide their own policy. Many statements made by the present Taoiseach have already been quoted. I do not propose to repeat them but I would like to remind Deputies who were members of the last Dáil when the present Taoiseach was Leader of the Opposition, that the inter-Party Government was only 15 or 16 months in office when by means—to use Deputy Cowan's expression—of a snap division a motion to refer back an Estimate not of major importance— the Estimate for the Department of Posts and Telegraphs—was carried by the then Opposition. There were Deputies at that time, such as Deputy Cowan and others, indeed myself, who did not anticipate that a division would be held on that particular Estimate. However, it was held and the Opposition carried it.

Captain Cowan

I took part in the division. I want that to be clear. I am very seldom absent from a division.

Mr. O'Higgins

I am talking about the last Dáil.

Captain Cowan

Yes, in the last Dáil.

Mr. O'Higgins

I know the Deputy has not been absent from this Dáil.

Captain Cowan

Or the last one. It is my duty to be here.

Mr. O'Higgins

The following morning that Estimate was again proposed and Deputies were asked to decide as a matter approaching confidence as to whether or not that Estimate should be passed. There was then criticism from the present Taoiseach, as Deputy de Valera, as to whether that was or was not the correct way of setting about the business. He referred to previous occasions, what the previous leaders of Government had done. He said that Mr. Cosgrave, as President of the Executive Council, had put down on one previous occasion a major vote of confidence as a result of being beaten in the House. That was one way of doing it. At column 461, Volume117, of the Official Debates of 8th July, 1949, the Taoiseach, then Deputy de Valera, said:—

"Another course was open to the Taoiseach and the Government, if they desired to take it, which in my opinion would have been the proper way of dealing with it, and that was to go to the President and ask for a dissolution. . . . I did it on every occasion on which we were defeated. We went and sought a dissolution. . . . We were proved to have been right. We did not want to be in office on sufferance. We wanted to be in a position in which we would be able to do the work of the country properly and be able to say that we were the Government by the declared will of the people, tested in the most democratic way; that when we spoke we spoke for the country as a whole."

The next sentence that the Taoiseach used was: "That is not the position to-day". I think that is a fair description of the present situation. That is not the position to-day. How can the Taoiseach who, as Leader of the Opposition in the last Dáil, expressed those courageous sentiments, that he would not be the leader of a Government maintained on sufferance, that even in a snap division in the Dáil, he would go to consult the people of Ireland, propose a motion to cheat the Irish people of a right to say whether or not they want his Government or desire his policy?

In the same debate and on the same occasion the Minister for Finance, then Deputy MacEntee, who is strangely absent from this debate, also had some important observations to make. It is interesting to recall that when this motion was discussed on the 8th April, 1949, the House had just completed two by-elections. One by-election was in Donegal; the other was in West Cork. Deputy Cowan will remember that, as he spoke against Fianna Fáil in those days. Those two by-elections had just been decided by the people. Donegal failed to elect the inter-Party candidate and Fianna Fáil won that seat. West Cork, due to the assistance of Deputy Cowan, I have no doubt, showed rather decisively that theywanted the Labour candidate, then Deputy Murphy.

Captain Cowan

I can claim for the Labour candidate. You did not find me in Donegal. There is no Labour candidate there.

Mr. O'Higgins

We know you. In those two by-elections the then Government won one and lost one, but there was a slight increase in the Fianna Fáil vote in West Cork and it gave tremendous confidence to certain Fianna Fáil Deputies, particularly to Deputy MacEntee, as he then was. When the Taoiseach had concluded his observations on that debate in came the knight in shining armour, Deputy MacEntee, to have another tilt at the Government. Here is what Deputy MacEntee had to say, and I hope Deputy Cowan will remember it because Deputy MacEntee at that time used to say a lot of things to Deputy Cowan.

Captain Cowan

I was listening to it just as I am listening to the Deputy.

Mr. O'Higgins

At column 468 of the same volume the Minister for Finance, then Deputy MacEntee, said:—

"We have heard a great deal about West Cork and we have heard, I should say, a little about West Cork, but we have heard nothing about East Donegal. However, West Cork gave as little consolation to this Government as East Donegal did. These gentlemen have learned the lesson of West Cork and they are afraid that what East Donegal and West Cork did in the two by-elections which have taken place in the short time they have been in office, the people of Ireland would do in an even more emphatic way to-morrow, repudiate this Taoiseach and every element in that Coalition. That is why he is able to rally behind him to-day in the Dáil the Deputies who do not care about democracy and who are prepared to put their places above their principles."

Could any description be more apt to emphasise the situation now confrontingthis House? Who now rallies behind him the Deputies who are prepared to put their places before their principles? Who now is fearful of the Irish people? Who now throws democratic principles to the winds, fearful of what would be decided by the people to-morrow? The very Party on whose behalf those boastful sentiments were expressed on the 8th July, 1949, comes in here as a political beggarman looking for votes for a motion of confidence. Circumstances such as these undoubtedly call for a strong and vehement protest. I do not think it is possible for anyone who opposes this motion to do so in a restrained manner and certainly if I had spoken 20 minutes earlier, having listened to the nonsense uttered by Deputy Dr. Browne, you, Sir, would have had occasion to restrain me very violently. The position that now obtains is that we on this side of the House speak for the people of Ireland. We represent the Irish people. The Taoiseach laughs. Bring his laugh down to Clare.

Mr. Brady

I am laughing too.

Mr. O'Higgins

Bring it to County Dublin.

Mr. D.J. O'Sullivan

Which side of the mouth?

Mr. O'Higgins

You may laugh up your sleeve if you think you represent the people. The place to laugh, if you can laugh, is throughout the country in a general election.

Mr. D.J. O'Sullivan

Down in Bray.

Mr. O'Higgins

This Government has no mandate to be there. Neither the Taoiseach nor any Minister nor any Deputy behind him has any right to be on that side of the House. They do not represent the people. They were not put there by the people. In four out of six by-elections the people have decided that they want to get rid of them. Were it possible, under our Constitution, to serve a writ of quo warrantoon that Government, it would be done. Their only right or title to be there is the right or title given under the Constitution by the people. It does not exist and the only thing that keepsthem there is the crowding of self-interest that brings into the same Lobby those Deputies preferring place to principle.

Captain Cowan

That is what was said about us when we kept the other Government in.

Mr. O'Higgins

Do not talk arrant nonsense. Deputy Cowan in the last Dáil was a courageous Deputy.

Captain Cowan

Yes.

Mr. O'Higgins

He stood up there not far from where he is sitting now and besought the Taoiseach to dissolve the Dáil and go to the country, assuring him, as I have heard him assure him, that if he did he would sweep Fianna Fáil out of existence. Deputy Cowan must not forget that we on this side of the House remember.

Captain Cowan

He swept himself out of existence before that.

Mr. Brady

Deputy O'Higgins' own brother was swept out too.

Mr. O'Higgins

I am afraid the position that now obtains is that a gang——

Captain Cowan

A gang?

Mr. O'Higgins

A gang of Deputies, consisting of no more than three or four, are now in a position to designate who is to rule this country and the policy to be followed. One of those Deputies up to this—I do not know what his views may be on this motion —is a Deputy without a constituency. That is the situation which now confronts this democratic Parliament, this representative body of the Irish people, operating a Constitution which says that the Irish people through its representatives here shall be consulted as a court of final appeal on all questions of policy.

The Taoiseach

It is a new interpretation. Whenever the Opposition wishes——

Mr. O'Higgins

These are the Taoiseach's own words, the original draft, I have no doubt, in the Taoiseach's own writing:—

"All powers of Government, legislative, executive and judicial, derive, under God, from the people, whose right it is to designate the rulers of that State and, in final appeal, to decide all questions of national policy, according to the requirements of the common good."

The Taoiseach

Excellent.

Captain Cowan

You would not win a law case on that quotation.

Mr. O'Higgins

Who decided the policy of abolishing food subsidies? Who decided the policy of restricting credit? Who decided the policy of lending money to Britain? Who decided all that has been done in the last two years? Was it the people of Ireland? Was it the people who are clamouring and clamant at the gates of Leinster House now looking for jobs? Were those the people who freely decided that the lb. of butter should go to 4/2, that sugar, tea and bread should cost more? Were they the people who decided that it would be an offence to purchase Irish creamery butter in this city or in the town of Bray? Who decided that policy? Do not we all know that in so far as the Deputies on the left of the Chair had any responsibility for that policy two years ago, they were told that that Government would maintain existing food subsidies and control prices? Who brought about the change? Who was consulted? Was Deputy Dr. ffrench-O'Carroll consulted? Was Deputy Cowan consulted? If not, by what right is that policy now in operation and, a fortiori, by what right do those who implement that policy propose to continue when the people of Dublin, Cork, Wicklow, Limerick, the majority of the people of Waterford, the majority of the people of Mayo, decisively decided that they did not want that kind of policy?

Who is the court of final appeal? Is not it Deputy Cowan? Is not it Deputy Cogan? Is not it the two or three Deputies to whom this motion is directed, whom the Taoiseach or those behind the Taoiseach, hope to gather into the net of Deputies who will put their place before principles? Is it notthey, these two or three, who are now deciding the policy that this country and this Government are following?

I think that very serious harm will come to our democratic institutions if this sorry story reaches the end designated by the Taoiseach. I hope that the good sense of democrats in this House will not allow the final chapter to be put to the book as the Taoiseach hopes and that to-morrow the good sense of Deputies here will remind the Taoiseach of what he has urged and what his Ministers have urged are proper to be put before the people of this land and that he has no business coming in here expecting a chorus of "ayes" to his own "aye" because that is asking this House to do something which is no concern of this House.

There is one other matter that I think Deputies should remember. What is the concern for the continuance of this Government in office? Why is it so necessary for them to remain in office? What right have they to say that their policy is best for the people and that the people have no right to think otherwise? Is that our domocracy? It may be correct. Their policy may be the best, the results to flow from it, the jam which is always to-morrow may some day be jam to-day. But let the people so decide. I cannot believe, however, that the concern that is asserted and that compelled the Taoiseach to propose this motion, as I believe, against his own better feeling, is a concern also of material self-interest, a concern to maintain this Government in office for three years to qualify two Ministers and several Parliamentary Secretaries for pensions.

Captain Cowan

That is very low.

Mr. O'Higgins

There is nothing lower than what is proposed in this House to-day.

Mr. Brady

That is a nasty suggestion.

Mr. O'Higgins

It is no lower than some of the gibes made by Fianna Fáil Deputies.

Captain Cowan

If they were bad they should not be repeated.

Mr. O'Higgins

What was sauce for the goose can be sauce for the gander. There are four or five officers of the present Government who have a vital interest in it remaining in office until June, 1954, and I have no doubt, and I suggest it, that that consideration also went into the decision to put down this undemocratic and shame-making resolution.

The Taoiseach

I put down the motion and that thought did not even enter into my mind.

Mr. O'Higgins

It entered into the minds of Parliamentary Secretaries.

The Taoiseach

It did not.

Mr. Brady

It entered into your mind, naturally.

Mr. O'Higgins

If the motion is carried by Deputies who prefer place to principle, as Deputy MacEntee, as he then was, described it three years ago, a violent effort will be made in the summer recess, as the autumn tints colour the leaves and winter begins to come, to maintain desperately this Government in office. But who will gain and who will benefit? By what authority will they be there? If this motion is carried and this Dáil rises on the 31st of this month until next November and some matter of importance to our people arises, has the Taoiseach any right to speak for the Irish people? Has any member of his Government any right to speak for the Irish people without a Parliament in session, without our people's representatives together? Are we to adjourn until next autumn with a discredited Government in office, a Government afraid to meet the people?

Captain Cowan

Why adjourn?

Mr. O'Higgins

Do you not know that if this motion is carried they will try to prevent the Dáil meeting as much as they can and there will be the longest summer adjournment that they will ever see. We will all be sent out and we will not be brought back againfor fear that some Government Deputy would get a cough.

Captain Cowan

Why go?

Mr. O'Higgins

I think, Sir, I have spoken at an undue length on this motion. This week will be a black week in our parliamentary history. Never before was the Leader of any Government in the unenviable position that the present Taoiseach finds himself in. Never before have so many words had to be eaten as he has to eat. Never before have the vaunted phrases of the past been swept away by the cold breeze of a general election, and that is the situation that confronts us now. It is in these circumstances that we on this side of the House say that we speak for the majority of the people of this country, that the Government have no right to be there, that so long as they remain there they do so in defiance of our people and that sooner or later our people will arise in an angry tumult to sweep them and their fellow-travellers from office.

Captain Cowan

One gets a certain amount of amusement listening to a speech such as Deputy O'Higgins has just delivered. In that speech he referred to this motion as a stunt, and I understand that in using that phrase, that term, he had followed other Deputies on his side of the House. Now it is common knowledge, or at least it is the general belief, that if this motion was not before the House there would have been another motion before the House, and that is a motion to the direct opposite—that this House had lost confidence in the Government. The only difference between the Taoiseach's motion and that other motion is this: that the Taoiseach was enabled to put it down by his own decision, while the other motion had to go through the staff work of the four or five leaders that are alleged to be the inter-Party grouping in this House. In politics we have stunts. It is quite a common thing to have them; and the Taoiseach was quicker than they were. He knew that he should get his motion in first because if he did not put it down the others would put onedown. They would be queer politicians, after their shouting about Cork and Wicklow, if they did not put down a motion that this House had lost confidence in the Government. A lot of the bitterness of the debate is due to the fact that in this small little matter of the approach to a motion of this kind they were outwitted.

Now this should have given rise to an important debate. I looked forward to an important debate. Deputy Costello spoke first for the Opposition. His position in the House is somewhat difficult to understand, but I take it that because he spoke first he still claims to be Leader of the Opposition, that he leads for the Clann na Talmhan Party, that he leads for Fine Gael although he is not the Leader of Fine Gael, that he leads for the Labour Party, and that he leads for Alderman Byrne and his son in Dublin NorthWest.

Mr. A. Byrne

He does. Inter-Party is my principle and he does.

Mr. O'Higgins

Principles are something that Deputy Cowan does not understand. Do not puzzle him.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Order!

Captain Cowan

We had a perfect example of Deputy Byrne's position last night, in the City Hall, on his going forward for the honoured position of Lord Mayor of Dublin and being thrown overboard by the Fine Gael Party.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

That seems to have no relation to the motion before the House.

Captain Cowan

It has, Sir, a relation to the motion because it is connected with these inter-Party politics. What was the inter-Party set-up in Dublin last night—that Fine Gael because of what happened in East Cork, having taken that seat from Labour, had to throw Deputy Byrne aside in order to support a Labour man for Lord Mayor of Dublin.

Mr. Cafferky

Just like Fianna Fáil had to send you to Strasbourg to satisfy you.

Captain Cowan

Poor unfortunate Deputy Alderman Byrne had to be thrown over in that summary fashion, notwithstanding his good work in Wicklow during the last by-election, when Deputy Dillon was so agreeably surprised to see him—in the audience in Bray—that he called him on to the platform. Stunting. One would have imagined that on a motion of this kind Deputy Costello, as I presume he claims to be Leader of the Opposition, would have put forward some constructive and considered policy for consideration. What did we have? Deputy Costello treated this House to a farrago of virulent abuse. From the start until the finish, we had nothing but abuse and fatuity. Some observations he made were unworthy even of Deputy Costello.

Mr. Keyes

Semi-barbaric?

Captain Cowan

If the Deputy does not know what I said, I will send him a copy of the speech and I think the Deputy would study it with interest.

Mr. Dillon

He was not talking about the United States at all; he was talking about Russia.

Captain Cowan

He did not mention the United States or Russia.

Mr. Dillon

He could have meant either.

Captain Cowan

He could only mean one.

Mr. Dillon

Which?

Captain Cowan

Deputy Dillon knows.

Mr. Dillon

Which?

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Deputy should be allowed to speak without interruption.

Captain Cowan

Deputy Dillon made sure, with Deputy MacBride, that a certain thing would be said anyway, no matter what I said, and they even published it in the papers here the night before it was said in Strasbourg.

Mr. Dillon

We do not yet know what the Deputy said.

Captain Cowan

I will send the Deputy a copy of the speech. I understood it was requested that a copy be put in the Library. I hope the Library has got a copy. If not, I will send the Deputy a copy.

Mr. Dillon

That will not tell me what he said.

Captain Cowan

Anyway, Deputy Costello started off with his first gibe, about hospital corridors. That reference must have offended and nauseated even the members of his own Front Bench sitting beside him. After all, when he was trying to become the Taoiseach in 1951, he brought the stretcher into this House for the purpose of trying to secure a majority. Now he talks about this House, when the vote is taken, being likened to a hospital corridor. I admire the sense of responsibility and courage that is in a Deputy who leaves a sick bed and comes here to carry out his responsibility to his constituents and to his country—no matter what Party he belongs to. It was unworthy of Deputy Costello to make such a gibe at Deputies who are so interested in their public affairs as to leave their sick beds and come into this House to vote. Certainly, it was an unworthy reference to the Deputy whom he brought here on a stretcher, or who came himself on a stretcher, for the purpose of supporting Deputy Costello in 1951. Illness is no respecter of politicians and illness may hit Deputies on all sides of the House. Illness is just as likely to affect Deputies sitting on Deputy Costello's side as it is to affect Deputies on this side. Those behind Deputy Costello who were smiling and were amused at this particular reference might ponder and consider the implications of the gibe. An irresponsible back bencher might make a comment of that kind, but coming from a person who was honoured by this House by being appointed as Taoiseach and who carried on as Taoiseach for three years it was a very steep fall indeed.

On several occasions during his speech, Deputy Costello referred to myself and to other Independent Deputies who generally support theGovernment as "disreputable" Deputies. That, a Leas-Cheann Comhairle, in my view was not the language of Parliament but the language of the fish market. It is regrettable and to be deplored that language like that should be used by anybody in this House and particularly by a former Taoiseach. Obviously, the phrase was not a parliamentary phrase, a phrase that would be permitted by the Ceann Comhairle or the Leas-Cheann Comhairle; but Deputy Costello availed of the opportunity given him by a temporary and inexperienced Chairman, to make use of that expression on several occasions in regard to five or six Deputies here who do not belong to any of the big or the small political Parties.

What have I done? What has any of the other named Deputies done— Deputy Browne, Deputy ffrench-O'Carroll or Deputy Cogan? What have we done that entitles any other Deputy to refer to us as "disreputable" Deputies? Our crime is simply this, that in 1951, when it came to the election of a Taoiseach, we voted for the present Taoiseach. As far as I am concerned, and I think as far as the other named Deputies are concerned, we have consistently supported the present Taoiseach and the present Government since then. Is that sufficient ground to describe me or them as "disreputable" Deputies? Politics are certainly coming to a very low ebb when intimidation of that kind can be attempted even in the House of Parliament, that if we do not vote at their dictation then we are disreputable characters and disreputable Deputies.

Deputy Costello should not forget that before the election of the Taoiseach in 1951, he did everything in his power to get myself and the other named Deputies to vote for him as Taoiseach. We were not disreputable Deputies then.

A Deputy

A midnight ride.

Mr. D.J. O'Sullivan

There are no Civic Guards around this evening.

Captain Cowan

For the purpose of clinging to office, in the very dark ofthe night and the early hours of the morning, himself and two or three others of the then Government went to one of these disreputable Deputies and spent hours in an endeavour to get that Deputy to support him as Taoiseach.

Mr. Dillon

There is not a syllable of truth in that.

Mr. Cafferky

Was that not denied categorically in this House on more than one occasion?

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

It is a matter on which the Chair has no opinion.

Mr. Dillon

No one will believe him.

Mr. S. Brady

I would believe him before you, for instance.

Mr. Dillon

That will not be much comfort to him.

Captain Cowan

Deputy Costello, when I put this to him on the very day Deputy de Valera was elected Taoiseach, did not deny that he was in conference at that hour of the morning with that particular Deputy.

Mr. Dillon

There is not a scintilla of truth in the statement.

Captain Cowan

There is no doubt about the statement. If Deputy Costello wants to come in and say he did not interview that Deputy in the dark hours of the night or the early hours of the morning, let him do so.

Mr. Dillon

He would be well employed.

Captain Cowan

That Deputy was not a disreputable Deputy then.

Mr. Dillon

It was not we who said you could be bought: it was Fianna Fáil.

Captain Cowan

I am talking about the language used by Deputy Costello who was Taoiseach and carried on as Taoiseach with my vote and the votes of these other Deputies for three years.

Mr. D.J. O'Sullivan

We said nothing about your character like those people.

Captain Cowan

I am only talking about——

Mr. Cafferky

Did he not say they were approached by the then Taoiseach?

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Deputy Cowan is entitled to make his speech without interruption and other Deputies will get an opportunity of making theirs.

Captain Cowan

We have this tyranny again, the tyranny that would describe me as a disreputable Deputy because I voted against Deputy Costello, and the tyranny that would attempt, through Deputy Dillon or Deputy Cafferky, to prevent me from expressing myself in this House.

Mr. Dillon

On a point of order. If a Deputy issues challenges in the course of his speech and has declared that he intends to regard silence as consent, he is seeking interruption. Deputy Cowan said that unless his allegations were denied he assumed that they were admitted to be true. I just told him that he was talking through his hat.

Captain Cowan

That is a "Molly Maguire" point of order.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

That is not a point of order.

Captain Cowan

Deputy Costello is very fond, when Deputy MacBride or somebody else provides him with the reference, of quoting constitutional practice. During the course of the debate, he quoted from a volume some matters of constitutional practice. That came very well from Deputy Costello, who was unable, when he was Taoiseach, to control the Government of which he was in charge in accordance with the terms of the Constitution. Under the Constitution of this country, the Government acts as a united body. Under the Constitution, members of the Government are nominated by the Taoiseach, approved by this House and sanctioned by the President. But it is the Taoiseach who appoints his Ministers. He appoints all his Ministers, the Minister for Health, the Minister for ExternalAffairs, the Minister for Agriculture, etc. That is the constitutional position. But, during Deputy Costello's régime, we had this invasion of our constitutional rights: that one of his Ministers, the Minister for External Affairs, Deputy MacBride, sends a letter to the Minister for Health, Deputy Dr. Browne, instructing him to resign from the Cabinet.

Mr. Cafferky

What has that to do with the motion?

Captain Cowan

It has everything to do with the motion, because the question is, are we to have the satisfactory constitutional state of affairs that we have, or are we to get back to that other state of affairs? That is the matter that is under discussion.

Mr. Dillon

A general election means that you are out, boys, and he knows that.

Captain Cowan

We could carry on our debates very quietly until Deputy Dillon came in; there was no trouble. Deputy Costello was quoting constitutional practice during this debate. As far as I am concerned, under the Constitutional of this country I have the constitutional right to use my vote in this House in the way I think it ought to be used and nobody, whether he is an ex-Taoiseach or anybody else, will be permitted to refer to my action in doing that as disreputable conduct. "Disreputable" is a hard word, and if I were to deal with it in the way I ought to by examples of what I considered to be disreputable behaviour during the period of office of the last Government, disreputable behaviour on the part of the then Taoiseach, certain people would, perhaps, be offended. I do not propose to do that now, but I warn Deputy Costello that if there are any more references by him to disreputable conduct on my part then I will accept the challenge and there are certain matters upon which I will throw the spotlight of publicity in the national interest.

Mr. Dillon

I submit that this is the language of a blackmailer and I advise Deputy Cowan to throw the spotlight any damned place he likes. He hasfull liberty to throw it anywhere he likes, except upon himself.

Captain Cowan

I choose to make my speech in my own way.

Mr. Dillon

You damned well do. Throw your spotlight then anywhere but on yourself because that is more than any of us could stand.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Deputy has no right to interrupt in this House. Deputy Cowan is entitled to make his speech in his own way.

Mr. Dillon

On a point of order. The Deputy is using the language of a blackmailer and says he will cast his spotlight here and there. Am I not entitled to say: "Cast it now, if you dare, anywhere but upon yourself, because we would all get sick with that"?

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Deputy is making political charges and the Chair has no right to interfere.

Mr. Dillon

Let him throw his spotlight where and when he likes.

Captain Cowan

I am warning Deputy Costello, ex-Taoiseach and all as he is, that as far as I am concerned I will not stand for that slander from him or anybody else.

Mr. D.J. O'Sullivan

Or from Fianna Fáil?

Captain Cowan

He has no right to slander any Deputy. Every Deputy is here by the same right as Deputy Costello, the right of election by the people of his constituency, and that right gives no more freedom to Deputy Costello to slander than it gives it to me or anybody else. A lot of nonsense has been spoken in this debate about the by-elections. We have had six by-elections since the Government was elected. Waterford was won by the Government; Limerick was lost by the Government——

Mr. D.J. O'Sullivan

And won by——

Captain Cowan

Please keep yourmouth shut. I am sorry to speak in such an offensive way. Waterford was won by the Government; Limerick was lost by the Government; in Dublin North-West there was no change; in Mayo there was no change; Wicklow was lost by the Government; in East Cork there was no change. In three of these six by-elections there was no change. In two of them the Government lost a seat and in one they won a seat. The net result of the six by-elections is that the Government lost one seat. Anybody can put any other construction on it he likes as far as this House is concerned, but the net result of the six by-elections is that the Government have one seat less than they had when elected to office in 1951. Where is the change that has been talked about? Where is the demand for the Government to declare a general election and get out?

Everybody knows that under our system of proportional representation in three-seat constituencies if a vacancy occurs through death or otherwise, the Party that held two out of the three seats will win. The Party which can elect two to one in a general election must win the seat, and it is, therefore, a fortuitous circumstance as to where a by-election takes place. If it takes place in an area in which the Government have two seats out of three, they will win.

Mr. Dillon

What about Wicklow?

Captain Cowan

And if they lose, it can be said there is a change of opinion in regard to them.

Mr. Dillon

Apply that test to Wicklow.

Captain Cowan

I have given you the results of the elections and have said that so far as Wicklow is concerned, the Government lost it.

Mr. D.J. O'Sullivan

And what about East Limerick?

Captain Cowan

Please, Deputy O'Sullivan—must I read it out three times: Waterford, won; Limerick, lost; Dublin North-West, no change; Mayo, no change; Wicklow, lost; East Cork, no change. That is the position,but the strange thing is this, that if we operated here on the system of election they have in Britain the Government would have won, I think, in nearly all those seats.

Dr. Ryan

Five of them.

Captain Cowan

Five out of six, because their Party-man headed the poll, in each instance.

I know it is all right for Deputy Dillon and those other Deputies with him who hanker so much after office to try and read into election results that the country is swinging in their favour. Deputy Dillon knows that is not so, but the idea is: "If we can have a general election perhaps we might win. Perhaps we may remain as we are but there is no harm in trying." His is not the responsibility, and it is always the position of a Party in opposition to demand an election every time they can. In Britain, they have had elections in the last five years during the period when the Labour Government was holding on, and it did hold on by a very small majority. The Conservative Government, by a small majority, is now holding on to office in England and both those Governments during their periods in office lost elections and, of course, in each case the Opposition demanded as a matter of policy—I think it is more as a matter of form, but nobody bothers about it one way or another—a general election.

Mr. D.J. O'Sullivan

What is the motion of confidence for?

Captain Cowan

Let me tell you this. There are many Deputies in this House who are not supporting the Government who would die of shock if the Taoiseach were to go to the Park tonight and ask the President to dissolve the Dáil—of shock they would die!

Mr. D.P. O'Sullivan

There would be some shocks on the Government side, too.

Captain Cowan

I have been wondering, a Leas-Cheann Comhairle, if my ears were altogether right, because I understood we lived in this countryunder parliamentary democracy under which the representatives of the people decided the affairs of the country and whichever side was in the majority appointed a Government, and that was that. But we have a new conception from Deputies Costello and O'Higgins, and, I am sure, from Deputy Dillon when he intervens—the people's democracy. Imagine Deputies Costello, O'Higgins and Dillon wanting a people's democracy! Imagine it!

Mr. Dillon

The Fianna Fáil Party laughed, that was your cue.

Captain Cowan

Let us examine this matter of a general election and whether it is wanted or not. One of the things which creates instability and has been deliberately carried on to create instability for the past couple of years has been the work of certain journalists who have nothing else to do but talk about the possibilities of a general election. We were all primed up by independent newspapers that we were definitely going to have an election on the Civil Service award. The Government were going to be beaten and there would be an election on this. No doubt about it. The vote was taken; the Government won by perhaps its biggest majority, and I took up the Sunday Independenton the following Sunday and read headlined there: “Opposition Escaped Trap.” In other words, they left their members at home or sent some of them out into the city so that they could not possibly win. And then, they talk about a general election! There was their chance to show whether they wanted a general election, but they preferred to play a big fraud on the civil servants. They wanted no general election.

Mr. D.J. O'Sullivan

This is the Deputy who talked about health and Deputies.

Captain Cowan

I am talking about what I read in the Sunday Independentthat the Opposition escaped the trap that was laid for them. That was written, and written in the closest collaboration with the leaders——

Mr. Dillon

There is reinforcement coming up now—Deputy MacCarthy.

Captain Cowan

——of the Fine Gael Party. I have not the exact words.

Mr. Dillon

Deputy MacCarthy has it for you.

Captain Cowan

However, we had better see it: "Election trap that Opposition did not walk into"——

Mr. Allen

Is Deputy Dillon a correspondent for the Sunday Independent?

Captain Cowan

I do not think so— not now.

Mr. D.J. O'Sullivan

I wonder had the reporter his socks on?

Captain Cowan

It is well worth reading, it is even better than I put it; it is dated Sunday, May 31st, 1953:—

"‘The best laid plans of mice and men gang aft agley.' Thus the members of the Government might have consoled themselves in the Dáil on Thursday night when they won the vote on the Civil Service award by the handsome majority of 11 writes our Political Correspondent.

They had laid the trap skilfully. Had the Opposition leaders walked into it, the country would now be in the throes of a general election, in which the issue would have nothing to do with the problems besetting the people."

Mr. Dillon

You should not have read that part.

Captain Cowan

May 31st, and this is July 1st. They did not walk into the trap!

Mr. Dillon

You should have stopped before reading the last sentence. If you had read it in advance you would not have read it out.

Captain Cowan

It is all good. I am sure the political correspondent must have received a dressing-down.

Mr. Dillon

You ruined yourself with the last sentence.

Captain Cowan

We could now be having this general election.

Mr. Dillon

On the wrong issue. You should not have read the last sentence.

Captain Cowan

Deputy Dillon knows as well as I do—to use an expressive phrase of his own, he is as old in the horn as I am—that when a Government goes to the country election they go on the very best possible eissue. Now Deputy Dillon went to the country the last time on what he thought was a good issue and, by gum, he came out of it very badly.

Mr. Dillon

That last sentence ruined you. Oh, Deputy MacCarthy why did you give it to him!

Captain Cowan

This conduct of Deputy Dillon's is what they call whistling going by the graveyard trying to keep up one's spirits. I want to say that the most regrettable feature, to me anyway, of these last two by-elections has been the tendency to the elimination or disappearance of the Labour Party. Take both constituencies. In East Cork, which was a Labour seat—an old colleague of ours, the late lamented Deputy Seán Keane held that seat for Labour—one would have thought that the Labour candidate might have been allowed to fight for that seat himself.

Captain Giles

Or Paudge Brennan.

Captain Cowan

The result of the election was that Labour lost the seat in that constituency. I know the Labour Party are giving consideration to that problem. Certainly the rank and file members of the Party in the City of Dublin are giving considerable consideration to it. It did look to me extraordinary that, at a time when the Health Bill was being piloted through this House, when the Fine Gael Party were opposing that social measure and the Labour Party were supporting it, as they say, for what it is worth, we can find in that constituency two Parties, one against social development—the Fine Gael Party—and the other for it—the Labour Party—combining together to try to defeat the candidate of the Party putting forward the measure. There is something extraordinary in that situation and itis a situation that will have to be cleared up. As I say, a position like that must receive, and is, I am perfectly certain, receiving, the consideration of the Labour Party, but if we are going to have that situation every time there is a vacancy in which a Labour Party candidate is concerned, it would mean the eventual disappearance from this House of the Labour Party. I do not mind Deputy Desmond saying to me across the House, as he is entitled to say, that I shall be defeated in the next election.

Mr. Desmond

Jim Larkin's son will have it.

Captain Cowan

I want to say this because at least I know a little about the constituency I represent. I know nothing about Deputy Desmond's constituency. I want to put it to him that it would not matter very much—it would matter nothing as far as political Parties are concerned—whether an Independent Deputy goes out or not, but it would matter an awful lot if, in the peculiar situation we have, a Party that has contributed so much as the Labour Party has over the last 30 years to the Government of this country, should in the peculiar situation we have, go to the wall. Deputy Desmond, I understand from people from Cork who speak to me, is much more advanced and progressive in his expressions in Cork than he is in this House. Therefore it is difficult just to know exactly where one stands with him. What I do want him to realise is that he has a big responsibility. So have Deputy Corish, Deputy Larkin and Deputy Hickey. They have a big responsibility to save the Labour Party. Those Deputies will recollect that when I went into the Division Lobby in 1951 to vote for the present Taoiseach I said I was doing it deliberately to try to break the alliance between the Labour Party and Fine Gael which would lead to the destruction of the Labour Party.

Captain Giles

Why did you not join the Labour Party?

Captain Cowan

I was then trying to save the soul of the Labour Party andthe events of the past two years have proved that somebody will have to try to save it.

Mr. D.J. O'Sullivan

Save yourself and never mind the Labour Party.

Mr. Hickey

We have not lost the soul of the Labour Party yet.

An Ceann Comhairle

Order!

Captain Cowan

The Labour Party does not want a general election now. I make that as a deliberate statement —that, as far as the Labour Party are concerned, they would like to see the constructive work that is before this House brought to a successful conclusion. If I interpret Deputy Hickey aright, the Labour Party wants to see some effort made to solve the unemployment problem.

Mr. Hickey

On the Labour Party policy.

Captain Cowan

On any policy if it solves it. It does not matter what the policy is, if it solves it. What the Labour Party want is an effort to try to solve unemployment. What the Labour Party want—I am talking about the rank and file of the Party—is to try to improve social services. The Labour Party does not want a general election. Supposing a general election resulted in the way that Deputy O'Higgins and Deputy Costello say it would result, what would be the end of that? The disappearance of the Labour Party or at least the loss of some seats by that Party. I do not think that Labour can afford to lose any seats.

Mr. D.J. O'Sullivan

They will gain your seat.

Captain Cowan

If they do, it may be, at least, a seat that might be saved for socialism in the future. I do not mind that but I would hate to see the efforts and the votes of Labour Party Deputies going to any reactionary Party with Deputy McGilligan at its head—Deputy McGilligan, who says we have too many social services and that we do not want them—a Deputy whose conduct in this House on the Health Bill was so despicable as to be disgusting. There is serious work to be done in this country, very serious work,and it is because of the seriousness of the work that has to be done that since the day I voted for the Taoiseach I have on every occasion consistently, even on measures with which I was not in full agreement with them, supported this Government. Why? Because I think it is necessary, if we are going to make progress, that there must be some stability. I have endeavoured by my vote over these two years deliberately to create that stability. The Government have never discussed any measure with me.

Captain Giles

Would you blame them?

Captain Cowan

I only want to make the matter clear. The Government have never discussed any matter with me. They have never discussed their policy in advance. They have never asked me whether I would vote for it.

Mr. Larkin

Or they never will.

Captain Cowan

I do not wish them to do that. In fact I think they would be acting wrongly and irresponsibly if they were to come to a group of individual Deputies one after another and say: "Are you going to vote for this or that?" I only want to say to the House and I wish Deputy Giles would not try to interrupt me——

Captain Giles

Nobody would ask you anything.

Captain Cowan

What I want to say is it would not be proper for an Independent Deputy in this House to put a pistol to the head of any Government in office and say: "Unless you do so and so, I am going to vote against you." A Government that would exist under those conditions would deserve to be driven out of office. I only want to say, on that aspect, that I have deliberately endeavoured to create a condition of stability over the past two years by voting solidly and consistently to maintain the present Government in office. I have done that because of the problems, such as unemployment, that are there.

Mr. D.J. O'Sullivan

What about the cost of living?

Captain Cowan

I will deal with that in a minute. The cost of living is a problem. As far as I am concerned, the real problem is unemployment. I do not want to see, on the streets of this city, 9,000, 10,000 or 20,000 young men parading and clamouring for work when work could be found. Deputy Hickey will agree with me that there is no difficulty about money—at least, we have always agreed that there is none. There is no difficulty about constructive works: the constructive works are there to be done. Now, who is going to make the most genuine effort to solve that unemployment problem—to create, as the Taoiseach said, new industries? He said that it has always been the policy of Fianna Fáil to create new industries so as to establish the unemployed in permanent employment. I agree with that.

Everybody will agree with it. But there is a condition in between. To carry out any constructive works of major importance, or to create major industries that will give employment, takes a long, long time. To create public works, even of major importance, takes a long time. The trouble is that while these plans are being prepared, and all the machinery set up, there will be hardship and hunger in many homes in this city and through the country. What I am asking the Taoiseach to say when he is closing this debate is that the Government realise that fact and that, side by side with their policy of creating new industries that will give continual and permanent employment, the Government will set up some committee of Ministers, Deputies or anybody it likes —it does not matter who they are—to put into employment as many people as can speedily be put into employment. In that way, the Government will get a grip immediately on an unemployment situation that is serious. I am certain that Deputy Hickey and Deputy Larkin would much prefer to be supporting the Government in doing that than to be talking about a general election.

Mr. Larkin

If we thought they had a policy to do it. The Taoiseach does not even know there is unemployment.

Captain Cowan

Let us be reasonable about this. It is not propaganda. This is a genuine effort to try to make provision for the solution of unemployment in Dublin City.

Mr. Hickey

The whole discussion is bedevilled by propaganda.

Captain Cowan

I know it is—and we are all at fault.

Mr. Hickey

This debate has been bedevilled by propaganda.

Captain Cowan

I have been listening to it for the past two days. It is awful. Now that we are down to the reality of the situation, let us deal with it. In Dublin City we want to build corporation buildings. It will cost some millions of pounds to build them. I was appointed a member of a sub-committee that got down to deal with that problem. Every time we suggested a site, our engineers said: "No. You cannot build there." What did they want to do? Instead of building these new corporation headquarters and buildings that are necessary in a place where we have the sites, they say: "No. You must knock down half the city, at a cost of about £20,000,000, and when you have that done you can start to build." In other words, we have to go through all the processes of compulsory acquisition of that property, which will take at least 20 years; then we are to have a competition for designs and then, in another 20 years, somebody will start to build. That is no good. We have to do it at once.

The Government also have a scheme in regard to their Government Buildings and a new Parliament House. We want the castle. A Cheann Comhairle, might I be protected from Deputy Dillon's observations which I can hear but which you cannot hear?

An Ceann Comhairle

If I cannot hear them I cannot——

Captain Cowan

At least Deputy Dillon might have the courtesy not to engage in a conversation. His whole purpose is to interfere with the submissions which I am making to the House. The Government have hadplans and ideas of building a new Parliament House and of reconstructing the castle. That is work that is necessary to be done. This generation, in the past 30 years, has done very little in the matter of public buildings. In fact, our record in regard to public buildings since we got our freedom in 1922 has been a pretty bad record: that is, for major public buildings.

Deputy Hickey will agree with me that, in this generation, we want to build works of national importance and works that will give employment. Recently I was looking at developments in other cities and I could see the plan which had been worked out over the past 50 years. I could see that those cities were enlarged and beautified because there was imagination behind the work. But what do we meet here? When we want to build, as we wanted to build, a big road out to Bray—which would give a lot of employment —we had the Irish Independentand a lot of Fine Gael hangers-on condemning the scheme and eventually stopping it.

An Ceann Comhairle

Is the Deputy not travelling a bit from the motion?

Captain Cowan

With respect, I will explain how it is relevant.

An Ceann Comhairle

I cannot see it at present.

Mr. O'Higgins

Deputy Cowan is anxious to get to Wicklow. He is on his way to Bray.

Captain Cowan

The next thing we must do is to get this plan of public works going right away. The Government can do that either by a committee of Deputies, a committee of civil servants or even by the appointment of some special person charged with the responsibility of getting these works carried out. If we can put men into employment immediately on that sort of work—in constructive work—there will be a fillip to employment over the city. The man engaged on the constructive work and able to earn a decent wage will spend his money in the shops buying clothes, boots and other articles which he could not otherwise afford. In that way he will indirectlygive employment to a number of other people.

I believe that the Government had to take the steps they took, and have been taking for the past two years, to establish confidence in the State. Now that that has been done, the Government must face this problem of the 50,000 or the 60,000 unemployed and they must deal with it in the way they dealt with an emergency situation during the last war. The Taoiseach will give hope to the people and hope to the country if, when he is concluding this debate, he is able to say: "Yes. We will deal, or attempt to deal, in so far as we can, with this unemployment crisis in an emergency manner for two or three years, until such time as we are able to get our plans for major industry going." I am putting it to the Taoiseach that what this country wants is a sincere effort to get work done. We could spend, not merely three days on this debate but three years. Unfortunately, we have been spending a lot of time debating matters in this House while what we require is more confidence in the future.

Mr. Hickey

And more confidence amongst the plain people of the country too.

Captain Cowan

Yes. The plain people of this country will be confident and will give their support when they realise that necessary steps are being taken in the public interest. Other matters have been mentioned, but I do not intend to go into them, because —taking my cue from Deputy Hickey —many things have been said in the course of the debate which might perhaps have better been left unsaid. I did propose to deal with certain people outside the House, people who availed of every opportunity to bring the House and Parliament into disrepute; but where we are debating a motion of confidence put down, as this has been put down, by the Taoiseach, in which he asks the House to re-affirm its confidence in the Government, we can deal with the practical problems of employment and unemployment. Deputy Dr. Browne gave the statistics with regard to agricultural employment—a reduction of about 145,000 in the period of a quarter of a century or so. That is serious, but there are more serious problems still in connection with agriculture. I say that the development of machinery on the land—Deputy Dillon, I know, does not agree with this—has to a large extent been responsible for unemployment on the land.

Mr. Lehane

Would you cut machinery out of urban industries?

Captain Cowan

No, but all one has to do is to go across to France or Germany where one will see more than 90 per cent. of the land under tillage, tilled by the small farmers. I have seen them working with their wives and children and I have seem them using cows to cart their agricultural material.

Mr. Dillon

Scarcely cows.

Captain Cowan

They had horns, anyway. I have seen them with scythes cutting the grass, both in France and Germany, and if the French and German people can do it, surely we can do it.

Mr. O'Hara

We did it for long enough.

Captain Cowan

That is all nonsense. Deputy O'Hara is not a farmer, although he belongs to a farmers' Party.

Mr. O'Hara

Am I not a farmer?

Captain Cowan

No.

Mr. O'Hara

That is not correct—I am.

An Ceann Comhairle

Order!

Captain Cowan

If Deputy O'Hara is a farmer——

An Ceann Comhairle

It does not arise on this motion, anyway.

Captain Cowan

I know it does not.

An Ceann Comhairle

Let us pass from it then and come to the motion.

Captain Cowan

If these countries can produce from almost every square inch of their land, without the use ofthis machinery which we import, together with the petrol and oils to run it, surely we can do it. I do not disapprove of machinery in reason, but I think the thing has got completely out of hand.

Mr. Lehane

Are you worried about the diesel oil for C.I.E.?

Mr. O'Hara

Or the State cars for Ministers?

Captain Cowan

Here is our problem. We are either discussing this subject or we are not. This House, perhaps, would much prefer if we abused one another rather than talked practical matters. Looking at the fields of this country and at the waste land in the country, we can produce at least 100 per cent. more than we are producing from our land, and we want to do that. What I want to get is a practical policy that will be carried out by the Government to bring about the situation in which there will be a 100 per cent. increase in production on our farms. We owe that, not only to ourselves, but to the human race, because, according to statistics, there will be a shortage of food in a very short time.

Mr. Hickey

It is there already.

Captain Cowan

Because the population is growing so big in relation to the amount of food available, there will be a shortage, and I think it is our duty in Ireland to do our best to help in the solution of the food problem of the world. In that regard, I want to make only one statement. I was discussing recently with some British M.P.s the matter of butter. They told me—and I am glad to have the opportunity of mentioning it here although it is probably known to Deputies— that in a very short time they would not require in England to buy any butter at all. The market will be supplied by a margarine which includes all the nutriments and all the value of the best butter.

An Ceann Comhairle

Will the Deputy relate all this to the motion?

Captain Cowan

I thought I was keeping very closely to it.

...An Ceann Comhairle

I am sorry to disillusion the Deputy.

Captain Cowan

I mention this because there are very big problems facing the country and facing the world. Our duty is to be doing work, not to be talking about doing it. That is what I want to put forward in this debate—that what we want is not general elections——

Mr. Morrissey

You do not want them anyway.

Captain Cowan

What we want is work for the people and I can tell Deputy Morrissey that he has just as much dislike of a general election as any other Deputy.

Mr. Morrissey

But not the same fear.

Captain Cowan

The very same dislike and the very same fears because even in North Tipperary, queer things can happen.

Mr. Morrissey

Let us try it out.

Captain Cowan

I want to talk about the provision of work and employment for the people.

Mr. Morrissey

Anything but an election.

Captain Cowan

An election will come in its good time and if the Taoiseach and his Government are able, in the next two years, to get all these works I have mentioned going, providing new employment, fuller and better employment, increased agricultural production, then we will go to the country and I will be proud to support the Government in asking for the confidence of the people when the Dáil has run its course.

Mr. D.J. O'Sullivan

And no mention of the cost of living.

Mr. Desmond

Deputy Dr. Browne used the words "awful unemployment" and "awful emigration". Having listened to some of the other speakers, including the last speaker, who is now running away, it would be well for us to include the words "awful speeches" and "awful hypocrisy". We could alsosay at this stage, regrettably, that the person responsible for this whole debate, the person responsible for the play-acting of Deputy Cowan, who laughed his fill at Deputy Cowan and enjoyed so much the clowning of Deputy Cowan, the Taoiseach himself, has also gone.

Donnchadh Ó Briain

The Taoiseach has been here all evening; he has now gone to his tea.

Mr. Desmond

We have been here all the time, too. To me, this motion is something of much greater importance than it is apparently to those members who laughed so heartily and enjoyed so much the attitude adopted by Deputy Cowan, a Deputy for the City of Dublin, where at present there are thousands of unemployed showing by their attitude openly in the city that they want work. The Taoiseach is asking for a vote of confidence, and, in order to help him to get that vote of confidence apparently, Deputy Cowan has suggested what should be done. We have heard on frequent occasions about plans. It is a very familiar word in this Chamber—the plans that are available and being made available; I say that the only hope apparently that the present Government has now is if they provide Deputy Cowan with a new set of plans, plans for which he asked here this evening. Deputy Cowan and Deputy Dr. Browne are Independent Deputies and entitled to act as they wish. They have been members of this House for the past two years; did they ever inquire during those two years about the plans?

The members of the Labour Party take this vote in a very serious mood. It is certainly no help to us to listen to some of the speeches here, including the two and a half hour speech contributed by none other than a Minister of State, the Minister for External Affairs. Instead of putting the case of the Government asking for a vote of confidence, he found this a suitable opportunity on which to lecture us on the past position and on the position that obtains at present through the medium of the Constitution of the United States of Americaand of Great Britain. He took the opportunity of telling us about the small majorities that Governments have in other countries. Surely, as a Minister of State, he should have devoted that time towards putting the case for the Government's request for a vote of confidence at this juncture. Will anyone suggest that the Minister for External Affairs could by his contribution here to-day win over the support of any Independent Deputy, provided that Independent Deputy is sincerely looking for information and guidance on this important issue?

I will not badger any member of this House as to the way in which he should vote. It is immaterial to me. I know the way I will vote. I know the way my Party will vote. Others can answer for themselves. We had Deputy Dr. Browne's inquisitive mind brought to bear on the issue this evening. We heard him, sincerely, I believe, plead for the people who find it so hard to exist at the present time. He asked for certain information from Deputy Norton, Leader of the Labour Party. Apparently he was anxious to get that information. Strange as it may seem, without waiting for that information to be given, he finished his speech by saying that he was voting for the Government. What information does Deputy Dr. Browne want? He has made up his mind. He made his up long before this. He made it up when he voted for the removal of the food subsidies, and when he voted for the present Health Bill, a Bill which is nothing in comparison with the measure—and I give him credit for it—that he envisaged when he was Minister for Health.

Mr. Carter

He did not get it.

Mr. Desmond

He did not get it. Now he is taking the advice of Fianna Fáil, and he will never get it. Deputy Kyne made it clear to-day that he was speaking for the Labour Party. With the help of Providence, should a General Election come this Party will not be small in number, though that is the suggestion made by both Deputy Cowan and Deputy Dr. Browne. The Minister for Finance, too, is worrying about the size of the Labour Party.The Labour Party will prove by its actions that it means what it says in contradistinction to the dual-sided statements made by responsible members of the present Government in by gone years. The Labour Party knows where it stands. The Government and Fianna Fáil know where Labour stands. They know where Labour stood in 1932 and, were it not for Labour then, they would not be there to-day on that side of the House. Labour supported them in 1932. We are not sorry we supported them then because we believed at the time that Fianna Fáil intended to fulfil all the promises they had made to the utmost of their ability.

We hear a good deal about Communism, Nazism and Titoism. We have an "ism" here. The last ten or 12 years of Fianna Fáil Administration prior to 1948 showed a definite outlook and approach as far as the workers are concerned, namely, "Devism." Do not forget that during the war period the Fianna Fáil Government brought in the Standstill Wages Order. Do not forget that in yesterday evening's papers we saw further evidence of class distinction: a private in the Army will in future get an increase of 6d. per day while a major will get an increase of 2/3. How could Labour in those circumstances be expected to support this vote of confidence? Whether or not this vote of confidence will be secured, it will not remedy the situation. The Minister for Industry and Commerce stated recently that it is not beneficial to the welfare of the community to have elections at short intervals. Normally, I would agree that that is true because it would be more beneficial for the country and the community if a Government is able to remain in office for the full term. The situation to-day is that after two years in office—to say nothing of the 15 or 16 years from 1932 to 1948— the Government are still at the stage of preparing plans. We know in our hearts that such a Government will never be in a position to implement even in five years the programme Labour hold the country demands.

Deputy Cogan mentioned the desirability, as did a certain Minister of State, of going on with plans for publicbuildings. According to the Press report this morning the Taoiseach, speaking on housing, maintained it was essential there should be a true balance held between the provision of housing and the productive capacities of the State. I say to Deputy Cowan and to all members of the Government Party that their obligation is, first and foremost, to see that the people in rural Ireland are decently housed before we start speaking of public buildings or any other such grandiose schemes. That should be our approach if we believe in the Christian concept of life. Deputy Cowan mentioned the problem of housing in Dublin. We know what happened a few years ago when we had Deputy Tadhg Murphy, God be good to his soul, as Minister for Local Government. At that time there was no question of an engineer or an architect offering objections to plans. At that time the red tape was snipped and the Labour Party approach permeated the Department of Local Government. At the present time, however, because of the support of Deputy Cowan and of others like him of a Government which has increased the rate of interest to be paid for money, the building of houses has been adversely affected. At the present time there is undoubtedly a slowing-up in the building of houses in this country.

Are we supposed to forget that? Are we expected to agree with the Taoiseach when he asks for a vote of confidence? Are we going to face our responsibilities to the people who placed us here? In his speech Deputy Cowan appears to have made some reference to Cork. He was worried apparently in regard to the future outlook of the Labour Party. I would say to Deputy Cowan that I was lucky enough, thank God, to get sufficient votes to get in here without difficulty. We must be prepared to accept the outspoken opinion of the people in rural Ireland. I am not speaking from any prepared notes nor am I dwelling upon any of the statements made here during the past three years or 30 years. What I am saying is only a reiteration of what the people in South Cork are saying.

I know their attitude at the presenttime. They requested me to ask why was it that the Government—and it is a Government however it is made updeserted one of the most important points of its published programme, the removal of the food subsidies. Will the Taoiseach, his Ministers and the members of his Party answer that question? Have Deputies Cowan, Browne and others ever questioned the reason why these subsidies were removed? The people in rural Ireland are always anxious to have attention drawn to this matter. The Minister who occupies the Front Bench at the moment must be aware of the loss suffered by a widow enjoying a contributory widows' pension when she comes to the age of 70. Are we to give a vote of confidence and by so doing show that we condone such acts? Are we prepared to say that we are going to give a vote of confidence in favour of the pie kings and others in this city? We believe we are dealing with a much bigger problem.

I believe there is no advantage in discussing whether a Government should go to the country following the winning or losing of a by-election but I naturally question the attitude of the Taoiseach at the present time in view of what history has shown us since 1932-33. Members of the House stated that if one said "boo" to the Taoiseach at one time off he ran to the country. I maintain that was wrong then and I believe that under normal circumstances such should not be the case.

We know quite well that the Government are not anxious for this election. If they get their vote they can carry on. As a result of the Government's inaction for the past two years, we are entitled to say that we cannot expect the results which Deputy Cowan put into the mouth of the Taoiseach this evening to say when he was winding up his speech.

When the Taoiseach stands up he will probably assure Deputy Cowan that everything will be done according to him and he will probably agree with Deputy Browne, the Deputy who at one stage bemoaned what was happeningbut did not wait for an answer. He, himself, decided what he was going to do. We believe in the ideals of men like Connolly and Jim Larkin. We believe that by being on the Government Benches, even at financial loss to ourselves, the Labour Party could see to it by its activity in the councils of Government that the working people were treated justly. That is our reason for asking for an election and wishing for a change.

I do not want to be hard on anyone, even those in the present Government and not for one moment do I suggest that they are holding on for any set purpose. I am not going to condemn anyone. I am making our own position clear. Let me now refer to another point. The possibility of bringing some Deputies here who have been ill was mentioned in the House and in the newspapers. I would be grieved to learn that any Deputy, irrespective of what Party to which he might belong, was unable to attend this House on account of ill-health. The very fact that a Deputy is not able to attend through ill-health is a very great handicap to that Deputy. My sympathy goes openly to the members, who because of ill-health, find it difficult to attend. I say openly that I hope these members will be able to attend. It does not matter to what Party they belong. It will be some comfort to us to see returning to this House all those Deputies who through ill-health had to be absent.

On one occasion—it was mentioned here during this debate—during the lifetime of the inter-Party Government there was an important vote on the Estimate for the Department of Posts and Telegraphs. In the newspapers, on the following morning, attention was focussed not on the Deputies who were present but on those who were missing. Probably through error and I would certainly say not intentionally, it mentioned the name of one Deputy as being absent. The truth is that the Deputy named was on the flat of his back, critically ill at home at the time. I happen to have been that Deputy. All of us from time to time go through those periods. I want to say that, while our attitude to thisvote of confidence is one of complete opposition, I as one Deputy will be very pleased indeed to see the faces of those Deputies who, through misfortune, were not able to be with us here for some time past.

There has been a lot said already on this motion. May I say that, in my opinion, there is no need for the Minister for External Affairs, for Deputy Cowan, Deputy Dr. Browne or other Deputies to worry about the Labour Party? We are determined to continue on the line that we adopted even in the 1932 period. Fianna Fáil did not object to our line at that time. If there have been changes since the 1939-40 period, the changes were not on our side. They were on the Government side. I propose to give my view of what I believe is wrong and, to a certain degree, I will not blame the Taoiseach or any member of the Government Party. What is wrong is this. Years ago we had a parliamentary Party in this country, and in their own day they did good work. As time passed, you had a younger generation coming along. The younger generation saw that the activities of the old Party were such that the desired results for the country could not be obtained.

Fianna Fáil should remember that. I am not one who would speak in a critical tone of any person because of his age. I believe in the old saying that we should respect age, but, politically speaking, what is wrong with Fianna Fáil is that the only similarity between them now and 1932 is in the name. They are the same Party in name but only in name because they are living in the past. They are still content to bring out the importance of some of the social measures they introduced in the Dáil in the 1930 period, solidly supported as they were at the time by Labour. They are satisfied to dwell on that record and on the past. What they fail to understand is that the people of the country cannot afford to live in the past. It is because we in the Labour Party realise the necessity of moving with the times, that we could not, in any circumstances, say that we are satisfied with the policy of eitherthe Taoiseach or the Government at the present time. They will have to move on, too. I consider that it will be impossible for them to move on now in spite of the generous encouragement given to them by Deputy Cowan and the pleading of Deputy Dr. Browne. When a machine slows up and the members of it are content to live on old glories, then the future is bleak indeed. We cannot say that we are going to accept a bleak future for the people in rural Ireland. Of course, the Deputies representing the cities have their problems, too.

It was little satisfaction for us to see the happy faces there were when Deputy Cogan handed down a Sunday newspaper to Deputy MacCarthy who, in turn, handed it on to Deputy Cowan. We had a certain amount of merriment in the House during the reading of the headlines from that newspaper. Deputy Cowan, apparently, thought he had made a very good joke. It is no joke for the people outside. I imagine that the people in Dublin, faced with the problem of unemployment, an increase in the cost of living, in many cases of bad housing, and of emigration would derive very poor satisfaction from seeing the happy faces of some Deputies while these headlines were being read. That is why we say this subject is of such seriousness not only for those living in rural Ireland but those living in the cities and towns as well. The fatherly advice of Deputy Cowan in asking for plans will not bring into the homes of the people even the hope of getting employment within a short period.

The numbers of the unemployed have been mentioned. We have got the figures of 60,000 and 70,000. The two words, "unemployment" and "emigration", are very often bandied about here. Unfortunately, the history of this State over the last 30 years seems to have been linked up, to a certain degree, with unemployment and emigation. Thank God, neither was on the same desperate scale between 1948 and 1951 as in the last two years. In our opinion, it will not suffice for any Party or Government or any number of Parties to say that they are prepared to move around in a circle andthen say, when they are in office as a Government, that they are satisfied. That is not going to satisfy the people. What saved the Government of this country over the last 30 years was the deadly factor of emigration, because if many of our young people did not have to emigrate the politicians during that period would certainly have had to produce the goods by way of providing employment or else face a revolution. The sad part of it is— Deputy Cowan mentioned it—the danger of the scarcity of food in other countries. How many hundreds of thousands of our own young people are in those countries at the present time faced, like others, with that danger?

The fact is that our problem here has never been tackled as it should have been. What certainly was never tackled by Fianna Fáil, as the Government of the country, was the question of providing an alternative to emigration. I listened to the Minister for Defence last night. I would say for him that the approach he made to that question was, from his angle, an honest approach. I do say, however, that he made one slip when he mentioned that the Parties on this side of the House —I am speaking now as a member of the Labour Party—did not favour the turf campaign while on the Government side. As regards that question, everybody knows that the plain truth of it is that it was the action of the present Minister for Industry and Commerce, in sending out a circular to the local authorities towards the end of 1947, which was the main cause of a slowing up in the turf campaign.

We all know that at a later period when a Labour Party Minister was Minister for Local Government, he had every surveyor from every local authority in the Twenty-Six Counties up here at the Custom House and he told them to make sure they got going with the turf drive that would bring in three years' supply for local authorities.

If we are going to discuss these problems can we not discuss them in an honourable, truthful manner? It is by coming to the point and perhapslistening to the views of others that we may see some way out but we will never see the way out of our present dilemma for the people of this country by being satisfied to continue the policy of the present Government. I will go further to say this, that time will tell, not perhaps after the next election. It may take a little while, but the time will come when even members of the present Fianna Fáil Party will be, because of their own honest and open convictions, members in this House of the Labour Party.

We know and other members of this House know what I mean by that. Let the time come for joining of forces. We do not mind whether we are accused inside or outside the House of place-hunting. I stated my case openly a while ago in regard to the responsibility of office; we are prepared to accept that responsibility and we are prepared to get every ounce of strength that is in us to work for the people who are sending us here. We owe them that obligation. I do not mind what flat contradiction I would get now, but I know some of the Fianna Fáil members—as I know others—and I am glad to know them, as friends.

But the time will come when in spite of the prophecy of the present Minister for Finance and in spite of the continuous worry of Deputy Cowan for the Labour Party, they will find that never will the Labour Party be swallowed up by any Party, even including Fianna Fáil, who certainly tried to get the upperhand and did their best to crush the Labour Party. It could not be done. It was built on too solid a foundation for that.

Our policy will one day be put into operation when the bemoaning of such Deputies as Deputy Cowan, Deputy Browne and others will be forgotten. They will then realise that ours is the only true policy for the people of this country and that it is not a policy such as that to which we are asked to give a vote of confidence this evening. That is only a delaying action. We do not mind whether it is a month, a year or two years, it will not remedy the situation. The Taoiseach, the members of his Government and his back benchers realise that.

Let it be that we must accept the decision of this House. The Taoiseach can also accept it, but he must remember that in accepting that vote of confidence, if he gets such, while he is justly entitled to continue in this House—any Party might do it if they were in such a position—he is betraying the confidence of the Irish people. He is showing that the policy of the present Government, an old antiquated policy, is the policy of ruination in 1953 and the only alternative to that is the voice of the people and the sending back here of people who are prepared to work in the interests of the working people.

Minister for Health and Social Welfare (Dr. Ryan)

There were some things said by the last Deputy with which I could agree and some things with which I could not agree. However, there is one thing in particular I am glad he said, and that is, that there is no financial incentive to any Deputy to cross the floor from one side of the House to the other. I will go so far as to say that there is no financial incentive to keep a Deputy in this House at all.

My experience of the Deputies I have known here over the years was that they always left this place poorer men than when they came into it. I suppose I could say the same with regard to Ministers. None of them would suffer any financial loss by crossing over to the Opposition side of the House and none of the Opposition would gain financially by coming over here. I think we all accept that position and if we are arguing whether one person or another wants to be in the Government, it is due entirely to the fact that we think we can run this country better than the Opposition. The Opposition think they can run it better than we can, and that is not an unworthy motive to stir any Deputy to take sides in this debate.

I do not intend to speak at length. I merely wish to deal with a few points, first of all, unemployment. While I do not want anything I say to be taken as excusing the position of unemployment, I think it is only right that in dealing with unemployment we shouldsee the facts as they really are. What I want to say in particular is that the comparisons between the numbers now and the numbers two or three years ago are not really reliable; in fact, they are not fair, if you like, to the present Government. As a result of the Social Welfare Act which was passed and put into operation last January, there are many on the live register who would not be there if that Act had not been passed. Deputies may ask how that occurs. I could give several instances which would prove my point.

First of all, as you are aware, agricultural workers were brought in to be eligible for unemployment insurance. Before the last Act came into operation, a man who was out of work was only entitled to receive a day's relief for every stamp he had on his card. If for instance, he was working 26 weeks, he would have 26 stamps and he would receive only 26 days' relief. As a result of the Social Welfare Act which was recently passed, a man who has 26 stamps on his card is entitled to 26 weeks' relief. It is very hard to calculate what the difference is but certainly it has made a great difference and means that many people now are drawing unemployment insurance who would have been on unemployment assistance if the Act had not been passed.

On the unemployment assistance side, the benefits, of course are higher and the means limit is higher. Again, there are many eligible to draw unemployment assistance now who were not eligible before the Act was passed. In the cities, for instance, the means of a person were raised from £52 to £98 as the limit above which he could not draw unemployment assistance. In the towns there was a bigger increase and at least as big an increase in the rural areas.

Under the reciprocal arrangements which were made with the British enabling an Irishman working in England—or an Englishman for that matter—who comes over here, having lost his job in England, to get relief, there are more people qualifying now than before and that again accounts for a certain number.

If anybody reads the weekly returns, which indeed are not very nice reading —they do not give anybody any great pleasure—they will notice that under one particular heading there is a big increase, that is, "Others." The reason for that is that, under the Social Welfare Act, a person who is out of employment can have credited contributions as they are called. He does not put on stamps but by calling to the exchange and proving he is unemployed, he can have credited contributions put on his card. These credited contributions will count for such purposes as widows' and orphans' pensions and other benefits. There was no reason why such people, who are not entitled, to, say, unemployment assistance because their means were high, or for some other reason, would call to the exchange last year. There is reason why they should call this year and I think that accounts for the number of others being higher than it was last year.

I do not propose to give any estimate of that. I asked my Department to give some estimate of the number on the live register as a result of the Social Welfare Act and a number was given to me of between 9,000 and 10,000 but the officers who gave it to me told me that it was not a reliable figure and was only an opinion as far as they were concerned. I do not want, therefore, to make that point but I do say that the number is somewhat higher than it would have been if that Act had not been passed.

There is another point, that gradually from year to year the volume of employment is going up, that there are more stamps being sold each year than in the previous year and, if we take the increase from 1950 to 1952, it would indicate additional employment of 25,000 people, which is a very substantial number. So, even though the number on the live register may be increasing, there is an increase going on all the time in employment but it is not sufficient to catch up on the number on the unemployment list.

I am quite prepared to agree with other speakers in this House that the unemployment problems is a grave problem and I am prepared to say,also, that it is a problem that the Government should concern themselves with and have been concerning themselves with, as I hope to mention in a few minutes. In that way, we are, I think, taking a somewhat different line from the Fine Gael Government when they were in office in 1922 to 1932. They took the line that it was a matter for the ordinary economic law and not a matter for a Government to deal with the unemployment problem.

Some few months ago unemployment in the building trade made itself very much felt. I do not know whether there are any official reasons or any better reasons given than the reason I have in mind. I see, passing through the city and the outskirts of the city, that for the first time for many years there are many houses for sale. That being so, there is an easing off in the building of private houses and a slackness in the building trade.

Therefore, every Minister was asked some time ago to see if in his Department where building was being done something could be done to get works going with the greatest possible speed that would absorb some of those unemployed in the building trade in Dublin, for a start anyway. In my Department, as I have responsibility for building hospitals and health centres, and so on, through the local authority, of course, I was able to report back to the Government that by hurrying things a bit we could employ 600 men immediately. Most of these 600 have been employed as far as I know by now, and we could reach 1,600 men probably within nine or 12 months. That is not an awful lot, I admit, but it is done by one Department of State. Other Departments may be able to do more, for all I know. I have not seen their returns. At any rate, an effort is being made to deal first of all with that single problem of unemployment in the building trade in the City of Dublin.

There is a great deal of money being spent in my Department on building. In fact the estimate for grants given by my Department for building of hospitals and health centres throughout the country is higher this year than it has ever beenbefore. I do not mind admitting that I was anxious to push these building projects on as speedily as possible on account of the unemployment in the building industry generally.

I mention these things, as some Deputies appear to think we have either been unaware of the unemployment problem or have ignored it or taken no action, to show that we have been taking action, and I hope, indeed, that more can be done than the few matters I mentioned just now.

Deputy Desmond mentioned in the course of his speech that there were two years of inaction. I do not think that is very fair. Deputy Desmond mentioned on more than one occasion during his speech that he wanted to be fair to both sides, and so on, but I do not think it is quite fair for a Labour Deputy to say that no action was taken in the last two years when we realise that a Labour Deputy was Minister for Social Welfare for three and a half years during which very little action was taken, and that Fianna Fáil is in office for only two years now and a Social Welfare Act has been passed during those two years.

If any Deputy will look at the Book of Estimates he will see that the taxpayer is asked to contribute £20.5 million to social welfare during the present year. It may be of interest to some of the Deputies who, evidently, have come to believe that nothing was done by this Government in social services or anything else to analyse the figures into the amounts contributed and to see how it is built up to £20.5 million. When the British Government left here it was £4,000,000 and when the Cumann na nGaedheal Government left office after ten years it was still £4,000,000. The Coalition Government, who were in office for three and a half years, added £1,500,000 that is £5,500,000 and Fianna Fáil added the rest, that is £15,000,000. I do not think that Deputy Desmond could pride himself on being fair to all sides when he talked of the Fianna Fáil Government not doing anything in the last two years to improve social conditions, or not doing anything in that line. That is if you like a very short history of social welfare. I donot at this stage want to worry Deputies by repeating things said before and, in any event, I did not intend to make a very long speech or to go back over all the various schemes that were passed in the years. I do want to say this, however, that the people who are unemployed now are getting better benefit than they were getting before this time last year.

Mr. O'Leary

The cost of living has gone up.

Dr. Ryan

Yes, that is quite true, but when we realise that this debate which is going on is to a great extent taking the shape of what is the better policy, as it were, from the Fianna Fáil Government or from the Coalition side—when we realise that we are talking here in the hope of converting Deputies to vote for either side, I think some of those Deputies who are influenced by the social policy pursued should not forget that when the Fine Gael Party had the Government in its own hands, then called the Cumann na nGaedheal Government, from 1922 to 1932, nothing was done whatever except on one occasion to take a shilling off the old age pensioners.

Mr. Rooney

You were trying to wreck the country.

Dr. Ryan

The Deputy is in, I see. I am glad.

Mr. Rooney

You are finished. You need not bother.

Dr. Ryan

The Deputy does not remember those days. He is too young and should not talk about things he knows nothing about.

Addressing myself again to those Deputies who got up to speak here to tell us that they have an open mind and said that they want to be fair to both Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, well, if they have an open mind and want to be fair then they should, I think, keep in mind what was done for social services by Cumann na nGaedheal from 1922 to 1932, and by Fianna Fáil from 1932 to 1948 and, again, since 1951. They did nothing and we added £15,000,000 to the sum being paid out each year for social services.

Mr. Morrissey

Of course, the more unemployment you have the more social services you have to provide.

Mr. Rooney

The more dole you have to give out.

Dr. Ryan

I do not remember exactly what the figures were, but my recollection is that unemployment was higher during the twenties than now.

Mr. Morrissey

Not at all.

Mr. Rooney

No.

Dr. Ryan

The Deputy above says "no" without knowing anything about it.

Mr. Morrissey

It is higher now than even when Fianna Fáil first took office 23 years ago.

Mr. Rooney

1939 was the only time the record was beaten.

Dr. Ryan

I have not got the figure with me so Deputies can take a chance.

Mr. Morrissey

I am not taking a chance. The Minister can look it up.

Dr. Ryan

No, the figure was higher in the twenties than now, and it must be remembered that the more benefits you have naturally the more you will have on the live register, because a man did not walk in in the twenties, let us say, to the employment exchange in Ballina, six miles, to say he was unemployed, because he got nothing for it; but, of course, he does now. These things must be taken into account. The Fine Gael Government gave nothing to those people.

Mr. O'Leary

They would not pay 4/2 in a shop for butter in those days.

Dr. Ryan

We will talk about that at a later stage.

Mr. Corry

Ten bob a week for wages.

Dr. Ryan

Let us deal with this unemployment and social services question on its own and I will come to the cost of living if the Deputies will allow me. I do not want to be too long just speaking on a few matters. I am not blaming the Labour Party that thisSocial Welfare Bill was not brought in between 1948 and 1951. We know now the game, how Deputy McGilligan fought a war of attrition against Deputy Norton during that time to prevent Deputy Norton bringing it in, and it just shows what might happen again if there is a Coalition and what is certain to happen if Fine Gael comes back, as they hope to come back, with a clear majority and takes over the government of this country.

Deputy Desmond mentioned one specific instance and said that he would vote against the Government because when a widow reaches 70 her benefit goes down. That is true, because under the widows' contributory pension she gets 24/- and when she comes to 70 she becomes an old age pensioner and then gets only 21/6. Now that is, if you like, an anomaly in the scheme, but I do not think that the Labour Party should be too hard on us. I am not appealing to the Fine Gael Party on this. I do not think the Labour Party should be too hard on us after all if we bring in a scheme that is going to put £7,000,000 on the taxpayer if there are a few anomalies like this. They should have a little patience, I think, and give us a chance to let the country improve a bit and see whether these things could not be made right.

Brendán Mac Fheórais

You cannot blame us for asking.

Dr. Ryan

No, but they cannot be made right in a moment.

Mr. O'Leary

You were very hard when you brought in the standstill Order against the workers.

Dr. Ryan

We were satisfied when we brought in our Social Welfare Bill in 1952 that we had covered nearly all the hazards, as they say, that the ordinary person is up against—sickness and unemployment and widowhood and old age and so on; but there was one thing also which I mentioned at the time and I said that it was impossible to put it into that Bill but I said that when a Health Bill came along that particular thing would be included. Now to the knowledge of all of us there is the incapacitated person who is nota widow or an old age pensioner, who is not insured and therefore cannot get sickness benefit, who cannot get unemployment benefit because he was never employed at anything, but who is incapacitated and still without means to maintain himself. We all know the type of person I mention, who is a permanent invalid and a burden to that extent on his family. In the Health Bill we have provided for that particular type of case. There is a clause in the Health Bill which enables local authorities to bring in the necessary schemes to deal with that, but I again say to the Labour Party that if they reject Fianna Fáil whenever they get a chance and accept Fine Gael, Fine Gael will throw out the Health Bill and that particular clause goes with it. There is no doubt about that. So as far as the social schemes are concerned they are not complete in my opinion until that class of people is brought in, and that class of people can be brought in if the Health Bill is made law.

Now coming to the Health Department, we all agree, I think, in this House, at least I have heard this principle enunciated from every Party, that no person should be deprived of the best medical care through lack of means. While all the Parties say that, Fianna Fáil has made several attempts to bring in Health Bills that would cover that principle by providing medical treatment for those who cannot afford to pay for it, but for eight years now—I think since 1945—Fine Gael has been fighting it all the time. Although they agree with the principle they fight anybody who tries to meet that principle by legislation. Deputy Mulcahy in this House only last week, I think, boasted that the Health Bill of 1945 was for 15 days in Committee. Now evidently that was obstruction, and they are going to beat that record, I think, on the present Health Bill, which shows again that Fine Gael is never short of pious platitudes and fine principles but will always oppose anybody who tries to put them into operation.

Again we come back to 1922-32, when the Cumann na nGaedheal Government was on its own. Nothing was done forhealth and no attempt was made to build hospitals, dispensaries or anything else, or to make any improvement in the health services. As a matter of fact, in 1932, when we came into office we took over those buildings —they were described as hospitals— throughout the country in the primitive condition in which they were handed over in 1922 by the British. Nothing whatever had been done. Still we have the Leader of the Fine Gael Party, Deputy Costello, making speeches here on the Health Bill saying that his Party is prepared to spend £10,000,000 on that. What is the scheme? He did not tell us. Although the members of Fine Gael are opposing this Health Bill all the time, saying that it is a bad Bill and contains a bad scheme, they have never given the slightest indication of what a better scheme would be. We can come to the conclusion that they have not got a better scheme in mind and do not want to have one in mind.

The policy of Fine Gael would appear to be delay in health matters. They practised that policy very successfully during the three and a half years of the Coalition Government. When the Minister for Health, Deputy Dr. Browne, was pushing very hard to get a health scheme through, it was a case of delay all the time. Now when the present Health Bill is before the Dáil it is again a case of delay, delay, delay. I take it that that would be their policy if they were to get a chance to take over the government of the country again.

I would like to say a word or two about agriculture. We all agree on a certain principle, that is, on the expansion of agriculture on a mixed farming basis. Although any Fine Gael Deputy would say that that was his policy, expansion on a mixed farming basis, wherever an attempt was made by any other Government to encourage mixed farming it was always opposed by Fine Gael.

Mr. Morrissey

That is not true.

Dr. Ryan

Let us go back again to the Cumann na nGaedheal Government. Deputy Morrissey says it is not true. We advocated wheat growing.

Mr. Rooney

And calf slaughter.

Dr. Ryan

Oh, is the Deputy back again?

Mr. Dillon

The Minister is the prince of calf undertakers.

Dr. Ryan

I will deal with that before I go on. When I was trying to deal with that, on behalf of the Government, in the time of the economic war, and when the Deputies opposite joined with England against this Government and encouraged John Bull to go on with the fight, we had a few desperate things.

Mr. Allen

Blueshirts.

Dr. Ryan

Yes, Blueshirts; but we beat the British and we beat them, too. We got a good settlement.

Mr. Morrissey

You paid £10,000,000 for beating them.

Dr. Ryan

You paid £100,000,000; you paid £5,000,000 a year. We paid £10,000,000 and had done with it. It was a bitter pill for you that we got away with it.

Mr. O'Hara

On a point of order, might I suggest that this whole thing be dropped? We have heard enough of it.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

That is not a point of order.

Mr. Morrissey

The Minister has nothing to say about the future, so he is going to talk about the past.

Dr. Ryan

Deputy Morrissey may not like it, but it is no harm to talk a bit about the past and then come on to the future. As a principle, Fine Gael lays down that you must have expansion of agriculture on a mixed farming basis, but just as in the case of health, it is a grand principle until you come to put it into operation.

When we advocated wheat growing in 1929 the Cumann na nGaedheal Government at the time—none of those gentlemen opposite were in the Cumann na nGaedheal Government at that time, so they cannot be held responsible —got out a pamphlet at Governmentexpense and proved that wheat could not be grown in this country. They distributed that pamphlet to all the papers and to prominent farmers and others. I remember speaking at a debate in University College shortly afterwards and a very prominent economist—who, of course, was a member of Fine Gael—said, when someone mentioned wheat: "That is over and done with; it has been proved to be impossible." That is their attitude when something is put up that we should do in order to expand our agriculture on a mixed farming basis. Deputy Dillon, who served his time as Minister for Agriculture, said on one occasion that he would not be got dead in a field of wheat.

Mr. Rooney

He gave an increase of £1 a barrel.

Dr. Ryan

That was the attitude of Fine Gael, who all the time talked about expanding on a mixed farming basis. In order to promote this expansion, Fianna Fáil realised when the war was over that the fertility of the soil had to be improved and they had prepared a scheme for the distribution of lime. When Deputy Dillon came in, I need not tell you that he told his officials he would not have the Fianna Fáil scheme. He tried several others and after a couple of years came back to it, but we lost two years in the meantime.

Deputy Morrissey asked me to talk about the future. We have a lime scheme which I think is ready for publication and should be published certainly within a week or two. I believe it will give farmers lime for the land without the unnecessary restrictions that were there under the old scheme. What is more, it certainly will not induce a person to carry lime from one end of the country to the other—which appeared to be the most remunerative business under the lime scheme brought in by Deputy Dillon when he was Minister.

On the production side of agriculture we have milk, which is a very important commodity. I think I can truthfully say that there is now an upward trend in milk production which has not been noticeable since the beginningof the war. We know, of course, that farmers were very disheartened and discouraged when asked to accept 1/- a gallon instead of the 1/2 they had been getting up to that and they were disillusioned, I should think, when they were told they could keep the 1/2 and get a penny as well, when the election was coming along. Naturally, you cannot get farmers to work on an insecure basis of that kind —a reduction at one time and an increase at another time. The production of milk was not improving; it was only at a standstill, if it were not, indeed, going back. Now that prices have been fixed on a firm basis, the production is going up.

The same applies to pigs. I suppose Deputies who were in this House at the time of the Coalition Government will remember the way the Minister for Agriculture at the time, Deputy Dillon, was changing from day to day in his policy on pigs and bacon. He hardly knew himself, indeed, what was the policy at any particular time and certainly his officials did not know. The farmers gave up inquiring and carried on on their own. Under that mismanagement and vacillation of the Minister for Agriculture at the time the industry declined and was almost ruined. But it is now recovering and this year there would appear to be a very big increase in the production of bacon. It has certainly reached the highest point since the war and it is getting back towards pre-war level. The policy pursued by the present Minister for Agriculture will, I am sure, restore milk production and bacon production back to pre-war levels. In fact I should say they will exceed the production of that time. I should also like to tell some of the Deputies who may not be aware of it that the home consumption of bacon and butter at the moment is higher than it was pre-war.

Mr. A. Byrne

It is a hell of a price to pay.

Dr. Ryan

It is, but the consumption is higher.

Mr. A. Byrne

Neither butter nor bacon is on the worker's table.

Dr. Ryan

There will, I am sure, be a big increase in production generally in agriculture during the present year. If you take the figures of the seed distributors, the returns of the sugar company, the returns of milk to the creameries, and the returns of pigs to bacon factories, every one of them shows an increase over recent years. I think there is not the slightest doubt that there will be a very big increase in agricultural production during the present year, which should improve as the years go on.

I do not want to dwell on the question of industry because I presume the Minister for Industry and Commerce will deal with that matter more fully than I could attempt to do. Deputies, however, will realise that a very big and successful effort was made between 1932 and 1939 to build up industries in this country against the opposition of the Fine Gael Party. But, in 1951, when we came back to office, we were faced with stockpiling of various goods which made it impossible for many of our factories to carry on for some time. We are now, I think, on the road again to higher industrial production, and the figure I mentioned already, which went to show there were 25,000 more people employed in 1952 than in 1950 would indicate that there was an increase in industrial production.

Brendán Mac Fheórais

Would not the increase in the figure be explained away by the new Social Welfare Act?

Dr. Ryan

No. I do not know whether the Deputy is serious, but the number of stamps sold for that year as compared with 1950 would show that on the average number of weeks that people are employed—I think 40 weeks are taken and that is how the average works out—there would be 25,000 more employed. That average may not be correct, however. I have an idea myself that people may be working more constantly and, therefore, may be employed more than 40 weeks at the moment, and in that way there may not have been 25,000 more employed.

Mr. Dillon

The inclusion of people above a certain salary level does not make any difference?

Dr. Ryan

That factor was taken into consideration. I should like to make it plain that the number of stamps sold showed that for the same number of weeks worked there were 25,000 more employed in 1952 than in 1950. Personally, I am inclined to think that there are a greater number of weeks worked and, therefore, that there were not 25,000 more people employed. Whichever way you take it, however, it was a good thing. I think Deputies will agree, however, that both agriculture and industry benefited by many advantages. Deputy Desmond mentioned the point I want to make. He said that more output means more employment because more people will be needed. That will mean, I hope, less unemployment and, if there is more employment, there will be more money spent which will again lead to subsidiary employments. That would again give us a position, I hope, in which we could get a better yield from taxation. We will have an opportunity then of either having better services or of reducing taxation, whichever might appear to be the more preferable.

Deputies opposite have condemned the removal of the food subsidies very vigorously. I do not know whether they were perfectly fair or honest in that or whether it was done because it is good politics. There is another point of view, however. Personally, I think, and the Government had the same idea, that it is better that everything should be open and above board as to what food is costing. Everybody knows that we have to see that the farmer gets a certain return for his milk, for his pigs, for his wheat, for his sugar beet and so on. That means that as far as consumers are concerned they have to pay a certain amount for bread, sugar, butter and bacon, at least somebody has to pay. The question is whether it is better that the consumer should pay and let everybody see how the economics of this country are working or whether the Government should intervene and subsidise to a certain extent and then get thecost of that subsidy in taxation. I think it is better to have it open and above board, that people should know that if they are paying 4/2 a lb. for butter it is because the farmer must get a return for his milk. He has to pay his men and he has to keep himself and his family and he needs this return for his milk and the price of butter must be 4/2 a lb.

Mr. Dillon

What about the man who cannot pay 4/2 a lb.?

Mr. O'Leary

What about the New Zealand butter?

Dr. Ryan

Do not be dragging in red herrings. Let me develop my argument. I am putting it in a reasonable way. Deputies may disagree with me if they like, but I think it is better policy that we should let everybody see what the price of butter is. That means, of course, that wages must be adjusted to meet the cost of living as it results from that policy. As far as the Government are concerned, they have never opposed that. In fact, I remember the Minister for Industry and Commerce at the time these food subsidies were being abolished saying that there would be an increase of wages to meet this. I think it is a better system that wages should be adjusted to the level commensurate with the new cost of living as a result of the removal of the food subsidies.

Mr. A. Byrne

What about the unemployed?

Mr. Corry

Like some of the unemployed you never worked in your life.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Deputies should allow the Minister to make his speech.

Dr. Ryan

At the same time we did increase the unemployment benefit, the sickness benefit, widows' and orphans' pensions and old age pensions, the whole lot of them. We did increase the social benefits to an extent, in our opinion that would meet the increase in the cost of living at the time. Deputies might argue we did not give enough and perhaps to some extent that maybe so, but I want to say we followed certain principles. We followed that principle to the logical conclusion by admitting the fact that we knocked up the cost of living and by increasing wherever we were responsible, the social benefits to meet the increased cost of foods as a result of the removal of the food subsidies. In any way in which we were responsible, we tried to compensate the people for it.

Mr. O'Leary

One class of people got on all right—that is the judges.

Dr. Ryan

The Deputy always has something good to say like that. The judges I think are the only class that got nothing yet.

Brendán Mac Fheórais

They are going to make up for it soon.

Mr. Everett

They will get more than the Minister.

Mr. O'Leary

You could not give to your own officers their money back to the time of the arbitration award.

An Ceann Comhairle

Deputy O'Leary cannot make his speech just now. The Minister is in possession.

Dr. Ryan

He is trying to.

Mr. Allen

Sure the Opposition voted for the judges.

Mr. O'Leary

You did not vote for the road workers on the county council.

An Ceann Comhairle

If Deputy O'Leary cannot cease the interruptions I would ask him to leave.

Dr. Ryan

The Deputy should have manners.

Mr. O'Leary

I have better manners than you.

Dr. Ryan

I am sorry to hear that. I did not think I was as bad as that.

Mr. O'Leary

I never denied anybody. I cannot stay here and listen to that.

Dr. Ryan

Anybody looking at the figures will agree that we have reducedimports by supplying our needs from home production and I think we have succeeded in going a bit further than that because we have also increased exports. Not only are we supplying what was cut off in the way of imports, but we added to exports, a proof that production is increasing in this country and that, of course, can be responsible —it takes time—but it can be responsible for permanent employment.

Deputies also talk about this capital business, but I do not think a Government at any time provided so much for capital expenditure as we have provided in this Budget. It is about £40,000,000. As far as my Department is concerned, it was never so much before for capital expenditure as it is this year. I think that also applies to other Departments fairly generally, and, at any rate, the figure generally is very high.

We had, of course, a great deal of talk from Fine Gael, Clann na Poblachta, Labour and others, about capital expansion for the three and a half years they were in power. It was just talk. There was not any great capital expansion at that time. They were all talking but they did not do very much. I have been looking back to see what did they do. They did nothing very much in the way of expansion of electricity, nor in the way of expansion of turf production. In fact, they allowed turf production to lapse practically for the first couple of years they were in office, and only when they were threatened with a shortage of coal did they come back in panic and start turf production again. I do not think there was an awful lot spent, certainly not as much as at the present time. It was again a case of Fine Gael doing the talking and Fianna Fáil doing the work.

Mr. MacBride

I thought we were spending too much money.

Dr. Ryan

I never thought so, perhaps Deputy MacBride did.

Mr. Morrissey

That is fair enough.

Dr. Ryan

We are spending this money on capital development and thatis a fair indication of our attitude. I looked around to see what capital expansion was done by the Coalition Government. Perhaps Deputies do not realise that I am an elector in County Wicklow and I got literature from the Fine Gael candidate asking me to vote for him. He gave two examples of development—the Shannon scheme and the Carlow Factory.

Mr. Morrissey

We were always modest.

Dr. Ryan

You were modest all right. Nothing was done since then. They talked about capital expansion for three and a half years but nothing was done. At least they told no one in Wicklow of anything else that was done.

Mr. Morrissey

I remember one by-election when Fianna Fáil built Trinity College and Guinness's Brewery and a

Mr. Dillon

They made a film once about Fianna Fáil building Trinity College and Guinness's Brewery and a very good film it was.

Dr. Ryan

I do not think we ever claimed that.

Mr. Dillon

You did.

Dr. Ryan

I think the talk about external assets is just a red herring. If we are to expand and develop our capital expenditure here some of the external assets may come back in the form of machinery and equipment, but when a Deputy goes down the country and tries to convince an audience that if they can bring home external assets everything will be right, I say it is just a red herring. We want to know in what form they will be brought back and I hold we are taking the proper course in spending money on capital development, which will, we hope, give permanent and good employment.

General MacEoin

Do not let the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs catch you.

Dr. Ryan

That is your bugbear anyhow.

Mr. Everett

Did you read Mr. Lawless's election address?

Dr. Ryan

I did; and I read Mr. McCrea's, too. I knew the position there all right, and I will not say anything about it now.

Mr. Morrissey

Why not give them all a chance of writing election addresses?

Dr. Ryan

In all these things, whether health, social welfare or capital development, Fine Gael has always a grand principle which everybody can agree with, but they never do anything. Or if anybody else tries to do anything, they try delaying action, or stop them as best they can. That is their policy all along. There are no good works to their credit, and I suppose they cannot have faith, if so. We certainly have the good works.

We are talking here, trying to convert certain people on one side of the House, and the Opposition are trying to convert the other side of the House. I think we can say about Fine Gael truthfully—I do not think anybody can contradict it—that as far as political advancement is concerned, or as far as economic development is concerned or social improvement, they have a shameful record, one they should be ashamed of, because they did nothing in all these things in all their time. And they do not intend to do anything.

If any Deputy is trying to make up his mind whether he should do his best to put out Fianna Fáil and put Fine Gael in, he should have regard to these things. As far as we are concerned here, we would welcome a comparsion of the achievements of that party in the political and social spheres with the achievements of Fianna Fáil.

Mr. Dillon

The Minister who has just sat down delivered a speech which covered a lot of ground. He seemed to argue that unemployment in this country was not as bad as it seemed, that it was largely a question of misinterpretation of statistics. I wonder does he believe that? I wonder does he find fault with us when we wonder whether he believes it or not? I do not blame him for softly and silentlyfading away. I heard Deputy Cowan, significantly speaking from the same seat from which he spoke three years ago. Every Deputy in this House has changed his place but Deputy Cowan. He was singing my praises from that seat three years ago. Now he is singing Fianna Fáil's praises from that seat. Doubtless, if any future Government in this country permits him to sing their praises, he will sing them as sweetly as he sings Fianna Fáil's praises now. I heard him rebuking Deputy Hickey because all minds are not bent upon what rends his heart, the plight of the unemployed. It makes me physically sick to hear Deputy Cowan letting his heart bleed in the market place about the unemployed, calling on all honest men to rally round and put dissension from amongst them, so that they can join with this angel of peace in the resolution of the problems of the unemployed. Who made them unemployed? What made them unemployed?

Captain Cowan

Capitalism.

Mr. Dillon

We told the Deputy when the Budget of 1952 was before this House: "If this Finance Bill is enacted into law, its purpose and its aim is to create unemployment". I say now that the increase in the bank rate, the raising of the Government rate of borrowing, and every section of the Finance Bill of 1952 were designed to create unemployment. That was its purpose as Deputy Cowan cannot deny.

While that measure was under discussion in this House, every Deputy speaking from these benches and from the Labour Benches warned him that inevitably the economic policy enshrined in that Budget would create unemployment. We said deliberately —and I believe the Minister for Industry and Commerce agreed with us—that its purpose was to create unemployment, that the policy of the Minister for Finance in the present Government was to create in this country a pool of unemployment, which he deemed it economically expedient to do. I believe that Deputy Cowan knows that as well as I do but he voted for it. Let him not shed any crocodile tears now for the plight of the peoplewhom he drove into unemployment with his eyes wide open.

I do not believe in unduly castigating any Deputy in this House but there are limits to human patience. Deputy Cowan in the course of his speech took exception to a remark which I made to Deputy Corish when I said: "I am not fooled by this hypocritical blatherskite."

Captain Cowan

I did not even know what the Deputy was saying.

Mr. Dillon

That is what I said and I do not think I was far wrong. I remember Deputy Cowan going into the Lobby to vote for that Finance Bill. I remember Deputy Cowan doing that after the consequences of that policy were clearly exposed in this House before the Bill was passed and I saw him help to enact it. When he exposes his bleeding heart to the Deputies of this House and pours his sympathy on those whom he drove into unemployment, will he blame me when I say that I am nauseated by hypocritical blatherskite like that? I do not think that goes too far.

Captain Cowan

I have been fighting unemployment for 20 years.

Mr. Morrissey

You have been creating it for the last two years.

Captain Cowan

Twenty years I have been fighting it.

Mr. Morrissey

Bosh! You have been helping to create want and misery.

Mr. Dillon

Wait a moment. If the Deputy wants to pursue this matter a little further I shall pursue it with him. He tells us to-day that he wants to see unemployment in the building industry of this country remedied by the building of new Government offices, by the rehabilitation of Dublin Castle and the reconstruction of the Bray Road, but he is the same Deputy who killed the Small Dwellings (Acquisition) Act in this House by helping to raise the interest rate on loans from 4¾ per cent. to 6½ per cent.

Captain Cowan

That is tripe.

Mr. Dillon

I shall follow that a little further. A man who wanted to buildhis own house in 1951 could borrow from the Dublin Corporation and redeem the principal and interest on that loan for 22/- a week.

Captain Cowan

Tripe.

Mr. Dillon

Wait a minute. Take the same house, the same corporation and the same borrower to-day and it will cost that man 34/- a week.

Captain Cowan

Tripe.

Mr. Dillon

That is what closed down building in this city. It was the rise in the cost of money that stopped the building industry in Dublin and in every rural area in Ireland. Please God the time will shortly come when we can put that question to the test and when there will be an end to charging our own people 6½ per cent. to build houses for our own people while we lend it to the British Government at 1¼ per cent. to build houses for the British people.

Mr. McQuillan

How long are we lending to the British Government?

Mr. Dillon

Wait a moment. When we were in office any man who wanted to build a house in this country could afford to build it. These are facts. I always believed that the best arguments are facts. The best test of policy is results. (Interruptions.) Deputy Cowan was smiling with an angelic blush when I began but the smile has been knocked off his face now.

Captain Cowan

Not at all.

Mr. Dillon

You do not knock a smile off Deputy Cowan's face unless he is hurt. I do not want to hurt him. All I need do is to turn on Deputy Cowan, not the blackmailer's searchlight, but the searchlight of fact and he squeals both loud and long. If I were in his dilemma I would squeal too, under the impact of light, but have I said one word about him that does not relate to recorded facts? I do not think so. Let him challenge any fact I have now alleged to defendhimself. He cannot. When he sees facts arrayed against him, he is ashamed and he is rightly ashamed. I would remind Deputies that Deputy Peader Cowan is no fool. He is the cutest political manæuvrer in this municipality.

Captain Cowan

Hear, hear!

Mr. Dillon

There is not a trick that the Deputy does not know. He has played pretty nearly every card he has got and he will shortly be given the opportunity of playing the rest of them. I do not think they are going to win the trick and I do not think Deputy Peadar Cowan has much hope that they will, either. Now listen, it is to him, in his impregnable electoral position, it is to Deputy Cogan who, in the course of the last by-election loyally exhorted Miss Bobbett's voters to cast their preferences for Fianna Fáil and was able to transfer 600 votes for the whole of Wicklow—it is to these two and to Deputy Dr. Browne and Deputy Dr. ffrench-O'Carroll that the Taoiseach, Deputy de Valera, appeals from North-West Dublin, Wicklow and East Cork.

I will not use the word that so much distressed Deputy Cowan. Was there ever a more disreputable court of appeal? Is there a safe constituency amongst the whole four of them—and cross your heart and hope to die, if Deputy Jack Flynn had not taken refuge in the Fianna Fáil Party, would there have been a safe constituency in the whole "busted flush"? It is to them that Fianna Fáil is appealing from the verdict of the country.

Who started this debate? Whose motion are we discussing? Is it not the Taoiseach's motion? He put down the motion. What made him put it down? Presumably, in the first week of July, with the Estimates and the financial business still to be disposed of, and much legislation, he did not put it down for fun. Let us get back to facts. We are discussing a motion put down by the Taoiseach, Deputy de Valera. Is it not fair to ask why he put down that motion? He spokefor an hour when he was introducing this motion and, in the whole of that hour's address, he never once referred to North-West Dublin, Wicklow or East Cork. But was not the development in those three constituencies the occasion of this motion?

I think I can prove, not from his speech in introducing this motion—in which he never told us at all why he put it down—but from his past pronouncements that the Taoiseach was induced to put down this motion of confidence in the Government by the three by-elections. Speaking in Waterford on the 12th October, 1947, the Taoiseach said:—

"If you want something different; if you want a change of Government, then of course, there will be sense in voting against the Government candidate, because then you will indicate quite clearly that you want a change of Government. . . .

I assure you that if the people in these by-elections give such an indication we shall understand it."

I am quoting from the Fianna Fáil Pravdaof October 13th, 1947. From the same source of the 20th October, 1947, the Taoiseach, speaking at Tipperary on the 19th October, 1947, is reported as follows:—

". . . if a Government were weakened, it was not able to do its work properly, and if the Government were weakened by the result of the by-elections, there would be nothing for it but to settle the question by a general election. Mr. de Valera said that he thought that the people would agree with him that that was right."

Speaking in Tuam on the 27th January, 1948—and, this time, it is to another patron, particularly of the Tánaiste, from whom I quote, the Irish Times,who, I understand, would be glad to see a commonsensical kind of Government under the leadership of the Tánaiste to replace the present chaos—the Taoiseach is reported as follows:—

". . . recent by-elections seemed to indicate that people might not support them as they had donebefore. If that were so, he said, they would be a weak Government, and it would be better that they should get out. If they wanted to have progress, they must have a Government that was strong, supported by the people, and thus assured of its position. . . ."

Speaking at Dingle on the 20th January, 1948, the Taoiseach is reported in the Irish Independentof the following day as saying:—

". . . instead of remaining in office for another year and a half, as they could have done, they had decided to hold a general election, because they believed that a weak Government could not properly serve this country, and the by-elections had weakened them as a Government.

It would be pointed out to them during the next year and a half that while they had a majority they had not a majority of the people supporting them . . ."

Speaking at Cahirciveen on the 19th January, 1948,—and here I return to the Fianna Fáil Pravdaas my authority the Taoiseach is reported as saying:—

"A Government is strong only if it has a majority in Parliament, because with our system, the Government depends on the majority it has in Parliament. It is a weak Government if it has not a strong majority."

That is balm to Deputy Peadar Cowan's soul. Unlike Deputy Peadar Cowan, I am going to read the next paragraph intentionally, whereas he had the misfortune to read his paragraph unintentionally:—

"It is not strong——"

the Taoiseach said

"——merely because it has a parliamentary majority. If it can be suggested that a Government is not supported by the people, then a Government by that very fact is a weak Government—if, after these elections, a finger can be pointed at us, and it is said in the Dáil: ‘You have a majority of 12 or 14 over the otherParties, but the people are not behind you—you have not the majority of the people.' You know that the Opposition would talk in that way, and would be encouraged in their efforts by the fact that that charge could be made.

We are determined that that charge cannot be made, and if we are to continue as a Government we would have to have a majority in Parliament; be able to show that that majority was reasonably given to us, and that the people were behind us as well as the majority in Parliament."

Remember what the Taoiseach said on that occasion:—

". . . if, after these elections, a finger can be pointed at us, and it is said in the Dáil: ‘You have a majority of 12 or 14 over the other Parties, but the people are not behind you . . .'"

I point the finger now and say: "Look at your majority—four Deputies of this House, of which it is virtually certain not a single one would secure reelection in a general election to-morrow." I say to you: "You have not got the people behind you"—and I call, in evidence, North-West Dublin, where you went to the contest with a popular and well-known candidate, no less a person than the Lord Mayor of Dublin, and he was beaten two to one. Does anyone challenge that? You went, then, from a city constituency pleading the alibi that here the impact of the Budget was heavy. Deputy Cowan forgot, when he was speaking of Waterford and North Mayo and Limerick, that those three by-elections were held before the Budget's impact had struck the people at all. We told them what is was going to be like. We told them the economic sequela of the Government's economic policy. A great many of them did not at first believe us—just like Deputy Peadar Cowan—but when they saw the result, North-West Dublin defeated the Government two to one.

We went then to the country, to Wicklow, a constituency which has in it Bray, a large town, and a ruralarea, and we beat the Government in Wicklow. We went then to East Cork, a wholly rural constituency, and joined issue with them there and they were beaten there again.

Captain Cowan

Labour was beaten.

Mr. Dillon

Labour never lost a vote in East Cork.

Captain Cowan

They lost a seat.

Mr. Dillon

They never lost a vote. Labour never lost a vote in Wicklow, and this is certain, that the fortunes of the poll put Deputy Deering 37 votes in front of Senator McCrea. If those 37 votes had gone the other way, Senator McCrea would have won by exactly the same majority as Deputy Deering. That is what makes Deputy Cowan as mad as a gnat. He knows it and, what is worse for him, he knows we know it and that Labour know it, too. Am I then extravagant, in the light of these facts, in doing what the Taoiseach said might legitimately be done when he had a majority of 12 or 14 in Dáil Éireann? Am I presumptuous, unfair or in any degree indulging in political chicanery, if I point a finger at the Tánaiste and say: "You have a majority, a rag-bag majority in this House?"

All Deputies, however, are entitled to vote with just as good a right and title as the Tánaiste or I, to record their votes so long as they are Deputies, but can they be described as bringing to the present Government the support of the people? Only one of them has been exposed to that test and his best endeavour could mobilise no more than 600 votes in the whole of County Wicklow—and, when he speaks, he is bringing to the support of the Government the support of the Irish people.

If we are to test this situation by the rules laid down by the Leader of the present Government after he had 30 years' experience in public life in Ireland, does not he himself proclaim that, in the circumstances here obtaining, the Government has a clear duty to go to the country?

Deputy Cowan and the Minister for Social Welfare fell into a strange error in the course of our discussions here to-day. All that the Opposition haveasked for is to bring this issue to the people and we will abide their verdict, but Deputy Cowan said: "Would you ask me, by my vote, to put out Fianna Fáil and put in the inter-Party Government?" He knows what would happen if he went to the country. The Minister for Social Welfare said: "Here is our record; read it well. Why should you expose us to the danger of extinction in the country? We have done very well from 1932 onwards and look at what the wicked men opposite did—nothing?" I agree that stravaiging back to 1922 is waste of parliamentary time, but one Deputy must not do it on the assumption that no one else will follow. The Minister for Social Welfare must not say that Deputies on this side from 1922 to 1932 did nothing for the people of this country, if he is not prepared to hear that they built this State with their right hand while they prevented the Minister from tearing it down with their left. Let that be brought into account. I want no more than that. I want no more inquisition into this dim and distant past.

Captain Cowan

While Deputy MacBride was trying to tear it down.

Mr. Dillon

That is all I have to say about it, but let us bear this in mind when we are told that Fianna Fáil went forth to battle for our people and brought them home £5,000,000 a year in land annuities at a cost of a paltry £10,000,000. Let them go down and tell that to the farmers all over Ireland who sold their cattle, four-year-olds, for £4 10s. 0d.

Mr. D.J. O'Sullivan

And for 12/6.

Mr. Dillon

Let them go down and ask the people of rural Ireland if they remember the days when their calves were slaughtered rather than bring them to the fair. Let them go down to any parish in Ireland and ask this question: How many men were "broke" between the years 1932 and 1937 and never raised their heads again?

Captain Cowan

The Labour Party supported the Government then.

Mr. Dillon

I am talking of what I know. I am talking of men whoreared their families in modest comfort and were not beholden to anyone for their ability to do so and the same tale could be told of their fathers, their grandfathers and their ancestors back for generations; but I have seen these men brought low to poverty in such degree that they never raised their heads again. I have known such men to take their children from the schools where they were under education and send them out, without their learning, to seek their living by manual labour. I have heard the head of the present Government say across the floor of this House that he could not have omelettes without breaking eggs. Let not the Minister for Social Welfare talk of his victory in the economic war, without thinking sometimes of the eggs that were broken, of the homes that were broken, of the families that were broken, and let him count the cost of these when he is casting up the measure of his victory.

I do not want to travel this ground, but it makes me sick to hear the Minister for Social Welfare, who has lived all his life from his profession, talk as though scatheless Fianna Fáil triumphed in a conflict which they boasted they precipitated. The Tánaiste nods. I heard the Taoiseach boast that he started the economic war. I gave them the charity of believing that perhaps they did not understand the measure of the disaster they brought upon our people. I do not give them that charity now, because they must know what they did to our people in those years and the havoc they wrought.

I speak of facts and I do not think that many words need be wasted in ventilating the issues joined between us. The fundamental facts are that three by-elections took place and three results were recorded. The Taoiseach put down a vote of confidence and stands on record in public statement after public statement in relation to what he conceives his true duty to be. All I ask the House, and, looking beyond this House, the country, to do is to judge them on their own words, to judge them on their own acts and then to determine whether they are honest in the public life of Ireland if, with these statements of the Taoiseachon record, they claim successfully to have appealed from three by-elections to Deputy Cowan, Deputy Cogan, Deputy Browne and Deputy ffrench-O'Carroll.

I want to follow the Minister for Social Welfare in his reference to agriculture. We lately discovered in this country that we all in the last analysis depend upon the land. That was not always so in Ireland. I will ask this House to judge the record by the results. Seventeen years of Fianna Fáil administration in this country, and in June, 1948, there were less cattle on the land of Ireland than at any other time in the previous half century; there were less sheep on the land of Ireland than at any time in the previous century; there were less pigs in Ireland than at any time so far in the present century. The tillage land of Ireland was so impoverished that the yield of wheat from an acre of Irish land judged by the deliveries to the mill, not by the statistical estimates that optimists make as they look over the fences, had sunk to 6.3 cwt. per statute acre in 1947-48. Allow for the bad weather and look back a further year: it was 9.8 cwt. per statute acre. I ask any Deputy in this House what is the yield to-day? Grass in this country manifested the phenomenon hitherto unknown outside the poorest areas in the country that cattle grazing on four inches of grass were dying of starvation where they stood; 80,000 calves perished annually in this country through slaughter or disease.

All that was the fruit of 17 years of Fianna Fáil administration. The things I have mentioned so far pale to insignificance beside the most dramatic consequence of all. The farmers of this country by 17 years of Fianna Fáil administration had been brought so low, so prostrate, that it was possible for a Minister for Agriculture in a Fianna Fáil Government to address them in these terms at Navan on 19th February, 1947:—

"I would have had inspectors tucked after them, and I would have tucked them out into fresh land, and I would compel them to break freshland, and if they did not do it I would tuck in the tractors through the ditches and through the gates and tuck out the land for them. . . . If the Lord Almighty provides us with good weather that will enable us to make a start, and if there should be a necessity next season to be as rigid as heretofore—and there may be—I am going to tell them here and now that I will recruit the full of ten fields of inspectors, and I will spend plenty of money in paying them travelling expenses and everything else, and I will hire all the tractors and machinery I can get and I will go down and pick every one of the ‘cods' out and I will say: Take down that piece of wire and put it around the other corner. . . . When I do that, you can call me a thug or a clod or a driver, whatever you like, I do not care."

Now these are the sons and the grandsons of the men who won the land war. These are the sons and the grandsons of the men who kept the spirit alive in their country in the darkest hours of our history. There is the most dramatic sequence of 17 years of Fianna Fáil administration. It was possible for Deputy Patrick Smith when Minister for Agriculture to say all that and to remain Minister for Agriculture and there was a Party in Dáil Éireann that humbly bowed their heads and accepted that as the proper address of an Irish Minister for Agriculture to the farmers of this country.

Captain Cowan

The Labour Party supported it.

Mr. Dillon

Let us put this to the record of the inter-Party Government: after three short years there is not now a man in Ireland who would dare say that to the farmers now. If there was nothing else behind it but that record, I would be proud of it. In addition to that, however, there are facts. I will state them briefly, more briefly I hope than did the Minister for Social Welfare. I ask this House and the country to judge a policy and a Party by results and not by promises, not by protestations but by what they achieve.

The exports of this country between1947 and 1952—remember, price played some part in this—increased from £39,000,000 to £101,000,000, the highest figure ever recorded in the history of this State. Agricultural exports over that period increased from £30,000,000 to £75,000,000. Cattle exports—reckoning cattle, beef and canned beef in terms of live cattle—increased from 405,000 in 1947 to 739,000 in 1952. Listen to these figures. They speak of the export of cattle in the context I have just employed. In 1948, 405,000; in 1949, 523,000; in 1950, 591,000; in 1951, 642,000; in 1952, 739,000 and over the same period the cattle stock upon the land of Ireland rose from somewhere like 3,900,000 to 4,376,000, the highest figure ever recorded in the history of this country with the solitary exception of 1921. Sheep stand to-day at 2,856,000 compared with 2,000,000 in 1947. Our pigs stand to-day at 750,000, and that figure is rising, compared to about 420,000 in 1947. I heard the Minister for Social Welfare suggest that it was through some miracle performed by the present Minister for Agriculture that the pig population was increased. I challenge any honest Deputy to deny that the reason the pig population is increased is because of the security and of the permanent remunerative market secured by the inter-Party Government under the Pigs and Bacon Agreement of 1951 with the British Government.

Deputies

Hear, hear!

Mr. Dillon

The exports of pigs and bacon in 1947 were nil. In 1948 they were nil and last year they were valued for £3,317,000. Exports of sheep, lamb and mutton in 1947 were nil and for years before that. In 1952 they were over £2,000,000. Exports of chocolate crumb in 1947 were nil or merely nominal and in 1952-53 they were £5,308,000. As of the Minister for Agriculture's statement this year introducing his Estimate, 386,000 acres of land were rehabilitated or were in the process of rehabilitation under sections (a) and (b) of the land rehabilitation project on 74,500 farms. Seventy-two thousand soil samples were tested at Johnstown Castle lastyear. In 1947 less than 100 samples were tested by one man and a boy in a back room whose entire equipment consisted of one used medicine bottle tied to a discarded bicycle wheel which spun on a sixpenny nail.

Does anyone challenge that? I will show them the room, the man and the boy. I asked them to preserve, as a relic of ould dacency, the medicine bottle, the bicycle wheel and the sixpenny nail. When I speak of 386,000 acres of land rehabilitated, let me tell the House what that means. I met a man in Cappoquin who stopped me in the street and said he wanted to see me some time to tell me what the land rehabilitation project meant to him. "They did my land," he said, "and where my father and my grandfather kept ten cows we are keeping 30 cows and we could make silage." I suggest that if Deputies were honest with themselves they could reproduce that picture in almost every parish in Ireland.

Three-quarters of a million tons of limestone were put out on the land of Ireland last year and in 1947 there was not as much ground limestone in Ireland as would fill an eggcup. Let us not attribute its production to me or any one individual in this House. It happened when the inter-Party Government was in office. I would ask the House and the country to judge that Government by results. We were told to-day by the Minister for Social Welfare that one of our great crimes was that when the inter-Party Government was in office they spent nothing on nobody. He said that the only thing they did was to collect a huge stockpile that bewildered and perplexed their successors. Deputy Cowan protests to himself that he is an honest and disinterested man. Does he remember the Tánaiste interrupting me to say, when I criticised the White Paper issued by the Minister for Finance in this House, that there was no stockpile? "None of your increased imports can be explained by the alibi of stockpiling," he said. "You were on a spending spree. There is not any stockpiling."

Mr. Donnellan

What about mouse traps?

Mr. Dillon

And remember they went through Ireland on the instruction of their own Leader—I do not blame the back benchers; I think they believed the Minister for Industry and Commerce and the Minister for Finance— and they preached at every crossroads that the substance of the people had been squandered on consumer goods to furnish forth a drunkard's spree. Now that story is abandoned and the stockpile they said did not exist two years ago is their alibi for the unemployment that they themselves created two years later.

Deputies

Hear, hear!

Mr. Dillon

But that is not all. Now their cry is, according to the Minister for Social Welfare, that we spent nothing on nobody. How often have I heard at crossroads, in this House and all over Ireland the statement made that so fantastic was our expenditure that the present Government came into office and found waiting for them nothing but mountains of debt to relieve which immense additional taxation had to be put on? Was not that the case? Was not that the alibi for the Budget? That is now to be abandoned.

Remember, it is only a month ago since the Taoiseach was forced at a public meeting during the by-election campaign to confess that when he came into office he found on the desk of the Minister for Finance not £22,000,000 but £28,500,000 sterling of the Marshall Aid Loan Counterpart Fund and the Marshall Aid Grant Counterpart Fund of which he retained and still to-day retains £6,250,000 unspent. And then he said: "Ah, perhaps there were not debts waiting for us but there were commitments." No Government in a democratic State can commit its successor. When we came into office we found commitments. There were Constellations to shuttle to and fro across the Atlantic. We cancelled that commitment. There were commitments to tear down Merrion Square and build vast new Government buildings in the Phoenix Park and we cancelled that commitment. We would not be bound by them. If there was a single commitment of ours that appears to be improvident or wrong how were our successorsbound? Had they not a perfect right to come before Dáil Éireann and say: "Our predecessors entered into a commitment to do so and so. We think they were wrong. We reject that commitment and cancel it?"

Distinguish carefully between a contract made by an Irish Government and a commitment. I can see at once that if any member of the present Government signs a contract with the authority of the Government whoever their successors may be are bound by its provisions but not by its commitments. Now that alibi is being turned round. Now it is admitted that there were no debts. On the contrary, there were £28,500,000 sterling waiting to be used as the incoming Government thought fit and the Minister for Social Welfare confirms that by saying that the crime we committed while in office was that we spent nothing on nobody. Unlike us, he proposes to spend more on everybody than was ever spent before, but there is this remarkable distinction. I heard Deputy Davin, who has forty years' experience in the public life of Ireland and who has never been silenced by any interests however powerful, say that in his considered judgment the day we left office there was virtually full employment in rural Ireland.

Is there any Deputy in Dáil Éireann to-day who would have the hardihood to say so much now? Was it not a proud achievement to be able to boast of, that such a very old and respected figure in the Labour movement as Deputy Davin would stake his reputation on the proposition in public that, in his memory, there was never a better condition of employment obtaining in rural Ireland than there was at the end of the three years of our Administration?

Something has happened since then that has changed that picture. I ask Deputies to cast their minds back. How stood the shopkeepers three years ago? How stood everyone in business three years ago and how stand they to-day? I ask anyone who knows anything about business, is it or is it not true that if you put an advertisement in a newspaper for a shop assistant three years ago you were lucky to get any reply at all?

Is it, or is it not true, that if you put the same advertisement in to-day you will get 20 or 30 boys or girls replying. What made the change I say I know. I say that what made that change was the deliberate policy of the Fianna Fáil Government designed deliberately to effect that change, by the raising of the cost of money, the creation of credit stringency at a time of rising prices, the deliberate creation of internal price inflation which drove thousands into unemployment and more thousands into emigration and which as surely as we are standing in this House, is now advancing to the point where it will put in jeopardy the entire agricultural industry by destroying the margin of profit available to it by raising its costs of production higher than its markets will permit it to bear.

I warn Dáil Éireann now, and let not Deputy Cowan say hereafter that he never heard the warning, that if that comes there will be precipitated in this country an economic disaster beside which the economic war will fade into insignificance. Let us remember this —and again I do not want to go over ancient history—is it not approaching the point where there is too much being asked of Deputies outside the Fianna Fáil Party to build up the country after their civil war and then to build up the country again after their economic war and then, when they start again with a third assault on the people, to hand back direct to us a third time and say "build it up again"? I warn this House and this country that, no matter how willing a horse may be, there are some burdens it cannot bear, and you cannot destroy a country three times in one generation and build it up again.

Fianna Fáil is travelling on the road of undermining the industry in this country on which every single creature in Ireland depends for existence—the agricultural industry. I know that, with political cunning, they can create a situation which it will be virtually impossible for any popularly elected Government succeeding them to correct. I cannot bring myself to believe that any political Party in Ireland could conceivably be actuated by such criminal malice as to foresee their owndisintegration, and, foreseeing it, seek to create a situation that no successor could remedy. When I ask myself this question, and when I look back on the Budget of 1952 and the debates on it, when I read anew the White Paper which was issued by the Minister for Finance in 1951 and when I see the course of conduct that developed from the publication of that accursed document, I ask myself the question: "Why did he do it?" Why did he tear down the whole economic structure that we had erected whereunder wages had got abreast of the cost of living and were even rising a little above it, where there was stability of costs throughout the whole economy, where we had mobilised the Exchequer behind the cost of living so as to ensure its stability and where we had in reserve an ample fund to fall back on at any time if the credit authorities of the country proved unequal to their responsibility?

Why, overnight, did he come in and sweep away that reserve and then find himself, six months later at his wit's end, rushing into the market to borrow in the name of Ireland and on the credit of an Irish Government at 5 per cent., while proclaiming, again and again before the world: "We could not have raised one penny if we did not pay more than Southern Rhodesia: the Irish Republic could not have raised one penny if we did not pay more than the island of Jamaica?"

Why did he tear down the whole system of subsidies and the stabilisation of the cost of living, and throw the whole economic life of the country into the melting pot and precipitate rising costs and the hateful, dangerous price inflation that is strangling our economy now?

The more I ask myself that question Why? Why? Why?, the more impossible I find it to get an answer. I wonder does he know himself? I wonder if Deputies in the Fianna Fáil Party have any idea in their minds, why did he do it. I have tried to formulate a reason as to why he did. When he began that course I said: "He must be foreseeing the disappearance of Taoiseach de Valera and wants to see Deputy Lemass as Taoiseach with a surplus at his disposal at the beginningof his period of office so that they can get off to a good start." That was an explanation, but we arrived at the end of the year and actually realised a deficit. Why did he do it? Does anybody say that the economic state of this country is sounder and better to-day than it was when we stood with £28,500,000 of money in reserve, and with no financial authority in this country ever daring to question our right to claim credit for the communty at rates of interest which the community could afford to pay. I ask that question again: Why? Why? Why?

I do not know the answer. Think back then on the principles laid down by the present Taoiseach, Deputy de Valera when he thought the going was good. Think how he scorned a majority of 14 or more in Dáil Éireann if a doubt could be raised about people being behind him. Look at his majority now. Think of the by-elections. Think of what Deputy Cowan said. Think of what the Minister for Health and Social Welfare said. They did not say: "Deliver us from the ordeal of a general election." They said: "Deliver us from the ordeal of defeat in a general election." Ask yourselves: can he claim that he has behind him the support of the people? Let Deputy Cowan's honest soul writhe in agony lest truth be violated or honour tarnished and then let him return nobly, courageously, fearlessly to do his duty and cut his throat by precipitating a general election. Can you imagine his doing it, and if you cannot, I hope you are proud of the sheet anchor to which you so zealously cling.

An Ceann Comhairle

The Tánaiste.

Brendán Mac Fheórais

If the Tánaiste will permit me, I would like to point this out: that group which describe themselves as generally supporting the Government have had two speakers to-day. The Labour Party with 14 members have had one.

Mr. McQuillan

The Independents count much more than any other Party.

An Ceann Comhairle

We are not calculating the speakers daily.

Brendán Mac Fheórais

It will be five Government speakers.

An Ceann Comhairle

The list shows that there were seven Opposition speakers.

Brendán Mac Fheórais

I am talking about the Labour Party.

Mr. Morrissey

And the Opposition speakers.

An Ceann Comhairle

I am not speaking about to-day. I am speaking of the entire debate.

General Mulcahy

Following on that point can we have, if not to-night, to-morrow morning, an account of the time taken by the Government and the time given to the Opposition speakers in this debate?

Brendán Mac Fheórais

Nobody wants to deny the Tánaiste an opportunity of speaking.

An Ceann Comhairle

When the Chair calls on a Deputy, he has no notion of what time the Deputy will take. The Chair has no power whatever to limit a speaker.

General Mulcahy

I am not suggesting that, but I do say the Chair has a discretion in calling on speakers. I take it that it is within the discretion of the Chair to take cognisance of the amount of time taken by pro-Government speakers in this debate up to to-night and by those who are opposed to the Government.

Mr. Rooney

Do the five persons include the Independents? Do they include Deputy Cowan?

An Ceann Comhairle

No. The Chair has to take cognisance of facts. Deputy Cowan, as far as the Chair is aware, is an Independent Deputy.

Mr. Morrissey

He is not listed with the Opposition, I hope.

An Ceann Comhairle

There are seven listed. No, he is not.

Mr. Rooney

Does it include Deputy Dr. Browne?

Minister for Industry and Commerce (Mr. Lemass)

I hope the chair will not be tricked into a political judgment.

Mr. Morrissey

If they are going to be with you they are going to be with you, and you are going to be saddled with them.

An Ceann Comhairle

There were eight Opposition speakers not seven.

Mr. Rooney

Does that include Deputy Dr. Browne and Deputy Cowan?

An Ceann Comhairle

I treated Deputy Dr. Browne and Deputy Cowan as Independents.

General Mulcahy

It is the question of time taken by both sides in this debate. Does that arise in the Speaker's exercising his discretion when calling on Deputies in this debate?

An Ceann Comhairle

Yes, as far as the Chair can do it. The Chair is not in a position to calculate in decimal fractions at the moment. The Chair has a list of the amount of time taken by the various Deputies.

Mr. Morrissey

It is all right. We will not have another Deputy Aiken.

Mr. Lemass

Deputy Dillon's speech, stripped of its rhetoric, verbosity and ballyhoo was perhaps the most useful contribution made to this debate. It is a good thing that those who are now allied to Fine Gael or may in future become allied to them should understand that the alliance carries with it not merely an obligation to work with Fine Gael for some limited programme but retrospective absolution for Fine Gael's past sins and acceptance of Fine Gael's justification for having sinned. They must do more than that. When we were engaged in tearing down the country, according to Deputy Dillon, we had the active support and cooperation of many Deputies who are now sitting behind Deputy Dillon. They not merely must give Fine Gael retrospective absolution but they must themselves do penance for their own sin, their sin of association with us in doing the things that Deputy Dillon condemns; and perhaps if they arehumble and contrite enough Deputy Dillon will give them absolution also.

They must go further even than that. If ever again in an emergency we are short of bread and need every possible grain of wheat to feed our people and some little group of ranchers in the Midlands refuse to break up their pastures to carry out a national obligation to grow wheat, they must agree that they are to be left alone, that it is a crime for the Government to put a tractor into the gateway and plough up the field to sow wheat to feed our people, if the ranchers can make more money in some other way.

It was a great achievement for Fine Gael to have improved conditions during the three years in which they were in office as compared with those which they found in 1947 just at the end of the war. We knew the fertility of our land had been exhausted during the war. Twice during that period I had the responsibility of ordering Irish ships to sail across the Atlantic to Florida to procure cargoes of phosphate rock when we could not get them anywhere else, in the hope of being able to do something to maintain the fertility of the Irish land. The Irish Planesailed west and never was heard of again. TheIrish Oaksailed east with a cargo of phosphate rock and it was blown to the sky by a German submarine.

It is true there was a loss of fertility in the land and if the war had gone on much longer the yield per acre would have fallen lower still. It was a great achievement of the Coalition Government at a time when supplies were again freely available, when none of those war-time problems were lying on their desks, to get an increased yield per acre, to get restored other activities which had stopped during the war. It would have happened if they went to sleep at their desks, which some of them probably did.

Deputy Dillon asked one question, to which he is entitled to an answer. He asked why this motion was put down. When this Government was formed the Taoiseach gave an undertaking, because of certain statements which were made at that time by members of the Fine Gael Party and newspapers supporting the Fine Gael Party, thatthere would not be a dissolution of the Dáil unless the Government was defeated on an issue of confidence. By-elections have been recently held in which the Fianna Fáil candidates were not successful and we have been urged by the Fine Gael Party to dissolve the Dáil in contravention of that undertaking which we gave when the Government was formed. We are adhering to our pledge.

There is another reason why we do not propose to take that course and it is this: We think that the public are entitled to an opportunity of judging our policy when they can see its full results, that it will take more time than has been available to us so far to demonstrate that our policy is capable of paying off in substantial benefits to the community. We think it is fair to them, if they are to judge upon that policy, that they should know exactly the extent of the benefits which it can confer, in our opinion, on the country. These benefits are only now coming to hand.

Behind a lot of the ballyhoo in this debate, there is keen appreciation of political interests. Not merely do we think it is fair to the community that they should have an opportunity of estimating the extent of these benefits before judging on our policy, we think it is only fair to ourselves also. The Opposition Party are just as alive to that situation as we are. They know that we had to follow a course of action which was liable to be misunderstood, capable of being misrepresented, certainly unpopular in some of its aspects and which could not produce substantial benefits to the country until this year. They are naturally anxious to get an election, if they can, while the memory of the hardships is fresh in the people's mind and the benefits are not yet sufficiently obvious.

That is natural enough. I do not blame the Party opposite for seeking to take any advantage they can in that way. It is natural for any political Party to seek to obtain power. If it has any purpose for its existence at all, it must aim to get into a positionwhere it can put into effect the ideas which are common to its members and to implement which the Party was organised.

What are the ideas of the Fine Gael Party? Is the Fine Gael Party seeking to obtain power to put into effect some ideas and plans and principles of its own and, if so, what are they, or are all the things that they may do after an election to be determined then in discussion with the members of other Parties associated with them?

Deputy McGilligan said on a public occasion last week that Fine Gael will get back at another election into the old Cumann na nGaedheal position, as the predominant political Party in the country. Many of those who took the action which made these hopes now possible for Fine Gael must be as concerned as I am to know what they will do in that position if they get there. Fine Gael was a dying Party in 1947. The responsibility of those who then went into alliance with them in 1948 was that they revied Fine Gael, brought it into a position in which it can hope now to get again into the old Cumann na nGaedheal position, as the predominant political Party of the country.

I think those who took the responsibility of reviving Fine Gael and who are still helping them forward into that predominant position are entitled to get from them some indication of what they intend to do if they get there. Was Deputy Dillon's speech an indication? I assume that the Leaders of Fine Gael will be asked that by some of their present allies and I do not think the answer can be kept a secret. The people will ask it. Certainly, so long as I have any voice left, I will keep on asking.

General Mulcahy

Would you let us know what the questions are?

Mr. Lemass

I will, yes, in a more specific way. I thought I had indicated them to the average intelligence.

General Mulcahy

You have not made yourself clear yet.

Mr. Dillon

He had three weeks' discussion in the country, you know.

Mr. Lemass

I want to refer to the by-elections. It is quite true that the result of the by-elections weakened the Government. Apart from any other effect, we lost a seat. A seat which was held by the Fianna Fáil Party at the general election is now held by a Fine Gael Deputy. That is two votes less available to the Government on a division in the House.

There is this to be said also about the by-elections, that they did not indicate any alteration in the representation of these constituencies at a future general election. If there was a general election to-morrow, East Cork and Wicklow would return the same representation as in 1948.

Mr. MacBride

Surely not Deputy Cogan.

Mr. D.J. O'Sullivan

Not Deputy Cogan.

Mr. Lemass

In fact, if you go over the whole six by-elections that took place during the lifetime of this Dáil, the only one that suggested there might be a different position in a general election was North Mayo and that suggested that we might gain a seat but I am not putting that forward in order to minimise the effect of the by-elections upon the Government. The Government, quite obviously, has not succeeded in convincing a majority of the people in these constituencies that we are working on the right lines. We may convince them yet. We have not done it up to this.

We did not expect that we would have been able to bring about such a swing of opinion in these constituencies that we could have won the seats there. When we embarked upon the programme that we are now following we fully appreciated the fact that we were incurring grave political risks, that for a period of a year or two the changes which we thought it necessary to bring about to improve the economic and social conditions of the country might mean a temporary loss of support amongst the public. It would have been too much, we realised, to hope that the mass of the people would understand fully the need for these measures or foresee clearly the benefitsthey would ultimately confer upon them. We knew, as I said on another occasion, that at any time during those two years, the incidence of mortality or sickness amongst Deputies supporting the Government could have deprived us of office and, consequently, of the opportunity of demonstrating that we were working on the right lines. We would have dodged the risk if we could. We could not see any method of doing so. We realised that if we were to work conscientiously and effectively we had to proceed on the basis of a long-term plan. That long-term plan is now, I think, beginning to pay off in substantial benefits to the community, in increased production and the prospect of increased employment. We have a long way to go yet before conditions will be such as we would like to see them, conditions such as we expect to have them, but the movement is in the right direction. It is still too slow, still too hesitant, but the direction is right.

One other comment on the by-elections should be made. It is, of course, completely nonsensical to argue that the Government should not hold office unless it has the support of a majority of the electorate in every constituency. No Government in the world could accept that situation. When a general election is held, a Party may do well in some constituencies and not so well in others. The net result of the election means that a Government is formed with the support of a majority of the Deputies elected, a Government which might not have a Deputy supporting it from some constituency but which nevertheless would be constitutionally entitled to act as the Government of the State so long as it was supported by a majority of the Dáil. We did not get a majority of the Deputies elected in East Cork in the last election to support us and the same was true of some other constituencies where there have been by-elections. The swing of opinion such as it is against the Government consequent on the measures which the Government had to take will, I am certain, be reversed, and perhaps when the swing in the other direction comes it will be greater in its effect.

We have been told here that thepolicy of the Government has produced misery and hardship amongst the people and that that misery and hardship follows on the level of taxation, the level of prices and unemployment. That is something that is very easy to say, but it is almost meaningless unless it is supported by some attempt at proof. When one talks about the level of taxes being too high or the level of prices being too high one must be thinking of some basis of comparison, either a comparision with conditions in other countries or a comparison with conditions such as might conceivably exist here.

So far as a comparison with conditions in other countries is concerned there is no basis for the contention. Taking our nearest neighbour, Britain, the country in Europe where social conditions are more or less akin to our own, the percentage of the national income taken for public administration is 40 as compared with 27 here. We take less of the national income for public purposes than the British do.

That is not the whole answer, I admit, if any Deputy argues that the level of taxation is still too high because the national income is not large enough to permit of the balance left for public spending to sustain a reasonable standard of life. So far as the level of prices is concerned, largely speaking, our prices are lower than in Britain and I think lower than in most European coutries. That may not be true of all commodities, but taking the general level of prices it is true. When, however, Deputies say that the level of taxation is too high, that prices are too high, do they not accept the obligation to say what can be done about it? In the course of this debate there did not come from one responsible leader of the other Parties opposite a positive suggestion as to what action should be taken to bring down taxation or to bring down prices. You cannot bring down taxation except you bring down expenditure. What expenditure will the Deputies opposite urge should be curtailed? What services now provided by the Government should in their view be abandoned? In what way do they think it is possible for theGovernment to reduce expenditure and thereby permit of a reduction of taxation? If they have any ideas on that subject why keep them to themselves? The public will expect them to give that indication as evidence of their good faith, and if the Fianna Fáil Party should continue in the Government any good ideas which the Opposition may put forward will be considered. What purpose have they in keeping secret any ideas of that kind that they have in their minds? What do they think can be done to bring down prices? In what particular way do they think it is possible to bring down the price of any commodity that enters into the calculation of the cost-of-living index figure?

The price of butter has been frequently mentioned here. The price of butter is bound up with the price of milk. Butter sells in the shops at 4/2 per lb. retail. The farmer who supplies the milk to make that butter gets 1/6 a gallon. It takes 2½ gallons of milk to make a pound of butter. That is to say that of that 4/2, 3/9 represents the price paid to the farmer for his milk. The balance of 5d. covers the cost of manufacture of milk into butter, packing and distributing it to the retail shops and selling it retail to the consumer. There can be no reduction in the price of butter except by the application of a subsidy or by a reduction in the price of milk. Do Deputies opposite think that the price of milk should be reduced? I know that Deputy Dillon at one time urged that it was in the interest of the creamery farmers to commit themselves for five years to accept 1/- per gallon for their milk.

Mr. D.J. O'Sullivan

That is not so. A guaranteed minimum price.

Mr. Lemass

That proposal was turned down by the creamery suppliers and he did not go on with it.

My question is a simple one. Do the Deputies opposite think that the price paid for creamery milk should be reduced? Do they, on the other hand, contemplate any reduction in the price of butter by the application of a subsidy? To bring down the price by one penny would involve a subsidy of £1,000,000 per year. To make any significant reduction in the price ofbutter would, therefore, involve a subsidy of several million pounds—from £2,000,000 to £4,000,000 according to the reduction sought.

Mr. Blowick

That is not correct. You are talking about the price of milk.

Mr. Lemass

I am talking about subsidy to enable a reduction in the price of butter.

Mr. Blowick

A penny in the gallon on milk means £1,000,000 of taxation which is a different problem.

Mr. Lemass

You cannot reduce the price of butter to any great extent except by a subsidy which is going to run into a very large sum. I do not want to argue on figures at all. I want to argue on principles. If the sum is a large one it must be provided either by increasing some taxes or by cutting some present expenditure. Details are required if that is what is contemplated. Any significant reduction in the cost-of-living index number by way of subsidies would involve a very large sum of money indeed which would have to be paid year after year, a permanent burden upon the Exchequer of the State, depriving it of revenue which could conceivably be used for other purposes. I argued this question of subsidies in the knowledge that I did not always hold that view. I was, perhaps, more responsible than any other individual for the introduction of these subsidies in 1947, and might I remind Deputy Dillon that when they were introduced in 1947, he voted against them and the whole Fine Gael Party voted against them. This Party which is criticising the Government for abandoning subsidies did their best in 1947 to prevent them ever being introduced. I argued with my colleagues then in favour of a policy of food subsidies in the belief that we were facing in that year a temporary rise in prices, in the belief that prices were going to move up to a peak because of the abnormal conditions prevailing in that year, conditions due mainly to the weather which operated in that year, and that in the following year the prices would fall again and that the only thing we had to do was to carry prices over that peak and thatprices would come down to the previous level in the following year and the subsidies would disappear and no continuing problem would result.

It did not work out that way. Prices went up and stayed up, and when they did show a tendency to come down in 1949 the Korean war situation came along and boosted them up further. We recognise in this situation that we have to regard the present price level as more or less permanent. In the course of the recent by-elections I did not attempt to promise in any of my addresses that the prices of commodities coming into the cost of living calculation would come down. I pointed out that the prices of these commodities are in the main based on the prices paid to Irish farmers, and that while those prices were relatively good they operated to redress a situation in the economy of this country, a situation which prevailed before the war that we regarded as undesirable, in which the return received from investment or work in agriculture was considerably lower than that obtainable from any other occupation. That was a bad condition for a country predominantly agricultural. We tried then to redress the balance in favour of agriculture and it has been redressed now, and we think it would be a thoroughly retrograde step to bring down agricultural prices to reduce food prices in the towns. It is far better to seek to amend the rates of remuneration and the other circumstances prevailing in the towns so that they are related to the level of agricultural prices, than that the relative position of agriculture should be worsened. That is my view. For that reason my aim has been, as Minister for Industry and Commerce, supervising the price controlling machinery, to get to the position in which I think we are now, the position in which one could hold out the prospect of price stability.

So far as I can see, and I do not like to prophesy in a matter of this kind, no further general price increase in the commodities which affect the cost-of-living index number is likely to take place in the foreseeable future. If there is a qualification which must be put to that, it relates to the one commoditywhich is still subsidised, wheat. We have signed a new wheat agreement, under which the maximum price which we may have to pay for imported wheat is higher than the old one.

Whether that maximum price will be effective during the life of the agreement I do not know. We decided that it was in our interest to sign that agreement, having regard to our relatively weak position as an international wheat buyer. The British decided to take an alternative course and did not sign the agreement. I do not think the net result will be that we will do worse than they, in the price we have to pay for imported wheat. If I can offer an opinion regarding the future level of prices, knowing that wheat situation, it is because so long as there is a subsidy provided from the Exchequer to wheat prices, the price to be charged to the consumer for flour and bread is a matter of Government decision primarily.

So far as industrial commodities are concerned, there has been a definite movement downwards. Whether that is a good thing or not is a matter of opinion. We have seen during recent weeks a reduction in the price of timber, cement, petrol, fertilisers, binder twine and a number of industrial commodities. I have already expressed to the Dáil my fear that anticipation among the business community of a fall in prices would slow down trade and that it would be better if the price position were clearly recognised to be stabilised. I think this recent fall in prices was merely an adjustment from an abnormal situation, that the commodities to which I referred were unduly inflated in price by exceptional demands during the Korean war period and that they are not likely to fall much further. In fact, the most significant thing in recent weeks is that certain commodities, like steel, have begun to move up again. In any event, I will make no further prognostication, except that we are in a general position of stable prices and that unless there is a further international upheaval, that is likely to persist. That is the ideal situation for progress. It means that anyone startinga new business, an industrial or a commercial enterprise, which will not get into production for 12 months or two years ahead, can be reasonably certain that his present estimate of costs will prove accurate, that rising prices in the interval will not upset the estimate. He can also be reasonably certain that someone coming into the business later will not have a competitive advantage over him by reason of lower costs. It is because we have suceeded in getting into a situation in which it is possible to forecast with some accuracy that there will be no further general increase in prices and no further general increase in taxes that the hope of accelerating economic expansion can be held out. That is taking place.

So far as manufacturing industry is concerned, the type of economic activity for which I as Minister for Industry and Commerce am responsible, that is going ahead apace. Expansion is occurring in quite a number of directions. Almost every second week now, some new factory opens somewhere, or there is published in the newspapers a prospectus from some company raising capital to finance some new enterprise. My concern in that regard is not whether progress will continue but whether we can direct that progress in the way in which we would wish. We introduced last year the Undeveloped Areas Act, which gave us power to hold out inducements to new industrialists to go to counties west of the Shannon. The report of the board that administers that Act for 1952 is about to be published. They will report that they have approved of 15 projects and that there are about 12 others in a position in which approval is likely to be forthcoming. Of the 15 projects, about 12 will go ahead. It is, I think, a not unsatisfactory result for the first year during which the Act was in operation, 12 new industrial concerns in those counties which were industrially undeveloped previously. The intimidating thing is that there are at present some 35 new industrial concerns about to start in Dublin, concerns which we in some cases endeavoured to induce west of the Shannon and the promoters of which considered that theeconomic advantage of starting here in Dublin outweighed any help we could give in a western location. No doubt, the development of industry west of the Shannon will itself promote further development there and the activities which the Government is undertaking in that area, in the bog development in North Mayo, in the production of electricity from peat, the new power stations planned in Donegal and Galway and Clare and Kerry, will all help to accelerate the movement of industry to the West in the course of time.

The development of industry is going on, but we are still getting this situation in which the growth of the eastern cities and towns is proceeding more rapidly than we would wish. That is having the continual effect of attracting into them workers from rural areas and sometimes from rural employment, although there is an unemployment problem still there.

We have to consider the possibility that every measure we take to increase employment in Dublin will have the effect of bringing more workers into Dublin instead of reducing the number of unemployed here. At one time we had a rule that employment upon certain State-financed schemes was confined to people who had been normally resident in Dublin for a year or two years or more. It is not the type of rule that a Government likes to make, but it is a rule which I think might be revived in connection with any public works schemes undertaken for the purpose of reducing the employment problem which is here in Dublin.

I have said that in relation to taxes the position of stability that has been reached gives us the prospect of planning ahead with greater confidence; that in respect of prices the position of stability that has been reached is not likely to change one way or another for some time. The outstanding problem still is unemployment. I am not going to argue about unemployment upon the basis of what one Government did or another Government did. It is quite obvious to me that the conditions which continue to produce unemployment in Ireland are fundamental and that we have to get down to themin a fundamental way if the position is to be created in which we can guarantee reasonably constant employment to all our available workers. There is certainly no foundation for the suggestion made by Deputy Dillon that we have any idea that it is a good thing for the country to have a pool of unemployed labour. Any such idea would be contrary to the outlook we have held all our lives, to every plan and every project that the Fianna Fáil Government during the whole of its existence produced to the Dáil.

We accept as evidence that the work we have done has not been wide enough in its scope or pushed ahead as vigorously as it should have been, the fact that there is still a number of unemployed workers who cannot be absorbed into production or useful occupations at the present state of the country's economic development. So long as that evidence is there, evidence that our activities are not vigorous enough or moving fast enough, then we will endeavour to widen their scope and speed them up. That is the spur we are prepared to apply to ourselves in carrying out our ideas and plans in that regard.

We have naturally considered the situation resulting from the recent by-elections. We realise that even if we get this vote of confidence carried by the Dáil the majority normally available to support the Government's programme during the next two years will be narrow and that at any time during that period the mere accidental absence of some Deputies or the incidence of illness might make it impossible for us to go on. Nevertheless, we decided to try to go on. We think that it is not merely in our political interests to let the country see the benefits of the work we have done in concrete form but it is in the country's interests that the plans and projects we have prepared for the past two years for development in various directions should be brought into operation. We hope to get, frankly, for most of these plans and projects in so far as they require approval here, the support of many more Deputies than will vote for us on this vote of confidence. We are certain when these matters come before the Dáil as individualmeasures that they will command the support of Deputies on all sides of the House.

The political problem of the Government is very largely confined to the votes that occur periodically on motions of a general kind or Estimates where no particular projects are under debate but the general policy of the Government. While there will always be risks associated with these votes, nevertheless we are confident that we can get a useful programme of work completed before anything will arise to upset it.

There is another reason why there has been a change of attitude on our part as compared with that of 1947, the attitude which Deputy Dillon illustrated by those quotations of his from speeches made by the Taoiseach then. On various occasions in the past, when by-elections indicated some reason for it, the Dáil has been dissolved and a general election held. In fact the first general election I fought as a member of the Dáil was in 1927 when the Fine Gael Party dissolved the Dáil after winning two by-elections. They subsequently lost several, but they did not dissolve the Dáil then.

I am coming to the point of view that, under normal circumstances and under P.R., there is a law which operates to keep the number of supporters of a Government and the number of opponents of a Government more or less in balance. I have been watching the course of events in other European countries and everywhere P.R. is in operation there is always a very close margin between the Government in office and the Opposition, and I do not think that is just a coincidence or an accidental outcome of unusual circumstances in these countries. I think there is a law that operates to produce that result, that there is a tendency to weaken the strong Party and to build up the weak one, and that we are facing a situation for a long time ahead when every Government in office here will hold office on a narrow margin of votes. Consequently, anything we do now may constitute a precedent. Weconsider that the precedent should be that a Government elected after a general election by the votes of a majority of Deputies should continue in office and endeavour to carry through the programme to which it is committed until some of those whose votes gave it authority to hold office withdraw that support permanently and vote with the Opposition, thus creating a situation in which the Government can no longer claim to have the support of a majority of Deputies.

If we have a situation in which every time a Government loses a by-election there has to be a general election, there will be no progress at all. It would be an impossible situation in any State and a ridiculous one in ours because, apart from any situation which might develop in the Dáil, it has been obvious for a number of years past that political opinion amongst the people of this country is more or less evenly divided on the merits and demerits of the Fianna Fáil Party. So that, even though temporary or local circumstances may occasion a small swing of votes in some constituencies, there is not likely to be a fundamental change, nor will there be until some new fundamental issue arises which may occasion a new alignment of the individuals now engaged in politics. For that reason I think we have to establish this precedent, that a Government when elected with a programme to fulfil should not cease to work to carry through that programme so long as it has a majority, however narrow, in the Legislature, to support it.

If we thought things were going wrong, if we thought that there might be difficulties in the future which would be beyond our capacity to cope, if we thought that economic conditions were going to get worse, we might be tempted to listen to the urgings of Deputies opposite to quit office so as to avoid the responsibility for the bad things we saw ahead. It is because we do not see bad things ahead, because we see improvements, a reduction of unemployment, an expansion of industry and an increase of the resources available to the community to tackle social problems thatwe are anxious to work in that situation, believing that we have the ideas and the plans and the capacity to do good work in it.

If there is a majority of the Dáil prepared to back our faith to that extent—we do not ask them to do more than that; we do not ask them to surrender any right to criticise any particular project or plan that we may propose—then we will go on. If there is not such a majority, that is a situation which we must accept. But we felt it was our duty as a Government to bring this issue to the Dáil, to declare to the Dáil our willingness to carry on in this situation and to produce here in time the proposals we are preparing if the Dáil wants to see them. We accept the sovereignty of the Dáil and we will abide by its decisions.

Mr. Larkin

It might possibly have saved a great deal of wasted effort if, instead of the motion being moved by the Taoiseach, it had been moved by the Tánaiste. Whatever difference of opinion we have with the Tánaiste, at least he has one very good ability and that is to speak about real politics and real issues. The motion before the House is not only a simple one but it is one that, frankly, I can see no objection to the Government putting down. I do not intend going into the question of the significance of the by-election figures. In every game there are rules and one is entitled to take full advantage of the rules. Perhaps after utilising the rules and failing, you may have to pay the penalty, but you are still entitled to play the game according to the rules.

The rules at the moment are that the Government are in office on the basis of certain support given to them in this House and they are entitled to remain in office so long as they can secure that support. Whether, as Deputy Dillon suggests, the people are no longer giving the same volume of support to the Government as they did in the 1951 General Election is another matter which possibly will be decided on some occasion. But in a debate of this character it is just as well we should all be frank. Ihave no doubt that if Fine Gael were the Government to-day, or the Labour Party, and were in the same position, we would probably hold out as long as we could. I am not objecting to that, but what I am concerned with is not why the Government put down the vote of confidence but rather whose confidence they are looking for. In this House we have two main political Parties, Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael. We have the Labour Party, Clann na Talmhan, Clann na Poblachta and Independents, and one by one, any member of the House can go through that assembly, can set down in advance what are likely to be the votes on this motion of confidence. There is no use in me arguing to convince members of Fianna Fáil they should vote against their own Government; very little use in the Tánaiste trying to convince members of the Fine Gael Party to vote for the motion. He probably would expect a good deal of difficulty in convincing the Labour Party at the moment that we should vote for him, although I do not think that it is beyond his powers to try to do it. He came very near that this evening. The same position applies in regard to the farmers' Party and Clann na Poblachta.

We are left with a number of Independents, and we can break them down until we are left with the residue, and it is this residue whose position is under discussion to-night, not the position of the Government or Fine Gael or the Labour Party—it is the position of a number of Independent Deputies. Again, among the Independent Deputies, the position is fairly clear, in so far as a Deputy like Deputy Sheldon is concerned. His position is quite clear. I can understand it. To me, he is a person in politics who has a conservative outlook, and I do not see very much common ground between us or think that my arguments would carry very much weight with him.

The same applies to Deputy Cogan. I doubt if on any question Deputy Cogan and myself will find much to agree on, although for a short period of three years we did find peace, and it was not our side that changed its views, but Deputy Cogan did. Deputy McQuillan is a member of this Housewith sufficient independence to make up his own mind and I do not know what way he is going to do it, although I might have a fairly good idea. Finally, we are left with the three most interesting figures in the House at the moment. I am sure Deputy Cowan will take a pride in that position— Deputy Captain Cowan, Deputy Dr. Browne and Deputy Dr. ffrench-O'Carroll. As far as Deputy Dr. ffrench-O'Carroll is concerned, he is a very nice, gentlemanly man, but I do not think he is going to take a decision of himself. He will largely decide with Deputy Dr. Browne. So that, after all our discussions to-night so far as the vote of confidence is concerned, the future existence of the Government depends on Deputy Dr. Browne and Deputy Cowan.

I do not suggest again for a moment that they are not entitled to their viewpoints and to cast their votes in any way they will. They have as much right as I have, or any other member of the House, to do so, but they have also the same responsibility of accounting for their votes. That is where frankly I am meeting with a certain amount of difficulty. I appreciate the solicitude expressed by Deputies Dr. Browne and Cowan for the Labour Party. Perhaps, when we go a little further and examine the record we can check that solicitude. But in so far as their position as Independent Deputies is concerned we are entitled to try and find on what basis they are going to give this confidence.

Deputy Dr. Browne, in the course of his speech, addressed a number of very pointed questions to the Taoiseach asking for certain assurances or rather seemed to convey he had given these assurances but before that he had already committed himself to vote. That may have been the way his speech was formulated.

Deputy Cowan followed the same example when he asked the Taoiseach to regard the present position regarding unemployment as of an emergency character and then proceeded to say that he would vote for the motion. I do not think anythingI would say would have the slightest influence in changing their minds and I do not want to say they are not free to change their minds, but I do think we are entitled to check those statements they have made in the House against what they have committed themselves to. Both of these Deputies, like others of us here, were supporters of the inter-Party Government, and I would suggest that they might not merely give advice to the Labour Party but ponder the course followed by the Labour Party over a number of years.

In passing, I want to make this comment. Deputy Dr. Browne was not merely a supporter of the inter-Party Government like myself and other back benchers. He was a Minister. He claimed that his main concern and chief solicitude was for health. For that we give him credit, but whether he likes it or not—and one of the first to impose that requirement on him was Fianna Fáil—as a member of the inter-Party Cabinet he did not merely carry responsibility for health, but he carried the same weight of responsibility as any other member of that Cabinet whether Fine Gael or Labour or Independent. I have never criticised Deputy Dr. Browne for the difficulties he got into at that time. I have a good deal of understanding of them and I admit more knowledge of them than probably most members of this House but I do submit to Deputy Dr. Browne that he cannot on the one hand claim all the credit as Minister for Health and at the same time as a member of the inter-Party Government Cabinet, repudiate responsibility for whatever else went wrong. That is what he is trying to do. His criticism of the inter-Party Cabinet was that as Minister for Health he did not receive the support he was entitled to. Presumably one of his colleagues was Deputy Norton, then Minister for Social Welfare. In the course of his speech, Deputy Dr. Browne commented on the delay during the inter-Party Government's time in introducing social welfare. If Deputy Norton carried responsibility for giving support or not to Deputy Dr. Browne, does not Deputy Dr. Browne carry responsibility for failingto support Deputy Norton on social welfare?

The Labour Party supported the inter-Party Government. We knew what we were doing. We are not making any excuses and we are taking the good with the bad; but Deputy Dr. Browne wants to take only the good and throw the bad back. That is only a passing comment because it arises rather later in regard to his attitude towards Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil.

What is more interesting is that in this House we have, as I say, two main political Parties. The Tánaiste, Deputy Lemass, made a very interesting comment in the course of his speech when he indicated his views as to the possible future facing the Government of this country for some years when he said he expected they would hold office by very narrow majorities. We are in a period of political flux in this country. Most of the Parties in the Dáil do not want to be members of an inter-Party Government. Fianna Fáil want to hold office as a single Party. Fine Gael want the same and so do Labour and Clann na Talmhan, and so on. That is a normal fact of political life but we have a situation now, where, in my opinion, none of us is going to be gratified by that very happy result. And in the vote on this motion, it is not merely a question so far as these two Parties are concerned —and they have made it quite clear— of making their decision as to whether or not they will keep Fianna Fáil in the Government. They are all very much concerned as to what will replace Fianna Fáil when Fianna Fáil goes out.

That is a very fair question: the Labour Party has had the same problem in the past. Speakers from this Party in the course of the present debate stated, what has been stated on many occasions before, that there were periods when there were much closer contacts and closer relations between the Labour Party and Fianna Fáil. It is good to know that during those periods the great programme to which the Minister for Health referred to-night was accomplished. I do not want to pursue that point now beyond saying that there was that close relationship but at one period it broke. It broke for the simple reason that whileit may seem to be very simple to say that you will vote in support of a certain Party when they are becoming the Government, once you do that, whether you like it or not, you are a prisoner and it is not easy to break loose, particularly if you have to sit in the Chamber and hear for the first time what they propose to do in regard to any particular problem. Then you have to decide in the House, practically without any consultation, what you are going to do about it. I think the same problem faces Deputy Cowan and Deputy Dr. Browne at the present moment.

In 1948 the Labour Party made a certain decision. That decision was not expected by Fianna Fáil. Possibly they thought that after such a long period of the Labour Party's trying to exercise, if you like, an influence on the Fianna Fáil Government in the direction of Labour Party policy, that a good part of that policy ran on parallel lines to the Fianna Fáil policy. They thought after that long period that if the whip was cracked we came to heel or else we went into the wilderness. If they thought that we might decide to change in our approach to these matters there might be a different attitude on the part of Fianna Fáil. They evidently thought that the gap between Fine Gael and the Labour Party was so wide that it was not possible to bridge it, on the basis of sentiments which seem to indicate that under no circumstances would we have an association with Fine Gael. The people however who closed that gap were the Fianna Fáil Party themselves and nobody else, because you can put so much pressure and no more, on the working classes, particularly on the organised sections of the working classes. In 1947, whether Fianna Fáil appreciated it or not, they put too much pressure on us and they forced us to follow a path that, possibly, normally we would not have contemplated. That resulted in the formation of the inter-Party Government.

I am somewhat amused when I listen to Deputy Dr. Browne and Deputy Cowan now castigating us for what they call our excessive loyalty to the inter-Party Government. Was there anyone more loyal or more abjectin his adulation of one of the members of the inter-Party Government with whom we probably had the greatest difficulty, than Deputy Cowan? I refer to Deputy Cowan's attitude to Deputy Dillon. Even when I was sitting on the same benches as Deputy Cowan, as a supporter of the inter-Party Government, I had sometimes frankly an uneasy feeling when I listened to him speaking in the way he did of Deputy Dillon. I have no objection to Deputy Cowan paying tribute to Deputy Dillon; he was quite entitled to do it but it was the form and the measure of that tribute that sometimes astonished me.

During that period Deputy Cowan once gave expression to the opinion— no doubt he thought it an honest opinion—that Deputy Dillon was the greatest Minister for Agriculture we had in this country so far. Possibly that is right; I do not know. I have never professed to be an expert on agriculture but then when you have Deputy Cowan coming along later and giving us this gratuitous advice as to what we should do to save the Labour Party, it is getting a little heavy. Whether or not Deputy Cowan wishes it, the Labour Party will be always there because there is in the social and economic framework of the country a basis for a Labour Party. Perhaps some of us may make mistakes from time to time; we are merely human in that respect but we shall pass on and others will take our place. It might be no harm to point out that the Labour Party is the oldest Party in this country, with the longest continous record in the public life of this country. The Labour Party, as I say, will always be there and the mistakes we make to-day will be corrected by those who come after us.

Deputy Cowan was a member of the Labour Party and he left the Labour Party because it was not sufficiently militant for him. He went out of it with the object of organising a propagandist body which would be a channel through which people would be led into the Labour Party. It was a very good idea; I did not see much wrong with it. I think that all of us in political life at times feel that we are being restrictedby the ordinary ties of Party membership and that outside a Party we could get more scope for our activities than would normally be possible inside the Party owing to the necessity of getting a common consensus of opinion within that political group.

Deputy Cowan helped to build the Labour Party and to make it stronger. He organised a certain movement. I am not mentioning it in any critical fashion but the organisation was not a success although it was very much to the left of the Labour Party. Having failed there, for reasons which are not important at the moment, he did not come back to the Labour Party; instead he moved into Clann na Poblachta.

It is as well that we should say these things in public because this is an important debate. Clann na Poblachta came into public life in this country, not with any very original programme of its own. Most of it, I think, would be found in the old programme of the Labour Party. The trouble with some people is that the name of the Labour Party creates certain difficulties for them. A lot of people do not like to be known as members of the Labour Party. It is not quite respectable enough for them if they have got to hob-nob with people who wear "sugáns" around their knees. Deputy Cowan went into Clann na Poblachta and went out of it after a time. He is entitled to do what he likes but he has gone the full circle—from Labour to the Vanguard, from the Vanguard to Clann na Poblachta and from Clann na Poblachta to the Independents. Now he and his colleague, Deputy Dr. Browne, are the people to whom we are addressing this debate to-night.

Captain Cowan

It is a matter of will.

Mr. Larkin

I could understand that if Deputy Cowan was not a person who claimed to have a certain fairly definite economic and social outlook. I would be interested to know where is the common ground between Deputy Cowan and the Fianna Fáil Party. Fianna Fáil has repeatedly in recent years emphasised particularly its acceptance of private enterprise as the basis of its economic and industrial policyin this country. I doubt very much if Deputy Cowan and myself accept that but Deputy Cowan finds it possible to support Fianna Fáil. I do not. Deputy Cowan will agree with me that one of the basic problems we have at the moment, whether it be Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael or the Labour Party that holds office, is by what means we are going to obtain the necessary financial resources to carry through any policy of development in this country. Both he and I will agree that the private interests who, at the moment, appear to be able to control and direct these financial resources in their own interest, should not be allowed to put their private interests before the public welfare. Fianna Fáil does not agree with that.

Captain Cowan

Neither does Fine Gael.

Mr. Larkin

We shall come to Fine Gael in a moment. After all, you were with them just as well as I was.

Captain Cowan

I left them but you did not.

Mr. Larkin

We shall explain that in a moment. Deputy Cowan, like myself, was one of those who during the period of the inter-Party Government exerted very great pressure to use to the utmost the power of the State in respect to price control, spanceling prices, establishing the Prices Advisory Body and adopting all possible measures which we thought at that time were needed. Fianna Fáil have scrapped 160 price control Orders, emasculated the prices tribunal and, so far as prices are concerned, they are not going to get any more attention from the Government. That was accepted by Deputy Cowan.

Like myself, Deputy Cowan is concerned with regard to prices. I may be wrong but I think he accepts, as I do, that in the present circumstances, and particularly in the circumstances of 1951 and preceding years, whether the subsidy was a good principle or not, because of the possible effects of removing subsidies, they had to be maintained in the interests of theordinary people. I think that is not an unfair statement to make so far as Deputy Cowan is concerned. Certainly, that is my view. But Fianna Fáil have removed the subsidies. The arguments that Fianna Fáil made in support of removing those subsidies had been made many times in this House before the inter-Party went out of office but Deputy Cowan and myself and the Labour Party did not accept them. We still persisted in requiring that the subsidies would be maintained. Even up to the present moment, the Labour Party has committed itself so far as possible to restore them. Deputy Cowan is now supporting the Party that removed them.

Deputy Cowan and myself are concerned with unemployment. When I raise these points I want it to be clear that I am not raising them in order to suggest that Deputy Cowan is not sincere in his beliefs. I am accepting it that he is. What is puzzling me is how he has arrived where he is to-day. The whole purpose of this debate is not for the benefit of the electors outside the House, neither is it for the benefit of the membership of the House generally: it is solely being directed to these few Independent members and they are carrying the responsibility of the decision. That is why it is that, whether or not we believe in their sincerity when they make their statements, in order to examine them we have to accept them. In many ways, I accept the statements of Deputy Cowan and Deputy Dr. Browne as being quite sincere but I am at a loss to follow them along the particular path they are pursuing at the moment. We have the same common concern on unemployment. That, in effect, means that they believe in full employment. I wonder whether they accept the full implications of that. However, it still does not alter the fact that the policy they have pursued since 1951 has created unemployment and, in my opinion, it was avoidable and unnecessary unemployment.

I have very strong doubts—which, along with other members, I stated in this House before—as to whether the policy adopted in 1951 in respect of the Budget, and repeated again in 1952,had not merely the whole-hearted support of the Tánaiste but of many members of the Fianna Fáil Party. But it has got the whole-hearted support of Deputy Cowan. At least, it appears so to-night. That was the policy which was laid down for the edification of the Fianna Fáil Government in the report of the Central Bank. Even though that report was publicly repudiated by the Tánaiste, in particular, and other members of the Government, the notable fact is that what that report asked for has been given. That is important. The policy in that report is exactly the same economic policy as was put forward and accepted by the Conservative Government in Britain. I am not suggesting that our Government have followed the Conservative Government in Britain but if you start out with certain common views on economics you generally arrive at the same end.

The misfortune I see in regard to Fianna Fáil is this. In 1927 and in 1931 the Tánaiste was speaking of nationalising industry and speaking in terms that were, at that time, even too advanced for the Labour Party. So far as policy is concerned, Fianna Fáil have now reached the position in which they have displaced Fine Gael so far as their economic outlook is concerned. No more clear indication of that can be found than in the fact that, whether or not they agreed or accepted the report of the Central Bank, after two years of office, we are in the position which the Central Bank said was very desirable for this country—subsidies gone, a gap between wages and the cost of living, strict balancing of Budgets (the Minister for Finance has still to find £3,500,000), the pool of unemployed and a much more critical attitude towards such questions as local government works, housing, and so forth. It may be accidental. It may be, as the Tánaiste said it was, a policy that was necessary and desirable. It still does not alter the coincident, as they say in American films, that, starting from two different points, the Central Bank, the Fianna Fáil Government, Deputy Cowan and Deputy Dr. Browne all arrived at thesame point. These are the decision that I am interested in. The reason why I mention them is because there is the very practical difficulty that, when a smaller political Party or group in this House is trying to put forward its own point of view, to pursue its own independent way, it can very easily find itself holding on to the tail of the cat and not being able to let go.

There was a leader in the Irish Presslast week in which they discussed the future of the Labour Party. It was a very interesting article. It spoke of the two-Party system in this country and, if one read between the lines, it was not unreasonable to draw the conclusion that so far as the writer of that article was concerned his view was that if there could not be a single Party Government made up of Fianna Fáil then the next best thing would be a single Party Government made up of Fine Gael. I wonder if that is the view of Fianna Fáil.

It is a very pertinent question. On one occasion, I think in 1947, the position of the Labour Party was being discussed. Some of the leaders of Fianna Fáil were kind enough to say that they believed that the Labour Party should have representation in the Dáil but purely as a convenient section which, when Fianna Fáil required votes, would be able to furnish them but that they should not get ambitious to expand beyond a very limited section with a very limited appeal. I have no doubt that Fine Gael have the same view. We all believe that our own Party would be better able to run the Government than any other Party. I have no doubt that, while Fine Gael are not unfriendly to us at the moment——

Minister for Finance (Mr. MacEntee)

Not unfriendly? They love you like their next meal.

Brendán Mac Fheórais

Or as you like Deputy Cowan.

Mr. Larkin

I know that Deputy Mulcahy has, on occasion, expressed his preference for what he regarded as an inter-Party Government. I think that that was due possibly to the passingcircumstances of the present time with its political uncertainty. Quite frankly, I think that, from the point of view of Fine Gael or Fianna Fáil, it would be unwise for them to desire anything else except sole responsibility. If the Labour Party were in a position to form a Government on its own, I do not see any reason why we should associate with any other Party. Having accepted the responsibility, we should shoulder it. Possibly, in the future, that may come about. Meantime, we have a situation in which we have two major political Parties, neither of which is able to get a clear majority on its own. Deputy Cowan and Deputy Dr. Browne, as well as the Labour Party, have to face that problem. Both Deputy Cowan and Deputy Dr. Browne as well as the Labour Party, have had the experience of being associated with inter-Party Government.

Frankly, I do not see as much wrong with it as Deputy Cowan and Deputy Dr. Browne do. If the Labour Party did not get all we required in the course of those three years, we did not expect to get it. We knew we were making an experiment and would have to feel our way. We were putting members of the Labour Party into ministerial office for the first time in this country and they had to learn their way about, both in regard to their responsibilities and their powers. On the whole, they did not do too badly. There is one notable feature, that Deputy Cowan and Deputy Dr. Browne have supported Fianna Fáil for two years, but no member of Fianna Fáil has resigned because Deputy Cowan and Deputy Dr. Browne got too much of their own way. A very leading member of Fine Gael resigned because he objected to what the Labour Party were getting.

The Labour Party suffered under a disadvantage. One of the big disadvantages in this country for any political Party, a disadvantage which Fianna Fáil very early recognised and remedied, is that in this country public opinion, as in other countries, is formed not merely by what goes on in this House or at political meetings but to a very great extent by the daily press, and Fianna Fáil have the advantageof their own daily paper. While Fine Gael has not got a Party organ, it has been consistently supported by the Irish Independentand up to recently by theIrish Times.Now theIrish Timeshas swung over—a very peculiar phenomenon.

Mr. Lemass

Only in some columns.

Mr. Morrissey

Certainly in the leading articles. Was the Minister thinking of KTO and KTO?

Captain Cowan

That was not a very sober effort.

Mr. Morrissey

I thought that there was nothing left of the Deputy after Deputy Dillon and Deputy Larkin. I thought the last shred of him had disappeared.

Captain Cowan

Deputy Larkin and I get along very nicely.

Mr. Larkin

Yes, if we do not get too close. One of the most important factors in the political life of the country is the possession of a daily paper and from that point of view— all sensible men in the House and outside it recognise it—the Labour Party, in association with any other political Party, while that other Party has that big advantage, is going to carry on its work under tremendous difficulties.

So far as the Irish Pressis concerned, at the very commencement of the inter-Party Government, a campaign was started to try to bring pressure, as they thought, on the Labour Party and day after day the Party propaganda was churned out. All of us to some extent, I suppose, are influenced by what we read in the papers and that campaign by Fianna Fáil— very wisely from their point of view because it was directed, I think, by the Tánaiste who is a very real politician— was concentrated on what they thought was the weak link in the chain of armour, the Labour Party. They were fairly successful. On the other hand, Fine Gael had papers sympathetic to them, and when anything was ever achieved in the inter-Party Government, these papers quite naturally gave a great deal of credit to Fine Gael. I am not objecting in the slightest. We went into it with oureyes open and we knew what the risks were. In the course of those three years, however, certain things were achieved.

Deputy Dr. Browne asked us to-night what were the points which the Labour Party proposed to put forward as the basis of its associations with any other Party in Government. He might not recall that the ten-point programme of the inter-Party Government had very close association with the Labour Party programme. In fact, it was almost completely taken out of the Labour Party election programme. That was a fairly big achievement, that most of these points to some extent or other were carried. I am not burking the question of the Social Welfare Act—granted that we did not get it through. It would have been very nice, if we could have got it through, but like many other occasions, we created in this country an atmosphere which made that piece of legislation necessary not merely for the Labour Party but for other Parties.

In 1947, there was some talk about social security and the Minister for Health had some kind of plan drawn up on a few pieces of paper, but there was not much beyond that. By 1951, when Fianna Fáil went back into office, one of the main planks in their programme was that Social Security Act which went into law. Again, there is no use trying to sidestep any awkward questions. It is on the Statute Book and we are glad it is there. We think it might have been better, in view of the fact that in 1947 the Minister proposed to give 24/- a week to an unemployed man and, in 1952, after Fianna Fáil had worked fairly strenuously to shove up prices, it was still 24/-. However, it is there, with the additional benefits and the increase in social welfare payments. But I wonder if the Social Welfare Act would be on the Statute Book to-day if, in 1948, the Labour Party had pursued the same course as they pursued in 1943 and had allowed Fianna Fáil to carry on as a single Party Government. I do not know, but I have certain doubts about it, because, whatever else the inter-Party Government did or did not do,it threw a very good scare into Fianna Fáil, a scare which was needed. I think they need another one.

Criticism is directed against the inter-Party Government and against any future inter-Party Government as being a collection of groups of divergent viewpoints, and the Taoiseach tells us that he would not propose to associate in a Government with any other Party because Fianna Fáil are a homogeneous Party but everybody knows that it is not homogeneous, that there are as many divergent opinions inside Fianna Fáil as there are in this House. Does anybody for a moment suggest that, in so far as basic economic and social matters are concerned, the Tánaiste has the same outlook as the Minister for External Affairs or the Minister for Finance? Does anybody suggest that a Deputy like Deputy McCann from the City of Dublin, with a long trade union background, has the same outlook as Deputy Corry?

We know these differences are there, as they are in every Party. The only difference is that Fianna Fáil have the advantage of having one of the leading personalities in Irish political life to lead them and lend the strength of his personality in holding the Party together. I have great admiration, as I think all of us in the House have, for the Taoiseach. Whatever he does or does not do from this on, he has his particular corner in Irish history and none of us can take it from him, but frankly, from the point of view of his own Party and the country, I think it would be better if he did not look for this vote of confidence, if he realised that in many ways he has got somewhat out of touch with conditions in the country. You can strain the loyalty of a Party too much and put too much of a burden on it, and then you may break not only its spirit but the esteem in which it has been held by different sections of the people. I have for a long time felt that the Taoiseach, because of his particular outlook on many economic and social problems, is out of touch not only with the needs of the moment in this country, but with many elements in his own Party.

It is very interesting for those of us who are going to vote against thismotion that Deputy Cowan says we may be forced into an election.

The trouble with Fianna Fáil is that the back benchers, even if they go into the Division Lobby and vote, will still not know whether or not they will have an election because one man, and one man only, will decide that. Deputy Cowan says the Labour Party does not want a general election. I think he said that because he thought we were worried about the results. He switched over then to talk about unemployment. We are not worried about the results. The important thing is that we have a very serious situation so far as this country is concerned and those of us in the Labour Party—with all the hard things we have said about Deputy Dr. Browne, Deputy Cowan and Deputy Dr. ffrench-O'Carroll—who have got a certain outlook more progressive, if you like, or to the left, than that of the two big Parties have a very important and particular duty to perform; that is, to see, as far as we can utilise whatever little political strength we have, that development is pushed in the proper direction.

Now, on one occasion the Taoiseach paid tribute here to the Labour Party for their having brought Fine Gael, as he believed, on to a more progressive basis. I suggest Deputy Dr. Browne and Deputy Cowan have got the same responsibility to perform in regard to Fianna Fáil and they have got about 12 hours in which to make up their minds to it.

Captain Giles

Let them sleep to-night anyhow.

Mr. Larkin

Frankly, I do not expect there will be any change because it is not very easy when one has committed oneself to a particular line of political conduct to suddenly change overnight; and in the case of these Deputies not merely has there been a question of giving support in so far as the election of the Taoiseach was concerned but they seem now to have lost all sense of independence. I do not know of any occasion, even on very trivial matters, on which they have voted against the Government. Last week we were discussing the Health Bill and I thought Deputy Dr. Browneshould be somewhat concerned at the type of Health Bill that has now been produced as the result of his support of the Fianna Fáil Government. I do not think it is the kind of Health Bill that either he or the Labour Party desire. However, that is not the point at the moment, but in the course of the debate last week there a very minor amendment, which everybody knew the Government would win anyway if it came to a division, but in relation to which a very important principle was involved so far as Deputies like Labour Deputies and Deputy Cowan and Deputy Dr. Browne were concerned; that was the issue as between the strict managerial system of local government and what many of us regard as a more democratic system. It came into debate in an involved manner in the course of the discussion on the amendment in question and it was quite clear what we were discussing. Deputy Dr. Browne and Deputy Dr. ffrench-O'Carroll spoke in favour of the amendment, spoke very effectively and appealingly to the Minister and asked him to accept it. They knew what the principle involved was. We had a long discussion on the question of the rôle of the city and county manager and the rôle of his officials and the rôle of the elected democratic representatives and so on. Yet, in the subsequent division even on that small item there was no show of independence.

Mr. Corry

What happened your chums that day?

Mr. Larkin

They are not my chums.

Mr. Corry

How did they vote?

Mr. Larkin

They did not vote and everyone knew they were not going to vote and for that very reason Deputy Dr. Browne and Deputy Dr. ffrench-O'Carroll could have voted against the Government, knowing the Government would not be defeated. In the course of his speech Deputy Dr. Browne covered a much wider field than Deputy Cowan and related his remarks not merely to the question of the effect of this particular motion but also to certain alternatives; he regarded his vote as being not merely a vote forFianna Fáil but possibly an amendment to some other form of government. He went on to speak of what he called multi-Party government and he addressed certain questions to the Labour Party. I do not think anybody has been under any misunderstanding in regard to the attitude of the Labour Party. Neither Fine Gael nor Fianna Fáil could misunderstand the attitude of that Party and I do not think there is any misunderstanding at the present time.

The Labour Party has its own special and independent and separate programme. It may be a good one or it may be a bad one but it happens to be our programme at the moment and we have publicly stated that we propose going into the next general election, as and when it may come, all depending on Deputies Browne and Cowan, on the basis of that programme.

Captain Cowan

In two years' time.

Mr. Larkin

Whether it will be two years or two days, I do not know and neither does Deputy Cowan. What is the assurance that the Tánaiste states has been given by the Taoiseach? That there will be no dissolution unless the Government is defeated. If I recollect accurately, the person who can claim credit for getting that assurance is Deputy Cowan.

Captain Cowan

No, I mentioned the thing in a joke here one night. It had nothing to do with that.

Mr. Larkin

Let us hope the joke will not be on Deputy Cowan. Even if the Government wins this division all of us are still in the position that we do not know whether or not there will be a general election within a matter of hours.

To come back to the question that Deputy Dr. Browne posed. It is an important question because it has an effect apparently on Deputy Dr. Browne, and possibly some influence on Deputy Cowan and Deputy ffrench-O'Carroll. Deputy Dr. Browne asks what is the alternative? He puts the question: Has the Labour Party yet drawn up its number of points, pointswhich it would regard as being essential and basic points in any agreement with another Party or in association with a Government? He asked had they presented those points to Fine Gael and got Fine Gael's agreement? No, we have not. We do not propose to do that. We do not propose to go around hawking nine or ten points of a Labour Party programme to see who will say: "Right, we will buy."

The position is quite a straighforward one. We have our programme. On the basis of that programme we may get ten, 15 or 20 seats. Whatever number we get will be the measure of support for that programme and if we find that in the Dáil after an election, should an election come, we are in a position to influence the character of the Government and that no Party is so fortunate as to be able to form a Government on its own, then the support given by the Labour Party on the basis of that Party's programme will be used to get as much of that programme implemented as we can. That is a fair and open proposition.

The points we propose to put forward are points out of the Labour Party programme upon which we will seek support in the general election, should a general election come. It may be that we will not get agreement. It may be no one will accept any of the points we put forward. Should that be the position we will have to be satisfied with it and remain a complete Opposition, unassociated with any Government. These points will be put forward publicly and they can be scrutinised, examined and studied not merely by Fine Gael but by any other Party. People can decide for themselves as to whether or not they are essential Labour Party points or just a collection of claptrap. There is nothing secretive in that. Everything will be open and above board.

That is the position in which any small Party will find itself in this country until such time as that Party can convince the majority they should be given complete support. The advantage is that over the years, either through the medium of utilising the support given by the Labour Party or through some other form, big changeshave taken place in this country. We have now got many Acts on our Statute Book that would not be there to-day had there been no Labour Party.

Debate adjourned.