The Minister was very vague in outlining the Supplementary Estimate for £3,000,000, which is a very step decrease on the original amount which was estimated and put there away back in, I think, October or November, 1954.
The big difference between the present Government and the Fianna Fáil Government is that Fianna Fáil were always prepared to face up to the reality of the situation as it confronted them. They never tried to conceal the unemployment position in this country. In fact, it was Fianna Fáil who, in the early days of their administration, made it possible for many thousands of the names that now appear on the unemployment register to be placed there because, previously, only those who were in industrial employment and had their cards stamped were recorded as being unemployed when they were unemployed.
In my view, the National Development Fund was a project to be taken very seriously. It was a foundation not merely for improving the lot of many unemployed persons in this country but also for engaging in worthwhile projects which everybody knew were awaiting attention over a number of years but which could not be attended to in the ordinary way. This Government now propose to decrease the amount in respect of this fund. If the various members of this Government meant anything by their statements at the election and at the various by-elections, and if the promises that were made by the members of the Labour Party counted for anything, the Minister should now come to this House and seek not a Supplementary Estimate for £3,000,000 but a Supplementary Estimate for at least £7,500,000.
Last year, in this City of Dublin, there were marches by the unemployed. We were told the position was desperate. We knew, from the numbers on the registers, that there were thousands in this city who were genuinely unemployed. The position has not improved very much since then. The National Development Fund gave £200,000 to the Special Employment Schemes Office and Dublin Corporation did a great deal at that particular time to relieve the situation—a situation which, I hold, exists to-day too.
It would be interesting to know what the attitude of the Labour Deputies for Dublin City will be on this question. Will they accept it with good grace and say that the unemployment position in Dublin City has been relieved to such an extent that there is no need to have the fund kept even at the level at which it was first set out, that is, £5,000,000? Will they say that, as far as Dublin City is concerned, the £200,000 can be docked by two-fifths? The Cities of Waterford, Cork and Limerick, and other urban areas throughout the country, got an allocation of £100,000 from the fund last year. Are there no worthwhile schemes in Cork City, Limerick City or Waterford City, or in any of the other urban centres to which the allocation applied, at present needing attention? I am sure there are a number of such schemes not merely in the big urban centres, but also in various parts of rural Ireland.
It has recently been stated from time to time that employment has increased. Everybody is glad to learn that such is the case. I would point out, however, that, when this fund was established, employment was increasing—and increasing just as rapidly week by week as it has increased since the present Government took office on the 2nd June last. But the Fianna Fáil Government did not get any credit for that. They did not want any credit for it, but, as I said at the outset, they were prepared to face the reality of the situation. They knew that we had a critical unemployment problem; that it had to be tackled and that something should be done about it.
I am sure that the present Government knows equally well that that unemployment problem has only been relieved in a very small way and that it is far from solution. They know also, I am sure, as was realised by the previous Government, that there are very many worthwhile schemes in this country that in the ordinary way would have been placed in abeyance and that nothing was being done about them. They were considered, of course, but had to be put aside. From this fund over a period of years a good deal could be done to put them into operation and to repair to a large extent the decay of centuries and bring the country forward in the progressive way that we were being consistently pressed to go forward by those who now constitute the present Government and by their supporters on the opposite benches.
I think this is a very retrograde step altogether. I happened to be in charge of a particular office—the Office of Public Works—for a period and I always found my difficulty was to try and induce the Department of Finance to give me some fair amount of money and make it available for schemes that are crying out for attention all over the country for a considerable period of years. The only redeeming feature about the Minister's statement is that the fund is to be maintained. I suppose you could maintain it at £100,000 a year and still say it was maintained but that would be very far from carrying out the very essential and necessary work that we all know is waiting to be carried out in the country.
My office at that time—I think the date was the 22nd November, 1954— was told that £500,000 would be made available. As I have stated, £300,000 of that was allocated for employment schemes in urban centres. I have already mentioned how it was subdivided. We then had schemes and many questions were put down by the various Parties in the House time and time again as to why this rural improvements schemes, that bog development scheme or the other minor employment scheme in the congested areas was not being sanctioned or approved and when was it likely that approval would be given. I was asked to state very often what was the existing position. We had thousands and thousands of such schemes in the Office of Public Works. They were there for many years and the allocation of £200,000 to the Office of Public Works to expend, in addition to what was voted in the Estimate to me, was a real godsend because I felt it would bring amenities to a very large number of people all over rural Ireland, particularly in the congested areas, which they were long and eagerly awaiting.
The Minister stated that the purpose of the fund was to finance projects for increased productivity and to improve the economic position. That was the purpose at all times. Nothing can improve the economic position of any country better than to have as many people as possible in employment and earning for themselves. Anything else is, I am sure, a great burden on the economic fibre of the State.
The three schemes I mentioned are, I hold, schemes of a very reproductive and very helpful nature but it is only those who understand the problem locally who realise that. Of course, it is not realised, I am sure, in the Department of Finance. They do not know much about the difficulty of the cutting of turf in a bog; having it saved and depending on getting good weather to go into an old mud road to try and get it home. In consequence of having to avail of the very fine weather in the harvest period they lose some of their agricultural crops as well.
That happened very often in many parts of the West of Ireland. Indeed, I was very keen on this bog development business. I was very keen on getting all the money I could extract from the Department of Finance for this very particular work because I knew quite well that our farmers could cultivate more and they could produce more when they realised that, having saved their turf in the bog and having a good road made into the bog, they could take it home whether the weather was wet or dry. I think there is no better way of helping the people in the bog areas of Ireland and the people who depend on turf for domestic use than to improve both the drainage of the bog and also the roads into it.
The same is true of a number of our village roads. The rural improvements scheme, which was initiated by Deputy Paddy Smith many years ago, was also a great godsend to our farmers. If they co-operate and come together and put up their proportion of the estimated cost, they are then sure of getting a road to their houses that they never enjoyed before. In many instances the roads have been improved to such an extent that people in the villages are now living alongside roads which are just as good as many of our country roads maintained by the local authorities.
We got £75,000 for the rural improvement schemes; £60,000 for the bog development schemes and £60,000 for the minor relief schemes which are operating in a portion of about 12 of the Twenty-Six Counties. What will the position be now? Will the same expenditure on these very worthwhile schemes be made available during the coming year as was expended in the last year Fianna Fáil were in office— the financial year 1953/54?
I would like the Minister, when replying, to give us some indication in that way that instead of a diminution, if anything there will be an increase, but I doubt it very much. Knowing the Department, as I do, I believe that the economy axe will first fall on some of the very worthwhile schemes and as a result will deny to the people the amenities that Fianna Fáil was doing its utmost to give them.
It is indeed rather sad to think that after all the fine phrases we had and all the fine promises that were made, that instead of doing something better than Fianna Fáil—and that was the slogan, mark you, in some of the cases, "anything you can do we can do better"—there is not much sign of improvement in that direction now. A very prominent public man in the country—I do not think he can be regarded as a supporter of Fianna Fáil —said quite recently in regard to another matter that the Government "had gone mad." Well, mad as they are in that direction, I think they have become far worse now in respect of the present Supplementary Estimate.
