When progress was reported I was dealing in some detail with the character of the Book of Estimates, and saying that, with the exception of some five or six items, the changes made were only marginal. There was no evidence of a new outlook on Government expenditure, no evidence of their determination to slash expenditure in the same manner in which it was promised at the time of the general election. I was dealing with various Votes in different categories. I took Votes where there was an increase in expenditure in the Book of Estimates for last year, and a decrease for this year. I pointed out that most of the large decreases were related to the reduction in the wheat subsidy by a purely fortuitous reduction in the Local Government Estimate, to a windfall, and the ending of contributions to the Primary Teachers' Fund, a reduction of £750,000 for public works. This formed the major part of the Votes where there were increases in the previous year and decreases this year.
There were some 14 other Votes in which the total reduction amounted to some £200,000. There were 16 Votes in which there was a decrease both last year and this year. They include the Vote for Health Services, £1,000,000 less, and while the present Government has, I think, unwisely reduced the amount available for the Hospitals Fund, the cause was due to reasons which they have given, that the actual physical building was not being undertaken sufficiently to cover the whole expenditure. There was a reduction in the Estimate for Transport and Marine Services of £384,000. Apart from those there were 15 Votes on which there were reductions totalling under £150,000. If you take the Votes where there were increases in both years in 1954-55 and in the present year they amount to no less than 15. The amount of the increase, £750,000, is not very much, but if you examine the Estimates you will find that there are a number of Votes where increases were unavoidable, and have continued this year as in last year.
Let us examine the increase in that particular group. For agriculture the increase was £500,000 last year and in the present year it is £1,100,000. After allowing for certain deductions and certain increases being met by the purely fortuitous arrival of part of the Marshall Aid Counterpart Fund there is a net increase of some £154,000. The present Government in spite of their efforts to prove that they were being economical managed to increase eight Votes which had been decreased by us in the previous year. The total comes out at about under £500,000. The more you examine these Estimates the further you get from finding any evidence that promises made in the general election were going to be kept.
Having shown that this saving of £1,500,000 in current Supplies and Services is of no great measure, and arrived at by a change in some four out of 63 Votes, I would like to deal, in conclusion, with the statement made by the Taoiseach when he said that the Fianna Fáil Government had done irreparable damage to this country through the 1953 Budget. We deny that, and I would ask the Minister for Finance, when he closes this debate, to give the House the main facts. I would like to see the Minister for Finance prove the Taoiseach's contention from that Statistical Abstract, that yellow volume which has been authorised by the present Government. Let him tell the House what the position is and compare it in comparison with other years, how much we have produced, exported or imported, how much the people were able to spend on amusements and reasonable enjoyment. Let him quote the figures. Let him take his own volume passed and approved by his own Government and give the House proof of the serious irreparable damage which was supposed to have been done to this State. In every one of those figures he will find that the story is good, that the people do spend money freely, that they exported more than ever before and imported more than ever before, that their personal savings were four times greater — not bank savings, not commercial savings. Let him prove the contention of the Taoiseach. Let him prove that we have discouraged people from spending money on the necessities of life and on the ordinary pleasures of life. I will be interested to hear him prove that.
I prophesy, moreover, that the year 1954, for which the present Government cannot take responsibility, will show still further progress in the development of the national income. The figures for exports have already been published, and the figures for national expenditure and personal expenditure. When the Government will be forced to authorise publication of these facts prepared by the Statistics Office, and which show in a general way how the people of this country live, they will be forced to admit once more that there was no evidence of irreparable damage that was part of the propaganda in the last election. It was this upon which the present Government managed to secure election by the people in the city districts, who believed that everything could be blown up, that Government expenditure could be slashed, that prices could be reduced, not marginally in five penny units, but in such a way as to make a great and material difference in prices. An examination of the present Book of Estimates proves that it is most unlikely that the Government can fulfil the extravagant promises they made.