I listened with great interest to the various speeches made by the Coalition members on this Budget. It is remarkable the amount of propaganda, which secured votes for them in the various general and by-elections, they have dropped. We have been making some progress over the years. I only hope that in the next few years we may make further progress towards general agreement not only on fundamental political issues, but also on fundamental economic and financial issues A lot of votes were got by the Coalition groups, and, indeed, they built up their Parties, on their opposition to the Constitution. The Constitution was anti-feminist; it was rotten. I am glad to say they are now the strongest upholders of the Constitution—no stronger anywhere in the world: it is every Irishman's duty to support the Constitution.
One of the chief items of propaganda of Coalition groups in 1948, and again when they were out in 1952 and in the following years, was that Fianna Fáil was wrong to drop the excess corporation profits tax after a Labour Government in England had dropped a similar tax there. They used that argument day in and day out. I will give the quotations later on. They said Fianna Fáil only dropped the excess corporation profits tax for the purpose of giving £4,500,000 to the racketeers in industry, the racketeers who were their friends. That was the allegation.
Another important item in their propaganda over the years was the level of our external balance of payments— the foreign assets or British securities due to this country by Britain; it was alleged that the only reason why we favoured keeping assets in Britain was to give John Bull, as they put it, money at ½ per cent. to build cheap houses and murder the Mau Maus. That was said here in this House as well as at every crossroads throughout the country.
Another allegation was that taxation was being kept up deliberately by Fianna Fáil, and the level of taxation was both savage and unnecessary. It was alleged that Government expenditure could be reduced by £1,000,000 per minute and by a total of at least £20,000,000.
Another piece of propaganda, which has now been dropped, is that the level of prices was a function of the Government and that if prices were kept up or were not reduced it was because the Government wished them to be kept up and not reducd. I will come back to that again, but it is no harm now to have a look at Deputy McGilligan's little bit of propaganda in the last general election when himself and Mr. John Hedigan stood as candidates; they quoted prices, including the price of the foamy pint. They said all these rises in prices were due to the "deliberate action of the Government." To-day that propaganda has been dropped, and there are other causes for high prices, other than the deliberate action of the Government. But votes were won on that allegation.
Another little bit of propaganda that was made play with was that export subsidies were designed by Fianna Fáil to give cheap food to John Bull, and for no other reason. The Coalition groups would not listen to any other reason. When we gave a subsidy on butter it was alleged that that subsidy was given so that John Bull could have cheap butter. Now that there is a subsidy of 10d. or 11d. per lb. on exported butter, that subsidy is for quite a different reason.
Another item with which the Coalition made great play was the propaganda in relation to tourism. Tourists were spivs and the only reason why Fianna Fáil wanted them in the country was that Fianna Fáil liked spivs. It was formally proposed here by one of the principal members of the Coalition groups that we should put a tax on these tourists. That proposition was greeted with "hear, hears!" by even Deputy Costello, as he then was. He is now Taoiseach and he made a very famous speech down in Cork on Sunday last to which I shall refer later.
The brightest gem in all the Coalition propaganda was Tulyar. If they had the £250,000 which Fianna, Fáil squandered on Tulyar they could raise the old age and widows' and orphans' pensions, increase children's allowances, reduce income-tax and bring down the price of bread to practically nothing. Indeed, there was no end to what they could do with the money that was spent on Tulyar. I am glad to say it is still being spent on Tulyar and the propaganda has been dropped. I have not heard Tulyar mentioned by any Coalition speaker in this debate. If one goes back on the Budget debates when Fianna Fáil was in office there was mention of Tulyar in every other sentence.
