asked the Minister for Finance if he will state the total increase in the amount made available in the Capital Budget over and above the amount for 1956-57.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Capital Budget Projects.
asked the Minister for Finance if he will state the total number of men estimated to be put into employment in the present financial year as a result of the expenditure of additional moneys, if any, under the Capital Budget projects.
I propose, with the permission of the Ceann Comhairle, to take Questions Nos. 20 and 21 together.
In presenting the Capital Budget to the Dáil this year I sought to place the maximum amount of information at the disposal of Deputies in a readily ascertainable form in the additional Explanatory Tables which I circulated in connection with my Budget statement. Particulars of expenditure on foot of the Capital Budgets for 1956-57 and 1957-58 are available in those tables. Statistics are not compiled of the employment content of public capital expenditure. For the reasons which I indicated in my statement, I am satisfied that the budgetary proposals as a whole, including the reliefs already afforded from the import levies and the new tax concessions assured to industry, will increase productive and permanent employment.
Is it not clear, in spite of the remarks the Minister has made about taxation reliefs, that on the capital side, the money made available is practically precisely the same as was made available during the time of the previous Government which provided for something like 94,000 unemployed? Is it not quite clear that there is no proposal in the Budget for a full employment policy such as was advocated by the Tánaiste prior to taking office, and that there is no solution and no hope for the 70,000 or 80,000 who are still unemployed in the Government's present budgetary proposals?