Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Thursday, 6 Mar 1958

Vol. 165 No. 8

Committee on Finance. - Vote 62—Social Assistance (Resumed).

Debate resumed on the following motion:—

That a supplementary sum not exceeding £2,023,000 be granted to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1958, for Old Age Pensions and Pensions to Blind Persons, Children's Allowances, Unemployment Assistance, Widows' and Orphans' Non-Contributory Pensions, and for Sundry Miscellaneous Social Welfare Services, including Grants—(Minister for Social Welfare).

Mr. Rooney

Last night, before I reported progress, I was explaining that the extra 1/- a week does not properly compensate assistance classes for the increases which it was designed to meet. The Estimate which the House is asked to vote to-day is an increase in taxation of £2,000,000. Although the present Government gave an undertaking to reduce taxation, we have here an extra £2,000,000 being added on. This £2,000,000 apparently was not provided for in last year's Budget, which means that it must be accounted for in the coming Budget.

I should now like to examine this 1/- increase which has come up for discussion to-day. Let us remember that the 1/- increase was intended to compensate old age pensioners, widows, people drawing unemployment assistance and children's allowances. These were the necessitous classes for whom this extra 1/- per week was designed. It was intended to compensate them for a rise in the price of bread from 9½d. to 1/1 per loaf. In the meantime, the Government have sanctioned increases in the price of bread up to 1/3 per loaf. The loaf at the present time is 5½d. dearer than it was when the last Budget was introduced. Similarly, the price of butter was 3/9 when the Budget was introduced and it was intended to increase the price to 4/2. In fact, the price of butter has since been increased, again by Government action, to 4/4. The price of butter has been increased by 7d. a lb. and the price of a loaf by 5½d., which makes it, actually, an increase of over 1/- for one loaf of bread and one lb. of butter. Nobody will contend that any of these necessitous classes—the pensioners, the unemployed, the widows and others—could exist on one loaf of bread and one lb. of butter per week, the increase in the price of which, in fact, exceeds the 1/- a week which the Budget promised to give, and now gives, to compensate them.

I feel that at this stage we should have a statement from the Minister indicating that he is prepared to compensate these necessitous classes properly for the deliberate rises and the deliberate action of the Government in forcing these prices up. The very people who are now paying 4/4 per lb. for butter have relatives in England who are able to eat the same butter at 2/9 a lb. No attempt is being made to give this butter to the necessitous classes in this country before they export it for sale in England at 2/9 a lb.

The unemployment position in Dublin City, for which this unemployment assistance item in the Estimate is included, is worse than ever. The present unemployment figures in Dublin City are greater than last year or in any previous year. I should mention that the persons receiving unemployment assistance who got the extra 1/- a week to meet the extra costs which I have mentioned are single, able-bodied young men and their brothers, who are earning a week's wages with Dublin Corporation, made the case, and succeeded in proving, that they were entitled to an extra 10/- per week to meet the rise in the cost of living. Therefore, we have the position of the single man in the employment of Dublin Corporation making and winning the case that he is entitled to a rise of 10/- per week to meet the rise in the cost of living while his unemployed brother, who is receiving an assistance allowance, gets 1/- a week to meet these extra costs.

I feel that these people who are the destitute class in the country, the weaker section of the community, have been very unjustly treated by the Government. Even at this stage, I feel that an Order should be brought in here giving them a proper increase.

Mr. P.J. Burke

I have been listening to my esteemed colleague, Deputy Rooney, with whom I have the honour of working in the County Dublin constituency. I am delighted to compliment him on the fact that his memory is very short. The blame for the position in which we find ourselves to-day can truthfully be laid at the door of the Deputy's Party and those fellow-travellers in the other Parties who made up the inter-Party Government. When we took office, we found that the ship of State was on the rocks. As I said the other day, the inter-Party Government ran away from their responsibilities. They were delighted to get out of office. Now they try, in Opposition, to act like a saint and cry, if you do not mind.

There is not a man on this side of the House who would not like to see everybody in employment and everybody with full and plenty. However, any opportunity we had of doing that was taken away from us by the Deputy's Party and the people who made up the inter-Party Government. When we resumed office, the position was so bad that we found it very difficult to carry on at all. Deputy Rooney knows well in his heart that money cannot be got except through extra taxation. Deputy Rooney also knows well that, during the term of office of the inter-Party Government, the loans which were floated failed because the people had no confidence in them. We supported the National Loans on every occasion because we looked upon loans as a national and not a Party affair. However, notwithstanding all the assistance we tried to give them during that period, they left us with a ship-wrecked country.

We are asked why unemployment and everything else are so bad. The fact of the matter is that by the time we resumed office every industry in the nation had gone to its lowest possible ebb.

Mr. Rooney

It has gone lower.

Mr. P.J. Burke

In industry a deterioration had set in. Confidence was gone. Almost overnight, we were asked to transform the situation despite the fact that a general deterioration had set in. May I ask if you can bring back a bankrupt business within one year? Can you, in the space of one year, remedy all the defects of the policy of the last Government over a three-year term of office? Their term before that was not very creditable either.

Unfortunately, it is not Deputies here but the people of the country as a whole who are suffering from the bad handling of the economic affairs of the nation during the reign of the inter-Party Government. My colleague, Deputy Rooney, comes in here and cries for the people. However, the very Party he is assisting to control in County Dublin had not very much compunction about sacking road workers. They are not doing a great deal to assist these people or to make the economic position easier for the people of County Dublin and the people of the nation as a whole. We expect cooperation from all sides of the House during this difficult period but we are not getting it. We have the experience of the usual votes of condemnation but if these votes of condemnation were turned in the direction in which they really should be turned they would be directed towards the people who now sit on the Opposition Benches.

The members of the inter-Party group are directly responsible for having us as we are to-day. While we here—I myself personally, as well as my colleagues—are sorry and very perturbed to see so many people leaving the country and so many people unemployed, it is my fondest hope that we will round the corner very soon and be able to meet the position, and try to give work to the unemployed and better conditions to our less fortunate brethren.

Some of the speakers on the other side have been shedding crocodile tears here, but, all the time, we know definitely that they are responsible for the position. They are now trying, by crying and by a saintly cloak over their ordinary clothes, to make out they are the saints and that they have the cure for all ills. If they had the cure for all ills and had left the country as it should have been left, we would have been prosperous to-day, just one year after they left office. When they left office, they were delighted to get out. I hope that in the very near future money will be found by our own Government to deal with the unemployed and the destitute and to help in a general way to do what we so much desire here in Fianna Fáil, to build up the country and to have it as we left it in 1948.

Mr. O.J. Flanagan

The contribution of the last speaker was very typical of the Fianna Fáil policy— jam yesterday, jam to-morrow but never jam to-day. The Taoiseach, when speaking in this House as Deputy de Valera, condemned the introduction of Supplementary Estimates and he expressed the opinion that they ought not be introduced in the House, that the time for financial stocktaking was the annual Budget and the time for the stocktaking of the various Departments was the discussion on the various annual Estimates. Even though he expressed that opinion, we have a number of Supplementary Estimates still being introduced. It is only right that the House should be bluntly informed that the reason why this Supplementary Estimate is introduced and why this House is asked to vote this substantial sum of money is the Budget introduced and passed by the Government. I venture to say, Sir, that if we had not had that disastrous Budget, there would have been no necessity to come to the House seeking this money.

Only last week, the Taoiseach stated here that the cost of living was going down and had gone down, but there is no sane person, no person outside a lunatic asylum, who would contend that the cost of living has gone down or is going down, or that there is a reduced cost of living to-day. For the ordinary old age pensioner, for the widows and orphans, for the blind persons and for those who are in receipt of unemployment benefit, there is lip sympathy and statements that the cost of living has gone down, whereas everyone knows that, in reality, it is at its highest possible peak to-day. Since the present Government took office, and particularly within the last 12 months, the main item of diet of our people—which is bread—has increased in price. Bread is the principal item of diet for the old age pensioner and for those who are unemployed. When there is a higher consumption of bread, it means that our standard of living is dropping lower and lower, because when our people cannot have meat, fish and a variety of foods, they have to fall back on bread. Although we hear the cost of living has gone down, the price of the loaf has been increased from 9¼d. to 1/1. The increased price of bread has affected the unemployed, the children of the unemployed, the old age pensioners and the widows and orphans, more than any other increase ever imposed.

Some people speak of the unemployed or the old age pensioner having to purchase or consume butter, but it is common knowledge to those who have contact with rural Ireland to-day that butter is a complete luxury. For the information of the Minister for Social Welfare and his Parliamentary Secretary, there is no old age pensioner in this country to-day who has butter on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday, because from the allowance received on Friday, a meagre supply of butter is purchased to carry them over the week-end. There are even families to-day where the father is working and where there are five or six children and they never have anything on their bread but margarine; yet we are told that the younger members of the family should be well fed and well nourished and that it is hard to equal the nutritive value of butter.

Butter is a thing of the past; it has become a luxury; and the old age pensioners, the widows and orphans and those in receipt of benefits under this Estimate, are not able to purchase butter. Take, for example, the old age pensioner or unemployed person who is obliged to purchase flour. The price of a stone of flour has increased from 4/7 to 7/-; yet we are told the cost of living is going down. You have these people not purchasing flour by the stone as they did, but going into shops and asking for a pound of flour—a thing never known before.

I have been a member of this House for 15 years and in those 15 years I never passed through a blacker year, a year of greater hardship or a year of greater distress or greater poverty than has prevailed in the past year amongst the ordinary people of this country. It was a period in which there was dire hunger and dire starvation. There was want; and decent people were reduced to having to beg alms. There was never a greater drain on the funds of the St. Vincent de Paul Society; there was never a greater drain on the charity of the people, as that which we have experienced in the past six or seven months.

When one looks upon the present time of distress, of poverty and hunger, there is no man who to-day can honestly stand up and say there is not hardship, poverty or hunger prevalent in many homes to-day. Real hunger exists in the homes but is hidden away because people will not seek charity, due to a certain amount of decency and pride. It is only those who are associated with charitable organisations and who have to go into the homes of people who, from outside appearances, look as if they are well fed and in comfortable circumstances, who know the real story. There are many like the old age pensioners who are too proud to go out in the middle of the week and say they are really on the verge of starvation and on the verge of collapse from hunger and hardship.

Those are the conditions that prevail in many homes to-day, in the homes of the tens of thousands of unemployed who were promised the hundred thousand jobs this time 12 months ago. They are sending their children to school half-hungry. The dry bread and rough crusts that were hitherto thrown to the animals are now put aside and bound up in paper for hungry children to eat on their way to school. When they arrive in the school for the school meal, they find that the bun that was available is now only a half bun, and that only half the allowance of bread is available for the school meal compared with 12 months ago. Previously the children were given two cuts of bread. Now they get only one cut, divided in two so as to make it look like two cuts.

Let us reflect for one moment on the benefits paid to unemployed workers and let us ask ourselves one simple question. Is there any Irishman who readily wants to live on the dole? I venture to say that most of our people are anxious for work, not afraid to work and will give a good return for what they are paid. The present Government lowered our people to the level of paupers by giving them free milk, free beef, free boots and free vouchers for this, that and the other. They handed out all these things in return——

An Ceann Comhairle

The Deputy should confine himself to the Estimate.

Mr. O.J. Flanagan

This is included in the Estimate—in return for votes.

An Ceann Comhairle

The Deputy should not travel beyond the Estimate.

Mr. O.J. Flanagan

There may be a small percentage of people who want something for nothing, but all the vast majority of our unemployed people want is full-time employment and a decent wage in order that they may obtain the standard of living to which they are entitled. It is heart-breaking for many a father to have to suffer the humiliation of having to stand in a long queue outside a labour exchange or outside a Garda barracks to hand in their dole forms. I am sorry that that state of affairs has been sponsored and continues to be sponsored by the present Government.

Deputy Burke said this morning that the inter-Party Government are responsible for this state of affairs and for the unemployment position. It cannot be that the inter-Party Government were responsible for the fact that, in 1940, the unemployment figure was, in reality, 234,855 after many years of strong Fianna Fáil Government. There is no use trying to throw the responsibility on to someone else when you have the responsibility. The responsibility is that of the present Government. They are in office now and it is their job to remedy it and that is what they received the votes of the people 12 months ago to do.

With regard to the provision in this Estimate for grants towards the supply of fuel to necessitous families, if the statistics are taken, it will be found that there are more people in this city, in every other city and in every provincial town, seeking this assistance from the local authority than ever before. There are many poor people who, apart from being in hunger and distress, do not see a fire from one end of the week to the other. To add to this extraordinary insult and to add to the plight of these grief-stricken people, they get a contribution of 1/- from the Government.

It has been pointed out that, in order to meet the rise in the cost of living, those who are in employment have been seeking wage increases, which have been approved to the extent of 10/- per week. If a person who is in employment is to be given compensation of 10/- per week because of a rise in the cost of living, how is it that an increase of 1/- a week to the old age pensioner and the unemployed person to cope with the same rise in cost of living is as much as the Government can give? I was expecting that the unemployment benefits and the rates payable to old age pensioners would have been very substantially increased.

It is no harm to mention on this Estimate that the figures relating to unemployment recipients should be more closely examined, because the figures which are available are the unemployed who register at the various labour exchanges. I venture to say that there are as great a number of people living on friends and living on charity who are not registered as unemployed, and that the figures that are made available relating to the unemployed people are by no means accurate, having regard to the fact that tens of thousands of people have emigrated and that there are tens of thousands unemployed and in distress in respect of whom there are no records whatever.

I contribute to the debate on this Estimate merely for the purpose of directing the attention of the Government, and particularly of the Minister for Social Welfare, to the very serious plight of the poor people. It does not look as if they will get anything in the nature of assistance from the Government, but it is only right that Deputies should bring home to the Government the seriousness of their plight. Naturally, the House must approve of this Supplementary Estimate. The provisions which it contains must be made, but I want to place it on record that in so far as the services are concerned, they are not in keeping with present day conditions.

I wonder if the Parliamentary Secretary had any consultations with the members of local authorities or the managements of county homes throughout the country, because it is very clear that there are more demands for tickets for night shelter in every county home than ever before, by people who have neither fires to sit at nor food to eat because they have been denied the financial assistance which they should have.

I hope that when the Budget is introduced it will be more in keeping with the distress and poverty which is prevailing in the country. I hope that the less fortunate people, such as old age pensioners, will be given a decent allowance to keep body and soul together. It is quite clear that, on the basis of the allowances they are receiving at present, a great gap is developing between body and soul. They have not got a living but just a meagre existence from day to day and the big bulk of them are living on the charity of their friends and neighbours.

Mr. Moloney

I listened with great interest to speakers on the other side of the House making very worthwhile suggestions for the Minister's consideration in connection with these Estimates. I am rather disappointed that some explanation has not been forthcoming from the people on the opposite side as to why there is such a discrepancy between the amount in the original Estimates and the amount actually expended under each heading. It is, of course, a fact that the original Estimates were prepared by the previous Government and handed over to us when we assumed office a year ago. The members of that Government must, of necessity, take full responsibility——

Mr. O'Sullivan

Oh, not at all.

Mr. Moloney

——so far as responsibility is applicable for the preparation of the original Estimates. I would like the speakers on the opposite side to tell us how the figures, as shown in the original Estimate, were arrived at. This is very interesting because it is, of course, a fact that in many cases original Estimates, under some headings, cannot be reasonably expected to work out in practice, but there are some headings in this Vote which were fairly definite, which left very little room for the need for supplementary amounts, unless there is some very good reason for it.

Taking the case of the old age pensioners, there is a deficiency of £330,000 as between the amount estimated by the former Government and the actual expenditure. Now, the number of old age pensioners has not increased at all. My experience during the past 12 months has been that the difficulty in regard to getting through an old age pensioner, who is a border-line case, has been as great as ever, if not more so. I have often expressed my disagreement with the rigid system that is being employed to calculate and assess means against old age pensioners. On many occasions, I have discussed this matter with the Parliamentary Secretary in the hope that I could get some more sensible arrangement worked out. I have always got the answer that the Department is most sympathetic to the applications of all people who have reached the age for pensions, but that the means test system, which has been employed for a number of years, must of necessity still hold.

It was rather amusing to hear some of the speakers on the other side making a case as to why we should do certain things in that direction, people who were in power long enough and who, according to themselves, were sympathetic enough, to amend the regulations which prevailed in that connection. In the case of children's allowances, I cannot, for the life of me, understand the huge deficiency of £1,410,000 that exists and I do hope that some speaker from the Opposition will throw some light on that item.

Mr. O'Sullivan

There is a simple explanation.

Mr. Moloney

There is no explanation. What I want to know is why the original Estimates have, in practice. proved to be so hopelessly inaccurate. I am quite sure the Opposition would get annoyed with me if I suggested that the outgoing Minister for Finance did not know his business sufficiently well to calculate, with reasonable accuracy, the amount required to carry on the Government, if he were to be the Minister.

Mr. O'Sullivan

Of course, he did not intend to touch the food subsidies.

Mr. Moloney

The food subsidies are a separate question.

Mr. O.J. Flanagan

They are linked very closely with that.

Mr. Moloney

I am prepared to stand up to any cross-examination which the Deputy may like to put, but the food subsidies bear no relation to the number of old age pensioners.

Mr. McAuliffe

The food subsidies had a great effect on the old age pensioners.

Mr. Moloney

With regard to unemployment assistance, the last speaker tried to explain that in connection with the number of people on the live register—which shows a reduction compared with last year due to many factors—we have got quite a lot of people living with relatives and depending on their generosity. I say that we have got a lot of people, not to-day or yesterday, nor in the time of the last Government, nor the present Government, who succeeded in getting on the register some years ago and who are still on it, and who are now in a position that they do not merit to be paid unemployed assistance. Their way of living has improved. That might be due to their own hard work or to remittances from their children abroad. The position is, however, that, in my opinion, the register of unemployed should be reviewed because recruitment of labour for certain employment in public works schemes is effected through the unemployment assistance register.

We have complaints made to us, and I am sure every Deputy has this experience, by people who are unfortunate enough not to be on the top U.A. rate so far as the means test is concerned. It might be a small farmer with five or six cows in a rural area, or a man living in a grant house or cottage, and he fails to get the work because he is assessed with an extra 1/- or 2/-. That is a very objectionable practice and if for no other reason than that, I think there should be an examination of the register of unemployed in so far as the means of people on that register, who own land, and have rateable valuations of, I would say, £3 or £4, are concerned. It might provide an opportunity of increasing the rate of assistance that evidently could be paid to the people who are necessitous and who desire to be on the register.

I am aware there is a big increase of £18,000 in the grants towards the supply of fuel for necessitous families. For the life of me, I cannot agree with the case made by the last speaker as to why it is necessary to bring in this sum of money. I do think this scheme, which is a very popular one in the big centres of population, has come to stay. Furthermore, the price of fuel has increased. I do not think the increase sought is due to the dire poverty which is alleged to exist. The first reason for it is that the amount was grossly underestimated and the second is the increase in the price of fuel. Also, a greater number of people have availed of these services. If there was any difficulty in the past, it was due mostly to the quality of the fuel where turf was concerned. Happily, that quality has improved and I am glad to find more people availing of that supplementary assistance.

A suggestion has been made here in connection with butter which, of course, comes mainly under all headings. The price is 4/4 per lb. in this country and our friends in England can buy it at 2/9 per lb. I should like to make one suggestion to the Parliamentary Secretary in that connection—I do not know whether he will find it possible to implement it or not. I expect the Government and the previous Government have examined this before, and there may be some exceptional difficulty, which I cannot see, in implementing an arrangement whereby vouchers could be given to certain categories of people in receipt of social assistance on which they could purchase butter at the subsidised price of 2/9 per lb. I feel it would be a step in the right direction if we could succeed in getting our own people to purchase food of that kind which carries a subsidy abroad. If nothing else, it would give us the benefit of retaining the subsidy at home. I appeal very sincerely to the Parliamentary Secretary to examine this question in the hope that at long last he might find it possible to do something about it.

On the question of bread and flour consumption, I listened to some remarks by Deputy Flanagan who told us that the consumption of bread had gone down very considerably. I expect he was basing his calculations on the reduction on flour. For his information, I would like to tell him that, since the subsidy went off, the general usage of flour has gone down considerably, and a great deal of that is due to the fact that flour was fed to animals.

Mr. O.J. Flanagan

Nonsense.

Mr. Kennedy

Hear, hear!

Mr. O.J. Flanagan

There is not a word of truth in that.

Mr. Kennedy

They fed it to greyhounds, too.

Mr. Moloney

I stand over that statement. It is on record and anybody can challenge it any time he pleases.

Mr. O.J. Flanagan

When Marie Antoinette was told that the French people had no bread, she said: "Let them eat cake".

Mr. Manley

We should approach a matter of his kind on its merits, but I feel it is my duty to deprecate the statements made by Deputy Burke this morning. I dislike very much being personal and I have a feeling that Deputy Burke is a generous-minded man, but the statements he made here have done more to damage the dignity and prestige of this House than anything I can recollect. We know that at the present time there is a wave of cynicism, disappointment and despair in the country and that condition is not helped by men who come into this House and make reckless and intemperate statements. At all times, we should have one objective in view, that is to enhance the respect for and the dignity of this House. I do hope that Deputy Burke made these remarks in a thoughtless moment, in a thoughtless way, and that he was not quite serious in what he said.

Deputy Moloney referred to the fact that these Estimates were prepared by the previous Government. At the time of their preparation by the former Minister for Finance and the various other Ministers, there was no intention on their part to slash the food subsidies and bring about the hardship which has been inflicted on the people by the present Minister for Finance in his handling of the Budget of last year. All these hardships have been brought about through the difficulties which have arisen due to the slashing of the food subsidies.

The sum sought here for the various supplementary votes, excluding that for the Department of Justice and, I think, the Circuit Court and Garda, amounts in all to approximately £6,250,000. There is no doubt that this is a staggering sum and one which should sober our thoughts considerably. I ask myself when I see this recurring expenditure: is this country going to get a chance at all? We know the struggle to-day is very tense indeed and we must ask ourselves are we going to prove ourselves as an economic entity? Have we justified ourselves, after 36 years of native Government, in providing for the needy in our midst? It is because of the needy in our midst that this Supplementary Estimate is brought in to-day. It is more alarming still when we consider that it was due to serious underestimation when last year's Estimates were prepared. It is going to affect revenue and will carry on the trend of the past, in that revenue is going to chase expenditure, and will blight the hopes of the people of having a prosperous, free and independent nation, economically as well as territorially.

We realise this Estimate is necessary. The State must meet and honour its commitments to old age pensioners, the blind, widows and orphans and so on. There is a sum of £193,000 extra for unemployment assistance. I was very edified to hear one member of the Labour Party during one of the debates last year saying it would be far better and much more judicious, if the Government provided full employment for all our people so that we would not have to fall back on such a thing as unemployment assistance. There is no doubt many of our social solaces are degrading. There is no doubt the dole is degrading. If there is one thing more than another that evokes sympathy from me, and I am sure everybody in this House, it is to come across men going round in search of work, on the verge of despair when they cannot find it. A generation ago we had more than double the population we have to-day. Admittedly our people lived under very difficult circumstances, but they certainly had more happiness and more contentment and they looked to the future with a greater eagerness than people can to-day after 36 years of native government.

It has been asserted here that emigration is not associated with this Vote, but we must remember that emigration is largely caused through unemployment and 80 per cent. of our emigrants are forced to leave because of their failure to secure employment here under a native Government. What will happen if the recession which is now beginning to show in various parts of the world strikes Great Britain with any great force and our emigrants are compelled to return home? What will their prospects be? What will they find here? How shall we maintain them if they return? We would, of course, be glad to see them coming back if conditions were favourable and they had something to which to return.

It is an extraordinary thing that in the whole of the past 36 years of native government, no Government has yet succeeded in providing the solution for either unemployment or emigration. We should not talk glibly about these serious problems. They are a reflection on our whole economic system. Certainly we shall not help towards a solution of this problem merely by blaming one another. Let us get away from the schoolboy attitude which is so apparent here in debates: "Anything you can do I can do better." At some future date all Parties here should sit down together and try to devise some permanent scheme to bring about a permanent solution to these twin evils of unemployment and emigration.

This Supplementary Estimate, and the others that have been introduced here, do not give any grounds for complacency. Because of this unavoidable supplementary expenditure we are likely to be faced with increased taxation in the coming year. Because of the protestations, the indications and the assertions made by the Minister for Finance last year we had hoped that we were coming to the end of the era of increasing expenditure and higher taxation but, from the hints dropped recently by Ministers, I am afraid we are facing a very difficult future and if we have increased taxation again this year we will have to give up the ghost entirely.

Charitable organisations were mentioned here by Deputy O.J. Flanagan. We, in this House, do not properly appreciate the work done by the various charitable organisations all over the country.

Mr. O'Sullivan

Hear, hear!

Mr. Manley

They have certainly saved the State many commitments which would otherwise have fallen upon the Exchequer and which would have had to be provided from Government sources. Most valuable work is done by the various religious communities, the St. Vincent de Paul Society and all these other organisations so assiduous in alleviating the distress in our midst. It is true that the poor we shall have always with us and it is very edifying to see men and women devoting their time and services gratuitously and voluntarily to the work of helping our fellowmen on whom fortune has not smiled too kindly.

Mr. Wycherley

Having listened to the eloquent speeches from both sides this morning and last night I, as an impartial observer, find it very difficult to make up my mind as to who is actually responsible for the chaotic conditions which exist and for the financial stringency. To me, it appears to be a case of the pot calling the kettle black because, over the past 30 years, the two big political Parties have been competing against each other for the popular vote in the cities and towns by giving free dole, free this and free that. The poorer people in the rural areas, becoming alive to that, flock into the cities and towns to swell the armies of the unemployed, the armies which must get these social benefits. The result is that their numbers have increased year in and year out. I believe in a "back to work" policy—the policy about which Fianna Fáil was so eloquent 12 months ago. I feel compelled to speak on this Supplementary Estimate to-day because it was this day 12 months that the people in my constituency elected me to represent them in Dáil Éireann.

I come from a depressed area. The majority of the people are poor. It is by no means a wealthy area. The average valuation is £8. The people work hard and derive their little incomes from their own industry—dairying, milk production, poultry production and the other small lines that go with that kind of mixed farming. They have never looked for social benefits, but it would be of tremendous value to them if they could get some benefit in the line of extra work. The people in rural Ireland were ever too proud to look for State assistance. What they desire is assistance in the form of work. They do not want money for nothing as do the people in the cities and towns.

Since coming in here I have on numerous occasions put before the House the necessity for carrying out improvements, improvements which would be of great benefit to the country, in the form of cleaning rivers, improving by-roads and boreens. I want to help the people who want to work. The area I come from is an undeveloped area. It is a shocking state of affairs that we should be providing this huge sum of money for social assistance when there is so much work to be done in the undeveloped areas. Those who are drawing this money should be put to work developing these areas.

We have heard something about the cost of fuel. We have unlimited fuel resources in this country. If the people would only go down into the bogs from now until next November, we would have sufficient fuel to supply the needs of every household in this country. Instead of providing free money, provide them with free fuel and put them into useful work.

We have heard the case of the bread and the butter. I know from personal experience that there is plenty of cheap butter produced in this country to-day. Butter can be bought freely at 2/9 or 3/- per lb., but it is farmers' butter produced by the cheap family labour in rural Ireland.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Deputy may not discuss the price of butter on this Supplementary Estimate.

Mr. Wycherley

Butter has been mentioned so often here last night and to-day that I thought it would be a good idea to tell the House of the cheap butter which is available but which is not bought in Ireland.

Mr. Corish

We would take it in Wexford.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Deputy may not pursue that line. It does not relate to any of the subheadings in the White Paper.

Mr. Wycherley

The cost of butter was mentioned and I can assure you there is plenty of cheap butter at 2/9 and 3/- per lb., produced by the family labour of this country, but it is not considered good enough. People prefer, perhaps rightly so, the better class creamery butter at 4/2 per lb.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Deputy will get an opportunity of raising that matter on another Estimate.

Mr. O'Sullivan

Surely under sub-head E—Grants under the Education (Provision of Meals) Act—the cost of butter is reflected in the additional estimate of £6,500 required?

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Deputy is not dealing with that particular sub-head. He is comparing the price of creamery butter and farmers' butter. The Parliamentary Secretary has no responsibility for that matter.

Mr. Wycherley

I just wanted to inform the House that such butter was available if people want cheap butter.

Mr. Corish

We want it in Wexford.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Deputy has already informed the House.

Mr. Wycherley

This butter may not be so palatable. It is something like the Danish and New Zealand butter which was so objectionable to the people of this country three years ago.

As regards bread, the cost of bread to any household could be reduced greatly if people did more home baking. If they baked more of the one way wheaten flour, it would be much more beneficial because the bread would be more wholesome than the factory made loaf. That is a matter that cannot be over-stressed, especially for the people who want to live economically on the very small incomes they get under social welfare benefits. It would be a good thing to have more home baking. We could live better because homemade bread is far superior to factory bread.

These Supplementary Estimates are bad because they give the impression we are living beyond our means. Every sensible person in this country must realise that a person, a company or a nation living beyond its means cannot survive for long. The only way of providing all this money for social services for the ever-growing number of people joining the band wagon of unemployment is to reduce the incomes of some other section of our people. The only section of the people whose income is now being reduced is that section called the farming community.

We know that the prices of wheat, barley and pigs, have been considerably reduced within the past few months. Now the dairy farmer, if you please, of whom I spoke a few moments ago and who works 365 days a year to make a meagre existence on his farm, is threatened with a decrease in the price of his product.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

These matters would be more relevant to the following Estimate for Agriculture.

Mr. Wycherley

I was applying my remarks to the money which is to be made up to provide the Supplementary Estimate for social services. This money must come from some source. I am wondering is it right to victimise this section of the community and to extract so much money from the farming community, who provide the bulk of the taxation and who pay most of the rates? Is it right to extract so much money from all those hardworking, industrious people to provide all the necessary social services to keep people unemployed?

The whole system is wrong. A back-to-work policy is the one which I am all for, the one which I will support in this House so long as I am in it. The work is there but it is no use talking about it from one end of the year to the other. One year has gone by but our bogs are still undeveloped, our rivers are not cleaned, they are flowing over the land and our roads are as bad as ever. Talking will not do it. It is the responsibility of the Government to put the unemployed to work at productive employment in this country. The men will then be happier.

I know that even with all the social benefits developed in this country over the past 20 years, there is more discontent among the people deriving those benefits than in the past when they were happy and contented at work. When people get into that habit of idleness and when they are idle for 12 months or two years, they cannot get back to work. Their muscles are not hard enough, and they lose the art of work; they continue, and their families after them will continue, to join the band wagon of the unemployed. It is a wrong policy. It is high time that the Government of this country took courage in their hands, rose to the occasion and saw to it that the unemployed are put to work in gainful and useful employment.

Rúnaí Parlaiminte don Aire Leasa Shoisialaigh (Micheál Ó Cinneide)

Tá cúpla poinnte a bhaineas leis an Vota seo gurb mhaith liom tagairt a dhéanamh dóibh. Deputy Manley asked if there was not a drift across the water and if our emigrants had to remain at home, what would happen? We would have to do with a lower standard of living in this island home of ours with two Governments, two Parliaments and two everything. The effort we must make, referred to by Deputy Manley and the last speaker, will have to be a Herculean one because of the unnatural division of this country. Primarily, it is the root cause of many of our economic evils. There was one point made by Deputy Corish—I am not going to follow, I hope, every point in the debate—in regard to the provision of money in the Budget. There was provision made in the Budget for this Estimate in relation to social assistance. Let us now turn to the main trend of the debate.

Mr. Corish

I did not say that there was not provision. I think the Parliamentary Secretary may be somewhat confused since we had so many debates on social welfare last night. It was on the motion.

Mr. Kennedy

We are dealing here with a Supplementary Estimate which, with the original Estimate, amounts to approximately £25,250,000. We have a population of less than 3,000,000 people and the taxation we have to put on our people to provide that sum amounts to approximately £8 10 0 a head in social assistance. Those who talk glibly about that not being enough ought to apply it to the national income. Would they ask themselves how the majority of our farmers to whom the last Deputy referred exist and what their standard of living is? Sixty-four per cent. of them have holdings of £20 valuation and under.

Then we had a laugh about the 1/-. In a home such as I have instanced, 12 pennies must be examined before they are spent. In these homes, there is very frugal economy. In many of these small, uneconomic holdings, where there is only one cow, there are periods of the year when there is no butter in the house. That has always obtained and there should be no mystery about it now. Consequently, the painting of poverty and pauperism is doing great injury.

Deputy Manley inferred that such talk came from one side of the House only. It came from many sides of the House. If there is to be a national effort to go ahead, we must see the sunrise. We must pull together and co-operate to get this nation out of the economic blizzard which struck it and to which the Taoiseach referred. We must condition the muscles which the last speaker said were lax and get them going again.

I will not go into the question of emigration, but I was abroad, and I saw our people work harder abroad than they work at home. Let me deviate for a minute and refer to one bright feature. I saw recently where the workers in an industry in Dublin are putting 1/- aside per week to help in the national effort. We want that from everybody, if we are to go ahead. Let us not exaggerate in regard to figures. We have a population of approximately 3,000,000 people. We are dealing with a particular Vote in respect of 35,000 registered people drawing unemployment assistance. One would imagine from the debate that the whole population were existing on social services and were in poverty.

We never contended that social services are a living wage. They are a grant-in-aid and that is all they are. A man on the list for unemployment assistance to-day may be working tomorrow. One would think he was all his life on the list. There is then no need for all the exaggerated pictures which Deputy Flanagan is so capable of painting. They talk about the 1/- a week. Fine Gael provided no social service, in spite of Deputy Rooney's statement. They initiated no social service, but they took 1/- a week off the old age pensioners. One of the Opposition's own ex-Ministers said it was one of the daftest things the Opposition ever did.

Mr. O'Sullivan

They were building a few bridges at that time.

Mr. Kennedy

I put my national reputation and that of my family against that of the Deputy any time.

Mr. O'Sullivan

That is not being questioned.

Mr. Kennedy

If we had a national approach to questions, the Deputy would not talk as he does.

Mr. O'Sullivan

The Parliamentary Secretary started it.

Mr. Kennedy

The man on unemployment assistance with a wife and four children gets 6/4 a week as a result of the 1/- increase, made up of unemployment assistance, children's allowance, etc. He does not get a bob a week. The family man gets 6/4 a week. The sum we have brought before the Dáil is a very substantial sum. No instructions of any kind, direct or indirect, have gone from the Minister's Department or from me personally to any social welfare officer to do anything outside the code of administration, but we will certainly make war on people who are claiming benefit who have no right to it.

The number of old age pensioners some years ago was 131,000. In the present year it is 165,522 which represents 78.5 per cent. of all the people over 70 years of age. The cost in the present financial year is £10,179,651. We are paying £10,000,000 and I wish we could pay more, but £10,000,000 is a nice little burden in regard to one item of social assistance on the shoulders of the population.

We have raised the standard in regard to the means test. A man or woman can earn £1 a week and still get the full old age pension. They can earn up to £2 a week and get 10/- per week. Deputy Manley rightly referred to the charitable organisations. I said that social assistance is a grant-in-aid. There is more good done by stealth than in any other way. We know the spirit of neighbourliness and Christian charity which prevailed throughout the centuries among our people. It is an admirable thing. We help one another out. We help the lame dog over the stile. It would be a poor day if the welfare State should ever replace that —a very poor day, indeed.

We do not want a Soviet system here. We want private property. We want the small farmer, the middle-sized farmer, the big farmer and the shopkeeper all pulling together and helping one another. With the knowledge that that was how our nation was made up, all our social legislation was framed. I was surprised to hear Deputy Gogan talk about a differential between a rural old age pensioner and an urban old age pensioner. I know the hardship it is for a poor old man or woman in a room in Dublin, but the poor old man or woman in a room in Athlone or Mullingar is just as pitiable, and in the latter cases they will not have free fuel. If one wants the flight from the land to major cities to continue, one can have that differentiation. I am subject to, and I would follow loyally, anything my Party do, but if I have any influence with them, I would recommend that they should never make that differentiation.

We had talk here about butter and we had a discussion on tea in relation to the cost of living, but the man who makes a cup of tea has to use a kettle and has to have a fire and a house for the fire. The material that makes the kettle is not found in this country and has to be imported, and the animal that produces the butter has to be exported, unless we put a steel wall round the country and stop exporting. In that case, we would not be able to talk about the six ounces of tea consumed by the ordinary individual. Once we had to make do with a quarter of an ounce, but I would like even that quarter of an ounce to come in so that we would not be cut off from all the amenities to which we are accustomed. People should examine that aspect of the matter also.

The cost of all these social services is a very great burden on the community and we must tax the community to give them. There is a point which can be reached in taxation when you cease to get any further yield, and that fact has to be kept in mind.

Deputy Rooney referred to the high number of unemployed in Dublin City. No man in rural Ireland or in the cities is ignorant of his rights in the labour exchange and the latest return we have from Dublin on 22/2/'58 shows 17,724 people unemployed as against 20,123 in the comparable period last year, a decrease of 2,399. One cannot have one's cake and eat it, and I have been listening to Fine Gael speakers giving the impression that everything good in the last 11½ months, such as the betterment of the balance of payments and every Bill that came before the Dáil and was of benefit to the State, was due to Fine Gael. They must take the swings with the roundabouts and if there is unemployment and all the terrible things spoken about here, the responsibility is theirs. Just as they claim all the good things, they must accept the bad also.

Mr. Corish

I wonder if the Parliamentary Secretary can give any further information in regard to the establishment of a workshop for the blind for which I think there is a sum of £14,000 in this Estimate.

Mr. Kennedy

I think we may be able to give the Deputy more information on this point on the Vote on Account.

Mr. Corish

In order to give the Parliamentary Secretary time to look up this matter, I can put down a question next week or the week after.

Mr. Kennedy

Very good.

Vote put and agreed to.