I shall do it softly. The Minister for Defence talking here on the 15th May, 1957, on the Budget discussion had this to say:—
"In my opinion and in the opinion of any fair-minded person who even now goes back and looks over the speeches made in the election campaign, it is beyond all doubt that we were put in here as a Government to take the necessary steps to remedy the situation of mass unemployment and emigration brought about by the previous Government."
Later on, on the same occasion, as reported at column 1288, the Minister for Defence said:—
"The people who have been affected by that unemployment and resulting emigration have put their faith in Fianna Fáil to remedy this situation."
According to the Minister for Defence, speaking here in May, 1957, there was no doubt at all about it. The task which Fianna Fáil had to tackle in the 12 months which lay ahead of them was to end emigration and unemployment. I want to ask the House in a minute to consider the position after 12 months, but before I do that it might be as well, for the sake of Deputies representing rural constituencies, to know how Deputy Corry viewed the results of the election and to see what Deputy Corry thought at the time was the future for the wheat growers of this country. Speaking on the same date, the 15th May, 1957, as reported at column 1372, Deputy Corry had this to say:—
"Thousands of farmers, when they found that gang was on the run——"
that gang being the inter-Party Government.
"——started ploughing and growing wheat. The extra acres are in and the wheat is growing. They did that in the knowledge that, with their help, the country would get rid of Dillonitis. They got rid of that all right."
I hope before I conclude to invite Deputy Corry and other Deputies representing rural constituencies to consider the significance of the last 12 months or more, particularly the last month or so, in relation to the future for wheat growers in this country as seen by Deputy Corry just 12 months ago.
It was over the week-end that the Taoiseach made the claim that the year 1957 was a year of steady recovery. He said that the volume of agricultural output increased, the fall in industrial employment was reversed, unemployment figures fell but emigration figures were probably still very high. The general tenor of his speech was that the year 1957 was a year of gradual but steady recovery. I want to find out how that claim can stand up in the light of the present Book of Estimates and in the light of a reply which I received from the Taoiseach's Parliamentary Secretary to-day regarding industrial and agricultural employment.
Deputy Desmond already mentioned the answer that was given, and I think it very necessary that we should try to get further light on this subject, particularly in view of the claim made here by the Minister for Defence to-day, made, I think, by Deputy Booth last week and persistently made by Fianna Fáil speakers, that unemployment is going down. Let us be clear on this. When Fianna Fáil talk about unemployment going down, what they are referring to is the number on the register as unemployed. That is not the same thing at all. Any Fianna Fáil Deputy who thinks anyway more than superficially on the problem will agree with me that if you are talking about the number of persons unemployed on the one hand, you must also take into consideration, on the other, the number of people who have left the country in the last 12 months.
In order to try to find out what was the real position with regard to the Government's efforts over the 12 months they have been in office in relation to this question of unemployment, I asked the Taoiseach to-day:—
"If he would state the average number of persons in (a) industrial and (b) agricultural employment in the years 1956 and 1957."
Remember 1956, as far as employment is concerned, is the year that Fianna Fáil speakers paint as a disastrous year, a black year, and 1957 is the first year that the Fianna Fáil Government came back into office. These are the figures I got for the black year, as Fianna Fáil would have it, of 1956. We here admit that in 1956 the unemployment figures became very high, higher than they ever had been before under an inter-Party Government, although I do not think Deputy Haughey made the claim that an all-time record high was reached. I think it was higher in some of the Fianna Fáil years, in 1952 or 1953. However, I will not correct him on that. It certainly was at its highest under any inter-Party Government in the year 1956.
Take that year and compare it with the Fianna Fáil year of 1957 and we find that the estimated number of persons in industrial employment in 1956 was 289,000. The estimate for the number of people in industrial employment in 1957, the first year that Fianna Fáil was back in office was 275,000. In other words, there were 14,000 fewer in industrial employment in the year 1957, the recovery year of Fianna Fáil's return to office than there were in the black year of 1956.
So far as agricultural employment went the picture is practically exactly the same. In 1956 the number employed in agricultural employment was 440,000. In 1957 it was 430,000. As between the two, the years 1956 and 1957, the total number of persons fewer in industrial and agricultural employment was 24,000.
I do not know what the Taoiseach is talking about when he says that 1957 was a year of recovery. I do not know what the Minister for Defence is talking about when he says that there are fewer people unemployed. It is now perfectly clear from the answers given to my questions in this House to-day that the number of persons in employment in 1957 was fewer than in 1956. What is the explanation then if there are fewer people registered as unemployed? There is only one answer— that they have taken the emigrant ship and gone abroad.
In view of that is it any wonder to find that Aer Linte Éireann is able to take a full page advertisement in a daily newspaper and proclaim to the world the fact that they have specially reduced emigrant fares to America? There is no other explanation for the figures given here to-day by the Taoiseach's Department. As I see it, industrial and agricultural employment is down and it seems to me to be quite clear that emigration has gone up.
In reply to another question which I asked to-day, we find that the purchasing power of the £ has decreased by 4d. during the year. So far as the buying of commodities is concerned, the purchaser with £1 in his pocket finds that it is now worth 4d. less than it was after Fianna Fáil came back into office. In addition to that the cost of living has been increased since Fianna Fáil came back to office.
Various claims have been made as to what this Book of Estimates amounts to. Deputy Haughey made the claim that it showed an overall reduction of £4.8 million. Deputy Haughey will probably agree that in making that calculation he was assuming that there would not be any Supplementary Estimate during the year. I take it that he is nodding agreement with me, but I do not think that that is a fair basis of calculation. I think that the amount of the Supplementary Estimates introduced this year came to £7,250,000. My approach to the Book of Estimates does not accord with the calculation which Deputy Haughey has made. If we are to talk about the total figure published on the face of the Book of Estimates, we must remember that the last Book of Estimates produced by the inter-Party Government contained full provision for the food subsidies which have since been abolished by the Fianna Fáil Government. My calculation is that the flour and butter subsidies reduced it by about £8,000,000.
If the present Government wants to claim any reduction in the Book of Estimates there should be a saving of at least £8,000,000 to the taxpayer. In fact there is no such saving. If you were to take the food subsidies out of the inter-Party Book of Estimates, they would have shown a reduction of something like £5,500,000 underneath the figure in the present Book of Estimates. I made a quick calculation when I opened the Book of Estimates and I saw that, out of 66 or 67 items, 39 have increased. About 25 have been reduced and two have remained static.
Like Deputy Sweetman and some of the other speakers, I should like to say a few words with regard to some of the reductions that have been made. One of the items reduced by £222,000 is the subsidy for ground limestone. I think it was only last week in the Dáil that the Minister for Agriculture put himself on record as saying that Fianna Fáil had been given a blank cheque. I want to make the suggestion that, if they did obtain a blank cheque, they gave some pretty substantial promissory notes before they got it.
If we take the question of the limestone subsidy as an example, I want to repeat a quotation given here to-day by Deputy Sweetman and I am going to quote out of "Truth in the News." I am quoting from the Irish Press of Wednesday, 21st November, 1956, a statement made by the present Taoiseach with regard to ground limestone. He said:—
"They had been told, he said, that 12,000,000 tons of ground limestone was necessary to restore the productive quality of our soil. Less than 1,000,000 tons a year was being spread while it required 12,000,000 tons to put it right and 2,000,000 tons a year to keep it in condition. ‘If we are the Government again one thing I will promise and that is that everything we can do to push this ground limestone on to the land we will do it.'"
Is there anything ambiguous about that? Is that not a clear statement by the Leader of Fianna Fáil to the delegates that assembled at the Ard-Fheis that, if Fianna Fáil ever again had anything to do with the government of the country, everything they could do to push the ground limestone on to the land they would do. Yet, in the first Book of Estimates which they prepare after coming back into office we find a reduction of £222,000 in the subsidy for that scheme. That was a very clear statement made in 1956.
I have taken the trouble to go back over the Book of Estimates for some years. I find, in relation to the ground limestone subsidy, that in the year when the present Taoiseach was putting himself on record in that manner to the delegates at the Fianna Fáil Ard-Fheis, the amount provided in the Book of Estimates was £684,000 for that scheme. Apparently that would not be sufficient but he would see that the farmers had this ground limestone pushed on to their land.
There are other reductions in the Book of Estimates that are worthy of comment. We had reductions in the amounts provided for the Local Authorities (Works) Act, for farm buildings and for housing grants. It is worth noting what some of the Fianna Fáil supporters were invited to do over the past few years in regard to these reductions. Remember the reduction in the farm building scheme, in the housing grants and the reduction—I might say the practical wiping out—of work under the Local Authorities (Works) Act are all matters that will further affect the unemployment position here.
I have given the House the benefit of the reply by the Taoiseach's Department to my question to-day regarding industrial and agricultural employment. When Fianna Fáil Deputies were inviting the people of Cork to galvanise the country in a by-election some time back by electing Deputy Galvin to this House, they issued some pretty strong material to Cork citizens. The unfortunate citizens in Deputy Casey's constituency found that, after responding to the Fianna Fáil invitation and electing Deputy Galvin, instead of being galvanised they were —with apologies to the Minister for Education—lynched. This is what Fianna Fáil had to say to the people of Cork on that occasion:—
"In Fianna Fáil we have set a state of full employment as our goal. We believe it can be achieved; we are working out details of a dynamic programme of investment which, in an expanding economy, will bring the nation to that goal."
"A dynamic programme" which entails a reduction of £220,000 in the subsidy for transport of ground limestone, a reduction of £140,000 in the farm building scheme, a reduction of £700,000 in housing grants and a reduction of £350,000 in the Local Authorities (Works) Act, and all this in the year after food subsidies had been abolished and food prices allowed to rocket sky-high—not only allowed, but deliberately pushed up by positive action of the present Government!
When they were inviting Cork citizens to galvanize the country, Fianna Fáil also told the unfortunate people of Cork that Fianna Fáil was planning an end to emigration. Fianna Fáil plans proposed an increase over five years of 100,000 in the number of new jobs. We find the people of Cork were told on that occasion that private house-building was almost at a standstill. This is one of the things put out in heavily leaded type in the Fianna Fáil literature and now we find housing grants are to be cut by £700,000 in the coming year.
I could keep the House for some considerable time in dealing with any one of the Fianna Fáil election productions——