In their speeches on this Vote on Account, the members of the Opposition have tried to create the impression that every improvement effected in the past 12 months was due entirely to the policy of the previous Coalition Government. On the other hand, they have tried to convince us that the difficulties that confront us are of our own making. The positive side of the picture is theirs; they leave us responsible for the negative. But the people are aware of the facts and practically everyone appreciates the serious situation that faced our Government when it took office just over a year ago. The nation is now on the road to recovery. Of that we are convinced. Progress has not been as speedy as we had hoped it would be, but the signs of recovery are there. They are sure and unmistakable.
Committee on Finance. - Motion by the Minister for Finance (Resumed).
The Book of Estimates published by the Minister presents a formidable bill to the House and to the country. Of itself, that is nothing new, but it will involve the maintenance of a vigorous economy in order to provide the wherewithal to meet the demands of the State. In considering this Vote on Account, we are dealing in the main with future prospects, but it is well to reflect briefly on what has been accomplished in recent years and to examine the different facets of our national economy.
It is generally accepted that not only should the current Budget balance but external trade returns should also be kept in line. During 1956 we had to take action to deal with that matter and, whatever disagreements may exist as to the methods adopted—undoubtedly other remedies had been applied elsewhere—there is no disagreement on the importance of maintaining equilibrium in our external trade. The improvement which occurred last year compared with 1956, and in 1956 compared with 1955, is directly attributable to the measures taken by the previous Government. Those measures might to some extent be regarded as negative in so far as they imposed restraint in certain directions. At the same time statistics prove that over the years we had expanded the national economy through an expansion in production. The important items in that expansion were those commodities in relation to which it was possible to sell a surplus on the export market at a profit.
I have some figures which were given recently in reply to a Parliamentary Question. These figures show the very substantial expansion that occurred in the decade between 1947 and 1957. They show that the intake of home-grown wheat had increased from 1,468,000 barrels in 1947 to 3,220,000 barrels in 1957; milk supplied to the creameries had increased from 154,202,000 gallons in 1947 to 287,383,000 gallons in 1957; creamery butter production had increased from 519,000 cwt. to 977,000 cwt. More important still, whereas the exports of creamery butter in 1947 were nil, last year a total of 306,694 cwt., valued at £4,349,000 in round figures, were exported. In connection with live cattle, the numbers exported in 1947 amounted to 482,772 head, valued at £15,628,874; last year, the numbers exported were 830,576, valued at £45,711,191. In the case of carcase beef and veal, we sold £78,000 worth of carcase beef in 1947; last year, we sold £3,243,219 worth. In 1947, exports of frozen beef and veal were nil; last year we exported £2,709,095 worth. In 1947 we exported £41 worth of bacon; last year, exports brought us £3,396,815.
These figures indicate the very considerable expansion that has occurred not only in production but in the value of our agricultural exports. The importance of maintaining this position cannot be emphasised too often, because on the maintanance of these exports depends to a very considerable extent the strength of our whole economy and our capacity to trade. We all appreciate that some of these exports have had to be maintained by means of subsidy, but we should remember that the use of subsidy to support exports is not peculiar to this country and that the vital importance to the whole economy of maintaining these exports must involve, if we are to maintain our present trading position, the use of subsidies to some extent.
Last October the British Paymaster-General, Mr. Maudling, speaking at the Consultative Assembly of the Council of Europe, referred to the British attitude and said: "We all protect our agriculture and we all intend in one way or another for very good reasons to go on protecting our agriculture." If that is true, as no doubt it is, in the case of Britain— although their method of price support is to some extent different from ours in that, in the main, it is by means of deficiency payments—and if it is important for Britain to protect her economy and, needless to remark, the relative importance of agriculture in the British economy is insignificant compared with its importance to this country, then I believe we are justified in maintaining the subsidy arrangements which have been utilised in recent years in order to ensure that we are in a position to trade in respect of some of the commodities we export, such as butter and bacon.
When we look at what other countries do—they may disguise it by one means or another—it is obvious that our steps to subsidise exports fall very far short of the measures taken by some of our competitors who are exporting to the British market. Unless we can continue to export these commodities at a profit, we cannot buy the imports we need and it will be impossible to maintain our existing trading position. I appreciate that at some stage we may have to consider to what extent we can afford a subsidy for a particular commodity, but looking at the value of the exports last year, and particularly at the figures I have quoted, I believe we are justified in maintaining the subsidies which have been operating.
Therefore, I wonder to what extent recent decision by the Government will affect the capacity of our farmers to export at a profit? The decision to reduce some of the prices paid must have a reaction. When the previous Government reduced the price of wheat, we were severely criticised for doing so. I often thought that some of the criticism was unfair, in so far as it meant only a reduction on the margin of profit rather than any penal effect. But Governments have to take the blame for these things and as that reduction happened at the same time as there was a fall in the export prices of cattle—the blame for which was also attributed to the Government—we had to take the rap for it.
I think it was a better method to make a straight reduction and let everybody understand clearly to what extent they could plan in the light of the price fixed. The decision which was announced recently puts for the first time a penalty on increased production. For the first time, there will be operative a reduction in price based on increased returns. That, in itself, may not have a serious effect, but the headline is not a good one, particularly when we have repeatedly on all sides of the House exhorted producers to produce more on the basis that the more produced, the better it will be for, not only the individual, but the economy as a whole.
When this Government abolished the food subsidies last year, the total saving amounted to £9,000,000 in a full year, less £2,500,000 for compensatory benefits, which should have left a net saving of £6,500,000. We are entitled to ask what has happened to the saving. It seems to have been absorbed without any corresponding advantage. In fact, the result has meant a demand from many sections for wage increases. When the subsidies were withdrawn, the Provisional United Trade Union Organisation, in discussion with the Federated Union of Employers, agreed on a wage formula for an increase of not less than 10/- per week. Over the past nine months or so, various organisations and various groups of workers have negotiated with the employers' organisations concerned and increases have been granted. In 1955, when wage increases were granted, it had the effect that imports increased substantially. On this occasion, that is unlikely to occur because whatever wage increases have been granted will be absorbed in paying for the increased cost of essential foodstuffs.
On the face of the Book of Estimates presented by the Minister, there is a reduction of £2,500,000. It appears that that reduction is more apparent than real. We are entitled to ask what has happened to the £6,500,000 which should be there as a result of the saving on the food subsidies. Whatever has happened during the past 12 months and whatever improvements have occurred have been due entirely to the measures taken by the previous Government. Nothing that has been done by this Government has had any effect on the position. There have been some minor changes in the levies —some of them have been withdrawn and others changed from temporary levies to customs duties—but, in the result, it is true to say that no action by this Government has contributed to an improvement in the position.
We always said that the measures taken by the previous Government were taken in the knowledge that some of them would cause difficulty and maybe hardship, but, unless they were taken, far more serious repercussions would accrue, and, of course, last year the terms of trade moved substantially in our favour. The prices received for cattle increased and not alone were greater numbers exported, by some 150,000 over 1956, but for that number we received over £9,000,000 more than in 1956. No Government here can influence the prices paid on the export market. When prices fell during 1956, we were blamed, but whatever changes occur in that market are undoubtedly beyond the capacity of any Government here to influence. It happens that people who are aggrieved by these changes tend—and this is universal—to blame whatever Government is in office.
I think, however, we are entitled to ask on the basis of the statements made by this Government during the last election and on the basis of the announcement in last year's Budget— what has happened to the saving in respect of the food subsidies. It has certainly disappeared and without any commensurate advantage to any section of the community. In fact, on the contrary, it would appear that not only have wage increases been granted in respect of private individuals and employers, but quite recently the national transport undertaking had an application for wage increases which was granted by the arbitrator and which must affect either the cost of transport—which will in turn affect the cost of production—or alternatively, will result in an increased charge on the Exchequer.
There is increasing evidence on all sides of the keenly competitive conditions which our traders and manufacturers have to meet. What will be the result of these increases in the cost of production? We have heard repeated exhortations to produce more and to do so more efficiently. Is this the way to get more efficient production?
In considering the whole question involved in the Vote on Account, I should like to say a few words on one or two other aspects of public expenditure. Under the heading of education, I think there is general acceptance that the expenditure on this vital service is inadequate and if there is any money to spare, would it not be better to devote it to improving our educational system at whatever levels require improvement, whether primary, secondary, technical or university?
Reference was made to the transatlantic air service. I have no personal objection to that service, except that it appears that this is hardly the time to embark on expenditure of that sort. I know the Minister for Industry and Commerce has argued that up to the present no State expenditure is involved in it because whatever money was initially spent on the purchase of planes was subsequently recouped in full by the sale of the original planes— in fact, a profit was made on that transaction. But is it seriously suggested that in present circumstances, when we see on all sides, not only here but else where, the need for greater educational facilities, the importance of providing the best facilities possible in a world in which technical skill and knowledge are at a premium, in which competitive conditions everywhere are becoming keener, it would not be better national policy to spend whatever money is available on education rather than embark on a scheme or service which is mainly one for prestige purposes? It is in fact doubtful if there is any worthwhile prestige in such a policy compared with the urgent necessity of equipping our people with better education all round. That in no way takes from the magnificent work which teachers in schools and colleges are doing, but they all appear to need increased expenditure to provide improved facilities, particularly at technical and scientific levels.
Reference was made recently to the enormous cost of the health services. The administration of these services requires to be re-examined. The present cost is enormous and, to judge by the widespread complaints, many who are in need of services and who cannot afford to pay for them are obliged to do so. Others appear to be getting benefits to which they could contribute at least a portion of the cost. I hope the Government will examine thoroughly the whole administration of the health and social service arrangements. The cost has grown steadily in recent years, and, judging by the correspondence which Deputies get and the numerous complaints which are made, there is dissatisfaction with the manner in which these services are administered at the present time.
I am entirely in favour of providing the best possible service for all sections, particularly those who cannot afford to do so themselves, but there is certainly no justification for a system which allows people who can afford to contribute to get benefits freely and others, who are not in a position to pay for them, to find themselves charged for these services.
Reference has been made on many occasions recently to the advantages of the Free Trade Area and other conditions which will arise when that area is established. So far as this country is concerned, we cannot make it an alibi for the failure of industrial expansion to develop as expected and the competitive conditions which will exist for industry if this country is a member of the Free Trade Area make it obvious that many industries here will be placed in great difficulty. Over the years, protection has been given here at a very high rate. Looking at the numbers employed in industry, it has, in the main, proved disappointing. That does not in any way reflect on the enterprising spirit of industrial pioneers or managements or workers, but the plain fact is that the size of the market in this country is entirely too small for the development of industry in modern conditions, compared with countries that have a far bigger population and have assured to them a home market of large dimensions before they are obliged to export. During the last ten years there has been a decline in agricultural employment. That decline has to some extent been slowed up. Between 1946 and 1956 the figure was just short of 100,000. During the same period emigration amounted to over 300,000 and during that period employment in industry increased by only 34,000. In fact, taking the 30 years between 1926 and 1956, approximately 50,000 additional jobs were provided out of a total of, say, 750,000 needed. That indicates the magnitude of the problem and the comparative inability, so far, of all our efforts to succeed in that direction.
Protection here has been uniformly high and in most cases wherever industries sought increased protection it was granted. There have been few cases of protection being reduced. While a number of industries have secured valuable export trade in competition, with producers elsewhere, in the main, industry here supplies the home market and how these industries can be expected to compete in the keenly competitive conditions which will exist, even allowing for a transitional period and allowing for special consideration for underdeveloped countries—in which category we are included—is a question that must involve the most serious consideration by all sections.
Reference has been made during the course of this discussion to the fact that increased State expenditure is necessary for the solution of our problems. I do not subscribe to that view. In fact, all the evidence that is available would indicate that the contrary is true. With the possible exception of Russia—we have no accurate figures to show what the standard of living there is or the conditions under which people live—all the great economies in the world, the United States of America, Germany, all the prosperous economies, are based on private enterprise and, in fact, the heavy rate of State expenditure here over a number of years would indicate that increased State expenditure does not produce the results expected or create conditions in which further expansion can be expected. With the possible exception of schemes like land reclamation, drainage, ground limestone and so on, or amenity services such as housing and health services, there is no worthwhile State expenditure that we could embark on here which would justify the expenditure involved or provide a solution to the problems which are facing us.
Those who create the illusion that the State can solve all our problems have only themselves to blame when disillusionment follows in the wake of that false doctrine. It is obvious that, no matter where we look, whether the countries are small or big, the initiative, the drive, the enthusiasm that have secured an expansion have, in the main, come from private enterprise.
There are, of course, exceptional services which must be undertaken by the State. That has been done here in the case of electricity supply, sugar beet, Bord na Móna and a number of other services but, in the main, they are essential services. Some of them have provided the means for further development and expansion. Others are in the amenity service class.
This Vote on Account and the discussions on it have indicated that, so far, there has been no lead from the Government; that it is lacking in drive and initiative; that not only is there no enthusiasm in the country or no faith in the capacity of the Government, but that disillusionment is rampant because of the promises and undertakings given by the Government before it was elected and because there is a general recognition that whatever improvements have occurred have been due to the measures taken by the previous Government and that this Government has no idea where it is going.
We recognised that there was no easy or simple solution to the problems which exist but that, given the proper leadership and adopting the policies which in the past showed sound results, we could look forward with a greater measure of confidence. I hope that this debate will shake the Government out of their complacency in facing the problems which confront the country and that they will endeavour to justify their election last year.
I should like to assure the Deputy who has just spoken and the Dáil that the Government are very far from being complacent about the situation. We know very well that the year 1956 was a very bad one, in fact, I think one might say, a disastrous one and our first aim in coming to office was to try to get the country out of the slough into which it had dropped. We are trying to put the whole economy on a sound foundation.
The Deputy has also said that it is right that we should try to keep the balance of our international payments right. I should like to think that he was supported in that view by his Party. That was not the impression given to me, having had read to me hastily what the Leader of the Party, Deputy Costello, said last night. He seemed to make light of these things. He seemed to be going back again to the attitude which his Party adopted back in 1952 when we were trying to keep these things right, when we inherited a situation in which there was an external deficit of close on £62,000,000 in the preceding year. When we were trying to set that right, the cry was that these deficits only represented repartiation of our external assets; the charge was that we were sacrificing many worthwhile national projects to the sacred cow of sterling. There seemed to be in the speech that was delivered last night a desire to return to some of that propaganda.
We do believe, and I would like to think that every member of the Dáil believes with Deputy Cosgrave, that it is most important for us at present to see that the balance of our external payments is kept right. In the days before our external reserves were brought near to the danger point we could afford to have deficits if we were getting back capital productive goods instead. Now, however, we have got to the point where the reserves are so reduced that any reduction may have dangerous reactions.
Let us start then with that, that it is a matter of fundamental policy for this country that we should try to keep the balance of our external payments right. I am not saying that to have a million or two short one year, if it is corrected in another year, is disastrous, but I do say that a deficit of £35,500,000 or a deficit such as we had in a previous period of £62,000,000 would have disastrous effects on our economy.
In addition to keeping the balance of our external payments right, Deputy Cosgrave said that it is taken for granted that we should balance our national accounts from year to year. To that also I subscribe, but when we were doing that by the only methods open to us in 1952 and again last year we were described as mere accountants. I hope, therefore, that Deputy Cosgrave's view is shared by his colleagues and that they do realise that it is a matter of tremendous importance for us to try to balance our national accounts from year to year and to see that we are not running a succession of Budget deficits as we have been for the greater part of the last decade. Just as in the case of our external balances, we could afford now and again to have a deficit. It could even be said that you could occasionally, under certain circumstances, deliberately budget for a deficit but you would want to have great justification for doing anything of the kind. When we set out deliberately at the beginning of every year to balance our accounts and when at the end of the year heavy deficits are the result, it is quite clear we are not doing our work properly.
If you go back over the last decade you will find we had surpluses totalling about £750,000. If, on the other hand, you look at the deficits in that period you will see they add up to £20,000,000. We have had to borrow £20,000,000 over the last decade to meet current expenditure. It is quite clear that that is wrong.
Last year, we set out to balance our national accounts and in order to do it we had to increase taxation and to reduce expenditure. Therefore, to meet the commitments that were in the Book of Estimates and the other commitments of the State, we had to forgo the subsidies on food. It is asked what did we do with the £6,500,000 approximately that was saved in that way. The first question that occurs to you to ask is: why was it done at all? Why did we cut out the subsidies? We cut them out in order to keep a balanced account. The saving was necessary in order that anticipated revenue should balance anticipated expenditure. If you want to look at one side of the account only, you could ask how is it that that saving does not appear in the Estimates for next year, that the latest Estimates are very close on those of the current year. The answer is that there have been a number of supplementaries for which only £4,000,000 was provided, although over £8,000,000 has been expended for Supplementary Estimates. That is where the greater part of the saving of £6,500,000 went.
We are in the curious position that we are attacked because we are not increasing subsidies; yet there was recently a Supplementary Estimate for £3,000,000 for agriculture to meet some of the losses which were the subject of a good deal of debate here, arising from exports of bacon, butter, and so on. I agree with Deputy Cosgrave that we must make a real effort to balance our annual accounts. We must do that by cutting down the demands that are made upon the Exchequer, do our best to cut out the things that appear to give the least return to the State and put in only those that seem to give a better return to the State. I am not talking only of value in terms of pounds, shillings and pence, but also of general value, such as education, as mentioned by the Deputy.
Why have we cut down rather than increased revenue? To increase revenue we would have to increase taxation. A million pounds when it is on the expenditure side is brushed aside as if it was a trifle but it does not become a trifle when you have to find the taxation to meet it. We hear a good deal of talk about the pint and about tobacco. I am not sure that this would be absolutely right but it is possible that 1d. on the cigarettes and 1d. on the pint altogether would, under present conditions, give you £1,000,000. When you talk of £1,000,000 for any purpose whatsoever remember that to meet it you have to impose taxation and that we have reached such a level of taxation that to increase it is extremely difficult because each addition to the rate does not bring in a proportionate increase to the total yield.
The balancing of our external payments and the balancing of our national accounts from year to year are two definite objectives of Government endeavour and they should not be regarded as mere accountancy. It is a usual thing for the Opposition to claim that more and more should be provided by the State. We should have better educational services, give more to support farmers' prices on the export market, give higher social assistance benefits, and so on. It is common practice for the Opposition, when this Book of Estimates comes out, to look through it and say: "There is a reduction there. More money should be provided for that," and so on; but later, when we come to put on the taxation to pay these bills, the tune is quite different.
When we come to that particular period, the claim is that expenditure is altogether too high and so the Opposition wants it both ways. They deal with our accounts by taking one side at a time, without attempting to take the two together and see how they are balanced. They are trying to make a double case and get popular support and stir up the people, as apparently the Leader of the Opposition, Deputy Costello, is trying to do, with regard to the milk.
When milk was in question before, that was not his talk. When we dealt with milk before—in 1952 and 1953, I think—he wanted to show what a strong man he was in dealing with it. He went out to the country and would not give way because of the increased costs of butter to the community and so forth. Now he wants to say that the milk suppliers are up in arms because we are not able to support the creamery milk prices to the same extent as last year. The same amount has been provided in total for bacon and wheat for the coming year as was provided for the present financial year. It is true that there has been a reduction in the support price of butter, but I think that the contribution of the State in the ratio of two and one is not bad in our circumstances.
The accusation has been made on the opposite side that this Government has an urban outlook. There is no truth in that. The suggestion is made that we are protecting industries. Yes, we are protecting industries. We were also the first Party to protect the agricultural industry. We gave the home market almost exclusively to the Irish farmer to produce everything he could, so that we have protected the farming industry. We believe in protecting. We believe in trying to make our people as self-sufficing as it is possible, but there are limits to what we can do.
It is suggested that I said somewhere that I would do everything I could to try to get the farmers to put lime on their land. I intend to do everything I can. Again, the Marshall Aid grant money was available in years gone by to help induce the farmers to put upon the land the necessary ground limestone. There is sufficient evidence all round them now to make them see that it is a paying proposition to put that limestone upon their land. No money had to be provided from the Exchequer in 1955 and 1956. It all came from the Marshall Aid grant money, but now that money is exhausted and we cannot supply from the Exchequer the same amount that was made available when the Marshall Aid money was at our disposal. Any money that is now made available has to be supplied in full from the Exchequer. We are not doing badly at all when we have almost doubled the provision made from the Exchequer for ground limestone.
More than doubled it.
We have more than doubled the amount made available. That does not show any indication that we do not desire to get limestone put upon the land. We do. We believe that the one way in which we can manage is to get more out of every acre on the land. It is true that you can reduce costs per unit produced, but it is also true that we must be able to have a market for this produce. By all means, let us try to have the home market as steady as we can for farmers. As Deputy Cosgrave pointed out, you cannot control the price on the external market. We tried to do our best to bring about conditions in which there would be reasonably stable prices at home.
We tried that policy. In so far as the home market would absorb this produce, we tried to give the farmers at home a fairly stable market, but common sense tells us that if the extra production exceeds what is required for the home market that extra production ought to take the form of those products which will be most remunerative in the foreign market.
At present, everybody admits that cattle and meat are the most remunerative forms of export. We ought, therefore, to do our utmost to try to have our exports in that line, rather than in those lines in which we are only getting a little more than half the price which is guaranteed here at home. I know the matter has been examined to see to what extent the milk we get from our dairy herds could be used for alternative purposes than butter. There may be a surplus. In that case, we have to dispose of it at the best price possible. It is obvious that there should be a definite effort made to get the exportable surplus into those lines in which it will be more remunerative.
I know we have very grave problems with regard to bacon and butter. I do not know whether there is any possibility of restoring the production of eggs and make it remunerative any more. It is possible that there may be. I know the matter has been examined. One of the things done by the present Government was to put £250,000 at the disposal of the Minister for Agriculture in order to establish a body to examine the possibility of foreign markets.
I know the arguments that can be put up for butter. It is a traditional product. I know the importance of the dairying industry, without having to be told by anyone. When we came into office in 1932, we realised it and set up the arrangement for the stabilisation of dairy produce. These complex questions are difficult to solve, but undoubtedly increased production on the lines on which you would get proper remuneration for the product are the proper lines.
The Books of Estimates indicates what help is available to the farming industry by way of subsidy. Before I leave that subject, I should say that the suggestion that the farmers get very little in the way of help from the State is not true. If you examine the Book of Estimates, for instance, or the expenditure for the current year, you will find that about £20,000,000 is devoted in one way or the other to helping the agricultural industry—about £15,000,000 on the current and about £5,000,000 on the capital side. Therefore, it is not true to say that we are ignoring our greatest industry. We all realise it is our greatest industry, but, when it becomes a question of increased taxation, the farmers have to bear in various ways the cost of taxation. It has the same effect upon them as increased taxation has on other elements of the community. Therefore, when we are trying to avoid extra taxation, the farmers should realise we are working in their interests, too.
I should say, before I leave this particular topic of agriculture and the State, in relation to some remarks by Deputy Cosgrave about the assistance given to agriculture in the way of export subsidies, and so forth, in other countries, that he should remember that here the difficulty is that agriculture is our principal industry. In Britain it is not. A big industrialised country can afford, because agriculture is not its main industry, heavily to subsidies it. Here, the subsidisation of agriculture is the subsidisation of agriculture by agriculture.
Other matters were referred to. It was stated that we had reduced the provision for school buildings. The Minister for Education in the last Fianna Fáil Government, the late Deputy Seán Moylan, was very keen on the provision of proper schoolrooms and schoolhouses for our children. A large number of schools are not in proper condition. I think we set out as an objective to get over 100 schools built or repaired or put in proper condition every year. It had not previously been averaging out anything like that. A big provision was made. We got up to a certain point. Then, in 1956, the Department of Finance directed that they wanted a reduction in expenditure of a capital character, with the result that, for a while, no new plans for the building of schools were put in train and so in the present year the amount provided was not expended.
I am told that the provision made for the coming year, with the present position of planning, and so on, is as much as can be spent and that, in fact, expenditure will reach the level previously reached and will be more than last year. More will be spent in the coming year. The Minister for Finance suggests that it will come to about £200,000 more in the coming year than last year. Therefore, it is not any retrograde movement on our part. It is really a movement in advance, just as in the case of the ground limestone. Although it does not appear on the surface, it is so.
As regards housing in general, there is the same explanation that plans were not being made. In regard to private housing, there is not the same demand or urge as there was in the past to provide houses when there was a scarcity. I know there are shortages of houses in Dublin City and that the programme there will have to go on. However, seeing the position of the building industry, and remembering what happens when you have a boom and a depression immediately following it, what we ought to do now is to try to finish the job of housing in a planned way so that the position will not be anything like that of feast and famine that could very easily arise.
I do not think it is necessary for me to go into the other items. I only say that we are approaching this problem from the point of view that we must make an attempt to balance our accounts. We must do our utmost not to have a succession of Budget deficits. I think that, last year, the deficit was £6,000,000. I do not know what the position will be this year. We had hoped at the start that we would be able to secure a balance. Deputy Sweetman has seemed to suggest that we were crying "wolf, wolf" and trying to frighten people. Nobody knows better than the ex-Minister for Finance that, in the last month, a lot of claims that are due within the financial year suddenly come in and are paid and that transactions in the last month can completely upset calculations which were made at the beginning of the month.
I know that the Minister for Finance, very properly, is trying to anticipate the situation he thinks will arise. I do not think that even he or his advisers can say definitely how the accounts will close. I hope our aims at the beginning of the Budget year will be achieved and that we will have a balance but I am beginning to doubt it. If you make provision at the start for £4,000,000 of supplementaries and the amount of supplementaries turns out to be over £8,000,000, then you have every reason to be doubtful that the result will be as you had anticipated at the beginning. If you have over £4,000,000 on the wrong side facing you, I think you have reason to be very doubtful as to whether the balance you had hoped for at the start would be the final result.
As far as the general policy of the Government is concerned, apart from the immediate direct objectives of balancing these accounts, both domestic and international, we must deal with the unemployment situation. It is the most difficult problem. It is an index of the whole state of the national economy. We set out to do it by changing the situation that had been left by the severe measures that were taken by the previous Government to try and rectify the balance of external payments. We tried to get industry going again. The result is at least that there are some 8,000 fewer persons unemployed at the present time than this time last year. It was disastrous last year when there were 16,000 more persons unemployed than in the previous year. This time at least the excess has been reduced by about 8,000. We do not want to boast about it but at least the desperate upward trend has been checked. We set out to deal with unemployment by the only way in which it can, in my opinion, be dealt with, namely, by increasing the ways in which people can get constant employment in industry—by building up our industries as fast as we can. That becomes more difficult as the years go on because, in the earlier years, there was such a shortage that we were able, so to speak, quickly to get results and skim off the cream.
There are somewhere about 230,000 persons employed in industries covered by the Census of Production. Back in 1931 or 1932, the figure was of the magnitude of 110,000 persons. We have twice as many persons employed in these industries as were employed in them back about 1932.
Is the Taoiseach aware that fewer people were employed in industry in 1957 than in 1956?
Not in transportable goods industries.
In all combined.
In all combined— that is so, I believe, but it is not so in the figures that I had of transportable goods industries. There was a very bad position in the early part of the year and then there was an improvement. It is quite possible that the figure for all industries is an average figure for the whole year. It is quite possible that that average figure shows a reduction, but it is so because it was very low at the beginning, it was going up rapidly and was improving in the last quarter. I hope it will continue to improve.
I do not know anything definitely, but I do not think it would be reasonable for us to assume that there has been much improvement as regards emigration. If unemployment can be diminished, or if we can get more people into employment—if you put it that way—if we are able to get more people into employment, there will be a diminution undoubtedly of emigration. There is a number of factors causing emigration, I am quite willing to admit, but I have always said that one of the fundamental factors is that we have not enough jobs to absorb our young people when they come to the age at which they are looking for employment. It would be necessary to have about 15,000 or 20,000 new positions available every year for young people coming to an age where they can enter into employment and we have not got anything like that number yet.
However, we must go and do it. If we are to do it—again, I agree with Deputy Cosgrave—we must do it on the basis of individual initiative and energy and application. In my opinion, people ought to begin in the homes with children and continue it in the schools. I have said time after time that we are living in a competitive world. It is natural for human beings to wish for life's sea to be placid and to have a calm sky over them. We all aspire and look for that, but, as life goes on, you realise that you never find it like that, that all through it is a mirage away in front of you and that is not the condition in which you find yourself. The natural and ordinary condition is that there is many a breeze, many a gale and many a day when the waters are rough.
It is for such a life that our people ought to be trained from the earliest date, as we are in a competitive world. We have the natural ability; our people have proved it on going to other countries. We have the natural ability and the point is that each one of us, each individual, should make up his mind that he is going to make the most out of himself. Furthermore, there should be co-operation between classes. We are now being organised throughout the whole community. The labour movement has been organised in the trade unions; the farmers are organised; the industrialists are organised; but if they spend their time in trying to get a little larger fraction of the cake, they will not make much progress. They must combine to enlarge the cake; then they need only the same fraction of it and they would get a much larger slice.
As to the various sections of the community, the individual must make up his mind that it is a competitive world, that he has to work and use his energy and his brains, that he cannot succeed if he goes about it in the easy way, just waiting for something to happen, that, in that case, nothing but the worst will happen. If good things are to happen to us, they will happen because we go out after them and because we will deserve them by our own initiative and our own work. We have people who can do these things. The sooner the people cease relying upon the State to sustain them by doing this and that for them, the better. The more they rely upon themselves individually, the parish upon itself, individual organisations upon themselves, farmers and others upon themselves, to create the prosperity they desire and the conditions they desire, the sooner they will secure them.
Every man for himself, so.
This Vote on Account provides an occasion each year when we have an opportunity to examine Government financial policy. The Taoiseach has just enunciated the view that on the Vote on Account the common practice of the Opposition is to say where something extra is to be put on, but that in Government it is a very different thing. Take the practice of the Opposition at the present moment. It is somewhat in keeping with the practice in, say, 1956. In that year, which the Taoiseach now says was the difficult year, Fianna Fáil speakers, who are Ministers now, said the selfsame type of thing that we are saying now from this side of the House. The present Minister for External Affairs, Deputy Aiken, said at that time that more capital should be employed in both industry and agriculture. Yesterday evening, Deputy Booth admitted that 1956 was a bad year. He said that the Government at that time was facing a serious situation. Even, in those circumstances, the present Minister said then that more capital should be employed in industry and agriculture.
At that time, when there was a proposition to impose levies to correct the balance of payments, speakers said that if there were a reasonable policy towards agriculture and wheat growing we could decrease the need for imports. These general remarks at that time were not indulged in by just one speaker; they were indulged in by many. A Minister, no longer with us unfortunately, posed a question then, asking if the Minister for Agriculture at that time would take the House and the farmers into his confidence and tell them what the future would hold for them. It is indeed an echo of such thoughts that dwells in the minds of many people to-day—particularly those who dwell in the rural areas and the Deputies who represent them here.
If this Vote on Account and the Estimates which go with them are to give us an overall picture, I think we must say that the situation is rather static—or, indeed, that it is as I think Deputy MacEntee described it in 1956, when he said our economy was stagnant. At that time Deputy Dillon, who was Minister for Agriculture, had claimed that agricultural production had increased over 1947 by approximately 24 per cent. He was told that that claim was arrant nonsense. In the light of the 1957 figures I think those remarks were just the humble truth. At that time also it was said that there was a desperate urgency to increase production. What have we got now that we have the increased production —an increase in agricultural production which is proving, evidently, embarrassing? The only way, of course, in which this production is embarrassing is because of the need for a subsidy to place the surplus in the export market. If that surplus were not available and if it did not realise the sum of money which it has realised, I wonder how the standard of living, or the employment situation, would have moved in the meantime?
Is it sufficiently realised that butter and bacon between them brought in, in 1957, a sum of £8,646,898, or that the figures for live cattle and carcase beef between them brought in something over £60,000,000? What would have happened to the nation's economy and its standard of living if these amounts had not been available? Is it to be contended now that such protection as is given to agriculture by way of export subsidies is not justified? The results which have been achieved prove that if the farming community feel that they have something to which to look forward they will produce to the limit of their capacity.
In introducing the Vote on Account the Minister compared the Estimates with the previous Estimates. If I heard him rightly, he said that making allowance for the abolition of the food subsidies the 1957 Estimates could be reduced to £106,000,000; and making allowances for certain compensatory payments the 1957 figure was £108,219,620. Consequently these Estimates of his would be showing an increase of £1,782,600. If those are the figures I think they dispose very effectively of any claim made from the opposite side that it was "£4,000,000 point this or that less".
I welcome the increased provision which is being made available, particularly for the eradication of bovine tuberculosis. The Minister mentioned the figure of £1,115,000 extra under that heading. He explained also that when regard was had to the receipts from the sale of tuberculous stock the net increase would be £489,250. I note in that connection that the American fund is exhausted and consequently the item is being treated as a capital account. Coupled with that the Minister mentioned that there has been an increased demand for ground limestone—the Taoiseach referred to it also a few moments ago—and that the Exchequer is making an increased financial provision for its supply, though the actual figure provided would be less. I think everybody recognises the value of ground limestone to pasturage. In regard to these two items it is very much to be hoped that the dairying industry, in spite of the grave disappointment they undoubtedly have experienced, will avail fully of the service.
I am sure everybody will deplore the grave shock which the farming community received in recent weeks. It seems harsh that when we get the highest ever yields from the agricultural community they should now feel, justifiably, that they are the Cinderellas of Irish industry. They must surely think of how, for instance, the Minister for Industry and Commerce comes into this House and looks for £1,250,000 by way of guaranteed loan for a mine in County Wicklow while our major industry, for the sake of £2,500,000, is being treated as a Cinderella. In connection with the costings report on milk, on which evidently the Minister must in some fashion have based his viewpoint in regard to a reduction, I wonder where the costings of approximately 4½d. a gallon came from. I wonder where is the farm that can efficiently produce milk at 4½d. a gallon? It would be very interesting for the farmers if the Government would take them to this farm to see how this milk is being efficiently produced because if it could be done, and if there was an adequate return on that figure, the dairying industry might of itself be able to support a very much expanded economy in this State. We might even be able to impose a levy on the export of butter and run the State on it. It is superfluous to labour here the vital role of agriculture in Irish life. Everybody realises that the prosperity of town and country depends on the success or failure of our agriculture policy.
Some other aspects of Government policy arise for consideration from this Vote on Account. On examining the Estimates we notice that there is a reduction in the provision for Public Works and Buildings and in urban employment and emergency schemes. Local government housing grants have dropped by £750,000; the Local Authorities (Works) Act, with £350,000, has been wiped out; and the amounts for farm buildings and water supplies are reduced, as is the amount for transport and marine services. These reductions must surely mean less working on these schemes and there is little evidence elsewhere of increased grants to give increased employment.
Such increases as there are in the Estimates, as, for instance, for Dublin, Shannon and Cork Airports, are to be welcomed. It would have been a good thing if a sum of money had appeared in the Vote for Industry and Commerce to enable an inquiry to be made into the possibilities of having a free port on the estuary of the Shannon, a project about which there has been much talk recently. It has been advanced, with some argument, that such a free port is feasible and would provide a tremendous advantage to the hinterland in that area.
I believe it was Deputy Carty who mentioned the Land Commission yesterday evening. I, too, would like to see more money available for land purchase, particularly land purchase which would enable young farmers, who are at present landless, to be considered for the granting of land.
That would be a matter for the Estimate.
Very well, but I am sure it would provide productive investment. The Government's success will be judged on their results in relation to providing greater employment for our people and in stimulating production which will help to raise their standard of living. There are a great many people at the present time who do not think that the Government are so behaving. There are people who say the Government have failed to keep agricultural production stable, have failed to reduce the cost of living, to reduce unemployment, to increase employment, and to keep their promises to raise unemployment benefits to offset the increased cost of living. The criticisms now being offered on this Vote on Account should bring home to the Government the necessity to have a further review of their policy lines, so as to ensure that they are doing what the people want them to do.
Notice taken that 20 Members were not present; House counted, and 20 Members being present,
I do know that the Minister for Finance himself has been presented with this type of criticism. He made the remark that it was rather a trial to be listening to the speeches from the Opposition, but I am only saying the same things to the Minister this morning as his own supporters said to him in my constituency last Sunday week. I have here an account of a meeting of the West Limerick Fianna Fáil convention, as published in the Limerick Leader of Saturday, March 8th, 1958. The first resolution which that convention adopted was one from Knockaderry, asking that the price of milk delivered to the creameries be maintained at the present standard. Killeedy cumann asked that, pending the findings of the Milk Costings Commission, an immediate increase be granted in the price of milk.
There was also a resolution from Carickerry asking that schemes for the relief of unemployment be initiated in the poorer districts of the constituency, owing to the number of people in dire need and the very high cost of living. A resolution form Broadford called for the reintroduction of the Local Authorities (Works) Act and one from Shanagolden requested the Government to reduce the recent increase in the high cost of flour. A resolution from Athlacca pointed out that the Government had guaranteed to raise unemployment benefits to offset the increase in the cost of living and had not done so.
I was no more harsh in my criticism than the Minister's own followers in West Limerick were. I suggest, therefore, that the Government make a further review of its policy lines, so as to ensure that they are actually doing, or intend to do, what the people want them to do, the people who elected them last May.
They may perhaps find it in their hearts to pay more attention to the pungent criticism which comes from even their own supporters down the country than they will to the remarks of speakers from the Opposition Benches here. Perhaps it will be contended that speakers from the Opposition are being destructive in their criticism, that they are just playing politics. But there must be some fraction of truth somewhere in the criticisms from this side of the House when the supporters of the Government at conventions down the country take the opportunity of telling the Government and Ministers what they think of the programme. It is at such conventions that the Government may eventually find themselves brought back to the right track, the track along which they should be moving now.
I know it does not matter what is said here; it will not make any difference anyway. I suppose that is why there are so few in the House. But at least it does bring the attention of the public to Government policy for the year; it brings attention, anyhow, to somebody who would not otherwise get any attention from the Press. One elected largely by the poorer sections of the country, as I have been, does not have to have particularly good eyesight to see that, as far as the poorer sections are concerned, they will be even poorer next year. It would take a month to study these Estimates properly. There are increases in many Departments but in every Department that looks after those in receipt of social assistance there are substantial reductions. These people have no hope of any employment next year because the moneys provided for emergency schemes are cut by £59,000 odd. These people can emigrate. There is a decrease also in the moneys provided for social assistance. Local government grants are decreased by £1,000,000, and one of the biggest reductions will be in relation to housing grants.
The Taoiseach said that there can be a feast or a famine and that people must be careful. As a member of the Housing Committee of the Dublin Corporation, I know that there are still 7,000 or 8,000 families looking for housing accommodation. Some Deputies may have read of vacant houses and may be under the impression that we have too many houses. That is not so. The number actually vacant at any time is in the region of a couple of hundred only. These vacancies occur because whole families are emigranting. There are no houses on our hands which cannot be allocated. I am beset every hour of the day by people looking for houses. We house families according to numbers and according to the accommodation they may have at the moment. The demand for houses is as acute to-day as it ever was. As a result of this decrease in the grant, fewer houses will be built. Thousands require houses and they will not get them. They will have to remain in the dumps they occupy at the moment.
Apart from all that, there is too the question of employment. We know that the number engaged on house building activities to-day is half that employed on similar work a year ago. With this reduction in housing grants, it is obvious that half that number again will be unemployed this time 12 months. Yet, the provision for unemployment assistance is reduced by over £100,000. The provision for old age pensions is decreased. The various boards of assistance have announced a decrease. The idea must be to reduce the incomes of these people. Just visualise the suffering. As far as I can see, there will be more on assistance during the coming financial year because of lack of employment. Evidently the Government have made up their minds that these people must suffer or else get out; they can take the boat out.
The Taoiseach said that these people should try by their ability and initiative to get employment and look after themselves. I am not so certain that all the people in Government Departments get their jobs on their initiative and ability. I am quite certain that they get them because of their association with those who have the power to give them. No one will get a good job to-day unless he knows somebody. As well as that, one must know Irish. I shall not cast any reflections on the language but I object to positions of responsibility being given to people simply because they have an academic knowledge of the language. It takes more than that to do a job. One requires natural ability. That is why I raised the matter on Deputy McQuillan's motion in relation to Defence. In time of war it does not matter what education or degrees one has. It is natural ability and intelligence that count.
I notice here there is an increase in travelling expenses for the Department of External Affairs from £7,000 to £15,000. There could be many economies in Departments of State, especially in the Department of External Affairs. I do not know that we have any great problems of an external nature, except trade, and that is a matter for the Department of Industry and Commerce. Our only problem of an external nature is the Partition problem. I am not aware that External Affairs has done anything about it. As far as I can judge, they have thrown in the towel. Almost £500,000 of this money could be saved. I am afraid some of our representatives abroad are a bit too sumptuous in their manner of living, remembering that this is a poor country and that we cannot afford to give any more than 25/- to those who are unfortunate enough to need an old age pension and whose home assistance will be cut. There is a substantial decrease in warlike stores in the Department of Defence.
The Deputy will have an opportunity to discuss these matters more relevantly on the main Estimate for the Department of Defence. The Deputy will understand that the Estimates proper are not before the House at the moment.
Nevertheless, we could economise considerably in the Department of Defence, if we want to save money, instead of saving at the expense of people who are unfortunate enough to be old, unemployed or disabled. There is a provision of £6,000,000 for that Department. For what I do not know. There is an increase for the Navy. For what, I do not know.
Again, might I point out to the Deputy that he will get an opportunity of raising these matters on the Estimate for the Department of Defence when it comes before the Dáil.
There is an increase of £100,000 for the President's Establishment. I know that the Constitution stipulates that we cannot reduce the emoluments of the President. But we do not have to increase them. The President's Department costs over £50,000 per annum. Surely we could make economies in the maintenance of that establishment. Surely we could economise on the functions. We do not have to increase the provision simultaneously with reducing the social benefits of people at the bottom of the ladder. I do not know if the office is needed at all or not. We seem to want something very sumptuous, "to keep up with the Joneses".
I am concerned mainly with the policy of the Government in regard to the people in need and the indifference shown to people who do not know somebody who knows the Minister. When it comes to the people around the Minister, there are no economies and no staff reductions. The policy of the Government is to economise at the expense of the poorer sections of the community.
I hold that administration costs are too high and that the Government have been false to their promises. They got into power only by leading the people to believe they would reverse the situation they alleged to exist at the time. I am satisfied the main reason for their present policy is that they were made a strong Government. It is a warning to the people in future not to make Governments too strong. It stands to reason that if there was a general election due next year, the Estimates before us would take a different form. The Government are satisfied they will last three or four years. They have no objection to squeezing the wrong people and perhaps throwing a carrot out to them in three or four years' time. Their present policy is a reversal of what they offered the people and I hold that they are in office as a result of deception. I protest against their policy of making the very poorest sections pay for their deception.
I want to take up this debate at the point where Deputy Sherwin ended. There is no indication of a change of policy on the part of the Government shown in this Book of Estimates. Apart from a few adjustments here and there, it seems we are to continue during the coming year in the manner in which the Government have carried on during the past year.
Let us examine what did happen during the past 12 months. We find that 24,000 people lost their jobs and that, in addition to those, a further 10,000 people, who were registered as unemployed, emigrated. This means that between 35,000 and 40,000 people emigrated from this country since last March when the present Fianna Fáil Government took office. We can assume that during the coming 12 months another 30,000 or 40,000 will emigrate. It is a strange comparison when one considers Deputy Lemass's statement that they were going to pursue a policy which would put 20,000 people into jobs each year over five years, making a total of 100,000 people over the five years. Instead, just double the number are emigrating.
When the Minister was introducing this Vote on Account, he made no attempt whatever to analyse the policy pursued by the Government during the last 12 months. I was hoping that the Taoiseach would do so this morning, but again we had nothing but a succession of excuses and platitudes with no attempt to point the way in the matter of a progressive policy. He said that the Government were not complacent. I should like him to explain, if they were not complacent, why they have done nothing about the provision of employment for our people, considering they have allowed 85 people every day to lose their employment? That is the number of people who have been knocked off every day for the whole year since this Government came into office and, from this Book of Estimates, it seems that this situation is to continue.
The Taoiseach did refer to the time when they came into office and compared the conditions that existed in 1956, but he did not try to compare the results of 1957 with the conditions that existed then. We find that there were about 25,000 more people earning a week's wages in 1956 than there were on the average in 1957. I should like the Taoiseach or some member of the Government to explain that. We find last year that, while the inter-Party Government tried to remedy the adverse trade balance by making the hire purchase system a little more difficult for people spending money on imported goods, one of the first things the present Government did was to relax the hire purchase system to enable people again to purchase nonessential goods. We deliberately made it more difficult in 1956 in order to improve our balance of trade.
As a result of the temporary levies introduced in 1956, the trading position in 1957 improved remarkably and was almost put right in the space of 12 months. The Fianna Fáil Party tried to take credit for the improvement in our trading position during 1957, although in fact it was brought about by the temporary imposition of import levies. We remember last year the tears that were being shed by the Fianna Fáil Party concerning the levy which was applied to oranges—oranges for the poor little children; but as soon as they got into office, they removed the temporary levy on oranges and imposed a permanent duty. The result is that oranges to-day are dearer than they were when the import levy was being applied in a temporary way last year.
Once again the Taoiseach tried to confuse the minds of the people regarding the adverse trade balance which existed when the Budget of 1952 was introduced. He pointed to a figure of £62,000,000 on the wrong side of our trade at that time, but he conveniently forgot to mention that £49,000,000 of that £62,000,000 was included for the time during which his Government were in office. They were in office from June, 1951 to March, 1952. During that time, the trading position disimproved to the extent of £49,000,000. He could blame the previous inter-Party Government for only the remaining £13,000,000, as far as the adverse trading position was concerned.
The Taoiseach always tried to show up this £62,000,000 and take no responsibility whatever for it. We know very well the policy which they pursued and which brought about that very high adverse trading position in the latter part of 1951. It seemed to be a deliberate attempt to put the finances of the nation on the wrong side, so that the Budget of 1952 could be used to blame the inter-Party Government for the position that existed then.
If we examine our national debt ever since 1932, we find it has increased continuously. We find also that every time the Fianna Fáil Government went out of office, the country was in a worse position than when they came into office, and we can expect the same thing to happen again.
I see our friend, Deputy Flynn, having a laugh at that. He is probably laughing at the 24,000 people who lost their jobs in the past 12 months and had to emigrate. It may be amusing for him, but it was not amusing for them.
The trade terms for January and February this year are worse than the trade terms for the corresponding months in 1957, when the inter-Party Government were in office. If Deputy Flynn would like to check that, he can read this morning's newspapers. These are facts that must be faced by the present Government, and particularly by Deputies supporting them. The conditions in the country to-day are not amusing; there is a great measure of public disgust and disillusionment, not alone among the assistance sections of the community, but also among the industrial and agricultural sections. The farmers are up in arms in connection with the inconsistent policy pursued by the Government at present. We can remind the Parliamentary Secretary to the Taoiseach, Deputy Ó Briain—I wish he were here now so that I could challenge him on it—of how he went around to the farmers of Limerick offering them 6d. a gallon in 1951 when there was a dispute regarding the possibility of increasing the price of milk. Instead of offering an increase of 6d. a gallon he has now to try to quieten down the Limerick farmers' concern about the decision to reduce milk, prices in a backhand manner, as will be done this year.
The public remembers all the barefaced frauds that were published prior to the general election last year, in addition to the brazen promises which tempted the people to give Fianna Fáil an opportunity to govern again. Of course, they became a Government by default, because the lowest number of voters on the register ever to vote, voted this time last year. The position now is that the Government, in the short space of 12 months, have lost the confidence of the public. The Government's policy was put to the test in November, only eight months after it had come into office. All during the past year, since Fianna Fáil came into power, Fine Gael remained very quiet and waited for the Government to get settled down and implement its policy. Now, we can be critical in relation to that policy, or lack of policy, which we have seen in operation during the past 12 months. But, after eight months, in a by-election in Dublin North Central, the policy of the Government was tested. I heard the loud-speakers in the streets say: "A vote for Cregan is a vote for Dev." What was the result of this campaign? The result was that Fianna Fáil secured 3,000 votes in November compared with 8,000 in March, losing 5,000 votes in eight months in that constituency.
I now came to the policy of the Government in relation to milk, wheat, bacon, barley and agriculture generally. In the last election, apparently, Fianna Fáil decided it would pay dividends to make the farmers the victims of a fantastic political fraud. They made the Milk Costings Commission and milk price a very live issue in the various election speeches and no doubt gained advantage from the confusion they created in the minds of farmers, particularly in milk producing areas. They pretended in some of their pamphlets that the report of the Milk Costings Commission was being held up deliberately by the inter-Party Government in order that farmers would be prevented from getting an increase in the price of milk. They pretended to know that the Milk Costings Report contained facts showing that farmers were entitled to, and should get, an increased price for milk. They won the sympathy of the milk producers by this campaign and these producers believed that the promise of Fianna Fáil to give them the increase alleged to be recommended, would be fulfilled.
We now have thousands of these farmers assembling at various places in angry protest against the manner in which they have been tricked in relation to milk prices. We have the same position regarding wheat. When the Minister for Finance went to the radio 12 months ago he criticised the price paid for wheat. That was when wheat was 78/6 per barrel. He referred to the reduction which took place in 1954 as "cruel and unjust". Now, at the first opportunity the Government get, the farmers get a reduction in the price of wheat, instead of the sympathy poured out over the radio by the Minister for Finance. That kind of duplicity must certainly make the farmers angry and it is no wonder that a vote of no confidence in the Government has been passed by the National Farmers' Association. It was passed because the members of that organisation are satisfied that their association was double-crossed by Fianna Fáil in relation to wheat and milk prices.
Notice taken that 20 Members were not present; House counted, and 20 Members being present,
I was referring to the duplicity of the Fianna Fáil Party in regard to the price of wheat and milk when they were seeking the support of the electors last year. We have some Deputies in this House wearing the wheat tag and at the first opportunity I hope they will wear that wheat tag again when they go down to face their constituents. We have a member from County Louth who got in on the wheat campaign; we have a member from Wexford, a member from Wicklow, from Kilkenny, and every other place where the wheat campaign was carried on. There were a couple of the boys who had "a pound of butter" tag in their collars. They will have to face the milk producers one day.
There was an announcement by the Minister for Agriculture that he was going to pull the floor from under the price of barley and oats, but it would not suit him this year to do so.
We know the policy of the Fianna Fáil Party in relation to barley. It was illegal for a farmer to get more than 35/- a barrel for barley in 1946 and 1947, but, when the inter-Party Government came into office and that control was abolished, the farmers were able to get 84/- a barrel for malting barley and up to £3 a barrel for feeding barley. These are the prices which the farmers could command at that time because we were paying those prices for imported barley, particularly malting barley.
It is hardly necessary to mention that there is a situation in relation to bacon prices which has caused considerable loss to pig producers. The losses would have been greater, but for the fact that Deputy Dillon, when he was Minister for Agriculture, took steps to ensure that a loss would not be imposed suddenly on the farmers. On the other hand, the present Government is sitting back and making no effort to ensure that there will be a consistent price available to pig producers, particularly in respect of exports of bacon. Deputy Corry used to talk about the export of pigs and represented each pig exported as carrying a little bag of money on its back.
The Deputy is going into details on agriculture. He is entitled to refer to agriculture in broad outline, but details should be reserved for the Estimates.
Very well. I shall not refer to that at the moment. In the past 12 months, the cost of living has been increased by almost ten points. There were salt tears rolling down the cheeks of the Fianna Fáil candidates and their canvassers during the election because of the high cost of living at that time. Now there is an increase of nearly ten points and there was an instruction from the Fianna Fáil Government to various representatives of wage earners that they should not look for an increase in wages to compensate for that rise in the cost of living. Although the situation was held down for a considerable time, the stage has now been reached where various sections of the community have made their case and are to get an adjustment of wages to meet that positive increase in the cost of living which was deliberately brought about by the Fianna Fáil Party.
There is the peculiar situation that the Fianna Fáil Party refused to give a percentage increase based on the increase in the cost of living to public servants, although there is an agreement that when the cost of living goes above a certain figure, public servants are entitled to an adjustment in salaries to meet it. That refusal was made before sanction was given for an increase of 10/- a week to Dublin Corporation employees. An increase in the case of Dublin Corporation employees having been sanctioned by the Minister for Finance, the Minister for Health and the Minister for Local Government, it is only fair to expect that the remuneration of public servants should be adjusted now in relation to the cost of living.
The inter-Party Government held down the price of bread, flour, butter, sugar, tea, petrol, tobacco and beer. The price of all those commodities has been increased by the Fianna Fáil Government since last March. The price of the loaf of bread and the pound of butter together has gone up by about 1/1. Last week, a Supplementary Estimate was introduced in order to pay 1/- a week to recipients of social welfare benefits. In that connection, take the case of two able-bodied men in the City of Dublin, one unemployed and the other working with Dublin Corporation. The Dublin Corporation employee has made his case and is entitled to get an increase of 10/- per week to meet the rise in the cost of living. An unemployed single man gets an increase of 1/- a week to meet the same increase. That does not seem to be fair treatment of the poorer classes of the community.
Side by side with that type of injustice, there is a provision of over £1,000,000 for a new airline, just because that is a pet idea of the Minister for Industry and Commerce. This new airline will compete with B.O.A.O., P.A.A., K.L.M. and all the other large international combines. I do not know how it can compete with them or why we should try to do so, especially if it is to be done at the expense of the taxpayer.
There is also a provision of £750,000 in order to discover whether we can mine and export copper from the Avoca mines. All these things are being done, while hardships are being imposed on the poorer sections of the community.
I heard the Taoiseach this morning talking about the allocation of money to help the farmers to sell their butter, wheat and bacon. I would remind the Taoiseach that the only thing the Fianna Fáil Party could talk about on the Budget last year was the £250,000 they had provided to search for markets for agricultural produce. To-day we find that not one penny of that money was spent and they come in here moaning about the difficulty of trying to dispose of our surplus butter and wheat. They have not spent a penny in an effort to sell them anywhere.
The Book of Estimates shows a cut of £750,000 in respect of housing. That shows the attitude of the Fianna Fáil Party in relation to housing. This morning, the Taoiseach mentioned that there were no plans for houses last year and that housing dropped. We know very well that housing was deliberately sabotaged in Dublin City and that a complete stoppage occurred in building activities in Dublin City. It was realised that that would entail poverty, hardship and unemployment and mass emigration. It is no wonder that there are a large number of houses just shambles at the moment, because the tenants flitted overnight, seeking employment elsewhere, and in many cases leaving large arrears of rent due to the corporation.
The case made for the reduction in the housing provision has been that grants will be unnecessary because building activity has dropped. We heard from Deputy Sherwin that there are anything from 5,000 to 8,000 houses wanted in Dublin City still for families who are certified to be entitled to housing accommodation. I am aware myself of the difficulties presented to local authorities at the moment in order to save expenditure in respect of houses. We have a system now whereby local authorities have instructions that the medical officer must carry out an inspection in an area before the council may ask the Department of Local Government for sanction to build a cottage.
That is a matter for the Local Government Estimate.
Very well, Sir. We have also the dear money policy pursued by Fianna Fáil during the past 12 months. It seems always to have been their policy because, in 1952, we also had a dear money policy implemented. We remember, too, the telegram of congratulation sent by the Fianna Fáil Government to Mr. Butler when he implemented the dear money policy in Great Britain.
In the course of the discussion I heard Deputy Haughey criticising the fact that the last national loan floated by the inter-Party Government was not filled a couple of years ago. I should like to remind Deputy Haughey that when he was a very young person, Fianna Fáil tried to borrow £6,000,000 and all they could get was £2,000,000, so if the question of success in the matter of national loans is brought up it can be pointed out that Fianna Fáil have been the least successful. They have been very lucky during the last 12 months, particularly in relation to the finance that was subscribed by people interested in the prize bonds. Prize bonds seem to be growing in popularity and the amount made available under that heading is on the increase.
I notice also in this Vote that extra money is required in the Department of Agriculture for extra inspectors. Apparently the farmers will again be doffing their hats to Fianna Fáil inspectors.
The Deputy might leave those details for the Estimates for Agriculture.
I am dealing with general policy. I did not go into any details.
The Deputy is talking about the number of inspectors in the Department.
I did not mention the number.
The Deputy is informing the House that the numbers are to be increased. The Deputy might leave that until the Estimate.
With respect, Sir, the Book of Estimates is the first indication of whether the number of inspectors is to be increased or reduced. Surely Deputy Rooney is in order in referring to the fact that the figures in the Book of Estimates indicate just what he is referring to?
I might point out to the Deputy that those items are not before the House. There are no Estimates before the House.
I thought those items were for discussion.
It has already been pointed out that the items of the Estimates are not for discussion. All that is for discussion on the Vote on Account is the broad outline of Government policy.
I should like to know when the Government intend to lead the people into the promised land which they dangled before the electorate only this time last year. I am reminded that the Taoiseach described it as a mirage here this morning. I just call it the promised land. Apparently this mirage of the promised land always comes into the picture just before a general election, as far as the Fianna Fáil Party is concerned. They were put to a test in the by-election of last month and received a severe defeat. There is another by-election coming up in Galway and although that is a Fianna Fáil stronghold it is probable that they will get their answer again.
Hope springs eternal.
Yes, but there will be a bit of explaining to be done when we get down as far as South Galway. Incidentally, I have noticed a great silence on the part of Deputy Moher in this debate. I hope we shall hear from him about milk prices and wheat.
I shall wait for the Estimate.
When he was on this side of the House I heard him many a time in full cry concerning both wheat and milk prices. He is as mute as a mouse now on those subjects.
Give me one instance where I referred to prices.
I shall get the opportunity at a later stage. I am glad the Deputy has challenged me on this issue. However, I am sure the Deputy is in full cry in his Party room along with Deputy Corry. The farmers are also in full cry and it is a question of honesty and fair dealing as far as the farmers are concerned in relation to the prices of wheat and milk. It is a strange fact that the policy implemented by Deputy Dillon in relation to all these things has brought about a great surplus last year. According to the Fianna Fáil Party, he was not doing enough in respect of wheat. He was not encouraging wheat growing but, whether he did or not, there was a surplus of 95,000 tons.
It has been admitted now by the Fianna Fáil Party in addition, that his policy has ensured that the quantity of wheat coming from an acre of land is double what the average yield per acre was before he became Minister for Agriculture. That is a big change for the wheat growing section of the community. Similarly, if the milk producers get their opportunity again, and get a chance to make their choice, I am sure they will have Deputy Dillon back instead of the afterthought Minister for Agriculture we have now on the Fianna Fáil Benches.
A shilling a gallon for five years.
Mr. Lynch
That was 1948.
1951.
I should like to remind Deputy Fanning that it is not long since the milk producers were getting less than 1/- a gallon from the Fianna Fáil Party.
The present Minister gave them the first increase. Deputy Dillon failed to do it.
It is not so long ago, when the Fianna Fáil Party had another overall majority, that the farmers were getting less than a 1/- a gallon. Now with their present overall majority, they are trying to bring the price back as far as they can. They are trying to bring it below 1/- a gallon.
I thought the Deputy was trying to get cheap butter for the people in Dublin.
We did not charge the people 4/2 for the butter in Dublin and the people in Liverpool 3/9. The year 1956 was a difficult year in the matter of trade, particularly in relation to the cost of the import of luxury goods. The cost of importing goods during that year rose steeply and there was considerable expenditure on the part of our people on these non-essential goods. That position really caused the temporary imposition of the import levies.
Notice taken that 20 Members were not present; House counted, and 20 Members being present,
I am glad I have a quorum because I wanted to ask Deputy Healy a few questions. Deputy Healy, who has come up from Cork, has sometimes a lot to say. I wish he had something to say on the Vote on Account. What has he to say to his constituents in Cork City? At the moment the unemployment position in Cork City, according to his colleagues, is very grave.
It is much better than it was this time last year.
Thanks to the oil refinery. There are 1,300 employed there.
Thanks to Fine Gael.
Yes. You tried to scuttle that too.
Deputy Healy was busy dangling the carrots this time last year——
What Deputy Healy did last year does not seem to have any relevance on the Vote on Account.
I am only encouraging the Deputy to stand up and say something. If he has any excuses to offer he ought at least get up and offer them. I heard the Taoiseach to-day telling the House that the Government are not complacent regarding the situation at the present time but anybody who looks at what happened during the past 12 months and at the attitude of the Government in relation to any of the difficulties caused deliberately by the Government can only assume they are complacent and are taking advantage of their overall majority to make the people suffer. The phrase "cruel and unjust" occurred to me just now in relation to the treatment of these people. That was the kind of phrase used by the Minister for Finance on the radio when he was trying to get the farmers' support on the promise of an increased price for wheat.
The Deputy has already discussed this on at least three occasions. I do not think he should pursue the matter further.
The Minister was not here to hear that. Now that I have had my say on this Vote on Account, I will have more to say on the Estimates.
The Deputy will say the same thing.
The House has been treated with contempt by the Minister for Finance in not making any effort to analyse the policy proposed in the coming year or to comment upon the policy which was pursued during the past 12 months by the Government. We in Fine Gael will bring all these points to light in the various Estimates but I feel that the people are entitled to some kind of public decency and honesty from a Party which claims to be a Party representing the national interests. Obviously, they have shown that they have not any national social policy, any national economic policy or any policy that would suit in a broad way the needs of the nation at the present time.
Ní bheidh imní ormsa cé acu bhéas córam nó nach mbeidh córam ann fhaidh a bheidh mé ag caint. Is cosúil nach raibh na cainteóiri go rabhamar ag éisteacht leo ach ag lionadh bearna.
If anything shows up the fact that Fianna Fáil is the only national Party in the country, the debate which we have been listening to on this Vote on Account illustrates it very definitely. Now crocodile tears are being shed and lip-service is being paid to the farmers. It is not so long ago at all that the emphasis was on the urban interests and when it was said that Fianna Fáil was in fact leaning unjustifiably and partially on the side of the farmers. We can throw our mind back over the political switch-back we have witnessed since 1948, over the ups and downs, the ins and outs and changes of Government to the year 1947, before the country had yet been afflicted by a Coalition Government.
That was the year when more people returned to the country than left it. When, in that year, Fianna Fáil asked the people as a whole to bear certain burdens by way of additions to the cost of luxuries—drink, tobacco and entertainments—we found a concerted action on the part of Labour, Clann na Poblachta, Fine Gael and Independents against this small effort which was explained by the Taoiseach as an attempt to secure for the poorer sections of the population that the cost of essential foodstuffs would not be increased. We know what happened then. There was not an urban area in the country from Cork to Donegal in which a special effort was not made to whip up feelings of prejudice against this Government. It was alleged that it was a farmers' Government which was hostile in every way to the towns and the urban populations.
Now the tune has changed. The townsman is forgotten. Whether or not the Coalition is in existence we do not know but apparently it has nothing further to gain electorally from the urban areas and now the farming interests are to be played upon and salt is to be rubbed into whatever little wound the farmer may have had inflicted upon him. I think the farming electorate will be a little more critical and a little more difficult to wheedle than the less well-informed urban voter has proved to be.
The question of policy has been mentioned very much. The former Minister for Finance criticised the present Minister because his introductory statement was factual and gave the essential information in relation to this Vote on Account in as concise a form as possible, with an economy of language. We must say for his contribution that it was no different in character. He related certain facts also, with a few comments interspersed, and sat down.
The same type of criticism of a speech by a Minister was offered by Deputy Dr. Browne. He criticised the Minister for Lands for having made a platitudinous speech. I would tell Deputy Browne that his own speech was of a similar kind—and he treated us to a sermon on Socialism. It was very interesting as a sermon and an exposition of a political viewpoint, but he did not give us any indication of a solution of the problems either of emigration or unemployment.
We have a policy; we have a policy in relation to the utilisation of whatever national finances can be harnessed for the public service. Criticism has been levelled at a statement of the requirements of the position made by the present Minister for Industry and Commerce, when in opposition, that £100,000,000 would be necessary by way of capital and that it would be necessary to create 20,000 jobs annually by the utilisation of that sum of money. That was a statement, in his estimation, of the requirements of the case.
It is very easy to be glib because the figure of £100,000,000 is mentioned. Fianna Fáil is very often lashed with that whip. I would point out that in the three years 1954-55, 1955-56 and 1956-57, when this precious Coalition was in charge, a sum of £100,000,000 actually was borrowed and spent. The difference between us and them is this. We think the time has come to get away from the exigencies and the necessities which were created by the war, to apply that policy of Socialism which Deputy Dr. Browne has recommended and to implement and to give as much drive as possible to our ideas of utilising these resources on a private enterprise basis.
One thing about Deputy Dr. Browne and ourselves is that we know where we stand. What I was interested in was that when Deputy Booth, on our side, criticised in very calm but very cogent language, and in a very scientific way, the theories—political, financial and so on—of Deputy Dr. Browne, the ex-Parliamentary Secretary to the Taoiseach, Deputy O'Sullivan, directed his attack, not at Deputy Dr. Browne's theories but at Deputy Booth's criticism of them.
We know that, since the last political débâcle a year ago, they are said to have parted company. We have had statements from the Labour headquarters and from Fine Gael that now they are out on their own, and Fine Gael is out to gain an overall majority next time. It is obvious from performances such as I have mentioned and from what we see among all the elements on public bodies, that the Coalition, in spirit, does exist and that, in fact, you have only two political sides in this country—Fianna Fáil and all the others.
I did not criticise Deputy Booth on that score, and the Parliamentary Secretary knows it.
I will accept Deputy O'Sullivan's explanation that——
On that score——
——his criticism was not of Deputy Booth on the score of Socialism. The fact, however, is that the spirit of Coalition is still so strong that he could not get himself to say definitely whether or not he accepts Deputy Browne's political philosophy.
That is an internal row between you and your ex-colleague. Go and resolve it.
Let me tell Deputy Dr. Browne and others—and Fine Gael also—who have made attacks in relation to emigration and unemployment and our attempts to solve them, that it is not necessary to flavour the attacks with attacks on the Irish language and on the Presidential establishment. We had the sorry spectacle that it was the Clann na Poblachta Party who produced the first republican attack on the Irish language. That was done in association with Fine Gael, the time that the——
Is this relevant to the Book of Estimates?
It is not.
I agree.
All right. There was a good deal of rambling around the whole political arena on this debate.
Is that a reflection on the Chair?
It is not. It is a tribute to the patience of the Chair and to his willingness to hope and expect that every speaker will eventually come round to a condition of relevance. On the question of housing, it has been pointed out that there is a reduction in the provision for housing. That is so. Surely if so many houses have been built, the need for housing must have grown less. If we are to accept it at its face value, the statement, that half the population has cleared out, surely gives an additional reason why there should be a lesser need for housing. Do we not know that a great many of the local authorities in the country have already solved the problem? Surely we are not to keep on building houses for the sake of giving the employment?
It is worthy of note that such good and beneficial provision has been made for the housing of the working classes in this country that they are not called on to pay any greater proportion of the economic rent than one-fifth. I do not think there is any country in the world which can boast of a better contribution to the housing of the most needy classes than is represented by that figure.
This Government has a policy in relation to finance and it has been stated on many occasions by Government spokesmen. There is no necessity for this Party to make any apology whatsoever. Its policy is based on a belief and a faith in the ability and the competence and the willingness of the Irish people to build up an economy which will solve these twin problems of emigration and unemployment. It has been pointed out that our people have proved their ability wherever the opportunities enabled them to give of their best in other countries.
If we had conditions of political stability, such as a young country like ours with only 30 or 35 years of native Government requires, and if we did not have this alternating Government every three or four years, I am satisfied that, in a period of 20 years of peace, that would have been achieved. It is a fact that the 1936 Census demonstrated for the first time in 100 years that the decline in the Irish population had been checked. Then the Second World War came and upset the applecart. We could not get supplies to keep industry going, and many people, who were in settled and insurable employment, had to go. We took up the running again after the war, and we were able to report, the year before the first Coalition came in, that more people came back to the country than left it. Then a change of Government took place, because certain elements in the community had their prejudices played on. The Government was changed and by 1950, the figure of emigration was up to 40,000 or 50,000.
This Party, no matter on which side of the House it is, has had to put up with certain criticism, notably criticism of the type of action represented by the 1952 Budget. It was most illuminating to hear one of the most diligent and persistent apologists of Fine Gael —and I want to pay a tribute to his persistence and his enthusiasm and his faith in Fine Gael—Deputy Rooney. He said that the Coalition deliberately made it more difficult last year to buy a wide range of goods. Would he not have used, in relation to that particular course of conduct, the term which he applied in regard to the 1952 Budget, in other words, "Dev's hair-shirt". Can we not refer to it as the "Fine Gael hairshirt"? If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, we have here, in the course now commended by Deputy Rooney, a justification of the action taken at that time to right a very dangerous position.
I want to refer to a statement made by Deputy Dr. Browne. I do not want in any way to impugn his motives. I believe implicitly that he holds his views sincerely and with conviction. He charged this Government, in its financial policy, with making a fetish of the question of the balance of payments. It is because of the importance which we attach to that question of balance of payments that the 1952 Budget was brought in. Deputy Dr. Browne said on more than one occasion that he was no economist and I take it that all his statements in relation to economic matters will have to be qualified by that admission of his.
In relation to this question, as to whether the balance of payments is important or not, I would offer to him the opinion of somebody who is recognised as an economist of the first order, that is, the famous German economist, Dr. Schacht. He put it on record that no matter how well you arrange your affairs internally, if your trading relations with other countries are not sound, all your internal or home efforts will be in vain. Dr. Schacht attributed the collapse of the German economy between two wars to that very bad condition of imbalance in Germany's foreign trading relations. Almost entirely to that he attributed the collapse—almost entirely to that one factor.
I want to offer for Deputy Dr. Browne's consideration the consequesces, not alone for Germany but for the entire world, of that economic collapse in Germany. It finished German democracy and it gave rise to dictatorship—and that dictatorship brought the world's worst war in its trail. There you have a connection between the worst possible type of catastrophe and a bad balance of payments. I offer that to Deputy Dr. Browne, not as my opinion or the opinion of anyone in this country, but as the opinion of somebody who is better qualified to judge than anyone else.
That is a complete non sequitur, of course. There is no necessary relation with that single fact at all.
Dr. Schacht does not bear out the Deputy and of the two opinions—that of Deputy Dr. Browne and that of Dr. Schacht—in this matter, I prefer to choose Dr. Schacht.
The economists have been wrong before now—in this country and in Dr. Schacht's country. It now has 1,200,000 unemployed—which is 6.6 per cent.
We know that between Canada and the United States there are almost 6,000,000 unemployed.
Their economists can be wrong, too.
The Deputy referred yesterday to the establishment of an Agricultural Institute, and in case there might be one item of credit left to us for the past 12 months, he emphasised that this was an American gift—and it is. On this question of gifts from one nation to another, perhaps the Deputy might go a little further afield and inquire a little more intimately into the effect of such gifts on the economies of various European countries. It would be a very interesting speculation to try to divine what the economic position of Britain and the economic position here would be if you did not have such large and continuous contributions from the American Exchequer to the British for war preparation purposes.
Do we not all know that the ability and freedom of our population to get employment in Britain are tied up very intimately with that question? If Britain's economy had been depending for the last 20 years purely on peace time economics, there would have been few opportunities for the large emigration which we have experienced here, particularly since the end of the war. Do we not all know that a great many of our people have left good employment here and gone to England to other employment because they were told there was extra money to be earned there?
And they got it.
They got it because of the injection of huge sums of American money into the British economy for war preparations. Deputy Dr. Browne cavils at what he might consider any attempt on the part of this Government to claim credit for the establishment of the Agricultural Institute, pointing out that it was the American Government——
The Parliamentary Secretary is forgetting there was a Socialist economy there.
It was Sir Stafford Cripps who provided full employment. The American War Loan was dropped in the form of bombs over Germany.
In any event, when there is a crisis in this country, quite automatically and naturally, the people look to Fianna Fáil. This question of policy has been whipped to a thread. Let us throw our minds back some 12 months when the Coalition were in office. They had set up what they called a Capital Investment Committee. That Capital Investment Committee brought in recommendations on three subjects and because they were presented with a problem in the report of the committee, which they set up themselves, their policy collapsed. That proved that, in fact, they had no policy. One section wanted to go one way, to abolish food subsidies; the other section wanted to go the other way and said: "On no account can you abolish them." Thereby hung the tale of a general election.
Milk and wheat prices are now being used in an effort to abolish this Government. I want to say, in any event, that Fianna Fáil will find a solution. Fianna Fáil will solve its problems. Fianna Fáil will not just throw up its hands, walk off and say it has no policy, that it can make no decision. That is the difference between Fianna Fáil and the others. We do make decisions. It is amusing to listen to the attempts by the Opposition to have it both ways. When something good can be reported, we are told that it is due to the wise preparations laid by the Coalition but if there is a bad position to be explained away, of course that is due to Fianna Fáil maladministration.
That is instanced by the references to industrial and agricultural employment and the references to the exports of agricultural produce abroad. The buoyancy of those exports last year, of course, was credited to the Coalition account and the drop in industrial employment was credited to Fianna Fáil maladministration. Of course, shrewd political thinkers up and down the country—and every one of them is shrewd enough now—are able to assess the merits of these statements. The Taoiseach was taken very much to account because he said, in a reply to a question here the other day, that the cost of living was not going up and because he indicated from the statistics that it had in fact dropped one point. Of course, there was a chorus of jeers and laughter at this statement and it was said: "You are out of touch with the people, go outside, go into any place where people are gathered and they will tell you that the cost of living is soaring enormously."
I make one concession to the Coalition propagandists and it is that they are pretty slick and adept in getting over an impression. There is hardly a town in Ireland in which, if they decide to get a certain idea accepted, they will not be able to do so. I had this brought very forcibly to my notice within the past fortnight. The registered figure for unemployed in the Galway office is 2,600 odd. The Galway office, of course—a fact which the propagandists were very careful not to reveal—deals with a very large rural territory as well as the urban area of Galway City. But I was surprised to hear at almost every hand's turn the remark: "Is this not a terrible result after a year of Fianna Fáil Government, that the registered unemployed has grown from 500 to 2,600?" On the strength of the belief which the propagandists were able to create, the Galway Trades Council and Galway Corporation seriously contemplated having public protests and protest marches and, in fact, the corporation did succeed in sending a deputation to wait on the Taoiseach because the figure of unemployment in Galway City was, it was alleged, now 2,600 as compared with 500 a year ago.
I was not acquainted with the contents of the memorandum to be presented to the Taoiseach until the very last moment and I was surprised to hear this deputation, which was comprised of very important people indeed, making a case on the assumption that this propaganda report was correct. Not until the last minute did it come out and these people—all people of importance and many of them in public positions—got a very very big surprise to find that the figure had been multiplied almost five-fold. If it is possible to pull the wool over the eyes of important people of that sort, on an important matter such as that, in their own locality, is it not then obvious that the ordinary unthinking person can be very easily fooled in relation to almost anything? It is because of that possibility and because of the Coalition's knowledge that that possibility is there that we find this intensive propaganda —rubbing salt into the wound on every possible occasion.
A thousand unemployed is a problem of far greater magnitude when Fianna Fáil is in office than when it is out of office. We accept and appreciate the implied tribute in that type of propaganda. The average people, as well as the politicians opposed to us, recognise that Fianna Fáil is capable and has proved itself able to give a better service than any of the other political combinations in the country. When they carry on that propaganda, they pay us a tribute, and we thank them for it.
Do not mention it.
You are not serious in saying there is more employment available this year than last year?
I am able to tell Deputy Kyne that if the machinations of his Party and of the other Parties before 1948 had not succeeded, this country would now be on a very solid foundation. Unfortunately, the change of Government in 1948 produced an economic situation which the country has not got over yet.
That is a good bit of propaganda.
Yes, because it is so obviously true, and nobody recognises that better than Deputy Lynch, who is a very shrewd critic. In any event, I am not going to follow the example of so many people here who took a number of statistics of minor details to build up a case. We have a policy and a political philosophy. We have followed it constantly all down the years. Whatever divergencies may have been necessary have been made with the least possible dislocation to the public. That outlook with regard to public affairs still informs all our actions and decisions. We are not playing our hand for the purpose of any short-term political advantage. We put the long-term benefit of the Irish economy and of the Irish people first and foremost.
In relation to unemployment, we believe that it is necessary so to channel the finances of the country that employment of a permanent character may result, rather than the stop-gap type of employment which direct Government expenditure produces. That is the explanation why we have hitched our fortunes to the star of private enterprise. I know Deputy Dr. Browne does not like that. I know he believes that private enterprise has failed and that national socialism can succeed. He instances the cases of the E.S.B. and Bord na Móna. Whatever was possible in that particular way has been done and has been pioneered by this Party.
The E.S.B. was pioneered by Fianna Fáil—"a white elephant"?
That business of the "white elephant" will not bear examination, and Deputy O'Sullivan knows that very well. The only difference that was expressed by one prominent person in the Fianna Fáil Party was upon where the start was to be made, and not upon the idea itself. It was on the method of implementing this programme of hydro-electrification that the issue was made, not on the idea itself, and we have proved that, by all the efforts which this Party has made since to extend the development of electrification in the country.
I do think that Deputy Dr. Browne's intervention into Irish politics is not to be deprecated, from the Fianna Fáil point of view. We are prepared to argue with him, and with those for whom he speaks, on the relative merits of their idea for handling problems and ours. In spite of an economic war and a world war, with all their consequential difficulties, we have done reasonably well by the methods which we adopted. It was only when new ideas, such as were represented by the Party which brought him into the Dáil first, were put into operation that we have had any instability in this country.
We had 16 years of stability despite the economic war and a world war under the Fianna Fáil régime, and it was only when that solidarity was lessened that the problems, which formed the basis for the remarks of so many speakers, arose. The Irish people recognise the truth of that position and so you have the conviction at the present time that, whatever the difficulties may be, there is only one Party and one policy capable of solving them, and that is the Fianna Fáil Party under the leadership——
Of Eamon de Valera.
——of the man who has carried this country through so many crises in the past. The Coalition knew the crisis which was facing the country a year ago and they walked out on it. We are handling it now, and I am satisfied that, short of another crisis such as a world war, by the time the next election comes around, we will be able to prove we made as good a success of handling this crisis as we did of handling other crises.
If you do not have some crisis, if you have nothing to blame, you will be "bunched".
It is only when people are really made to think by crisis problems that they come back to the Party they trust, to Fianna Fáil. It was only when we were in calm waters, when supplies were becoming available again after the war, that the people voted for a change in Government. The people explained their action to me in my own constituency by saying that a change, though it might do no good, would do no harm, either.
I would say they would make a change now, if they got the chance.
The people may have a Coalition when there is no difficulty, but when there is a difficulty, they say: "We will have Dev." We have a crisis now and Fianna Fáil are engaged in the job of tackling it. The Coalition theme has been: "Whatever you can do, we can do better."
Who said that now— you?
That has been the Coalition chorus ever since the end of the world war. Now let us have a little addition to that: "Whatever you cannot do, we can always make bitter."
I do not propose to follow the Parliamentary Secretary into arguments as to whether a Coalition Government or a Fianna Fáil Government would be able to do better for the country in the coming financial year. There is no point in doing that since, with the numbers the Government have on their side of the House, it would look as if they are there for the coming four years. Debating what might happen if somebody else were there would be a fruitless occupation. Conjecture and argument are a waste of time of the House. Our task is to deal with the facts as we find them and the situation which confronts us.
This Vote on Account should indicate the policy of the Government for the coming year. One glance at the Book of Estimates indicates quite clearly that retrenchment and economy will be the keynote. There is a saving shown of some £2,000,000 on the Estimates as compared with last year. If there is any credit due for that achievement, it must also be remembered that there has been a considerable saving at the expense of the ordinary people by the withdrawal of the food subsidies. That represents some £4,000,000 extra, but there is no indication as to how that money will be used in the interests of our economy in the coming year.
We have to rely mainly on the public utterances of the various Ministers and Parliamentary Secretaries. If one takes these utterances seriously, particularly those of the Minister for Lands, Deputy Childers, it is obvious that we are in for a long period of economies and retrenchment—a hair-shirt policy implemented by the Fianna Fáil Government. The Minister for Lands has declared that it will be 20 years hence before the people can look for any better standard of living, any improved social services or, in fact, any amenities at all to ameliorate their position. If that is so, then the Government ought clearly to say that.
We are, all of us, growing weary hearing about free trade. Every day at Chamber of Commerce dinners, and other semi-social functions throughout the country, Ministers and industrialists are telling us that we must be prepared for free trade, that free trade is around the corner and we should get ready for it; that we must increase production. That is the theme song. All of us, whether free trade is coming or not, realise that increased production means a better standard of living. That is elementary.
What steps are the Government taking to prepare for free trade? In the Budget last year the Minister adumbrated certain tax concessions in relation to industrialists. Encouragement of a small kind was given, particularly to those industries catering for the export market. Now, in the hope of saying something of value to this House, I should like to point out that production cannot increase merely because of some action taken by the management of industry alone. There is another side to the question, and it is a very vital side, namely, the working people engaged in industry. Without the full co-operation of those employed in industry it is ridiculous for this Government, any other Government, or in fact, anybody at all hoping for increased production merely at the will and pleasure of the management of industry. In this era of trade union organisation the workers are fully conscious of their power and ready to use it. There is only one way in which to get production and that is by agreement between those who employ and those who work.
This Government took one very good step last year when they indicated to the P.U.T.U.O. and F.U.E. that it was essential in the interests of economy that both sides should get together and try to fix a fair national wage increase to compensate for the increased cost of living then apparent. That action bore good fruit. It was an excellent step. A national wage increase was fixed and both sides undertook to shoulder some of the difference. The employers undertook not to pass on the wage increase to the consumers and the trade unions agreed to accept a lower figure than the figure they knew should be paid in order to compensate for the increased cost of living.
What did the Government do next? They mishandled the Port of Dublin strike. They mishandled the corporation strike. They forced the workers into a position in which they refused to accept bullying: "We will not be told what we should take and when we will take it." They forced the trade union organisations to show their power to secure for those they represent the rights to which they were justly entitled. That was not a good step on the part of the Government. Antagonising the workers and their organisations is not the way to prepare for free trade. It is not the way to get the co-operation so essential if our entry into free trade is dependent upon increased production.
Again, those employed by the State have an agreement with the State, through their various organisations, that they will address their demands for an increase in wages to the Government and, failing agreement, submit to a form of arbitration so that justice may be done.