I am sorry; the Minister for Health referred to the Avoca Copper Mines and the Whitegate Refinery. If he thinks he is going to convince this House and the people of the country that Fianna Fáil were entirely responsible for the ultimate development of the Avoca Copper Mines, he is very much mistaken. Even the Minister for Industry and Commerce, who is in charge of such things, has never denied the credit that is rightfully due to a former Minister for Industry and Commerce, Deputy Norton. Not by any stretch of the imagination could anybody give credit to the Fianna Fáil Party, nor could Fianna Fáil take any credit for the Whitegate Refinery. They never attempted to take it before. But because they are confronted with a motion of no confidence and because these are the only two most successful projects in the country, the Minister for Health believes it would be a good thing to try to tell the people that Fianna Fáil were responsible for the Whitegate Refinery and also merely because they contemplated the establishment of a refinery in the City of Dublin in 1936.
I was not in the House in 1936, but I do not believe that the Labour Party at that time opposed in the manner suggested by the Minister for Health the establishment of an oil refinery in the City of Dublin. I would be prepared to apologise to the Minister, if he could produce evidence by quoting from a speech by any member of the Labour Party in which it was stated that the Labour Party were opposed to the establishment of an oil refinery in Dublin City.
The most significant thing in the speech made by the Minister for Health is that he did not refer to the £230,000,000 plan of the Minister for Industry and Commerce. Indeed, he took Deputy Norton to task about various things. He took him up on practically every single point he mentioned. Deputy Norton lambasted the Minister for Industry and Commerce about the £230,000,000 plan, saying it was a fraud, a sham and a confidence trick. I suggest that if there is anything in the £230,000,000 plan, the Minister for Health had ample opportunity of taking Deputy Norton to task about the remarks Deputy Norton made about it. Both Deputy Norton and Deputy MacEntee are very old opponents in this House. They sometimes seem to take a delight in castigating each other. Here was an admirable opportunity to show up Deputy Norton for what he was, if he was what Deputy MacEntee believed he was, by referring to this £230,000,000 plan.
The Minister for Industry and Commerce had a £100,000,000 plan when he was out of office in 1955 or 1956. It did not materialise. We do not know whether he was serious or not. It got the approval of the Fianna Fáil Party, but when the Fianna Fáil Party became the Government, it seemingly did not get the approval of the Taoiseach or the members of the Government. But now he tries to dupe the unemployed by pretending that an extra £230,000,000 will be spent on industry and agriculture over a period of five years. He knows in his heart and soul that such is not the case and every member of the Fianna Fáil Party in the House at the present time knows that such is not the case. We know that it will not materialise. If the position is as suggested by Deputy Norton and if Deputy MacEntee knew differently, it was his duty, on a motion of no confidence, to give us some outline of the plan and give the workers some hope that there might be an improvement in the unemployment situation.
I think I said before—I do not like repeating speeches in this House—that a shabby trick has been played on the workers. Those who now seek work and the trade unions are told that the only type of work of any use in this country is productive work and that if money is to be spent by the Government, it will not be spent on capital works but must be spent on productive work, but the workers in this country just want to work.
I suppose they are concerned that the work they will do will be productive, but there is no productive work in the country yet. If the plan materialises in five years' time, there may be productive work for them. If Deputy Briscoe in his quest in America succeeds in having industries established in this country, there may be work for the odd 50,000 now unemployed. If the Minister for Industry and Commerce succeeds in inducing people to this country to establish industries in three, four, five or six years' time, then there may be productive work for the odd 50,000 people now unemployed, but what happens in the meantime?
I do not think it is sufficient for us to say that the only type of work you can engage in is productive work. Are we to advise the people who are unemployed at the present time to go across to England, get what employment they can there and that, in five or six years' time, we will have employment for them? I believe that many of the Ministers are secretly glad that so many of our people emigrate. To a large extent, it saves them the embarrassment of a bigger unemployed list.
I should like to ask this question frankly: What is wrong with relief schemes? I do not mean relief schemes in the sense that we should have our unemployed bottling water from the Liffey and pouring it back again. Whilst they may not be 100 per cent. productive, much good work could be done on relief schemes which would enrich the country in some way or another.
The Minister for Health talked about slush funds when Deputy Desmond referred to the Local Authorities (Works) Act. Was there ever a bigger slush fund than that proposed by the Minister for External Affairs, when, as acting Minister for Finance, he came into the House about ten years ago and suggested the establishment of a National Development Fund which was to provide an extra £5,000,000 every year for the relief of unemployment and nothing else? That was the stated object of the establishment of the National Development Fund. It was said at the time that this fund could be used at periods when the balance of payments was favourable and when unemployment was high. The Minister for Health told us to-night that the balance of payments position had been rectified by Fianna Fáil. That was one of the conditions for the utilisation of the fund. The second was when unemployment was high.
Unemployment is less than what it was last year, but it is still high at 51,803 in the month of October. In that situation, would the Minister for Finance and the Government not be justified in making available a sum of money, £5,000,000 or £10,000,000 to put men to work? People in this country, economists and bankers especially, and many of the top civil servants, believe it is in the nature of a serious sin to put men to work on roads or digging or cleaning drains. They have got some bug in their heads that work must be productive, that we must make things. Everybody knows that the facilities, the factories, are not there. The only type of work that can absorb these people is the type of work I have mentioned.
I would say that this Government or any Government, as a temporary measure, would be justified in the repatriation, if necessary, of Government moneys, invested in England to the tune of £5,000,000 per year, for the purpose of keeping Irish men and women in this country. Somebody might say: "Why did you not do that when you were in the inter-Party Government?" Frankly, I would say this. I would not get agreement on that in the inter-Party Government. A majority of my colleagues would object. Our foreign investments and external assets have varied over the years. They have been £350,000,000, £400,000,000, £450,000,000 and £500,000,000. The external assets under the control of the Government have varied as well. Would we upset them over a period of five years in the repatriation of £5,000,000 each year for putting men to work until we can get them productive work and not have them, as they are, going over to England? People might say: "They are only 100 miles away; they can come back if we have productive work for them." But, as Deputy Dillon and Deputy Norton said, they brought their wives and families over with them. Many of them have become anglicised; they have been over there since 1940, and they would be very reluctant to come back to Ballydehob, Crossbeg or any part of Cork or Tipperary. Some of them have become more English than the English themselves. They will not attempt to come back, even though we may have work for them.
The Minister for Health said, and rightly so, that the unemployment figures were not as bad as they were last year or the year before. That is correct. He quotes, I think, this document issued to members of the Dáil and Seanad giving the number on the register of the employment exchanges and branch offices of the Department of Social Welfare, but he omits to refer to the fact that in a short 12 months, from March, 1957, to March, 1958, there were 21,200 fewer people in insurable employment. We must assume that those people have emigrated. The Minister never referred to those figures.
One can do anything with these figures issued by the Central Statistics Office. It has been done here, Comparing the month of June with the month of December of this year, the month of October with March, when the same conditions of employment do not obtain. The fact is that, even though Fianna Fáil have been in office, even though they promised to get more employment and to get cracking, there are 21,200 fewer people insured than there were last year. That is a significant fact which even the Minister for Health cannot gloss over very lightly.
On top of that, we have it from reliable sources that, for the 12 months ended 30th June, 1958, 60,000 Irish men and women, boys and girls, emigrated to Britain and countries all over the world. If the Minister persists in saying that the situation is better than it was last year, he is completely off the mark. Any of us could win an argument here by relating all the promises made in 1932, 1948, 1951 and 1954, what Deputy Dillon said about wheat and what Deputy Corry said about beet. We could go on like that for days and days, but it would not get us away from the fact that we have a situation at present in which we have an abnormal number of unemployed and an abnormal number of emigrants from year to year.
The Minister for Health talked about the balance of payments and touched on agriculture and industry, but he was not convincing in his arguments, so far as this motion is concerned. We may say what we like about the agricultural industry. As far as agriculture is concerned, there have been good Ministers from both sides of the House; but they are all governed by one thing, that is, the demand from Britain for our cattle and the price our cattle can command. We may pat ourselves on the back for a good year or a bad year, but no pats on the back can get over the fact that the British market determines to a great extent what our balance of payments position will be from year to year.
I listened here to the Taoiseach, who is regarded by many people as being a pretty sincere politician. I reserve my views on him, but he is regarded by many people as a sincere politician. On 4th July, 1957, the Taoiseach said— and I suppose one could appreciate it —that Fianna Fáil had been in office for only a few months, the Dáil had been sitting since they assumed office and now that the Recess was coming on 5th July, 1957, they would draw up their plans and bend all their energies towards providing, in the first place, employment for those people who had been rendered unemployed by, as he said, the actions of the previous Government. I remember him pointing to the Minister for Local Government and saying something to this effect—I can get the quotation if anybody wants to challenges me—that Deputy Blaney, as Minister for Local Government, was busily engaged in making plans to revive the house building industry and generally to provide work under his Department. That was said during the debate on the Taoiseach's Estimate or possibly it was the Adjournment Debate. I do not make any personal attack on, or criticism of, the Minister for Local Government. I know that, in the main, the decisions that come from his Department are decisions made by the Government as a whole; but I think it would be right to examine the effects and results of the Minister's work over the past 12 months, especially when we remember what the Taoiseach said in July, 1957 —that Deputy Blaney was doing everything he could to revive the house-building industry.
I asked a question to-day. I asked the Minister for Local Government if he would state the number of men employed by all local authorities on house building at the last date available and at a similar date last year. I discovered that, compared with this time last year, there are 734 fewer people employed on local authority house building. There is no use in the Taoiseach and the Minister for Local Government coming here with the usual Fianna Fáil cry and saying: "We did not know what the situation was." They did know what the situation was in respect of house building. Figures were published from month to month and questions were put down from 1954 to 1957 showing exactly the number of houses built each year, the number still required and all that type of information about housing.
The Taoiseach, in July, 1957, in an effort, as he said, to promote more employment, said that the Minister for Local Government was going to revive the house building industry. Rather than revive it, he has succeeded in slowing down the machine that was fairly slow in 1956 and 1957. Therefore, we must conclude that the Fianna Fáil plans in respect of house building certainly have not materialised.
In another sphere, I do not think it can be said that the activities of the Minister for Local Government have been successful in respect of road work. I asked a question to-day of the Minister for Local Government, asking him to state the number of road workers employed by county councils at the latest date available and at a similar date last year. The reply was to the effect that there were 902 fewer men employed on road building or road work at the present time than there were this time last year. Now, I freely concede that that is a type of work which a lot of people regard as being non-productive.
Any Deputy from a rural area will appreciate particularly the situation that arises when the road workers are laid off or when there is less money provided by county councils or by Governments to engage in that type of work. Let us say there are 15 men in a small district—or ten, or even five— and they are rendered unemployed because the money is not available. The work is there, mark you; there is plenty of work there to be done, but the money is not available. What is the position of those men then? Are the farmers hollering for farm labourers? I do not know of many farmers who want to give a job to a man, even for nine months of the year at the present time, let alone for 12 months. Here are 15 men in a district, 15 men who have been employed on road construction for 25 years— all their lives. These unfortunates, through no fault of their own, regard themselves as road workers and believe they will end their days as road workers. They are 50, 55, or 60 years of age—and they are unemployed. Is it their only alternative to scrape up a few pounds and go to Dún Laoghaire or Rosslare and set sail to the other side, in the evening of their lives?
I do not think we ought allow that sort of situation to continue. I do not think we should say: "Well, boys, you must bear that sort of situation for five years, until the plans of the Minister for Industry and Commerce are going to show results." I think it is not right to say to Irishmen that they must emigrate, that we cannot provide employment for them until we get some industries from Belgium or Germany or America or somewhere else. I would suggest that we should make an effort to provide money for work and that we should not be prepared to concentrate exclusively on productive work—because there is no such thing as productive work in the country at the present time for the people who are registered as unemployed.
The Minister for Lands has been stumping the country lately and reports of his speeches are heard frequently— twice a day on Radio Éireann—but we have still to see the results of his activities as Minister for Lands. As far as I can gather, he does not seem to be making much progress. He has handed out a terrific lot of advice to those who want to plant trees, to those who want to catch fish, whether in the sea or in the rivers, and he has made speeches on various things connected with his Department. We do not see many results and I do not think there will be results, because the money in his Department for fisheries and forestry, and in Lands for employment, has been curtailed over the last two years. I do not know what he can achieve except the making of speeches to be reported on Radio Éireann. Therefore, if we have not a great affection for road work or house building or house repair, we should be prepared to devote money to something like forestry, which is regarded by the Government and by everybody as being productive.
This motion in the names of the members of the Labour Party was put down sincerely, in an effort to awaken the members of the Government from the sleep in which obviously they have been for the last three or four months or, shall we say, since they assumed office. I shall not say their intentions were bad, but they have fallen down on the job and there is no evidence that they have done anything that would go to promote more employment and to reduce emigration. On the contrary, they have succeeded in reducing employment and increasing emigration. I am not going to tell the members of this House that emigration and unemployment were of lesser proportions from 1954 to 1957.
The Labour Party want to deal with the present situation. The Labour Party want to know what the plans of the Government are in respect of these two particular problems. For that reason, the motion has been put down. We know it will be beaten by the majority which the Fianna Fáil Party have but, as I said at the beginning of my speech, it has served the purpose of getting the Minister for Health to his feet, even if he said very little; it has served the purpose of getting the Ministers of the Government to make at least some statement so that the unemployed people of the country and the people generally will be in a position to know whether or not this Government intends to do anything at all about unemployment and emigration.