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Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Thursday, 30 Oct 1958

Vol. 171 No. 3

Unemployment and Emigration: Motion of No Confidence (Resumed).

The following motion was moved by Deputy Norton on 29th October, 1958:—
That, in view of the continued high level of unemployment and emigration and the failure of the Government to fulfil the promises made at the last General Election that they would deal effectively with these problems, the Dáil has no confidence in the Government.
Debate resumed on the following amendment thereto:—
After "emigration" in the third line, to insert "and the acute problems of those engaged in agriculture, business and industry, which have contributed to this situation."—(Deputies Dillon and Cosgrave.)

When the House adjourned last night, I was dealing with the remarks of the Minister for Health, leading the debate on the Government side yesterday afternoon. He referred to the employment situation in the country, and to the amazement of the House and no doubt to the amazement of many of the people sitting behind him, he stated that there had been in the past 12 months a substantial improvement in employment. According to the figures supplied by the Taoiseach's Department, there is a reduction of 24,000 in the numbers in employment, and how the Minister for Health can relate a reduction of 24,000 in employment to a "substantial improvement" baffles me and, I am sure, many members of the House. Of course, the situation is that there was high unemployment shortly before this Government attained office. That unemployment was tapering off, but at least the unemployed in those days registered. On the incoming of this Government, we find the situation where able-bodied men no longer register. The moment they lose their employment, they secure a ticket for transport to employment in Britain.

This pattern has been accentuated in recent months and we now see a return showing that some 60,000 have emigrated in the past year. How could any responsible Minister, having had years and years of ministerial office, stand up in this House and say that the attitude of those proposing the motion and amendment was unrealistic, while describing a reduction of 24,000 in employment as "a substantial improvement in the employment situation"? Emigration has relieved the unemployment situation. That must be conceded. Anybody in the rural parts realises that it has gone on and on in evergrowing intensity since this Government was elected.

Amongst the vapourings we heard from the Minister was the still more astonishing statement that the improvement in our external trading was a consequence of this Government's policy. He put it quite succinctly. He said: "We redressed the balance of payments situation." I ask Deputies to consider that for a moment. Do they think there is a scintilla of truth in what the Minister said when he made that statement? Is it not a fact that the measures taken were taken by the previous Government? They were effective measures, measures which were not opposed when introduced here. They were criticised outside, but when it came to positive parliamentary action, the Fianna Fáil Party now in office did not divide the House on the issue of the measures introduced by the previous Government, but they did something else. If those measures resulted in the extreme hardship which the Minister for Health contends, why did the Minister for Finance write into permanent legislation provisions whereby the levies, which were imposed to do a specific corrective job of work, were turned into tax revenue measures, measures designed to inflate the revenue of the Government in the years that lie ahead?

If those measures were as harmful as was said here in Dublin City, in Cork, throughout the country, at every chapel gate and cross-road, why did the present Government on their return to office avail of those measures —with small changes, I admit? Deputy Booth was very quick to acknowledge in this House that the people in whom he was specifically interested were very grateful to the Government for certain remissions given to them. One must not forget that, at a time when conditions may still have been difficult, there was a certain easement but again the remainder of these levies was used to secure revenue for this Government.

Consequently, it is very hard to relate the Fianna Fáil Party's criticism of those measures at their introduction with the statement that they had hand, act or part in the rectification of our imbalance of payments. Is it not true that the real contribution towards the improvement in our balance of payments was the contribution made in agricultural production? Was it not our agricultural exports that improved the situation? We see disturbing signs in recent months. Is this the time for this Government to ignore that industry and treat it as it is being treated? Later on, I intend to deal with some of the remarks made by the Minister for Agriculture last night, in which I shall deal more specifically with the agricultural situation.

The Minister for Health tried— were it not for the presence of Deputy Sweetman on this side of the House when he was speaking, he might have gone further—to capitalise on certain headway which has been made in relation to the securing of capital abroad. He referred to international agencies which were going to provide very much of the capital that would make it possible for them to do something very impressive in the distant future. When he was interrupted by Deputy Sweetman, he admitted that, in fact, it was the Minister for Finance in the last Government who had sent the Secretary of the Department of Finance to the United States and had launched the drive which this Government accepted as being a good thing and which had almost culminated at the time they walked into office.

Then the Minister for Health went on to say that it has not been the habit of the Fianna Fáil Party when they get into office to jettison any good scheme introduced by their predecessors. Will any rural Deputy sitting in the Government Benches think for a moment of what the present Government did to the Local Authorities (Works) Act? What did they do to it? They wiped it out of existence. Was it not a good scheme? Was there a single member of a local authority throughout the country who ever protested at any time against the expenditure of a single pound of the moneys that came from the central Exchequer to every local authority in the country to provide good employment on a worthwhile scheme? Its discontinuance was supposed to have been a saving. It was no saving. The men who had £5 a week were deprived of that income; their families were deprived of it.

We had the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Social Welfare coming in here with a Supplementary Estimate to pay £3 1s. a week, for being idle, to the men who had been in employment, getting £5 a week under the Local Authorities (Works) Act. Was it not a beneficial thing for the country that that scheme assisted the farmers in field drainage which they required in their holdings? Was it not a good thing to relieve the rate-payers of the additional charges of the consequences of flooding which were abated through the operations under that Act? There is an instance. There is no explanation for the destruction of that scheme other than the fact that it was introduced by Ministers on this side of the House.

Again, in agriculture, one of the most worthwhile schemes ever initiated in the history of this State was the land rehabilitation scheme, a scheme which is acknowledged to-day by every person in the country as one which was of infinite value in improving the land, in making it possible for our agriculturists to make the contribution which they are making now. Yet on the last occasion that Fianna Fáil got into office, what was one of their first acts? To sell the land project machinery. The Minister for Health says that they never at any time did anything to affect seriously any worthwhile scheme initiated by the people in Government before them.

The Minister went on to refer to the Whitegate Refinery. Deputy Corry was in a very confident mood here yesterday in relation to employment. He was not as confident in relation to conditions in agriculture, but he announced to the House that there was not a single man unemployed in his constituency, and that they were even accommodating workers from all parts of Cork and Waterford, in the scheme initiated and now happily in progress at Whitegate. Of course, the Minister for Health, with his usual aplomb, was not beyond claiming that it was his Government that was responsible for the establishment of the Whitegate Refinery. I can remember a by-election in West Limerick, and Deputy Corry was there promising 3d. a gallon increase in the price of creamery milk. He also heard his colleagues in West Limerick say: "If we had our way, the oil refinery would not be in Whitegate." We had to face that at every chapel gate in West Limerick, but it is all right now, when it is established at Whitegate, for the Minister for Health to get up here, with the concurrence of his colleague in the back benches, Deputy Corry, and claim that his Government was actually responsible for the establishment of that refinery. I will leave other speakers to deal with his claims in relation to the Avoca mines. They are too ridiculous to take up the time and attention of the House.

As I said last night, one recalls all the ballyhoo, the intense propaganda, that surrounded the announcement by the Tánaiste in Clery's restaurant of the £100,000,000 plan to provide 100,000 jobs. I can recall how at that time an industrialist from my constituency was affected, a man who progressed extremely well—he was a very close friend of the Fianna Fáil Party. The man could hardly talk to me, he was so overcome with emotion. It was the night following the announcement of the £100,000,000 plan. He was terrifically impressed by all the good that was to flow from the consequences of this expenditure. This was something, he thought, that would revolutionise the whole country overnight. Then they attained Government and the plan was relegated to the scrap heap. Now, Deputy Lemass, the Tánaiste, returned briefly to this country to make the earth-shaking pronouncement in the Mansion House that we were to have a £220,000,000 scheme. Two Ministers spoke in this House yesterday and neither one nor the other referred to it. Is there unity in the Cabinet in relation to the £220,000,000 plan?

There will be a White Paper.

Is there unity in the Cabinet in relation to it, or is it to go the road of the £100,000,000 plan? Deputy Corry referred to Irish Steel and what the Fianna Fáil Party had done to guarantee employment there. I think the greatest contribution towards employment in Irish Steel was made at the time the last Government was in office, when we made it a condition of payment of grants for the erection of agricultural out-offices that only Irish iron would be used in their construction. That opened up a guaranteed market for all the iron which that industry at Haulbowline could produce. Indeed, there were occasions when it was unable to meet the home demand in that respect. There was a contribution which was made without any increase in the price of the iron. It was done by a certain administrative action which made it possible for that industry to be guaranteed a market for all its output.

The Minister for Health was extremely nasty in the way in which he accepted the speech made from this side by the former Minister for Agriculture, Deputy Dillon. When we recall the treatment meted out to that Minister during all the time he occupied the Ministry for Agriculture we must certainly remark that he is a big man, in more ways than one, in the contribution he made from this side of the House yesterday. Because he made a constructive speech, because he made certain suggestions, it was immediately twisted by the Minister for Health to suggest that in some way this Party were standing behind the present policy of the Government. He will know more about that in due course. But the former Minister for Agriculture made certain suggestions and his successor went to the trouble of attempting to reply. He ignored what was probably the most important point, in relation to the period for which store cattle have to be kept in England before qualifying for the guaranteed price.

The Minister for Agriculture argued with himself for a long time last night. Again he came back with the old excuse that in fact this Government was given a blank cheque and that consequently he could not understand what all this talk was about. They were put there and the people deserved what they got. That was more or less the tenor of his contribution last night. If any Government received a blank cheque from the electorate is there not all the greater obligation on them? The Opposition refrained for quite a long time from putting down anything, by way of positive criticism of the Government. It gave them every chance, seasoned campaigners though they were, to get into office and implement the programme which they had announced: "Fianna Fáil Plans to End Emigration", "Right Leadership Can Solve Our Difficulties", "All Energies Devoted to One Aim—Further Employment and a Plan for Agriculture." Here is the gem: "Action Can Start Now." There was no qualification whatever; it could start right away. "Let's Get Cracking", "Let Us Go Ahead Again.""An Attack on the Wheat Growers"—a sore subject at the moment. "The Fianna Fáil Plan for Unemployment."

We have had all those from the productions of the Party now in office when they were not in office, implying that all that was necessary was to translate them from one side of the House to the other. Now for the second time the Minister for Agriculture stands up and says: "We have got a blank cheque from the people; there is no need to attempt anything." Then in a more amicable mood he said they wanted time to settle down. There is no question now of going ahead. They wanted time to settle down. They got the time and we were more than indulgent in giving them time. After two years this responsible Minister says: "We got a blank cheque and it was a bad year. What could we do about it?"

Now for the proposals made by Deputy Dillon. When he was Minister for Agriculture the dairy farmers were absolutely positive in relation to what they expected of the last Government. They expected an increase of 3d. per gallon on the price of creamery milk. Yesterday Deputy Dillon did not demand 3d. a gallon but suggested to the Government that it might be a good thing to assist the eradication of bovine tuberculosis if an incentive of 1d. per gallon were given. It was not in addition to the price that obtained when the last Government left office. It was to restore 1d. of the 1½d. taken off by this Government, and that would not be paid to every creamery but only to those who voluntarily participated in the bovine tuberculosis scheme.

The Minister says it cannot be done. He referred to the fact that there were many many incentives of which he could think, but he did not think of any. In fact, the incentives were there and we know what happened to them. There was the incentive of the double byre grant. Last night the Minister for Agriculture fell back again on his one and only excuse in relation to that: "Surely to goodness I am such a fine fellow that I would not do anything that might excite the criticism of the officers in my Department?" He implied that at any rate, whoever was responsible, it was never a good thing. He implied that the farmers who participated in the scheme did it merely to get this hand-out, to get this double byre grant, as if the building of those byres was not a contribution in itself to the eradication of bovine tuberculosis. Surely he must realise the capital cost for dairy farmers to-day to meet the cost of replacements as well as for structural alterations to combat that disease.

Here we have a Minister asking: "What good was it anyway?"—as if it did not mean the erection of good hygienic buildings which would help to combat the disease. He did not refer to the contribution—years before he came to office—made by the erection of out-buildings. Now at a time when every section of the community is being given increased wages and salaries, to meet partially the impact on their families caused by the withdrawal of the food subsidies, we have the small farmers singled out for a reduction in their incomes, at a time when they have got to meet increased rates consequent on the higher cost of running public institutions, and arising from the fact that public servants had to be given some compensation to alleviate the higher cost of living.

Every time one turned on Radio Éireann one heard, if the Minister for Lands was not being reported, of some section of the community receiving an increase which only partially met the increased cost of living. The one section left out on the wing was the farmers, in milk, wheat and every commodity that they have to produce. If we left to the Government the surplus which they regarded as being such a serious embarrassment, how do they think those surpluses were secured? By giving guaranteed prices over which the Government stood. We did not have any of the niggling to which the Minister resorted last night when he talked about an act of God, and made the case that it would be impossible for this Government to give guaranteed prices of any kind.

The Deputy is enlarging the scope of this motion.

I am attempting to deal with what the Minister said last night.

Do these matters contribute to the high level of emigration and unemployment? That is the test of it.

The terms of the amendment are:—"and the acute problems of those engaged in agriculture, business and industry, which have contributed to this situation."

Contributed to unemployment and emigration.

Is it the Deputy's contention that they have?

Yes, certainly. If out-offices are not being erected to-day, you will find the people who would have been engaged on them, in Birmingham, London and Coventry. If the farmers have reduced incomes, they cannot pay the workers. The people in the country who I contend are the hardest hit to-day are those in the small towns and villages because when the cost of living was shot up, their spending power was seriously affected. I know of a family in my constituency where it costs 3/2½d. to put bread alone on the table at each meal to eight young growing children. Yet, they find their neighbours coming back from Britain saying: "We saw butter at 2/- a lb. or less." It is 4/4 a lb. in this country.

I represent a part of the country which is predominantly dairying, where we are dependent on butter consumption to absorb most of our milk production, but the action of this Government, in contradistinction to what the previous Government did when they reduced the price of butter by 5d. a lb., was to wipe out that butter subsidy, with the result that margarine is to-day going into homes into which it never before went in living memory. I know from the small traders of the slump in the sales of butter to families who would not hitherto dream of eating a meal without butter. That is a consequence of the deliberate action of this Government which seriously affects the dairying industry.

The suggestion was made here last night that the 1d. a gallon would be restored only to the voluntary participants in the bovine T.B. scheme and not to those from whom it was taken away in the last year and a half. Is there not a good case to be made, not alone for the restoration of that amount to the dairy-farmers, but also for giving them some comparable increase to help them meet the increased cost of living which affects them as much as any other section in relation to the prices they have to pay for the necessaries of life?

The Minister for Agriculture dealt with grain. He said it was a great problem. It is a problem no longer. What was the problem? Too much of it? Too much of it at the prices then obtaining, but Deputy Corry can stand up behind the Minister and say: "Yes, I must confess I said in Limerick City in the presence of the Taoiseach that if our candidate was elected in that by-election, we would give £4 a barrel for wheat." What an awful embarrassment it must be for a Minister of this Government to hear one of the back-benchers of his own Party—and at that time the shadow Minister for Agriculture—announcing that he had said this and putting it on the record. Of course they got the seat; that is how they obtained office. What do the wheat growers think to-day? What do they know of the prices they will get? Did the Minister refer even once last night to the abuses in the screenings stipulation in regard to wheat that have been going on during the past couple of months?

There is only one character with which the present Minister in recent weeks can be compared, that is, the Scarlet Pimpernel. The farmers sought him here and they sought him there, but the Minister was not to be found. Some official had to meet the representatives——

It seems to me that the Deputy is travelling a long way from the motion now. Surely this is going into the administration of the Department?

The day is young yet.

And seeing that the Government cannot find any business, is it not providential that we have some motion to give the House something to do after three months?

The Tánaiste is in London and practically all the business on the Order Paper is in his name. The other Ministers must be in a coma.

There is plenty of time.

When the Minister for Agriculture was dealing with the terrible conditions that exist in relation to this year's harvest, of course he could see no other factor but the weather. The weather was responsible for everything, but mark you, he brought in his proposal to levy 5/9 per barrel, not because of the weather, but on the basis that we would have a large exportable surplus. What argument have the people now who voted with the Government for that levy?

If the Government had no other fund which they could call on to come to the rescue of wheat which was unmillable, then one might consider the 5/9. Even then, there would be the argument that the small grower who had been very careful about harvesting his wheat was being called upon to make a contribution of 5/9 a barrel to ensure that the exploiter—the man who never sees the wheat—will not lose as much as he might otherwise lose. We would have the careful, hardworking, energetic farmers who always grew wheat mulcted to the extent of 5/9 a barrel to guarantee that the exploiters would not be put completely out of business. But that was not the only fund to which the Government could have recourse and I see no reason why, even at this late hour, a refund of 15/- or £1 per barrel on wheat could not be made and still leave the Government a profit.

I do not see how all this has a bearing on the high level of unemployment and emigration.

I am dealing positively with a statement made by the Minister for Agriculture last night, and if he was permitted to make it——

I have given the Deputy a good deal of latitude already on agriculture.

If I may bring this to a head, I shall deal with the Minister's announcement to the House last night——

The Leas-Cheann Comhairle said he was not in order.

If that is true, the Deputy is charging the Minister with going on with the very lengthy speech against the ruling of the Chair. I was here also when the Leas-Cheann Comhairle made that remark. It was very interesting that the Minister said it, and it was only proper that he should deal with this pressing and immediate problem when he got an opportunity.

On some other occasion, perhaps, but not when it was irrelevant on an occasion such as this.

At any rate, I took the trouble of taking down a lot of notes of what he said. He made the statement that the Government could not be expected to subsidise the export of surplus wheat. We are at variance on that because in another bad year a previous Government had recourse to the Exchequer to come to the rescue at that time. Now it is the policy of this Government not to do anything like that, and am I being unfair in this case in saying it would be improper on the part of the Government to make a profit out of the fact that this was a bad year and that they are going to save the Exchequer approximately £1,000,000 on cheap imported wheat now coming in? Out of that £1,000,000 which is available to them, according to the estimate provided last night it would cost only £500,000 to £750,000. Then the Government could still have a profit of £250,000 to £500,000, on the saving on imported wheat and still provide 15/- or £1 which would save the wheat growers from the full impact of this disastrous year. Now, I have finished on that point.

Every section of our people is affected by the present conditions and we have absolutely no evidence of the Government having used the months of recess to adopt any proposal to alleviate the situation, or to formulate any policy which we could recognise as likely to bring greater prosperity to the country. We believe that their financial policy since they attained office is responsible for most of our problems, that they gave no indication whatever to the people that this would occur if they assumed office.

We know that very many private employers agreed, in justice to the demands of their employees, to a wage increase which in many instances had to be met by reducing the numbers engaged in that industry. That has contributed to the displacement of some of the 24,000 people that were employed before this Government attained office and are no longer in employment. Deputy Loughman has yet to speak and no doubt when he does he will recount to the House his sorry tale of what is happening in Ardfinnan. He will tell you of the numbers that are under notice in Ardfinnan mills as I can tell of what is happening to the mills in Mallow; of people who had employment before this Government attained office and have employment no longer; of people who are no longer in this country to vote either for the Government or the Opposition Parties and who are more interested to-day in the issue between Conservative and Labour in Britain. They realise they were duped into voting this Government into office and in bringing down upon themselves and their families the troubles which they now have.

There is also the agricultural community, many of whom asked for this and who to-day are very sorry people because of the conditions in which they find themselves. We have criticism of some of the actions of the last Government and some of their expenditure. We have the Inchicore chassis factory to which the Minister for Health, because he was so muddled, referred as the "chassis" factory. He said that the poor inter-Party Government were responsible for the fact that it did not go ahead but he did not refer to the fact that in consequence we were able to move arterial drainage forward three years because previously there was no servicing for the machinery that the Board of Works had. The machinery available was only a fraction of what was necessary to proceed with vast schemes of arterial drainage. Deputy Moloney from North Kerry can tell this House of the benefits that came to his constituency in consequence of the drainage that was carried out there from Ardfert to Tarbert——

In consequence of an Act passed by Fianna Fáil when they were in power.

——in consequence of the fact that the inter-Party Government provided the drainage machinery and had it serviced at Inchicore, and because the moneys were made available. We had the Brosna, the North Kerry scheme, which happily is now complete because bad as the year was, with many parts of the country seriously affected by flooding, there was no flooding between Ardfert and Ballylongford, between Ballyduff and Moyvane. In all of this vast stretch of country which I saw at one time under flood water, there was no flooding because of the capital investment of the inter-Party Government that carried out the schemes which benefited those farmers who could not even apply for an ordinary land project grant in that area because there was no outfall.

I suggest that was a good scheme and that the Local Authorities (Works) Act was another. That was a direct consequence of the wisdom of the people when they elected the first inter-Party Government in 1948. Now we have the situation where the Local Authorities (Works) Act is wiped out, resulting in a slowing down in these beneficial schemes and a situation in which the incomes of the people in North Kerry, as in my own constituency, are very seriously affected. Look at what they have to pay now for a bag of flour, for a loaf of bread, a lb. of butter; 1½d. has been taken off the price of milk and their wheat and barley are down in price. As Deputy Moloney is in complete agreement, I have no more to say.

I was interested in listening to Deputy O'Sullivan. It would look as though the Fine Gael Party were dying to get back into office in order to get us into some more financial trouble, in order that we can have further Budget deficits to deal with, in order that we can run further into debt and spend more millions, not devoted towards production, but trying to create a sort of stop-gap position, of trying to create prosperity in the wrong way, by spending money which other people have to pay for later.

Deputy O'Sullivan referred to some observations by the Minister for Agriculture last night. We had to inherit an appalling position in which some of the principal commodities produced by our farmers had been produced in surplus. They had been given no warning; no arrangements. had been made to deal with the surplus, no marketing system provided, We found ourselves in the position of having, first of all, to deal with a Budget deficit in the year we took office of £5,500,000 and then of having to borrow in the succeeding 12 months, I think it was some £3,500,000, instead of taxing the people, in order to deal with the agricultural surplus and with the general mess that had been made by the Government in connection with agricultural production.

From hearing Deputy O'Sullivan speak, it would seem as though he would like to get back to office to lash out many more millions and then leave it for some other Government to follow him who would have to clean up the mess later, with nobody really any richer at all, with the farmers given the appearance of being aided or assisted in some way, but in the end the farmers having to pay in one way or another through increased taxation or through paying more for goods which they bought in the shops on which taxes had been piled.

The people have been desperately disillusioned in the last ten years because of that kind of practice and when Deputy Dillon said the people were disillusioned because of the actions of the present Government we have to remind ourselves again that it takes quite a long time to overcome disillusionment which was the result of nearly ten years' propaganda by the Coalition Parties.

It will be remembered that during the war this country was well governed and well administered. We left this country in a sound financial state in 1948 and then we had ten years of Coalition propaganda. The impression was given to the people that as long as drink and tobacco were cheap everything would be all right. They promised to reduce the price of everything to make life easy immediately, giving the people the idea that they were entitled to a good living, that no desperate effort by anybody was required in order to bring prosperity. That movement was largely inspired through the influence of Clann na Poblachta on the hitherto conservative Fine Gael Party, the Party that promised the sun, the moon and the stars, that advocated the printing of bank notes and gave the impression that the only thing that was required to end emigration was for the Government to spend money, that there was no need for any fundamental and searching examination of the productive system, that nothing was required by way of an improvement in marketing methods, that as long as money was spent and spent freely enough, as long as the Government stood ready to offer, almost without condition, a sufficient number of hundreds of millions we could have prosperity overnight.

People have been further disillusioned by the fact that in one year alone a third of the whole of the savings made during the war were spent owing to the loose control by the Government in regard to the finances of the country. In one short year, in 1951, one-third of our war savings were eliminated. The savings that disappeared at that time could have been conserved by wise action, and the fact that they disappeared made inevitable the otherwise completely unnecessary financial crisis in 1955 and 1956. Anybody who stands up in the Dáil on the Opposition side and says the people are disillusioned, that we are facing difficulties, that we have not yet employed a sufficient number of new workers, or that emigration is still proceeding has got to account for the fact that there was absolutely no necessity for the crisis to take place. It need never have happened, were it not for the Coalition mentality which has pervaded the whole economic atmosphere of this country for some years and which we were barely able to restrain and set right during the brief interval of our office between 1951 and 1954.

This country is a credit-worthy country, with vast investments abroad, and there was absolutely no need for a position to be reached wherein emergency levies had to be imposed, the sort of levies imposed by the countries who never made any savings or lost any savings they had in the war. It should never have been necessary for us to take action of that kind. It was the result of foolish extravagance and thinking always in terms of: "Spend the money; it will make things easy for the people." If anything, the second Coalition was more unstable than the first. The people had the second experience of being governed by a group of Parties who never could really agree. The people knew in their hearts that sooner or later a crack would come in the structure of the Government and the Government would disappear. They became very much disillusioned with Governments in general as a result of two successive examples of Coalition Government.

We have had a difficult time in our Government in trying to tell the hard and bitter truth about economics in Ireland. For the past ten years, we have had to weather a hurricane of propaganda suggesting that we need not face the hard truth. It will take us a considerable time to overcome the difficulties occasioned by the fact that people have not faced the ultimate realities. During the whole of the period of Coalition Government, we never heard Coalition Ministers until it was too late, telling the people that their prosperity was largely the result of the dissipation of war savings. It was not the result of any great solid permanent increase in the volume of agricultural production; it was not the result of any solid permanent increase in the value and volume of industrial exports. We were merely spending an extra £20,000,000 of war time savings per year in addition to our other income from agricultural industry. That gave an appearance of prosperity. It gave an appearance of giving employment. There was never any indication given by Coalition Ministers to the people that that sort of thing could not continue. It was we who had to give the warning. It was we who had to warn the people. It was we who had to take restrictive action to prevent the savings being finally and completely dissipated.

Is it any wonder that the people are disillusioned when we remember that for nine long years we had all these dreary utterances from Deputy Dillon, former Minister for Agriculture, always boasting of the increase in the value of the exports of cattle and always taking as his base line the year 1947, the year in which we had the worst weather conditions ever experienced in this country, and proving on that basis that, because there was a terrific increase in the value of exports and in the value of production from the base line of 1947, the Coalition Government had perpetrated a miracle upon the people? Is it any wonder then that we have now to face the ultimate disillusionment and patiently begin on an entirely new basis of argument? It will take us a very considerable time to make absolutely clear to everybody that what is needed is not alone an increase in price but an increase in the amount of production.

An increase in the amount of production?

An increase in the amount of production. For a very long period, we had, as I have said, to listen to these false figures being trotted out as to the increase in the value of our exports, when it was perfectly obvious that sooner or later prices would stop rising and, sooner or later, we would have to get down to the fundamental problem of increasing our total cattle stocks. Time after time, we had Deputy Dillon boasting about the increased exports of cattle, a very gratifying increase. We never heard the Coalition Government during that period reminding the people that the total number of breeding cows had remained unaltered since 1900 and that it was then still the same as it was in 1939. The real problem, of course, was increasing the stock and developing a far greater number of cattle through an overall increase in the breeding population. We never heard that emphasised during the period of Coalition Government. We used to hear the glib phrase about another cow, another sow and so on. I forget the exact phrase, but it was a simplification of what was a far vaster problem, namely, that of increasing our entire volume of agricultural production on a fundamental basis.

During the Coalition period in office, there were never any steps taken to deal with the marketing of products at a time when improved marketing measures were vitally necessary. The Coalition Government had magnificent chances after the war to place the pig industry once and for all on a sound foundation. That industry has never yet been placed on a sound foundation. A study of markets was essential because of the very keen competition in regard to prices and because rival nations had evolved a marketing system compared with which we had none whatever. It was never made clear to the people that if we wanted to share the market for pigs and bacon with the Danes on a really sound fundamental basis, we would have to make a most radical change in pig production, pig collection and pig marketing and in all phases of the pig industry from the actual breeding to the point at which the bacon was ultimately sold by the salesman in Great Britain. None of that was studied by the Coalition Governments during their period in office. All that work has now patiently to be done under far more difficult circumstances because there is no longer a scarcity market for any product that we sell and the difficulties are far greater in relation to the establishment of a new and improved marketing system.

No effort was ever made by the Coalition Government to make it quite clear to the people that we had here an Irish standard of living and that the mere effort, supported by Government influence, simply to try to automatically reach the English standard of living might put us in the position wherein many of our products would be too costly to export. No warnings of that kind were ever given, again until the end. But encouragement was given for wages to chase prices and for prices to chase wages. Loose talk was indulged in and no effort was made to remind people that because of the fact that we are an island on the edge of the Atlantic, our costs of production must be kept down to the point at which we can attract investment in new industries, thereby providing employment for more people. One cannot just go on increasing wages and prices without reference to the numbers one is likely to employ in the future in industrial production.

The Coalition Government was permeated with a sort of philosophy that ab initio the Government can do everything; the Government is the major factor in developing production. The suggestion is being made now that the Government, by producing an economic rabbit out of a hat, can bring about prosperity overnight, and the Government have the power to create employment in an agricultural country. The fact is, and we made it absolutely clear during the last general election, that the bulk of the effort in creating greater employment must of necessity come from the citizens of the country. When we announce our new economic programme, we will make it absolutely clear that its success depends upon the will and ambition of the half-million principal producers, and that no Government in a rural community can by itself stimulate employment. We can give leadership; we can give financial aid; we can promise that capital will be made available; we can make changes in the law designed to assist marketing. When we have done-those things, the rest must come from the private producers.

The problem we face in this country is not something that can be simply dismissed with a few airy words and phrases about getting people to work. The problem consists of securing within the shortest possible period a total increase of production of anything from 25 to 50 per cent. in a largely agricultural country whose methods of agriculture could never be described by any definition as intensive up to now, save with the exception of a particular group of farmers in various areas who have adopted that system. That is the only thing that can bring about a major increase in employment: an increase of production for which markets have to be found, an increase of production that can be established on the present basis of foreign prices, an increase in industrial exports that can be established at a time when the war boom is over and when prices are going down. There is no other way of bringing about an increase of employment.

No public works scheme can possibly have any but a purely temporary effect on the employment of people in this country and if public works schemes were expanded beyond the degree to which savings are available, the only result would be another major crisis in the balance of payments, because one of the first effects of spending money on public works schemes in an agricultural country such as this is that, if it proceeds beyond a certain stage, the people who receive the money simply import vastly increased quantities of goods for which there are no exports to pay. We have been through that process twice already, once in 1951 and again in 1955, and each time it was this Government that had to clear up the difficulties that arose from spending large quantities of money, so that imports increased and the exports were not there to meet them.

I should like, once again, to deal with this whole question of the general election statements of this Party. During the whole of the general election, as I said before in this House, I went around the country and I heard no ludicrous promises made to the people during that general election. Naturally, if you have a general election and speeches taking place in literally hundreds of towns and villages and rural areas, you cannot expect everybody to be perfect, but taking it large and wide, the general election was fought by this Government and by my colleagues in an atmosphere of the most extreme realism. We made it absolutely clear that we would not produce prosperity overnight, that it would take time to clear up the mess we knew we would face, that it would take time to examine the whole of the economic situation. We made it equally clear that, if the people approved of our plans, their cooperation would be necessary, that the establishment of confidence in their minds would be necessary to any plan that we had, to any proposals we adopted for expanding production and, with it, employment.

None of us dreamed of saying at any time that we could stop the flow of emigration overnight. Most of us made it very clear that a great deal of the emigration was due to causes over which the Government of the day have very little control. We said all those things during the general election.

I should like to make very clear again the position about the Fianna Fáil study plans that were published for the general election. We decided that it was a good thing for the people of this country to appreciate the vastness of any plan that would bring about full employment, that, if we were to bring about full employment, tremendous changes had to take place in the amount of production and in the volume of expenditure designed to give employment, that we would have to step-up the whole tempo of production in a way that had never been envisaged before, that there was absolutely no use for Parties to go before the people at the election and promise to give employment by this method and that method, that it was essential to show in the form of a study of our economic position what would be required and we said that it might be possible to put such a plan into operation.

We made it absolutely clear that many of the proposals in the first plan published would have to be studied by the Fianna Fáil Government when they took office, that they were not final proposals, that they were suggestions to be examined by everybody in Fianna Fáil and by those outside it. Then, as the crisis grew deeper, we published a further statement in October, 1956, warning the people that the financial position had deteriorated to such an extent that any financial proposals made in the plan, even although we had not at the time approved of them formally, must be looked at in the light of the serious financial position in which the country found itself. We made it perfectly clear that it would require a great deal more study than we had thought was necessary, study within the Government and not outside it, before we could make any further pronouncements in regard to our fundamental plans.

Of course, the reprint of the plan and the very clear and honest statement made in relation to the financial position as it was in the end of 1956 are never mentioned by the Opposition. They prefer to try to deceive the people by talking about this document for study that was published in 1955 as though it were something that could be immediately put into operation overnight the moment a Fianna Fáil Government took office, regardless of the financial position, regardless of the condition of the Exchequer, regardless of the balance of payments position, regardless of the position in regard to world prices or any other economic factors—that you could simply slam into operation a plan which was clearly published as one for study.

In actual fact, a great many of the proposals made in the second revised plan have been put into operation. If you look at the second revised plan and start to tick off all the measures that have been adopted in that plan, you immediately find that, in fact, many of the proposals made when we were out of office, without all the facts at our command, were found to be practicable and were put into operation within 12 months of our securing office.

I do not think it would be necessary for me to give them in detail because they were mentioned to a very considerable extent by Deputy Noel Lemass last night, but I might mention some of the things which were in the revised version of the Fianna Fáil plan and which were put into operation and the effect of which is intended to be the expansion of production by our own people using the financial aids which were made available and which were included in this plan.

The plan included a statement that it was necessary drastically to reduce food imports. This action was taken immediately. Now we have had a bad harvest and we have to import further grains and other food products. The moment we took office we restricted the imports of barley and maize in order to assist the farmers. We said it was necessary to reduce immediately the import of manufactured goods and we have imposed a large number of tariffs since we took office to give considerable employment.

We decided to leave some of the levies on unmanufactured goods and semi-manufactured goods as a permanent form of tariff because we found that, during the first six months of our office, a number of industries had started to make goods which were subject to levies, and which it was thought were not likely to be made in this country in the course of a number of years to come. We said that there must be an expansion in the tourist industry through the work of Bord Fáilte. Bord Fáilte has received more money, and a very great deal of useful work has been done this year to bring more tourists to the country for fishing holidays. The anglers' associations concerned are very satisfied at the kind of work being done, and with the money being made available by the Government.

The Government also made rearrangements for providing assistance for the reconstruction and construction of hotels, and that also should benefit the tourist industry. We said there must be expansion in the shipping world and capital has been made available for that purpose. We also instituted an inquiry into cross-Channel shipping in connection with which, as everybody knows, there are very many problems.

We made it absolutely clear in the plan that industrial costs would have to be reduced. We advocated the study by industries into ways and means of increasing output, and when we got into office we found that we would have to provide money direct from Government sources to encourage firms to appoint industrial consultants. A sum of money has been available this year the effect of which should be to enable firms to increase their exports and, in so doing, to give greater employment.

We made observations in that plan that we would have to alter our marketing methods in regard to a number of products that we normally export, and we decided that the best way to deal with that was to appoint an agricultural marketing committee. I might add that, in my opinion, that marketing committee should have been appointed in 1948, immediately after the war, because the time to begin a new marketing scheme is when prices are so high that you can impose levies of a kind which will build up a substantial reserve fund which, when prices come down, will save the Exchequer the difficulty of providing export subsidies. One should always begin a marketing scheme when it seems least necessary but, of course, the Coalition Government, during their whole period of office, deferred everything which did not seem necessary at the time because the prices of everything that the farmers sold were rocketing up.

We made it clear that the campaign for the eradication of bovine tuberculosis should be stepped up. We have given a very great increase in the amount of money available for compensation and that campaign has been stepped up intensively throughout the country. We made it clear in this plan that, in relation to farm price guarantees, any average price paid for a product must be related to world prices, and we doubted if permanent arrangements for subsidising exports were desirable. We must try and maintain our exports of the more difficult commodities by means of better methods of production and by a better marketing system. The idea that we could perpetually subsidise exports would not, in the long run, benefit the farmers.

We said that there must be a massive increase in industrial exports and we gave more taxation exemptions. We said that capital for industries must be more easily secured and, within a year and a half, we reorganised the method of operation by the Industrial Credit Corporation. We established a new Control of Manufactures Act and we applied to join two international monetary funds whereby capital would become available. We reorganised Coras Tráchtála Teoranta, and the whole attitude of the Department of Finance has been changed in the direction of ensuring that capital would be made available for industries. The Industrial Credit Corporation was told to take a broad and generous view of applications made for loans for new industries and we must take some risk in regard to that. At the same time we decided to make the grants under the Undeveloped Areas Act available for a longer period.

We also referred to agricultural credit and, at the moment, an agricultural committee is examining the whole question of agricultural credit to see what more needs to be done.

From the top.

We also promised to do the best we could to bring about greater efficiency in Government administration, and there has been a reduction and an improvement in some Departments. There were considerable savings on a number of Votes in the financial year in 1957-58. Overtime pay was cancelled and everything is being done to reorganise the Civil Service in order to reduce administrative expenditure.

Talking about this study plan, as I said, a great deal of the proposals have already been adopted. The plan was not mythical. The other questions which required further study have now been brought under examination, but I might add that you cannot examine the entire agricultural and industrial policy of the country, and project into the future the targets for production, to see what can be done on a very big and major scale, without taking some time. I know in connection with my own Department, and every Minister knows this, that one cannot review the whole of the needs of one's particular sphere of production within a period of six or nine months, and without considerable study.

I suppose the Opposition thought that the first study plan that we published before securing office was just a gimmick to amuse the electors, but, when the development programme is published, as it will be in a couple of weeks, they will see that we went on to do exactly what we said we would do when publishing those two plans, the first plan and then the revised plan in October, 1956. We did try. to clarify to the people what was required to secure the kind of employments which we need to have if we are to become a prosperous country. The plan indicated the line of approach necessary and the capital that would be made available. We did make a clear distinction between what the Government could do directly itself, and what would have to be done by the producers with Government assistance and leadership.

Notice taken that 20 Members were not present, House counted, and 20 Members being present,

I was speaking about the economic programme. One might compare it to a number of pioneers mapping in advance an area for exploration by a larger group to follow. That could be one description of this economic programme that will be published. Now the Government, with the aid of State officers, adopting the suggestions of production associations, adopting ideas which have been thought of in the past, and devising new projects, have grouped together a series of projects for the future in connection with forestry, fisheries, agriculture and industry. Having mapped the future and indicated how far they are willing to provide aid and help, and how far it must be provided by the community, much will depend on the confidence of the people in the future of the country.

The final result of this programme will depend very largely on whether people are prepared to take certain risks, to make certain changes in their methods of production, whether they are prepared to look forward, to take a gamble in some respects, based on the general idea that there will be markets for us, that we will be able to export in the far future. There is nothing we can do which relates to any particular year. Anything that comes to the good of this country must be based on a long-term decision to increase production, to increase exports, to take the risks involved in increasing production when no one can foresee what the market will be later on.

Countries with greater wealth than ours, countries such as Denmark and Holland, have far exceeded our national income per head by taking those risks and enormously increasing production and developing a marketing system which has withstood the test of time although there may be occasional surpluses, occasional difficulties and occasional recessions in production. That is the sort of thing we shall have to do in this country if we want to ensure a sufficient level of employment to prevent excessive emigration.

My last word is simply to remind the Opposition that they jeered at our £100,000,000 plan. They misdescribed it and distorted it. A great many of the proposals in it have been put into operation and the promises we made when publishing those plans for study, that we were undertaking a final complete survey of the country's economic requirements and would publish a programme and indicate our contribution to it, have been fulfilled. When the economic programme is published, a month from now, it will be seen that the result of very close examination during the past 12 months of the previous proposals made in the first plan, made when we were in opposition, has led to the present more detailed programme.

I listened very attentively to the Minister for Lands. The feeling I got, running through the whole thread of his speech this morning, is of the future—the far, far future.

Live horse and you will get grass.

He has told us about the number of plans. I should like to bring the attention of the Government and this House back a short period, back to the beginning of last year. There was no indication from the gentlemen who are now members of this Government or their cohorts in the various parts of this country, and specifically their most voluble spokesman in the City of Dublin, that they were looking for a change of Government so that they could produce theoretical plans which might tend, in the words of the Minister for Lands, to produce a reduction in the necessity for emigration in the distant future. Oh no.

I have to give credit to the Taoiseach, to the members of his Government and to the members of his Party for the ability to be completely and utterly two-faced. On one side of their face they present to this House, to the country and to the world at large an impression of a statesmanlike approach, of calm consideration of problems affecting the country and the people of the country. They present to us here their case that nothing can be done unless all financial and economic considerations are taken into account and that the people who go to make up our country will, themselves, have to examine all these considerations and decide whether they will take certain acts in furtherance of theoretical plans. But, on the other side, both the leaders of the Government and their spokesmen throughout the country consistently hold out-as they did just before the last general election—the carrot to the donkey. "Give us your confidence.""Return us to Dáil Éireann as a Government, women of Dublin, and we will ensure that your husbands and your sons will have employment."

Let them "get cracking".

They forgot to add that their assurance to the mothers and wives of this country carried a tag. They would ensure they would have employment in Birmingham, London, Leeds or Manchester, or in the U.S.A. if they could scrape up the fare—anywhere but in Ireland. That is one phase of the matter that was brought home to the ordinary people of this country in the past 18 months.

Having said, before a change of Government, that they could see no difficulty in putting 100,000 people to work, and this statement being circulated widespread throughout the country, even in the knowledge that the normal requirements in this country each year were estimated to be an additional 20,000 jobs to be found for those coming into the labour market, they failed to provide that work. Once the country put its trust again in the Taoiseach, who had successfully bamboozled them on more than one occasion, all their economic difficulties would be solved.

Of course a few months before that at a time when, as the Minister for Lands mentioned this morning, there were definite financial difficulties facing the country, you had the same approach by the spokesmen of Fianna Fáil, whether in this House, as members of local authorities, as groups in contact with industrialists or with builders or anyone else. There was no question at that period of a calm appraisal of the difficulties facing the country which we had from the Minister for Lands this morning. No, the hue and cry was out then from every Fianna Fáil cumann. From every alleged responsible member of the Party the cry was that more money must be paid out for housing and every other service.

And so we have this Government, whose members claim to have a sense of responsibility, telling us that we can obtain a living in this country only if we meet certain requirements—if first of all, our 50,000 unemployed are satisfied to remain unemployed for the next ten or 15 years or to leave the country, if those in receipt of a small wage rate are satisfied to accept a miserable standard of living, and if those in receipt of unemployment assistance, unemployment insurance or social welfare benefits are satisfied to continue to eke out a dreary and miserable existence.

But they did not tell us that 18 months ago. Deputies in this House— some of them are Ministers now— asked the ordinary people to do just one simple thing—go along on election day and mark one, two, three or four as the case might be, always making sure to stop at the Fianna Fáil candidate. When they did that if they were unemployed, work would be made available. If their husbands were unemployed it would not be long before they were in a job and if their sons were unemployed they would be working too.

The Labour Party's motion of no confidence has been moved for the purpose of asking this Government to explain, not just to this House but to the country at large, what have been the net results of their activities during the past 18 or 19 months. The Minister for Lands said that a Minister whether he is the Minister for Lands, the Minister for Local Government, the Minister for Finance or any other Minister could not be expected to have a review of the whole operations of his Department in a matter of days or weeks.

I do not think anyone quarrels with that. When this Government were returned to office we made it plain from these benches that even though they had been returned to office as a result of a campaign of trickery, we nevertheless did not think that the 90,000 unemployed would be put to work in a month, three months or six months but we did anticipate that a Government, whose Taoiseach said on his return to office that the problem of unemployment would receive priority consideration, would, at least towards the end of their second year of office again, be in a position to produce results.

We were told yesterday by the Minister for Health the results of the gargantuan efforts of, mind you, an experienced Government—not one of these inter-Party Governments, not one of these Governments made up of different elements expressing different points of view and being under some compulsion to try to get an agreed point of view. It is an experienced Government led by the Taoiseach whose picture is published at every general election with the slogan: "Vote for Dev." You do not vote for Fianna Fáil policy at general elections. You do not vote for Fianna Fáil Ministers or capable spokesmen. No, the public in this country are gulled to vote for Dev. For the past 18 or 19 months we have a Government in office which have many years' previous experience and many opportunities of acquiring the knowledge of how to administer the affairs of Government and the affairs of the country and with one Leader and all the yes-men gathered around him.

The Minister for Health told us yesterday that the result of these efforts is to reduce the number on the live register by approximately 3,000. It that not a wonderful success story? I wonder what those who have been signing up at the employment exchanges for the past 18 months, drawing assistance and getting relief and outdoor assistance, think about that as a success story?

Are we to take it from the statement of the Minister for Lands that we are to have another plan showing us a rosy future for our country to operate on the basis that in some dim, distant future, we will have a reduction in the live register of 1,500 people per year? When we relate that to the present 50,000, I take it that the Minister for Lands says that, under the present proposals, it will take 25 years to deal with the present level of unemployment?

Let us look at the reduction of 3,000 which the Minister for Health says is "a substantial reduction" in the numbers on the live register. That figure is only part of the story. We were told in answer to a question yesterday that there are in the neighbourhood of 30,000 fewer people in insurable employment in the last two years. Perhaps the Taoiseach, or whoever is replying to the debate, will be in a position to explain how there has been a substantial reduction in the level of unemployment against a background of 3,000 fewer on the live register and 30,000 fewer in employment.

We know what the figures say. They say there has been a substantial increase in emigration. But the Minister for Lands, and, I think, the Minister for Health, do not think emigration is a very bad thing. It is much nicer from their point of view, and I suppose from the point of view of the Government as a whole, that those 30,000, plus the 20,000 who would normally be coming on the labour market, are getting employment outside this country. They might have a few awkward questions to answer if employment were not available to that extent in neighbouring countries, or if the relatively small number of unemployed, compared with those who have-already emigrated to England and the United States, were unable to go.

There you have a picture, not of a reduction in the live register but of a very substantial increase. That is the true picture of the Government's efforts over 18 months. Of course, that should not be surprising to anyone on these benches. Yesterday, I sat here in disgust listening to a prominent member of Fianna Fáil describing those men and women, boys and girls, for whom there is no employment, for whom at present there appears to be a very dark future, as unemployable. In the case of those youths, their opportunities for employment are restricted to jobs as messenger boys. Many of them do not obtain employment for some years after leaving school. Their morale is sapped by the lack of these opportunities and their families are existing in circumstances of extreme economic distress. Then there are the men of 40 years and upwards, who, if they happen to lose their jobs, through temporary redundancy or other circumstances, find it almost impossible to obtain work. Their only crime is that they cannot get work or that they want to remain in their own city or town. To describe these decent Irishmen as unemployable is, possibly, a fitting reference coming from sections of the Fianna Fáil Benches and is in line no doubt with the oft-expressed views of some Fianna Fáil Ministers that it would be no harm to have a substantial pool of unemployed.

I wonder if the Ministers of this Government and the Deputies supporting them have any vestige of shame? In the general election, most of them went around and spoke to the people, canvassed their votes and called to their houses. In my own constituency, Dublin North East, they went around a working class area where unemployment has been very serious and they made the Fianna Fáil position quite plain to the people. All that was required to ensure our economic happiness was to put Fianna Fáil back into office. There they are, sitting in their benches 18 months afterwards, and I have not yet heard either a Minister or a member from the Fianna Fáil side tell the House whether there has been any net gain in these last 18 months, as far as unemployment is concerned.

I am glad the Minister for Local Government is here. If he takes part in the debate, I am sure he will be able to confirm that house building, whether by local authorities, private individuals or speculative builders, is at present at an all-time low. We are told now that there is no shortage of money, that there are millions of money which can be poured out to build houses. We are told in the same breath that there has been a falling off in the demand for houses because the targets set many years ago have been reached. One wonders whether the targets have been reached or whether the reduced demand in certain areas results from a simple fact, that the people are not there any longer, that the target that was fixed in 1947 for a rural area is no longer a realistic target, as the people have left the area. In an urban area, an area like the City of Dublin, the situation becomes more difficult when there are increasing vacancies in local authority dwellings, attributable in the main to occupiers of those local authority dwellings being compelled, through unemployment, to sell their few sticks of furniture and to take themselves and their families to a country where they believe they have a chance of a job, a home and a future.

Last night, I was talking to a small businessman in my constituency. He said he had just purchased the contents of a house, that the head of the house, a man of approximately 50 years of age, was so fearful of his children growing up without reasonable hope of economic security or safe economic future, that he was leaving. That man, who was leaving with his wife and two or three children to-day, slept last night on the bare boards. Many times has this been repeated. We will agree it has not only occurred during the last year and the year before last: it occurred on other occasions. There is nobody from this bench going to make the case for one moment that the previous Government were a perfect Government, that the Government did everything they should have done; but there is no use in Ministers coming in as they have been coming in the course of this debate and singing again the litany of the chassis factory, and of something that should have been done and was not done or something that was done and should not have been done, five or ten years ago. This Government are responsible for the affairs of the nation to-day, are responsible for the affairs of the nation and to the people of the nation, and to those they grossly deceived, the unemployed and their families, when they were returned to office.

In the course of his contribution, the Minister for Lands referred to an Irish standard of living. I would be very happy if somebody from the Government Benches would indicate (a) what he considers to be an Irish standard of living and (b) what section of the populace of this country should conform to that standard. It appears to me that the reference to the "Irish" standard of living which we hear so often from people like the Minister for Lands, indicates that in their view the workers of this country, the ordinary working people who grow the food, who carry on the transport services and the industrial services, such as they are in the life of the country, should be content with a standard of living which would give them little better than the bare means of existence; but that somebody else in this country—Irishmen, no doubt, like the rest—should be enabled to enjoy all the comforts, all the privileges, all their needs and requirements.

I do not see that the section of the Irish people who control the finances of the State or those who control industry or commerce, ever say at any stage that they should or would be prepared to accept a reduced standard of living. It appears to me that this suggestion is always made that the men who dig the roads, the men who load and unload the goods on the docks, the men who till the fields, including the small farmer, should exist on the basis of a sufficiency of the most simple food to keep them alive, of clothing just sufficient to keep out the weather, of an education which will leave them at 14 years of age fit only for the most simple tasks, with no right of enjoying leisure and of possibly the absolute limit of a holiday period once in the year.

I should like to know if that is the Fianna Fáil view, because it appears to me to be an increasing habit that Fianna Fáil tell us that we should accept a lower standard of living. The peculiarity, of course, is that, at the same time, though they tell us these things, as a Government they appear to be creating a demand—not that I object to it—for the provision of equipment for leisure hours—radio, a television service, motor cars, and so on. The people are entitled to these things. Where a family are serving the nation by doing their work honestly and conscientiously, they are entitled not only to a wage that will give them food, a wage that will give them the price of a pair of gumboots to keep their feet dry, but also the means of enjoying life to the full and of developing their personalities.

Sometimes I think that Fianna Fáil, possibly because so many of them are prominently associated with the section of society which enjoys what might be called the ownership and control of wealth and industry, feel, judging by their spokesmen, that the rest of us should be satisfied with what many years ago during the industrial strike was described as being sufficient for a worker's meal—a kipper.

During the past 18 months, Fianna Fáil, who have such concern for the people, performed a number of acts and I mention them, and one in particular, because the Minister for Lands adverted to what he termed wages chasing prices and prices chasing wages. First of all, on their return to office, they indicated fairly clearly, both here and elsewhere, that they felt that if prices of essential foodstuffs went up, the workers should not seek compensation for the increased cost of living. They proceeded by deliberate Government action to force up the prices of essential commodities and then they said that the man whose family was affected by this action should not look for compensation.

They said that here and they said it outside this House. It was indicated here that whatever the views of the Government Ministers might be, it certainly did not appear likely that those affected by the increase in the cost of living would just sit back and say: "All right; we will tighten our belts; we will impose further hardships on our women and children; we will reduce the intake of the necessaries of life." Consequently, this Government which, through the Minister for Lands to-day, said: "We are not believers in the system which involves wages chasing prices and prices chasing wages," deliberately on their return to office set off the spiral themselves by their actions. Prices and wages had been relatively stable for a few years, but the Government, for what reason I do not know, said: "We are now going to take an action," and that action was to increase the prices of the basic commodities required for life.

If the Minister for Lands is correct in his statement, why did they not think of that 18 months ago and give an example by saying: "Look; whatever the situation is, whatever the question of the balance of payments is, whatever these book debts are, we will endeavour to keep stability in our economy and we will not increase the price of basic commodities," and seek the co-operation of the community? No. They waited and then said: "We want your co-operation" and to ensure the cooperation of the people, they came along some time later and said: "We do not want price control machinery any more. Why should we, as a Government, have price control machinery? What do we care what the people pay for their commodities? We have no responsibility to the people, now we have been elected—we hope for five years—and in the meantime we will think of some marvellous method of keeping on in office." So the price control machinery, such as it was, was removed.

Two perfect instances of the Government's lack of consideration for the ordinary families are available. Mind you, they have consideration for somebody. They have indicated their consideration for the captains of industry. They have indicated their consideration for the controllers of finance, but had they, or have they now, any consideration for Irish men and women and their families?

We have been lectured from the benches here, and from all kinds of platforms and dinners attended by Ministers in various parts of the country, and on every opportunity, that what is required is an increase in production—an increased agricultural production of from 25 to 50 per cent. I shall not attempt to go into the field of agriculture. There are many agricultural experts in this House and possibly some of the Fianna Fáil experts will give their view as to the effect of an increase of 25 per cent. to 50 per cent. in agricultural output, unless there is an assurance that there is a market for that output. The farmers here react very quickly to production where there is likely to be a surplus. They do not just wait like the unfortunate unemployed man who must wait to seize his opportunity of employment. If, through one means or another, in one year, there is a substantial surplus and the farmers feel there is a likelihood of the prices of the commodity going down on this market or outside, they cut back their production the following year and I have not heard anyone in this House explain how they can be got to do otherwise.

I take it that when the Minister for Lands talks about an increase of the order of 25 per cent. to 50 per cent. in production, this new economic plan or programme will indicate where the markets exist for these goods; but when we discuss an increase in productivity, surely the Government are aware that in the industrial field there has been a consistent increase in productivity? Even in the building trade, that orphan of industry, which is almost dead at the moment, over the years there has been a continued substantial increase in productivity. Those on the Fianna Fáil Benches who have immediate contact with these problems are aware of the fact that unless there is a substantial increase in the sale of the commodity where increased productivity takes place, there is the immediate effect of a reduction in employment. If you care to look over the field of industry for the past three or four years, you will see that in many cases there has been substantially increased productivity, some increased output, but there has been an actual decrease in employment. The Government must be aware of this and are they taking any steps to relieve or ease that problem?

I shall wind up briefly by saying that there is no doubt whatever that this motion of no confidence will be defeated, just as there is no doubt that in the last by-election in Dublin South Central, a vote of no confidence in the Government was passed by the people who voted in an area which had been so solidly behind Fianna Fáil for so many years. In an area represented by the Minister for Industry and Commerce, the Fianna Fáil candidate got a relatively low vote. There is no doubt in my mind that were people of the country given the opportunity to indicate whether they had confidence in the present Government, they would show in no uncertain terms that the Labour Party motion is a motion that would have their overwhelming support.

From the course of this discussion, as well as comments throughout the country, I believe there is a general lack of confidence in the Government, but whatever the actual outcome of this motion may be when it is voted on later, the viewpoint of many people is that the Government have no plan or policy to deal with the problems which confront the country and that matters are drifting along from day to day without any guidance or direction. No matter what statistics or figures are examined or, even basing a conclusion on observation of trends in the country, there has been no progress in any sphere of economic activity. Here and there, there has been a small increase in the numbers employed in certain categories, but this has been accompanied by a reduction in the numbers employed in other cases. While the unemployed figures, as published, show a small reduction, this is probably due to emigration as much as to any other cause, more especially when account is taken of the changes in the numbers of persons in insurable employment.

These figures, which are generally reckoned as giving an indication of the average numbers engaged, show that, in 1957, the number of persons employed, on the average weekly number of insurance stamps sold, decreased for that year compared with 1956 and 1955. Last year, 463,100 stamps were sold compared with 498,500 in 1956 and 496,300 in 1955. These figures were given in reply to a parliamentary question to the Parliamentary Secretary to the Taoiseach on the 16th July of this year. At the same time the quarterly industrial inquiry for the June quarter of 1958 gives figures for those engaged in manufacturing industries and as shown in that June quarterly report an average of 141,671 persons were engaged compared with 143,801 in June, 1956.

There was no very great change there one way or another but it confirms what I said that, taking into account especially the average number of insurance stamps sold weekly, there is a substantial drop of 35,000 persons compared with 1956. These figures show clearly that, whatever policy or programme the Government have operated over the last 18 months, they have not brought about the improved conditions which were promised during the last election and after the Government had been elected to office.

A few days ago the Government announced that they proposed to embark upon a five-year plan to deal with the requirements of the country in order to provide employment. That plan is supposed to follow up the programme announced before the last election, and it was estimated that it would cost £100,000,000 and provide 100,000 jobs. I believe that nothing has contributed so much to the disillusionment and to the general feeling of apathy prevailing throughout the country and created the sense of insecurity which exists for a great number of people than the fact that people were misled by that announcement of a plan which would provide for a period of five years a solution or, if not a solution, at any rate a great increase in the number of jobs which were to be made available.

Now the Government announces a further programme. I believe that people are not merely cynical about those plans but that the only effect of further announcements is to cause further disquiet and disillusionment. This Government has announced and is proposing to publish in the near future a White Paper setting out over a period of five years the capital expenditure programme and the targets which it is expected that State and semi-State bodies will achieve and the likely employment content of that expenditure. If we take the capital expenditure described as capital services in the Book of Estimates for this year it amounts to £11,700,000. Last year it was slightly more—£12,200,000 in round figures. Added to that we include the expenditure which semi-State bodies or undertakings like the E.S.B., Bord na Móna, C.I.E., Irish Shipping and so on, spend each year. Then it is likely that you can get in round figures a capital expenditure of a total of anything between £35,000,000 and £40,000,000.

Each of these bodies spends a certain sum of money each year or plans to spend it. In addition, you have the direct expenditure under Government Departments, such as Public Works and Buildings, Agriculture, Forestry, Local Government, Industry and Commerce, and so on. If we take these various undertakings and segregate the amounts into annual rates of expenditure, the total expenditure will, on the basis of recent years' experience, amount to approximately for a five-year period, £200,000,000.

Undoubtedly taking individual State undertakings or taking the expenditure of individual Departments, some expenditures may not be completed as planned at the beginning of the year or even over a two or three-year period. Everyone is familiar with the factors which intervene and which cause, say, a lack of attainment in spending at the planned rate. In the case of Public Works and Buildings, schools that are planned may not for a variety of reasons be undertaken or the money may not be spent entirely within that financial year and a backlog may accrue.

Over the last seven or eight years public expenditure has increased but let us allow for the increase which has taken place, for individual variations which at times in respect of certain categories of public expenditure can amount to a considerable sum, and for the changes which are inherent, as some schemes are completed and others come to maturity. For the past number of years in relation to total capital expenditure, as distinct from expenditure on capital development programmes but including both capital development and capital expenditure, the total figure will run out somewhere between £35,000,000 and £40,000,000 and it is therefore illusory and will not achieve any worthwhile confidence to add all this up, put it into a White Paper itemised under the various headings and present it as a five-year programme.

It may look more attractive. It may cause a number of people to imagine that we have, or shall have, a plan that has not been available up to the present. But the net effect of all these plans and programmes is to confuse the people. We have had all these expenses up to the present and one of the criticisms made of the previous Government was that we had not solved, or had not provided, a remedy for the unemployment problem. Despite that large-scale expenditure, both by State and semi-State bodies, it was not possible to absorb sufficient numbers available for work into employment.

This Government, when elected, undertook—it was expressly stated in the first plan announced—that money would not be provided either through the medium of direct taxation or by borrowing. Now we are informed that it is to be secured partially by direct taxation and partially by borrowing either from home investment in Government loans or in loans to semi-State bodies; or, if that fails to provide sufficient funds, resort will be had to the new bodies, either the World Bank or the International Monetary Fund, of which we have become members in the last 12 months.

On another occasion, when we availed of the loan which was provided in the Marshall Aid programme, criticism was made throughout the country by the present Government, then in opposition, that we were placing the country in pawn. We rejected that allegation because we recognised that the work that was being carried out under the moneys provided by the Marshall Aid loan was work of national development. Projects like land reclamation, land drainage, afforestation and so on were projects of long-term development which would repay investment in them both in the short- and the long-term. If it is now necessary to avail of facilities provided by these international monetary organisations, I have no doubt that wisdom will ensure that the moneys will be used for development programmes, such as those already initiated, or on new schemes, such as an expansion of the eradication of bovine tuberculosis scheme, a scheme which requires considerable expansion.

One of the greatest deterrents to progress over the last 18 months has been the high rate of direct and indirect taxation. When this Government was elected they changed the rates of taxation in relation to food, petrol and oil. The result of these changes is manifested in the incomes as well as in the experience of every household in the land. During the period in office of the last Government the rise in the cost of living was far less steep over a three-year period than it has been since March, 1957. The consumer price index was 124 in May, 1954. It had risen by 11 points to 135 in February, 1957. It increased by a further 11 points to 146 in August, 1958. Food alone has increased from 102.1 in February, 1957, to 119.2 in August, 1958.

That particular increase was due directly to Government action. The cost of essential foods—flour, bread and butter—has increased because of direct Government action. It was alleged that these changes were necessary because the Government had to find money to meet current expenses. This year the current rate of expenditure shows no substantial change compared with previous years. The effect of Government action is that every section of the community is obliged to pay heavily in income-tax and rates and, in addition, is obliged at the same time to meet these increases in the cost of essential foodstuffs.

Simultaneously with these changes, we have the extraordinary situation in which wholesale prices for imports over the same period show a continuous drop. The index of wholesale prices as published in the Quarterly Bulletin of the Central Bank, Table XII, shows that import prices were 114.6 in March, 1957, and had dropped to 111.0 in June, 1958. At the same time, materials used in industry dropped from 107.3 in March, 1957, to 104.4 in June, 1958. Imports for personal consumption were 125.2 in March, 1957 and in June, 1958, 121.1. Can anyone explain why it is that the cost of living, the cost of essential foods, the cost of commodities in normal use by families and individuals, has continued to rise at a time when there has been a continuous drop in import prices and when the world tendency in relation to these commodities over the last 18 months has shown a marked downward trend? But the cost of living here has increased from 135 in February, 1957, to 146 in August, 1958. In relation to food alone it has increased from 102.1 in February, 1957, to 119.2 in August, 1958.

It is true that over the past year or so we have had the extraordinary experience, the impact of which will be felt acutely this year in the coming months, that, while paying less for home produced wheat, our consumers of bread and flour are and will be compelled to pay more for these commodities. We have the extraordinary phenomenon of national economic policy operating to give less to our own farmers for wheat on the one hand and for creamery milk on the other, and, at the same time, the price of flour, bread and butter is higher than it was 18 months ago and substantially higher than for the same butter sold on the English market. These changes have been followed by other consequential changes. Those employed in public undertakings received compensation for the substantial increase in the cost of living by way of the national wage agreement and these public undertakings, such as C.I.E., in turn have passed on those wage increases, or the greater part of them, as they had of necessity, to the travelling public. The effect of that has been an increase in bus and train fares. Those who are affected by the increase in the cost of essentials have to pay more for transport. Another substantial consequential increase has been in respect of the charge for accommodation in hospitals—from 6/- to 10/- per day.

If we compare the record over the past 18 months with the programme carried out by the previous Government, I believe that the results which had accrued or were in course of development indicated that we were proceeding on the right lines. During the period of office of the previous Government we had a capital expenditure programme which, up to the present, has not been substantially altered by the present Government. If anything, one of the criticisms expressed was that in some cases, if not entirely, the programme was somewhat too ambitious for the capacity of the country to raise the necessary finance and that, if anything, too much was being attempted together. That programme envisaged, directly by the State and by semi-State bodies, an expenditure of between £35,000,000 and £40,000,000 per annum, in round figures. It provided for development work under land reclamation, drainage, afforestation, housing, hospitals, schools, electricity supply, Bord na Móna, Irish Shipping, and so on.

While that was carried on, either directly by the State or indirectly by semi-State bodies, it was supplemented by the encouragement of development by private enterprise. Tax concessions were given to exporters. Grants were provided for the establishment of new factories. The fact that since the change of Government some of the facilities which were introduced by the previous Government have been continued or in some cases extended by this Government is an indication that there is general agreement on the aims and objects in regard to economic development.

The previous Government had endeavoured to secure, and were successful in securing, considerable investment from private sources. In fact, one of the most heartening indications in that sphere of activity was the decision of Messrs. Guinness to invest £500,000 in the two new briquetting factories and that investment has since been increased.

Reference has been made to other spheres of activity where development has taken place—the oil refinery, the development at Avoca, and so on. All these proposals, despite their value economically, have not so far achieved any worthwhile diminution in the substantial numbers seeking work and unless the programme announced is capable of providing additional employment over and above what would be normal under the programmes already in operation or planned, there appears to be little positive advantage in dressing it up and presenting it in a White Paper merely to indicate that the Government have some scheme which was not thought of in the past.

Some views have been expressed here to-day about the need for improvement in marketing methods. It is not sufficient to talk about an improvement in marketing methods and to suggest, as was implied, that the previous Government did nothing about it. We negotiated a number of trade agreements, especially the 1948 Trade Agreement with Britain, which was modified and extended as occasion demanded, and other trade agreements with European countries which, in nearly every case, provided substantially increased markets, substantially increased prices for Irish producers and exporters and worthwhile guaranteed markets which absorbed output from both farm and factory.

This Government stated that they had a plan for improved marketing methods. What has been the result of that plan? During the last year or so, farmers have received less for wheat, less for barley and in respect to the guaranteed price arrangement which was provided by the previous Government for pigs, which has contributed substantially to the maintenance of increased supplies as well as providing a measure of stability, one of the acts of the present Government last year was to alter that by a reduction of 5/- a cwt. That was subsequently restored but the reduction caused considerable dislocation, uncertainty and dismay to those engaged in the industry. I do not believe that it is sound marketing policy to pay less to Irish farmers for their wheat while at the same time charging Irish consumers more for bread and flour.

Under the policy initiated by the last Government we had increased exports of cattle and increased numbers to sell. If the cattle had not been there, they could not have been sold. We recognised that one of the long-term benefits of the land reclamation scheme would be to provide increased numbers, that, in addition, improved veterinary services would reduce losses due to disease and would result in increased numbers being reared to maturity and, further, that better feeding and so forth would increase the volume which, on the basis of then existing prices, would mean an improved return for those engaged in the business.

This Government alleged that costs would have to be kept down. I do not think that anybody, in any sphere of activity, a farmer, an industrialist, a manufacturer or a shopkeeper, can say that over the last 18 months costs have been any lower. Rates are at about the same level. In some cases they are slightly up; in other cases they may be slightly down. The cost of living, the cost of transport, the cost of ordinary day-to-day activities is as high and in some cases higher than it was at any time previously. In addition, we have had the experience I have mentioned of lower prices being paid to our own producers and higher prices being charged to our own consumers.

While prices of imported raw materials for industry, and of various other commodities, have been falling steadily, we have had this experience of continuous rising costs at home, both direct and indirect. If the announcements made recently indicate that the Government have a better plan, then it will be welcomed, but one of the causes of the present apathy and disillusionment, and the present feeling of insecurity, is this idea which has been spread throughout the country that Government plans can provide solutions.

In the main, quite a large volume of the employment provided, if not the greater proportion of it, has been due entirely to private enterprise, private individuals, individual businesses, individual shopkeepers and individual traders, and where individuals could not provide the services, the schemes or the facilities required, as in the case of reclamation, drainage, shipping and electricity development, it is only where these had to be undertaken by the State that the State stepped in, either directly under departmental aegis, or indirectly through semi-State bodies. In fact, the opportunities in future for further State intervention may not be as great because quite a number of schemes have already been completed, and, unless it is possible to develop them further along new lines, no further expansion can take place. Indeed, a number of them are no longer capable of expansion and some of them are in course of completion. In the main, much of the development work in the future will continue to depend, as it did in the past, on private investment, private enterprise and private initiative.

The present position in the country has been very largely created by the belief that the Government are complacent about conditions, that they are content to act merely on a day-to-day basis in the hope that something will turn up. They have given no positive direction or programme to enable the country to surmount the difficulties which at present confront it. Therefore, we believe that it is in the public interest that the motion and the amendment which we have tabled should be carried. On the basis of the present composition of this House, it is unlikely that they will be carried, but we hope by this debate to focus public attention on the problems, and thus stimulate the Government to effective action to deal with the many serious problems which confront various sections of the community, problems which have not been minimised by Government policy or Government action during the past 18 months.

Listening to the debate and reading some of the reports of the debate, one would gather from the members moving and supporting this motion, that they may wash their hands of any responsibility whatsoever for the conditions they outline as having existed during the past 18 months or so. It is significant in a broad general analysis to refer back very briefly to 1948, when the country was handed over in a very sound position to the first Coalition Government which we had the unfortunate luck to entertain in this democracy.

At that time, the country was handed over in a sound position and a warning was given by the outgoing Tánaiste to the incoming Government that they should try, in the period of their reign as a Government, to conserve the finances of the country, and to look after its interests in such a manner that, when the time came for that Coalition Government to depart, they would hand the country back to a Fianna Fáil Government in as good a position as it was in when it was handed over to them. I do not intend to go into all the details of what happened during the three years 1948-1951. I think it is sufficient to say that when Fianna Fáil came to resume office in 1951, the country was far from being in a sound financial position.

Two figures stand out in the minds of all of us in relation to that period, one being the adverse trade balance, created and existing in 1951, under the Coalition, of over £60,000,000. That was our first big stumbling block when we came to resume office and the second was—as we later found out to our cost—a real Budget deficit of approximately £15,000,000. It is true, of course, that a deficit of something in the region of £6,000,000 or £7,000,000 was outlined in the Book of Estimates, but, as has become to be accepted as true since then, in addition to that amount, the other £8,000,000 or £9,000,000 we found to be missing was likely deliberately left out, in order that the picture would not appear too bad to the electorate whom the Coalition were about to face.

At any rate, those two figures are very significant ones, and they give a fair indication, in both the external and domestic spheres, of the finances of the country in 1951 after three years of Coalition rule. The Budget deficit indicates what our internal position was and the adverse balance of over £60,000,000, that was created in that year, is a very strong indication of our well-being, or lack of well-being, vis-a-vis the rest of the world. We were confronted with those two very hefty problems in 1951 and various steps had to be taken from 1951 to 1954, while Fianna Fáil were the Government, but those steps were effective to the degree that when we came to leave office in 1954, the adverse balance had largely disappeared and there was no Budget deficit whatsoever as a legacy to our successors.

While we handed over the State in a sound financial condition in 1954 to the second Coalition Government, we found, in 1957, a similarity between the state of the finances of the country then and in 1951. The fact, of course, is that the position, if anything, was worse than in 1957. The draught had been stronger, with the result that before the last Coalition Government went to the country, they had tried every possible means to keep themselves afloat, to keep themselves in office for just that little longer, with what dire consequences to the country we have come to know. We have been reaping the rewards of their actions in trying to keep a Government in office who were not capable of looking after the affairs of the country.

We found ourselves with something like £50,000,000 of our external assets dissipated during the three years in an abundant spree, and we also found another Budget deficit facing us which we had to try to overcome. Having repatriated and dissipated £50,000,000 worth of savings, we find nothing worth while to-day to show for it. We have got to accept that position. We have accepted it and we have tried to make amends in the meantime.

We have also had to try and we succeeded in wiping out the Budget deficit handed over to us as a legacy at that time. But the things we have not yet succeeded in ridding ourselves of are the consequences of the last six months of the reign of the Coalition Government. This is particularly so in regard to the employment given in services such as house-building, the laying of water schemes, the making of roads, and so on, which have been talked about here as a number of the things in which we have not succeeded in increasing employment.

For the reason that I am Minister for Local Government, I shall deal rather in detail with the housing and the roads position as we found it, as it has been since and as it is now. During the last six months of the Coalition Government's term of office, everybody knows, and surely must now accept, that, by their deliberate misleading of elected bodies down through the country, all local authorities and housing authorities in particular found themselves in a most serious position. They found they had, by promises made by the then Government in their previous years of office, committed themselves to pay various grants and to make loans available in order that house-building—private and local authority house-building—should continue.

As the autumn of 1956 approached, all of us in local authorities began to find that the moneys, to which we were committed as local bodies, were not forthcoming from the usual sources in Government and that we were being left to carry the baby. We were asked to try to raise the money in other ways. We were told we should try to get it from any other agency and that, if we failed and came back to the Government, they would give it. We tried that for housing grants, housing loans and for the repayment of the cost of local authority building schemes but naturally we found, as all the other councils found, that we were no longer regarded as credit-worthy. We could not raise the wind for any of these purposes that were so useful and that had counted for so much in the past.

We came back, then, to the Government, in the last months of 1956, after their promise that if we failed elsewhere to get the money to pay our bills in respect of housing, sanitary and other services, we would get it from them. We did not get it but we got the promise that it would be coming —they did not say when. As a result of this and, in addition, as a result of a conference held between the Minister for Local Government and, possibly, the Minister for Finance and, at any rate, responsible Ministers of the then Government and the county managers of the entire country, we found that not only were we not able to pay for the jobs that were done and those in progress, not only could we not, as a result of mismanagement by the then Government, raise the money, but the county managers were taken to Dublin and counselled very strongly by the responsible Ministers to curb expenditure on these services.

The outcome of all this was, by and large, that as a result of our experience of not being able to pay our bills, with various individuals throughout the country clamouring for the grants their local authorities had promised to them but had not the money to pay, with contractors and builders lying out of their money for work undertaken, with the advice given privately to the county managers, we ceased to prepare for the future building programme. No longer were the schemes coming along in rotation. No longer were we acquiring new sites for new schemes, longer were we preparing outline draft plans, no longer were we getting approval from the Department for going ahead with these things. The hand of the dying Coalition really started to grip the whole workings of the Department of Local Government in so far as housing, water and sewerage schemes were concerned.

If any proof of that is required, nobody can deny that, in the last six months of the Coalition Government, under the heading of housing, water and sewerage schemes, only a few small insignificant schemes, the cost of which did not exceed £13,000, were sanctioned. If further proof is necessary, we find that six months following the disappearance of the Coalition Government, and on the assuming of office by Fianna Fáil, the new Minister for Local Government had to sanction a backlog of schemes that had been lying there all during the latter months of the Coalition's term of office, schemes to the total of almost £900,000 which had accumulated in the Custom House and could not be allowed to see the light of day because there was no money to pay for those already in progress.

That, briefly, is the position that we found when we came into office, in regard to these very important services, housing, water and sewerage schemes, and the very important effect that this situation has had on employment in the building industry then and since then. No matter what we may say and no matter what any Deputy speaking from the Opposition Benches may say, all of them who are in any way versed in the house-building industry and, indeed, in water and sewerage scheme preparation of plans, and so on, realise that there has to be continuity in planning if we are to have continuity in the actual execution of the work. That continuity was completely and absolutely broken during the last six months of the Coalition Government.

Despite the fact that we in Fianna Fáil made good the debts that were created by our predecessors, and sanctioned the backlog of outstanding plans lying in the Custom House, it is still true to say that that slowing-down and that standstill that took place in these services have not yet been overcome. Such was the experience of local authorities in those days and such was the fright they then got that they have not yet got over it sufficiently to go ahead with the same bold programmes in operation up to that time. Therefore, to-day, despite the availability of money for all of these schemes that are coming to hand, despite the availability of ample money to meet all of them, and ready approval when they come to my Department, we are not yet back to the path our local authorities had been treading before they were knocked off it by the actions of the Coalition Government in the last months of their term of office.

Therefore, it is true to say that the figures for the housing industry are not what they used to be. It is true to say that the figures in regard to sewerage, water and sanitary schemes are not what they used to be. But if that is true, and I do not disagree that it is true, then do not be misled into the belief that that is an effect that has come about immediately. It is the effect of the stopping of planning 18 to 24 months ago.

In the ordinary run of things, about 18 months or two years, and sometimes longer, elapse from the day a site is selected for any of these jobs before the contractor is on the site. If that stoppage had not taken place, I have no doubt we would have had a fillip in the building industry, and an increase in the number employed on water and sewerage schemes to-day, but we have got to wait and try to encourage our local authorities to make them believe or understand that we in Fianna Fáil will keep our promises in regard to any commitments they undertake on our behalf in regard to the giving of these services to the people whom they serve.

The confidence which was so badly shaken then is taking time to restore, but I am convinced from the recent past and from the schemes which are now beginning to emerge again from these local authorities that a revival is taking place. It is slow, no doubt. It is a revival which may take a bit of time. It is a revival which will assist the general economy of the country and help in some degree to reduce the number of unemployed we unfortunately have still in the country.

We hear very many of the Opposition members talk about the position in regard to roads, the money being spent on roads and the number employed on road works at the present time and during the recent past. Again, we must, unfortunately, hark back to the time the Coalition Government were departing from the scene. We recall that, in 1954, Fianna Fáil left office with an outstanding commitment of £1.8 million against the Road Fund. When they returned three years later, that outstanding commitment had risen to over £4,000,000 and not £3,500,000 as I stated elsewhere. It had risen to over £4,000,000 at the end of March, 1957.

This was brought about by somewhat flamboyant spending on behalf of the then Minister for Local Government, but it was also brought about in quite a large degree to the tune of £500,000, by the then Minister for Finance who raided the Road Fund in order to bolster up his tottering Exchequer. At the same time, we had current commitments on hands in respect of that Road Fund greater than the amount which was in the fund altogether. When we returned to office, we were faced with this trouble in addition to all the other financial troubles we had to meet as a result of Coalition mismanagement during their period of office. We also had this Road Fund from which, by and large, works are partially financed. We found it in a state that was not very healthy. In addition to trying to stabilise the situation, we had to go to the Central Exchequer immediately on resuming office and get an advance of £900,000 to try to fill the immediate gaps existing in regard to this fund.

The fact that we cannot increase and have not during the past 18 months been in a position to increase our grants to local authorities for road repairs, maintenance and improvement, despite the fact that the Road Fund money shows some £100,000 or £200,000 of an increase, is due to our repayment commitments to make up for the overspending and the lack of care during three years of the Coalition in respect of that fund. That repayment is taking up any of the slack created by an expansion in the fund.

I am afraid that, as the picture appears at the moment, we will not be able, on these figures, if we are to face up to those commitments and repayments created in the past, to expand the grants as I would like to do and as we should be able to do, if it were not for the fact that the money was spent by our predecessors in advance. We are committed and mortgaged for commitments ahead. It is an unfortunate position in those times of unemployment that we cannot expand that and immediately apply it to the relief of unemployment in the country as a whole.

If we cannot do it, it is because of the mortgage that has been straddled around the Road Fund by our predecessors without any regard to what was to happen when they left office or in the years following and so we have this situation facing us at the moment. It is a difficult one. It is one which I, as Minister for Local Government, do not like. It is one which I am afraid I cannot very well get over because of the heavy commitments which the Exchequer has had to bear and is bearing at the moment, not only in keeping our grant accounts in order but in trying to fill up the gaps made by our predecessors in our finances during the time they were in office.

It is true to say just the same that the figure has been retained in regard to Road Fund grants. That is something that should be borne in mind when arguments are being advanced and figures are being quoted as to the smaller number now employed on road works. The same amount of money is being allocated, despite our difficulties in regard to the Exchequer, and the Road Fund in particular, but there are not as many employed. This is due in part to the fact that there has been an increase in wages to the road workers.

What about the grants under the Local Authorities (Works) Act?

Let me finish with the roads and then we will get on to that subject. The fact is that fewer people are now employed on the same amount of money because wages for road workers have gone up, and justifiably so, as I was about to say when interrupted by Deputy McAuliffe. On the other hand, in some cases it is because there has been a reduction by the local authority in its rate contribution. Again, it is possibly a justifiable reduction because of their headache.

There is also the question of machinery.

That is an argument I would not develop here myself. I know that Deputy Spring is well versed in the matter of machinery versus manual labour, but in regard to road works I am giving two of the reasons why a lesser number are employed, despite the fact that the same amount of money is being provided this year as was provided during the past two years. I am not blaming anybody for that situation. It is all very well to talk about a reduction in the number employed on road works to-day, but we should take cognisance of the fact that we are giving as much money as was given during the past two years. One of the reasons, at any rate, for the reduction in numbers is a justifiable increase in the wages of road workers and in some cases a justifiable reduction in the amount being provided by the rates. With regard to our other county councils, there may be unjustifiable decreases in some cases. I take it that some of them are justifiable due to their heavy burdens and their heavy commitments over the years ahead.

It is all very well for Deputy McAuliffe to intervene and ask about the Local Authorities (Works) Act. I might very well pass over that by asking Deputy McAuliffe the same question. Whatever I may say about this Act to-day, I do not want to be pushed into the position by anybody who may intervene or criticise of making my mind up finally and conclusively that we will never have it again. While some very bad work, some useless and wasteful work was done under that Act and indeed while there was some wanton squandering of our money, jobs were done under it that did give a return. That is unquestionably true. But the works I have in mind that did some good were, by and large, works of a minor drainage character. They were works that would not have been done under any other heading for, possibly, years to come because they fell into no category under drainage programmes.

Nevertheless, I have been wondering whether or not there should be set up in the Department of Local Government a system whereby drainage of a minor nature will be done while we have two or three other Departments partaking in various types of drainage schemes. If we were able to reintroduce the Local Authorities (Works) Act grants again, that would be one of the problems that would confront my Department and the Government: whether or not minor drainage works of that type are appropriate to be administered by Local Government and carried out by local authorities.

On the other hand, are we in a financial position to-day to reintroduce a scheme which, everybody must admit, had very many flaws? Are we in a position financially to bring back after three years a scheme which, after due consideration, was dropped because of abuses and because of the lack of return for the money expended? Also are we completely oblivious of the fact that while the grants are not being made by the Department of Local Government, the legislation is there whereby the local authorities, if they feel strongly enough about any particular job, may, under the Act, carry out the work themselves, if it is of sufficient importance to the public interest generally?

We should really take that to heart when instancing cases of grave public importance, where such great good could be done for so little, if only 100 per cent. free money were available again as it was under this Act over a number of years. While the question of the reintroduction or not of grants under this Act may be still under consideration, any local representative or Deputy who knows a job in his constituency that would be in the public interest and that would come within the category of works permitted under the Local Authorities (Works) Act may, if it is important, go to his council and make his case. Knowing local authorities as I do, if the work is of sufficient importance, then the local authority will likely not turn it down.

But it is a different story altogether to come here and talk about this Act being stopped. The moneys there were given as a 100 per cent. grant and I feel that part of the abuse and waste of money that took place under that Act was occasioned by the fact that it was a 100 per cent. grant. Sufficient care was not taken. There was a rush to get all that could be got out of it at the time, as I know myself, because I was on a local authority when it was first introduced.

The one way to get the best out of it was to put in everything you could possibly conceive to be in the public interest, and ultimately it worked out over the years more or less on a quota related to the work done in one year and based on the total amount put in and approved the first year. If members had to consider those works as a matter of adding 1d. or 2d. to the rates, many of the works done would not have been started or attempted.

Finally, I would say to Deputy McAuliffe and others genuinely interested in this matter that it was after long and due consideration by my predecessor that this Act was stopped. It is not for lack of consideration by me that it has not as yet been reintroduced, but I cannot give any undertaking here in any way in anything I may say that it will be reintroduced. On the other hand, I am not saying finally and conclusively that it will not be reintroduced.

Those are the matters pertaining to my own Department that have been mentioned here. As I have said, in regard to the employment factor in roads, housing and sanitary services, any diminution we have in the number so employed to-day is not the result of any mismanagement or lack of effort on the part of the present Government, but can be directly traced to the mismanagement and lack of care and thought for the future evidenced by the actions of the Coalition Government during their three years in office, and in particular during their last six months in office.

I would also say to the House that the figures for sanctions and applications now coming to hand under our new Housing Act indicate that some new fillip is being given to our building industry. This industry has had a very difficult time but it did not begin to be difficult just six months ago; it began a few years ago. If the full effects of our new Housing Act are to be felt and the greatest good got from it in the immediate future, I would appeal to all Deputies who have influence with their local authorities to use that influence to get those local authorities to operate the terms of the new Act, both in regard to supplementary grants and the availability of loans. If they do that, they will do more for the revival of the building industry and for the building workers of this country than all the talk all of us could do in this House if we talked for the next week.

Listening to the Minister for Local Government, few would fail to be impressed by the fact that, whether he is right or wrong, he appears genuinely to believe in the case he has made for his position in the Department of Local Government and his partial responsibility for the lack of improvement in employment and consequent emigration which has taken place during the period of office of the Government. The case he has made seems to me a very eloquent one on the face of it, a case which is on all fours with that made by other members of the Government. He has made it clear that, in his view and in the view of his colleagues, necessary road building or desirable road building, desirable house building or similar local authority activities, have to be curtailed as a result of the inadequacy of money during the last few years and that that inadequacy is due to the activities of his predecessors. It seems to me that he is genuinely sorry that such is the case, or that it appears to him to be the case.

We listened also to the Minister for Education—a person who would like to see certain improvements in our educational system. His answers are the same as those of the Minister for Local Government, that we cannot afford to put even the simplest radios into the schools or to increase the numbers in secondary schools, the scholarships to universities and the things that most of us want to see-better schools, more rapidly built and more rapidly provided. He says that we cannot afford it. He is joined by the Minister for Health, who tells us that the multiplicity of means test medicine services which we have at the moment, one more inefficient and more socially unjust than the other, must continue because we cannot afford the money to improve the position.

We heard yesterday of the failure of his poliomyelitis vaccination scheme. Only some 7 per cent., I think, of the children were vaccinated against the disease, which claimed something like 208 children, paralysed in various ways during the year—a considerable increase on the figures of the previous year. The plight of those 208 children, in various degrees of residual paralysis, some of them maimed for life, was directly due, in my view, to the failure of the Department of Health to introduce a scheme which could have covered a very much higher percentage than that covered by the Minister's scheme.

These remarks have little bearing on the motion.

It was one of the failures of the Government. One of the reasons for the failure of the Government seems to me to be the fact that they have not increased employment and have not stopped emigration and in that way they have not increased the national income in order to allow the Minister for Health to provide a suitable scheme.

Those matters would be more for the Estimate than for this motion.

I am not dealing with this at any length: I am merely mentioning it in passing. We have the same answer from the Minister for Social Welfare—that it was impossible, because of the lack of money, to provide a better standard of care for our old people than 24/- a week. The unemployed, the widows and orphans, the blind pensioners, all must suffer because of the lack of money, because of the failure of Government policy to create wealth to provide for those dependent social service groups in our society.

Those few Departments alone have given as their main reason the fact that there is not the money with which to create employment, to give a reasonable measure of social justice for the dependent section of society and to create a reasonable standard of health for our sick people. I am sure they genuinely believe that this is so, that this money is not available and they use it as a stick to beat their political opponents and predecessors in office. What I cannot understand is that, if there is this shortage of money for these essential services, and if these seemingly conscientious people are prepared to stand by and see these defects in our society because they say there is no wealth with which they can remedy them, where did the Minister for Industry and Commerce find the £220,000,000 which he now says is available for spending over the next five years? Where is it coming from? Who has dreamt it up? Where has it been? Why could the Minister for Health not get anything out of it?

Why could Deputy Blaney, the Minister for Local Government, not get something out of it, to build his roads and houses, create employment and stop emigration? Why could we not give some of that to the old people? Why are they to be made suffer through this winter in semi-starvation, in conditions of gross malnutrition, since that is the way they are living? There are widows on £2 a week with three or four children, also in semi-starvation. If anybody does not believe that, I shall show him such children and such mothers trying to rear their children on the pittance we give them.

All the time we here tolerate this gross injustice to our people, and stand by while 208 youngsters become paralysed with poliomyelitis during the year, it appears, that there is £220,000,000 we can lay our hands on, at the drop of a hat or the calling of the annual Árd Fheis of the Fianna Fáil Party. Now, somebody is being grossly dishonest in this matter, somebody is attempting to mislead the Party in the most irresponsible way in this matter.

It is clear to me that the failure here is one of leadership over the past 20, 30, or 40 years, if we are told now that there is in fact plenty of money available, plenty of capital, and that if we had wanted to develop our country there was no shortage whatsoever of wealth. The only failure, the only shortage, is the shortage of inspired leadership, intelligent leadership, which had the courage to break with the old traditions and to employ that money which is said to be there in those millions.

Deputy Browne's leadership, I suppose.

Very complimentary, thank you. Leadership was needed which would have been capable of providing employment for the unfortunate people who had to get out over that period. That failure is shown now in the failure of our Parties to accept that private enterprise has not created the opportunities for employment in our country which they had hoped it would create. Clearly they believed that if they allowed a small minority to pursue the creation of personal wealth, then as a by-product of that we would attain national prosperity and social justice for the mass of the people.

Can anybody deny that that system has completely failed to create anything like national prosperity, anything like social justice for the masses? There has been a net increase of 1 per cent. in employment in the past two years, and if you take out of that employment figure, the number employed in the State companies, it is clear that the contribution of private enterprise towards the creation of prosperity and social justice is completely negligible and unimportant.

In addition to failing to create employment, it has been, through inaction, unsuccessful in preventing 750,000 of our people getting out of the country, out of a population of 2,800,000. In addition to those 750,000 people getting out, there is 8, 9, 10 or 11 per cent chronic under-employment at home. This year alone, 60,000 got out and there are about 50,000 unemployed. About 110,000 unemployed people is the real figure, if we care to face it.

Private enterprise has created wealth for a minority which certainly enjoys a welfare society, a few who have done well out of it over the years. For them and their families, there is as much prosperity as they could want. It seems to me that it is now the function of the politicians to protect the interests of that wealthy minority at the expense of the welfare of the masses of the people as a whole, and that in order to protect that minority, unemployment will continue and persist, emigration will be allowed to continue and persist, and we will have defective health services and social services of every kind, because our political leaders have not the courage, or the simple patriotism, to decide that it is worth while even at this late stage to interfere in the radical and fundamental way that is needed with the interests of this wealthy minority with which they have now, at this stage in their lives, too many personal and business associations. Their loyalty now is no longer to the people but to the handful of wealthy friends who support them in office.

The fact of the matter now is that the Government depend on emigration. It is an integral part of Government policy. If emigration stops, if a recession comes in Great Britain in the next two, three or four years, then the 60,000 will be added to the 50,000. I have no doubt that, by Christmas, it will be 80,000, or upwards of 140,000 unemployed. In two years, a figure of 200,000 unemployed is conceivable. Then we will get a solution which many people will not like. Then complacency and smug self-satisfaction will be blasted sky-high. I sincerely hope it will by a revolutionary solution to our social and economic problems. If it will not come one way, by agreement, then let it come the other way.

If it were not for the success of Sir Stafford Cripps's planned economy in Great Britain, in the past four or five years alone some 200,000 of our people would be on the labour exchanges here pressing us to solve problems which leave the present political leaders completely indifferent. One of the points about which a lot has been made recently by the Taoiseach concerns the failure of his predecessors. It is an interesting point. He makes the case that the reason for their failure and their difficulties was the existence of multiple-party Government. The general line appears to be that the political predecessors in office of the Government were responsible for the present situation and that the system of Government which created that situation has many defects.

I agree entirely that multiple-party Government has many defects. It had the disadvantage that it was composed of Parties often of completely opposing basic ideological forms of Government. It represented completely different sections of the community. It had completely different declared objectives and political ends. Its solutions for the different social and economic problems, and the methods of solution, were also completely opposed and inevitably, it seemed to me, it led to a system of vacillation, equivocation, delays and inability to arrive at rapid decisions on important issues, a conflict of personalities, a conflict of policies.

In fact, on the whole, it would probably be difficult to devise a more incompetent and inefficient fundamental system of Government, no matter how hard one might try. I think that case can be made and I think the conscientious member of the inter-Party Government who understood its weaknesses would be prepared to make that case.

The Deputy is getting away from the motion. The motion does not deal with the formation of Governments; it deals with unemployment and emigration.

My point is that the present Government, faced with a record which it would be difficult to worsen, faced with the history of a Government operating under all these difficulties can only claim to have adopted practically all of the existing, living standards and working standards, the conditions under which our people grow old, the allowances paid to the unemployed, to the widows and orphans and to old people. A Government organised in that way must of its very nature be inefficient, but it seems to me that the present Government, given all the advantages of unanimity, the advantages of five years in the inter-election period in which to sit down and work out agreed solutions for the problems which would inevitably face them when they took office, a Government which had Party loyalty, one Party and accepted loyalty of the individual, a Government not bedevilled by the hostilities of conflicting groups, a Government not undermined by opposing personalities or opposing loyalties should have been able to do better. Yet, that Government can do nothing except look across at their opponents and say: "We did as much as you, and you were not able to do anything better than we did." In spite of all the weaknesses of the one, it seems to me that there is very little to choose between the two and that the failure of a Government which had all the advantages on their side seems to me to be the greater failure of the two.

None of the Ministers speaking to this debate has made any attempt to deny that they have not met the problems of unemployment and emigration. I do not think any of them has seriously attempted to say that they have fulfilled their promises. All we now have, the only carrot now dangled before the electorate, is the £220,000,000 bribe which is being offered to the electorate to say "Yes" in the referendum which they propose to put forward.

This is a motion of no confidence in the Government and we must ask ourselves: is the Government worthy of the confidence of this House? The conduct of the Government yesterday did not merit confidence. After Question Time yesterday, all the Ministers rose from their seats and left the House, and we were left with practically empty benches. Deputies Mulcahy and Norton were compelled to insist that there should be some respect for the House by the members of the Government. It took some time to get some Ministers of State back on to the benches.

We must ask ourselves: did the Government implement their promises during the past 18 months? What have they done during the past 18 months? Deputy Dr. Browne said that under the inter-Party Government it was often difficult to get a decision, but this Government have made no decision: they have done nothing. They came into office after all the complaints they had made about levies and took advantage of anything that Deputy Sweetman had done in an effort to restore the finances of the country. The necessity for that arose, not because of the extravagance that has been attributed to the inter-Party Government, but because, as I would like to remind the House, we in common with many other countries, were suffering from a credit squeeze. As a matter of fact, the credit squeeze applied to the whole sterling area and our friends in Great Britain had to do something of the same kind as Deputy Sweetman did. But if what Deputy Sweetman did was wrong, why did they not change it when they came in? They just did nothing but sat down and took the benefit of Deputy Sweetman's initiative in introducing the Prize Bonds scheme and collected £10,000,000.

They have done nothing about unemployment. They promised they would get cracking immediately. There was to be no delay, but they did nothing. There was very little business on the Order Paper yesterday and that might be another reason for the whole bench of Ministers trooping out. We have had a long recess. I said before we left here that the Ministers were in a coma and I say it again. On the Order Paper yesterday were only a few Bills in the name of the Minister for Industry and Commerce, who happens to be in London; therefore, there was nothing to be done. Of course, we are now told about crocks of gold and the £200,000,000, but these must have been all hidden away before now.

The line of argument taken by the Ministers I heard speaking to-day and yesterday was that all the country's assets had been wasted by the inter-Party Government. I saw a lot of money being spent, but it was spent on housing and as far as the members of the Fianna Fáil Party were concerned at the time, they were howling for more and more houses, more works, more harbours and more piers and more money. They were howling even for useless things if they could get them. We were told that the country was handed over in a very good and solid state to the inter-Party Government in 1948. In reply to that, I would quote the Deputy Leader of the Party, a responsible Minister—as a matter of fact, he seems to be the kingpin of the Party—the Minister for Industry and Commerce. In 1947, before he had wind of the word that he was going out of office, he said in Letterkenny that there were four black years ahead.

I should like to discuss the agricultural side of this motion because I come from an agricultural constituency. I was amazed during the speeches of the Ministers that nobody opposite said anything about wheat. Deputy Corry asked a question yesterday about the levy of 5/9 a barrel levied by An Bord Grain at the behest of the Minister in order to set up a fund to help the Minister out in exporting or selling surplus wheat. Now a surplus does not arise and I find myself agreeing with Deputy Corry that when the surplus does not arise and when the money was collected to deal with a surplus, restitution should, and must be made to the farmers. I am a little suspicious of the conduct of Deputy Corry because when he got a curt answer from the Minister that he was not prepared to do anything about it and when Deputy Corry was challenged by Deputy O'Sullivan who asked: "What about the Adjournment?" Deputy Corry did not take the question up on the Adjournment. He did not do so, and I have an idea that perhaps Deputy Corry was tipped off not to do so. I think in justice, when this levy is collected to subsidise the sale and export of surplus wheat and that surplus does not arise, the levy should be returned.

How does this question arise on the motion? I am afraid it is not relevant.

As I read it here, Sir, the amendment says: "agriculture, business and industry". I just want to mention it, but I will leave it if you say so. The Minister for Lands talked about the mess in regard to production that existed when this Fianna Fáil Government took office. Some time later, he said we must go in for an increase in the amount of production. So that there would not be any doubt about this I intervened —it was the only intervention the Minister had in his whole speech—to ask him if he would repeat that. He said: "Yes", that it was important that we should have an increase in the amount of production. Now at the start he said there had been a mess in agricultural production. Their Government last year found themselves with a surplus of wheat. They had to subsidise the sale of wheat, the sale of bacon and butter. Now he says he wants increased production. For a year and a half, I have been asking Fianna Fáil Ministers if they want an increase in agricultural produce. If they do not, let them say so and if they do, let them say so, instead of giving expression to these generalities about wanting increased production.

We want increased production at diminishing cost.

I see—the Taoiseach wants to reduce wages?

We want to reduce the cost of production, if we can. Otherwise, we will not be able to compete.

You offered 85/- a barrel for wheat.

It is a question of producing economically.

I have been here since 10.30 this morning and no Minister or anybody else from the Fianna Fáil Benches was interrupted.

I am sorry for interrupting the Deputy; I was only answering a question.

Every time I speak here I am interrupted. The Minister for Lands said that the inter-Party Government did nothing about the marketing of agricultural produce, that they came into office and left everything there. If my memory serves me aright, our cattle were sold very well in 1948 as a result of the cattle agreements that were made. But as far as setting up marketing boards or anything else at that time is concerned, it must be remembered that butter was rationed, that we had no bacon and no surpluses. The question of a surplus did not arise. I find it very hard to realise that a Minister of State can walk about this country and not remember that.

I want to remind the House of what Fianna Fáil have done about marketing. We were told they had set up these wonderful boards and marketing commissions. In the first Budget Fianna Fáil brought in when they came into office, they allocated £250,000 to seek new markets. Some time ago, just before the House rose, a question was asked as to how much of that money had been spent on seeking new markets and we were told £890. A sum of £250,000 was asked for last April 12 months, but £890 was spent. There is the "get cracking" machinery.

There is a penny levy on milk at the present time, so that we can get rid of our surplus butter, but in the next season I do not think there will be any surplus butter. I will not go into that further than mentioning it. The people on the land realise that that is true.

The Minister for Health yesterday put on a circus for a gallery of supporters who were brought in here from the Fianna Fáil Árd Fheis.

The Deputy should not say that any Minister has put on a circus in this House.

If you say so, I withdraw it.

A Deputy

There is a clown here now.

The Deputy admits it is a circus?

What about the dual purpose hen?

What does the Leas-Cheann Comhairle say about the other remark?

I did not hear the remark.

If you did not hear it, you cannot say anything about it.

The Minister for Health was in great form yesterday speaking before a section of the Fianna Fáil Árd Fheis in the gallery. He explained the financial troubles of the country, how the country's finances were smashed and what he, as Minister, had to do. That is why I think this Government do not deserve the confidence of the House and the people. If he was such a great success as he said he was as Minister for Finance, why did he not continue as Minister for Finance? We did not see the present Minister for Finance, who has been in several Departments during his political life, and nobody, I am sure, will claim that in any of those Departments his name will go down in history for the manner in which he did his business.

The Minister for Local Government talked here about his terrific task down at the Custom House. Last year, we had it from the Front Bench of Fianna Fáil that they wanted time. Well, they have had a lot of time. We have much less building in this country than we had this time two years and there was plenty of time. He also said that he has maintained the amount of money given out for road works and that the amount is the same this year as it was in previous years. I shall not dispute that. What I am concerned about is that, even though more cars have come on the road and even though more taxation has been collected, the grant from the Road Fund has been reduced so far as my constituency is concerned. That is a matter of some interest to my constituents and to me.

The Minister for Lands said here this morning that the T.T. campaign must be stepped up. Veterinary surgeons do not seem to be as fond of it as they should be. I shall not say more. I leave it to the Minister for Agriculture. I do not wish to embarrass the Government by putting down a question asking for statistics as to how many veterinary surgeons are working on T.T. in the Twenty-Six Counties as compared with the number working on T.T. in the Six Counties. People might get a shock if they saw the figures.

There are discussions going on in London at the moment in relation to agriculture. The situation is a serious one. With all due respect to the Minister for Industry and Commerce —it is he who is in London representing Ireland in these discussions—those who get their living from agriculture are not quite certain that, if concessions can be got for industry at the expense of agriculture, the Minister for Industry and Commerce may not lean that way. The people would have preferred to have had the Minister for Agriculture, as Minister for Agriculture, at these discussions.

I cannot see how the question of representation at these discussions can be debated on this motion at this stage.

It is a matter of Government policy in relation to free trade. I shall leave it at that. The leader of the Government made his famous cryptic speech at Belmullet. On the same evening, the Tánaiste made his contribution at Waterford. Neither of them has carried out what he promised. The leader of the Government, who is present, is reported as saying no later than last week that the nation's greatest problem is the restoration of the language. I agree it is a problem and I agree that it is one in which most people have shown great interest, but I would not say that it is our greatest problem. The greatest problems facing us to-day are unemployment and emigration. If I were given a choice—I am not afraid to say this—and if the people were given a choice as between the language and a job and a home——

The Deputy may not discuss the merits and demerits of the language on this motion. The motion deals specifically with unemployment and emigration. The language is not mentioned in either the motion or the amendment.

I just point out that it was mentioned as our greatest problem. The country is now about to be plunged into controversy about P.R.

A wide field.

Will this controversy bring peace, concord and justice for our people?

I do not propose to make a very long statement. Most of the matters raised on the other side have been dealt with already by one Minister or another. I shall just refer to two or three specific points.

Reference was made to the cost of living. The index figure in August last was 146. It is quite true that the cost of living has increased by 11 points since we took office. About five points of that increase arose by reason of the necessary action which had to be taken to correct certain trends at the time of the 1957 Budget. About six points, therefore, are due to causes completely outside our control and this explanation was relied on, too, by the previous Government. When reference is made to the increase of 11 points under our administration, it is always conveniently forgotten that the cost of living increased by 11 points also under the administration of the previous Government.

Reference was made to employment and unemployment. When we came into office, the economic position was about as bad as it could be. The outlook was dark and gloomy. The main task confronting our Government was to change the then existing trends. Unemployment was increasing; production was decreasing. We had to try to alter that situation. We set out resolutely to achieve that. The result is that to-day employment in manufacturing industries is increasing. Production is increasing.

Opposition Parties are very fond of choosing a favourable basis for comparison. In the case of unemployment, they invariably take 1955—the best year. Taking their basis of comparison—I admit it is the very best they can take—unemployment by March 1957 had increased by over 17,000 as compared with the corresponding 1955 figure. It is not a bad thing to have changed that and to have brought the excess down by 6,000 by March, 1958. There has also been an improvement in employment. Employment in manufacturing industries has gone up by about 3,000, compared with 12 months ago.

Now let us take emigration. Many a time, in reply to questions, I have had to point out that we have no way at the present time by which we can get definitely, with anything like accuracy, the annual figure for emigration except as a result of the census which is taken at certain periods. The last period was a five year period. Within that intercensal period, of course, we do know what the net emigration is and, with that as a basis, we are able with some certainty to allocate it within the years in that period, but, outside those periods, we have no definite way of knowing it and anybody can make practically any guess he chooses about it.

It is suggested that the net balance of passenger movement in and out of the State gives a good basis on which to work. It is true that it did for the period from 1951 to 1956. In that intercensal period, it is quite true that the net passenger balance corresponded with the net emigration figure derived from the census but it did not correspond before and had been rejected. I am not sure of it but I think it was actually rejected before as a basis by the Statistics Department. Whether it corresponds now or not is a question to which we do not know the answer. Anybody who knew that the net passenger balance in 1957 had gone up by some 15,000 as compared with the average figure during the intercensal period would be inclined to say that the emigration had gone up by 15,000 in that year but I wonder what they would say or what conclusion they would draw from the fact that in the first eight months of this year the net passenger balance was 22,000 less than in the same period in 1957. We cannot have it both ways. If we are going to use the passenger balance as a basis for comparison, it would seem to indicate now that emigration is lessening.

Does the Taoiseach believe that?

Do I believe what? I am talking about the arguments and the bases of arguments put forward about emigration. I have often urged the Statistics Office to do their best to get us an annual figure and they have not been able to do that. There is no definite figure that they can take. I am pointing out that, if you do take the net balance of passenger movement and if you conclude from the previous year's figures that net emigration had increased by 15,000, the first eight months of this year would show a reduction in the other direction; that is, in other words, it would show 15,000 one way in one year and in the first eight months of this year, it is 22,000 the other way. I am not saying what is the conclusion. I have simply said that you cannot have it both ways, that if you are going to use that as a basis for comparison and conclude in one case that it means an increase of 15,000, you must say that in the other case it means 22,000 less, at any rate for the eight months in question.

There is no doubt that emigration is, and has been for many, many years one of the most serious problems the nation has to face. I have been here in these benches and in the opposite benches for a good many years now and whenever the gentlemen on the opposite side, the members at present in opposition, were over there, they shouted about emigration, but it is a remarkable fact that when they got into office, instead of emigration diminishing, it went up.

That is not true.

It is true, of course.

It is not.

The figures prove it quite definitely.

They do not.

When Fine Gael were over there, we had people like the Deputy saying that anybody who wanted to do so could reduce emigration, that everybody wanted to work. He said that in those benches, but, in these benches, it was quite a different story.

We did it. The facts are there.

We will accept the figures.

The fact is that the people opposite, when in opposition, were always shouting about emigration and when they got into these benches, emigration increased. I am not saying that they were definitely responsible. I am simply pointing out the fact that people talk very differently when they are in opposition and when they have the responsibility for doing things.

Give us the figures.

Emigration is one of our most serious problems. There is only one way to deal with emigration and that is to have a greater amount of productive employment. That is why we spent so many years in building up our industries in order to give employment. We have tried to get productive employment for people. You cannot get that by amenity schemes, although they have great value to the country. It is of great importance that you should have houses, that you should have hospitals, but the building of houses or hospitals does not give you that permanent employment that work in industry gives.

On account of this situation, it has been necessary to examine the question of capital investment and its effect on the whole economy. The Secretary of the Department of Finance undertook, with the help of officers of his own and other Departments, a general survey and made a general study of our whole economy and, on the basis of that study, the Government examined the matter and considered that it would be desirable to have a comprehensive programme looking ahead for a period of four or five years. The study was comprehensive and intensive and it is on the basis of that study that the White Paper indicating the programme which the Government propose to follow was prepared. It is based on that fundamental study and on an examination of it by the Government.

The decision by the Government has already been indicated by the Tanaiste, who has been working on the subcommittee dealing with this matter. He announced that this White Paper will be published soon. There is no point in going into it in detail at this stage. If it is required, the Government will be very happy to afford an opportunity to have it discussed here as a whole. The main feature of it is that, looking forward for a period of years, seeing the capital investment that there is at present, seeing how it is likely to taper off in the coming years, seeing how important it is that we should have capital investment for productive purposes, we came to the conclusion that from the public angle—I should like to stress again that the main reliance must be on the private sector, on the development and the encouragement of private industry by every possible means, by fiscal measures and others—over a period of five years there would be capital expenditure averaging £44,000,000 a year, and amounting in five years to something like £220,000,000.

Debate adjourned.
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