Committee on Finance. - Motion by Minister for Finance—(Resumed). – Dáil Éireann (16th Dáil) – Thursday, 5 Mar 1959

Committee on Finance. - Motion by Minister for Finance—(Resumed).

Mr. McQuillan

Before I go on to deal with the Vote on Account, I want to give one quotation to show the futility of discussions in this House between two groups who have had responsibility for Government, two groups who do not differ fundamentally in their outlook with regard to Government. This quotation is from the debate on the Vote on Account on 15th March, 1956, Volume 155, column 624:—

"There is not any evidence of any great change in policy in any Department, but the overall picture is one of administrative costs mounting out of control. There is no evidence of any efforts being made by the Government to deal with that situation or to apply to themselves the exhortations which they are addressing to the public."

This is the priceless part:—

"I suppose the only possible solution of this problem is to get rid of this Government. That will come sooner or later."

That quotation could have been made by any member of the present Front Bench when in Opposition or by any member of the present Opposition Front Bench. However, that quotation was made by none other than the Tánaiste.

If we examine the figures of expenditure since 1956, in a period when Fianna Fáil had two years with the greatest majority they ever had in this House, we find that the expenditure of a non-essential type has mounted each year in spite of the control they wielded. The argument of the Tánaiste in 1956, to the then inter-Party Government was to this effect: "You are not able to control the situation. There is only one way to deal with this situation and that is to get out this Government." Have we not the same position to-day? Is there any change with regard to the control being exercised by this Government on mounting expenditure? Have they shown any more power of control than the people they ousted from office?

To go back to what I said last night. Many Deputies are beginning to realise that power to control the destiny of the Irish people, power to control employment, the cost of living and the right to live in this State, lies outside this House. Every day, inside this House, efforts are being made to smother and to stifle justifiable criticism, even though this House can now be described only as a rubber stamp for passing legislation and as a talking shop. Efforts are being made by this Government to destroy even that limited function of discussing business in this House and I shall give evidence to that effect in the course of my remarks.

In my opinion, the people at the present time have either contempt for politicians or they are cynical towards public life. Can they be blamed? In the past few years especially, we have had a surfeit of promises. We have had blueprints; we have had grey papers and we have had White Papers. From the various Ministers each week, we have had announcements of great things to come as a result of discussions between interested groups within the country. Even on the Vote on Account, the Minister in his opening remarks said that he and his Department were having discussions with various groups in the country—the bacon industry, farmers' associations, business groups and so forth—on how increased production can be achieved and how to ensure that more employment will be given all over the country.

Those blueprints, White Papers, grey papers and consultations, have made the public fed up. What they want now is action, and I am afraid they are not going to get the action. I am afraid they are not going to get action because if action has to be taken, the very people who support politicians in this House will have to be stamped upon, people outside this House who exercise control and use Cabinet Ministers as puppets. Those people and their vested interests will have to be brought under control and there is no individual on the Front Bench of this Government who is prepared to sacrifice his personal interest, or his company interest, for the public good.

I have said that the power is now going outside the House. Let me give a few examples. For some time past, there has been a committee functioning on the question of the marketing of agricultural produce and a sub-committee was set up to deal with another most important means of livelihood of the small farmers in the West of Ireland, namely the pigs and bacon industry. They sat for a considerable period and made a report to the Government. I asked the Minister, in this House, if he would tell us what the report was and if the Government would implement the report. The Minister—it was the Minister for Agriculture—in his usual fashion said the Government had the report under consideration. In his opening speech yesterday, the Minister for Finance said that consultations were going on for the purpose of modernising the bacon factories. Let us be clear on that. The report of that committee which discussed and worked out the best means of improving the bacon industry, and preventing the exploitation of the farmers, decided that control would have to be exercised by the State on the pig curers and that the pig industry would best be dealt with on practically the same lines as the sugar company.

Do the Government propose to adopt that approach? I say they will not because they themselves have control, as individuals, of a number of bacon factories and are closely associated with them. Not alone are the members of the Government associated with them, but the back benchers are also associated with them. Then we are told that the interests of the small farmers will be looked after by this Government. The pig industry is on the way down again. It is subject to fluctuations year after year. There is no long-term policy for it. The producer is at the mercy of the middle-man in this matter. I do not for a moment think that there are not big difficulties with regard to marketing and exporting, but we are not even dealing with that aspect.

We have a serious problem in regard to production. There is a feeling of dissatisfaction and distrust on the part of the producer himself because he knows he is being exploited. If prices are to go down, the man who will lose is not the middle-man, or the retailer, but the man at the bottom, the producer. Strong action is needed to put that industry on its feet, strong action on a wide basis to ensure that the interests of the producer, and the small farmer, are looked after. Will we get that strong action from the Government when members of the Government are closely associated with the industry, not as producers, but as middle-men, up along the line?

Again I say that power now lies outside this House. Since I came into this House, I have read the various reports of the Central Bank and I have taken time off each year to read the speeches of the bosses of the various commercial banks. Every year, we have had this wailing and moaning and groaning that too much money was being spent and that there was always a constant danger of inflation. The Central Bank, acting as a kind of mouthpiece for the commercial banks, kept up this whining every year. The result was that they frightened the Government into taking action to prevent so much money being circulated.

The Taoiseach, as a result of the advice given to him by these banks, decided that he would put the hair-shirt on the Irish people every time he got back into power, and he put that hairshirt on the Irish people every time. As a result of that, the poor people become poorer and the rich became richer; bank deposits went up and external assets went up; bank dividends went up and what happened then? The unemployment figures went up and the figures for emigration went up, as each year these gentlemen, the bosses of the banks, pronounced on the danger to the community of spending money. The fact of the matter is that the Government, in their conservative fashion, accepted the advice of the banks in question. They have no option. The State exercises no control whatever over its monetary policy.

For ten years, we listened to that weeping and wailing about spending. What happened then? Overnight the situation changed, and anybody with an honest face—like any member of this House—could go into the Bank and on his appearance was supposed to be entitled to a loan. Suddenly, the restrictions went by the board as far as certain sections of the agricultural community were concerned. A few years ago, would any Deputy from rural Ireland have said that a small farmer, or any farmer, could walk in and get a loan from the commercial banks? Despite the fact that the commercial banks had on deposit from the farming community three times the amount lent to them, the farmer was not regarded as a sure person to whom to give credit.

However, all that changed overnight; and I should like to know why. I have my own suspicions. I should like to have clarified for me where the pressure came from to change the banking outlook. We know that the British agent and British farmer who depend on the Irish store cattle trade have been worried for the past couple of years in case the Irish programme for the eradication of bovine T.B. should not be completed, and that consequently a large section of the British farming community would be deprived of store cattle from Ireland. A number of commercial banks here with headquarters in Britain have on their controlling authority a number of people closely associated with the British farming community, and we find them offering overnight credit schemes for cattle to the Irish farmers. That move came from Britain. This Government had nothing whatever to do with it. The organisation known as the N.F.A. were, if you like, used, as far as that scheme was concerned.

For the past 100 years, we have maintained that Britain wanted this country purely as a ranch to breed and rear store cattle for Britain. Are we not walking right into that trap? Remember, there are no loans or credit from the commercial banks with headquarters in Britain for the farmer who wants to go into horticulture, tillage, pigs or anything like that; but there is a loan for the farmer who wants to go into grass. Even with the limited tillage and mixed farming we have, the aim is to get into grass to suit the British buyer. I mention this because for the past 25 years, under the direction of the Tánaiste, this Government built up tariff walls for every "chancer", speculator and pal who wanted to make a few quid on some tin-pot industry; but now the tariff walls must go. There is panic in the Fianna Fáil camp and in the camp of their followers who have made well on this position for the past 25 years. The alternative is "back now to the policy of grass". The store cattle trade and grass are to save this country.

I said here last night that a great deal of power now lies outside this House but inside the House efforts are being made by this Government to stifle criticism, to stifle questions on matters of public importance and to deny the airing of the justifiable grievances of the community. All legislation dealing with State or semi-State companies contains the provision that the conduct and working of such companies will not be subject to interference by question or otherwise in this House. I am the first to maintain that State and semi-State companies in this country are outstanding, but the Government are doing a very bad day's work for such concerns by not bringing them to a greater degree under the control of the Oireachtas, so that the public will have some say with regard to the policy and the manner in which the money voted in this House is expended.

It has reached the stage at which the Government, through legislation, have prevented Deputies from raising matters of public importance by question, and now they are seeking to prevent Deputies from raising questions in connection with State companies by way of motion here. Within the past three months, the Government have sought to prevent motions dealing with State companies from appearing on the Order Paper. If they get away with that, what will be the position here?

Mr. M.P. Murphy

They are getting away with it as far as questions are concerned.

Mr. McQuillan

Yes, and the latest attempt is to do away with motions. I challenge the Minister to deny that. Of course, the aim is to have it nice and quiet in this House. If P.R. disappears and there are 15 to 20 men on the other side and 80 to 90 quiet, disciplined men in the back benches of Fianna Fáil, the Government will be in a position to pass legislation here to cut out Private Members' motions dealing with State or semi-State companies. They are not in a position to do it at present because the Committee on Procedure and Privileges look after the interests of Deputies and the public interest. I shall not deal with that any further. I mention it as an example of the whittling away of Deputies' powers. The Government are not interested in democracy. A Minister like the Tánaiste is interested only in a free passage: get things done; do not mind Dáil Éireann. But the gamble has not come off yet, and I shall endeavour to prevent it.

Another cause of cynicism and contempt for this House is the question of privilege conferred. This has particular reference to the Department of Industry and Commerce. Every day of the week we read about inquiries in America concerning graft and corruption in various concerns. There is a need for them here. But even if graft and corruption are not discovered in a particular sphere, the very fact that such a committee can sit is, in itself, a warning to those who might be tempted.

What have we in our present set up? Licences can be issued for the inportation of commodities, whether shoes or other commodities, by the Minister and the names of the individuals to whom the licences are issued will never be published or reach the public. On what basis is that done? When a question is put down to the Minister asking why the names are not made public, he becomes abusive in this House and fails to answer in a responsible fashion the public demand.

Every time a licence is issued, a benefit is conferred on some individual over another individual. The public are entitled to know who that individual is. If there is an issue of haulage plates by the Minister, the public are entitled to know why certain individuals get haulage plates and others do not. Would it be that certain individuals get them because they are closely associated with the Fianna Fáil Party? Would that be the reason why licences for the importation of fuels are issued to certain individuals? Would it be because they have subscribed heavily to the Fianna Fáil funds? These are fair charges. Why are the names not disclosed to the public?

People who get such licences do well out of them. They make money out of those licences. The fact that they get these licences means that traders and others are deprived of these facilities. That type of carry-on is going on under the Tánaiste and I think it is time it was exposed. I think it is time, when we bring measures before this House, that they are examined more carefully and that Deputies on all sides of the House will ensure that there is no room left for any Minister afterwards to hide behind the Act.

I can tell the House what the Minister's answer was to me when I asked a specific question on the matter of licences. It was that the specific Act of 1936 did not specify that the names must be published. That is the answer he hides behind.

Recently, the Tánaiste said that the next five years would be critical. Even the limited freedom in this country would be jeopardised, unless big strides were made within the next five years. He is willing, as usual, with his brass audacity to keep on gambling that he will be able to bluff the public for the next five years. Perhaps, he will. God knows, he and the Taoiseach have bluffed the public for many years now. Perhaps another five years is not a long period when you think of 20 years of bluff by that Party, but I think that when the Tánaiste said the next five years would be critical, he was talking with his tongue in his cheek.

He knows that the critical stage has been reached. It is doubtful at this stage whether we can turn the hands of the clock back and prevent what is known throughout the country as the big sell-out. In my opinion, we should discount his talk that the next five years will be critical. In my opinion, this Government have thrown in the sponge. This Government have already made up their minds that they are not able to cope with the huge problems that have to be faced in this country. As I have already pointed out, the reasons are quite apparent in many aspects in their association outside this House as directors and ex-directors of various companies. The fact that if they take action now as a Government, they will be hurting their own pals and vested interests outside has left them powerless to intervene at a vital stage. They talk about promises while the big sell-out is going on. I think they have panicked.

Speculators are welcome from the four corners of the globe. It does not matter whether they are American, Canadian, British, German, Swedish, or Italian. They are all welcome here; they are all welcome to Ireland. They will get first-class facilities in Ireland. Some of them undoubtedly may be first-class men and sound. Some of them, as we know, are anything but sound, but we know they will all get preference over the Irishman at the present time. If a proposition is put forward by a foreigner and an Irishman, you can bet your bottom dollar that the foreigner will get preference when it comes to any question of help from this Government.

Deputies may think that I am exaggerating when I talk about the sell-out. They may think that when we get people from Canada or elsewhere to help us exploit our mineral resources, it is unfair to criticise the Government along this path. I want to be clear. With regard to certain aspects of mineral development, I blame both Governments in the past five years for what I can describe as a sell-out. It cannot be denied, as will be proved to this House in a very short time, that the individuals who have control to a great extent over our mineral development here, with particular reference to Wicklow, have made over one and a quarter million pounds on the Stock Exchange without leaving one finger on the works in Wicklow.

There was no opening for the Irish speculator or investor. It was all limited to the individuals concerned in Canada. That is the turn-over these gentlemen made on the schemes as manipulators. Without ever touching the mine, they made a profit. They were welcomed here because they were foreigners.

In relation to the Vote on Account, the Minister has pointed out that he is preparing legislation to help private interests for the purpose of going ahead with mineral development. Had we not a body in Minraí Teoranta which did excellent work here as a State concern? The excellent work done by that body was handed over to private enterprise after the hard slogging was done, in order that private enterprise would reap the profits out of the excellent technical work done by that State company. Here we have the Minister in this Vote on Account making provision to hand over more of the public money to private companies, most of them outside this State, to help them in their mineral development search, after the State companies had done all the hard work.

People often wonder how it is possible for those to come over here. There are half a dozen ways by which you can do it. First of all, if you are an American, you discover you have at some stage or another a great-grandmother who was Irish. If you cannot discover such in the family, you find some naïve clergyman or perhaps a couple of clergymen in America who were born in Ireland. They use them. They take them on a trip to Ireland and they bless the old country. Because they accompany these speculators, we can afford immediately then to allow an industry to be handed over and exploited by these individuals.

If you want to get support from the Government and bluff the Irish people with regard to minerals or anything else what do you do? We stuff our hats with shamrocks and we christen the mines after some unfortunate saint here in Ireland. If that does not work, you put up a good proposition to the members of the Government and appoint as directors of your new outfit pals of the Government in office. We see this happening every day of the week. For years past, we have had the freedom to paint our letter boxes and our buses green and have been free to put up the tricolour, green, white and orange, but those are the very symbols of our freedom that are being exploited by outsiders with the consent of the Government.

We talk about an air service to America. We have an air service controlled by Americans, but the plane is called after an Irish saint. If they want to put on a show, they take the President off to America for St. Patrick's Day to spend a week with the American President and they proceed to change the interior of the plane, to paint the seats green, white and orange and put shamrocks on the outside.

An Ceann Comhairle

That does not fall for discussion on this.

Mr. McQuillan

In this sense, we are full of pomp and pretence.

An Ceann Comhairle

The activities of the President do not fall for discussion on the Vote on Account.

Mr. McQuillan

I am not criticising the unfortunate President. Far be it from me to start discussing him on the Vote on Account. I am merely referring at this stage to the methods adopted by the outsiders to gull and fool the Irish people. The development and sale of our mineral resources has been handed over to non-nationals, while we export technicians and scientists to Britain, men who are prepared to come back here and work honestly and loyally to develop their own country. There are first-class scientists in major concerns in England anxious to bring their families back to live and work in Ireland. Instead of giving them the opportunity to live in Ireland, we bring in aliens, many of them undesirable.

The Government are charged with the responsibility of ending congestion and utilising agricultural land where it is available for the relief of congestion and to end the misery in Kerry, Deputy Moloney's county, in Galway, Mayo, Sligo, Leitrim and elsewhere. What do we find? We find that any group can come in here from Britain, America or elsewhere as a combine and buy up the best land in any locality.

An Ceann Comhairle

The Deputy should understand that legislation is necessary before people can be prevented from buying land.

Mr. McQuillan

All that is necessary in this instance is for the Government to make more money available to the Land Commission to carry out the policy for which it was set up.

An Ceann Comhairle

The Deputy must not advocate legislation. He is advocating restrictions on the purchase of land by aliens, which would require legislation.

Mr. McQuillan

The amount of money made available in the Vote on Account and the full amount made available for lands would not be sufficient for any year over the past ten years to buy land which comes on the market and which would be suitable for the relief of congestion. There is no necessity whatever to bring in legislation such as the Chair suggests I am advocating. Take two estates sold in Carlow and Roscommon. The one in Carlow was sold at an average value per acre of £35-£40. That is low when you consider that in the West of Ireland, if a farm of land is up for sale, that farm will sell at £100 per acre, and that might not be the best of land. The farm in Carlow containing first-class land was sold at approximately £40 per statute acre.

If funds were available, the Land Commission could purchase such land, instead of allowing foreign combines to purchase it, but they do not do that. When you bring in these investors, you are taking away the fundamental thing that should belong to the Irish people, namely, the land. That is why I say the Tánaiste is talking with his tongue in his cheek when he tells us that the next five years are critical. He does not give a damn whether they are critical or not because when the new sell-out is completed, the Tánaiste and his group will be associated with the directors and friends of the new people who control the land, minerals and wealth of Ireland.

I was very interested to hear the discussion on Shannon. From listening to the Tánaiste, it was my impression that the company being set up, the Shannon Development Company, was a company set up for the purpose of dealing with social and economic problems that had arisen at Shannon as a result of the likelihood of the jet planes overflying that area, and that Shannon is now a vested interest which must be looked after. When the Tánaiste says that Shannon is an important social problem, I am in full agreement with him. How does he go about remedying it? He sets up a company, gives it certain powers, puts it under the control of a certain individual, and says: "Your function is to build up industries in this area, to keep the employment content up to what it is now and not allow that to drop if the air business goes down." The Tánaiste has charged a State company with the responsibility of preventing unemployment in an area and with increasing employment, if possible, and every facility is being made available to that company to deal with the problem.

Let us look a little further up the Shannon at the West of Ireland. Have we any facilities like those being provided for Shannon? The West of Ireland has been looked upon merely as a breeding ground for the export of children to America and Britain. Have the Government ever thought of setting up a somewhat similar body under the control of a group of experts to deal with the economic and social problems that exist in the congested areas? They do not worry about those areas. They are not strong or organised. They are not able to bring pressure to bear on the Government. More luck to the people in the Shannon area who have the Minister in the palm of their hand. They are able to get help and encouragement, but for those who live further along the Shannon, very little assistance is forthcoming.

When it even comes down to the question of improving the lands in these neglected areas which are subject to flooding for many months in the year, we find that the amount made available last year has been wiped out. There is no money for the Local Authorities (Works) Act—not a penny piece. I drew Deputy Haughey out last night—he is very close to the Tánaiste—in order to confirm that the Local Authorities (Works) Act was a waste and that it was a bad Act. He speaks as the mouthpiece of the Tánaiste. He used the very words which the Tánaiste told him to use three or four nights ago. That is the mentality of the Tánaiste, that the small farmers and the persons in the rural areas do not count.

I mentioned last year that I was visiting in the West of Ireland and I met a person who said that he had been told very bluntly when he asked how they existed there: "We export children." Of course, that is true. That is really the means by which they live. If it were not for the regular cheques from Britain and America, there would be very few people left in the West of Ireland to-day. The few who might be left would be the demoralised few, demoralised by the Fianna Fáil dole, and privileges for speaking Irish. That is the charity dole which was brought in by Fianna Fáil 30 years ago that is all over the areas of the West to-day.

I can give an example. I was in Connemara one morning and I spoke about afforestation. I did not speak in a very political manner but a man came up to me and said: "What good are trees here? Why do you not tell the people that you will increase the £5 allowance for children who speak Irish, or that you will increase the dole? That is what we want here." That is the demoralisation that has been brought into that part of the country by the quacks who are in Government at the moment.

What do we find then? The Taoiseach looks into his heart and says we must restore the Irish language, and the method by which we restore it is that we sound an alarm that we are in a bad way economically and let every foreigner of every description pour into the country. Is it through these that the Irish language will be restored? It is time the public woke up to the way they are being gulled. The Taoiseach said on a number of occasions that if he found he could not get the improvements or the advances inside the system he was prepared to go outside it. I heard him say that on a number of occasions. I wonder is he satisfied with the system now?

I am not referring at this stage to the system of election because I am afraid that is what he is going to change. He intends to have a system of election which will imprison the community in the conditions we have at the moment. That is what he will achieve by a change in the system. Is he prepared to change the system and to be blunt enough to say that there are big things to be tackled in this country and that only the State is in a position to do that job with the resources which it has, that only the State is in a position to deal with the rings and vested interests that exist within the State? Is there any hope that the Taoiseach will change his mind about that, instead of pretending to worship at the shrine of alleged private enterprise? Private enterprise in this country has reached the stage at which it is just a matter of complete exploitation of the public. When it is a question of a reduction of prices, on the basis of the reduced costings of commodities that affect the everyday life of the people, the prices of these commodities are not reduced and reductions are not passed on to the consumer.

There are rings within rings there all the time and no effort made to break them up and to give a fair crack of the whip to the consumer. Are the Tánaiste and the Taoiseach prepared to take action? I believe they are not, especially the Tánaiste. We are faced with the position that if P.R. goes, the Tánaiste will be the boss of the concern which now controls the country. When that day comes, let us remember that fundamental things will go by the board. The land, the people engaged in agriculture, and all that has to do with rural Ireland do not count for a snap of my fingers to the Tánaiste. Yet he is to be in charge of a Government who are supposed to be responsible for an improvement in conditions, the expansion of agriculture, the setting up of as many economic holdings as possible within the State and the development of the diverse aspects of agriculture. What interest has he in these matters? It is time the public knew these things and took the necessary action.

I do not know what will happen to the referendum; I do know that it does not matter whether the people want it or not; but the day will soon come when the Irish people will pray that the terrible Colossus, the terrible imposition, known as Fianna Fáil will be wiped out completely.

Minister for Education (Mr. J. Lynch)

I have been in this House for about as long as Deputy McQuillan, but, apart from the couple of years during which he supported a Coalition Government, I have seldom heard from him a speech that was not permeated with the notion: "A plague on both your houses." We have heard little from him by way of contribution since he left the inter-Party Government, but carping criticism of both sides of the House and of institutions and organisations that have been endeavouring for a number of years to build up the economy of the country.

His particular line of attack on this occasion was not so much pouring contumely on people on both sides of the House who are members of organised Parties, but it was directed mainly at the Tánaiste and people who have made capital available for the development of different aspects of our economy by means of private enterprise. He referred also to the manner in which our State sponsored and semi-State sponsored bodies are being run and omitted to mention that during the ten years during which he has been a member of the House, many measures have been put through the House by the Fianna Fáil and inter-Party Governments, which established the position which many of these companies now hold. I have yet to see Deputy McQuillan going into the Division Lobby and opposing any of these measures. It is typical, of course, of a man who is responsible to nobody, who can come into the House and criticise destructively almost every institution in the State and offer no constructive suggestion as to how the ills of which he has complained might be cured.

Enough, however, of what Deputy McQuillan has said because the content of his speech does little credit to himself or the House. For some months past, it has been said here and outside that the Government have been ignoring the economic questions that beset the country at present and have devoted all their energies to the measure, which has been passed by this House and which is at present before the Seanad, for the abolition of P.R. If such a statement is made often enough, no doubt it is possible that some of the people will be induced to believe it but facts and performance have clearly proved that such an allegation is completely wrong.

In the first instance, it has been suggested that the time of the House has been taken up unnecessarily in the discussion of some stages of the Third Amendment of the Constitution Bill. To my knowledge, it has not been adverted to that the House was brought together in January, sat for practically the whole month of January to discuss the P.R. Bill, and that the month of January is a month in which the House is not normally brought together. Therefore, to suggest, to that extent at any rate, that the time of the House was being wasted is completely groundless. As I have said, the efforts and performance and, to a large extent, results of these efforts and performance belie entirely that charge. I hope to mention in the course of my speech a few objective sources that sustain that contention by me.

The first one to which I will refer is the O.E.E.C. Report or Analysis on Ireland for 1958. The report for 1956 made sad reading for the Irish public. This year, the report is not only hopeful but refers to the positive advances that have been made towards our economic recovery. It refers in its earlier part to the gross national output which, it says, recovered in 1957 by slightly more than the fall experienced in the previous year. Total output rose by almost 2 per cent. in real terms—certainly nothing to be exultant about but something that clearly shows progress.

With regard to manufacturing industries, the report says that recovery began in the last quarter of 1957 and has been sustained in 1958. The report says that agricultural prices increased by 7 per cent. in 1957, after a fall of 10 per cent. in the previous year, and were generally maintained in 1958.

General Mulcahy

What are the pages? Can the Minister give the references?

Mr. J. Lynch

I am afraid not.

We can refer again to the decrease in the register of unemployed to indicate that what the Deputy is now suggesting is not so. However, with regard to the British Ministry's figures, there has been a downward trend in the number of British social insurance cards issued for the first time to Irish citizens. These reached 60,000 in 1957 but dropped to an estimated 48,000 in 1958. These are not net figures; these are gross figures. They take into account people such as migrants and students who emigrate to England for short terms and who would return in any case irrespective of their receiving British social insurance cards; but taken side by side with the downward trend of the net balance in outward and inward air and sea passengers it indicates clearly that there is a brighter outlook for the country.

So far as emigration is concerned, a drop in emigration in itself is not sufficient indication that there has been some recovery and in many cases it is often offset by a rise in the unemployment figures. Certainly that was not the case in 1958. At the end of December, 1958, compared with the figures for the end of December, 1957, there were 5,300 fewer on the unemployment register than there were in the previous year, reflecting a decline of 7 per cent. As we all know, it would not be quite fair, or accurate, to isolate one month and compare it with the corresponding month in the previous year, but the figure at the end of December last is a culmination of a trend that has been apparent in every month right through 1958, taken in comparison with 1957.

There has been, of course, other concrete evidence of that progress and high in the category come the recent activities of the commercial banks in making increased capital available for industry and agriculture. There was, in fact, an increase of 22½ per cent. in bank advances last year, over the previous 12 months. Deputy McQuillan has suggested that the relaxation of credit restrictions by the commercial banks was influenced in Britain and not here in Ireland. I do not know what justification he has for making that statement, or to what authority he can point on which to base it. Deputy McQuillan seems to forget that there are men on the boards of these banks who have given long service to the advancement of Irish economy, and who have given long service to the national objectives as a whole.

These men, naturally, must have regard to their primary functions as members of such boards. Nobody can deny that they have the interest of the whole country at heart and so far as they can achieve improvements, and achieve a more progressive outlook in the activities of these banks, I believe that even such a cynic as Deputy McQuillan seems to be must admit that they have done quite a good job on the boards of these commercial banks. When we remember the refusal, in 1955 and 1956, of these commercial banks to advance credit, not only to individuals but to local authorities and, to an extent, to the Government, one welcomes all the more the new outlook of these banks.

I remember in 1955 and 1956, as a member of the Cork Corporation, going on a deputation which was largely composed of the Oireachtas members of the Corporation, to the Munster and Leinster Bank, in order to secure money to enable Cork Corporation to proceed with its building programme and we met with a pointblank refusal. The reason given to us was that the board of the bank had, as its primary duty, its duty towards its depositors, even though they were prepared to have regard, in the exercise of that duty, to the interests of the country. Nevertheless, we failed completely to get, in those two years, any relaxation of the decision of the banks to refuse to advance money to the Cork Corporation. The same applied to many local authorities throughout the country. Having regard to the stated duty of these boards to their depositors, as being their primary function, their new enterprise and relaxation of restrictions can only reflect their increased confidence in the country and the outlook for the country. The manner in which they are now acting is very welcome in every respect.

At the outset, I referred to the suggestion that the Government had abandoned their fundamental task of grappling with the economic difficulties in putting forward the proposal to abolish P.R. The publication of the White Paper not alone gave the lie to that allegation, but when one examines these proposals, in relation to the motion now before the House, for an advance of roughly one-third of the Estimate for the coming year, to make provision up to the end of next July, and when one also regards the measures recently introduced in this House, one readily realises that not only are the Government not disregarding their duty but are paying very keen and very effective attention to these problems.

Let us, in broad outline, break down the headings of this White Paper. The first one is "Agriculture" and under the sub-title "Improvement of Grasslands", we can see that the Government have taken steps already to implement what it is set out in the White Paper in the provision that has been made for lime and fertilisers subsidies. In the coming year, £2,415,000 is being provided, an increase of over £1,500,000 on the sum provided under the corresponding heading in last year's Estimates. One has also to take into account the £500,000 voted last week by way of Supplementary Estimate for phosphate fertiliser.

Under the heading "Beef and Mutton", where there is reference to the necessity to increase our stocks and to enhance the quality of our stocks, we find almost £1,000,000 net increase in the provision for the eradication of bovine T.B. The first part of the White Paper is a general preview of the position; Part II deals with agriculture and Part III deals with sea fisheries. The Fisheries Estimates show a net increase of £156,400, of which the net increase to An Bord Iascaigh Mhara is £109,000 and there is the added provision to which the Minister referred of £4,000 for fish pond culture.

Under Part IV of the White Paper, forestry in general is dealt with. In that respect we find in the current year a net increase of £30,000 for development and maintenance alone.

Industry is dealt with in Part V and the ideas motivating the White Paper and the Government's action on it are set out in Part V: "Adequate facilities must be provided by the State for the encouragement of industrial development." With regard to capital: "The Government are determined to ensure that no soundly-based industrial project will be allowed to fail or be prevented from starting solely through lack of capital." In the current session, we have had Bills relating specificaly to the ideas inherent in those two statements. We had recently a Bill to provide increased capital for Irish Shipping. We dealt with one this morning in relation to Bord na Móna; there, the capital is being increased from £14,000,000 to £19,000,000.

Provision will be made in the current session for the E.S.B., for the Industrial Credit Company, Bord Fáilte, Shannon Free Airport Development Company and An Foras Tionscal. We know that considerable expansion has been approved in connection with the steel industry in Haulbowline. A sum of £2,000,000 will be spent on that project over the next five years. The company is shortly expected to put up specific proposals to expand the output of steel and make their industry in Haulbowline more competitive. We have also the capital commitments which the Government have undertaken in relation to the development of the Rushbrooke Dockyard project.

Under a sub-head in connection with industry, tourism is referred to. A scheme has been announced, and provision made, for extending the loans and grants to hotels so that accommodation for tourists can be increased all over the country. The Minister for Industry and Commerce referred yesterday to the improved landing facilities at Cobh. In the Vote for Tourism in the coming year, there is an extra £150,000 provided, of which £100,000 will be devoted to the development of tourist resorts.

All these, with the extra provision for agriculture, form the bulk of the increase in the Estimates for the coming year. There is one other increase to which it gives me great pleasure to refer, that is, the increase in the Vote for Education. Over the years, we have listened to many people decrying the paucity of the provision made for Education, notwithstanding the fact that the provision was roughly higher than one-tenth of our revenue account. This year, I am glad to say, it is increased. Deputy McGilligan, in the course of his remarks yesterday, wrote off the increase as provision to enable teachers to eat as much as they did two or three years ago. The fact is that the increase in salaries by no means accounts for the total increase in the Education Vote in the coming year. Increases for educational services account for almost 25 per cent. of the total increased provision in the Book of Estimates.

I should like to indicate to the House now that the moneys being provided are directly related to the White Paper for economic expansion. There are increased grants to vocational committees amounting to £98,000 odd. There is the restoration of the cut in relation to secondary schools. That cut was imposed in 1957 by the previous Government. Unfortunately, it was continued by Fianna Fáil, but it has now been decided to discontinue it and that 10 per cent. will account for an extra £85,350 to secondary schools in the coming financial year.

Last year, in the debate on the Vote on Account, mention was made of the decreased provision for the national school building programme. In the inter-Party Government's Estimates, there was provision of £1,500,000. Provision in the current year was reduced to £1,400,000. That naturally evoked some criticism from the Opposition. I pointed out that that £1,400,000 was intended to represent a more realistic appraisal of the expenditure necessary on national school buildings in that year, but I found that in fact I was not quite as realistic as I thought. Of the £1,500,000 provided in 1957-58, expenditure fell short by £300,000. Only £1,200,000 was in fact spent. Of the provision of £1,400,000 in the current year, it is estimated that the sum will fall short by £100,000 of what is required by the end of the financial year. The total estimated expenditure amounts to £1,500,000. Happily, there has been a steady increase in the number of school buildings provided in the past few years. In 1955-56, there were 40 schools; in 1956-57, there were 50 schools; and in 1957-58 there was a slight drop. The number in that year was 45. In the current year, it is estimated that 70 new school buildings will have been completed. At the moment there are 123 buildings in course of erection—the highest number ever in our history so far.

With regard to vocational schools, the provision for building in last year's Estimates was £318,900. Provision in the coming year is estimated at £400,000. I am confident that provision will be fully accounted for.

With regard to universities, we have had complaints over the years that our universities are working on a budget which adversely affects the standard of teaching. This year, there has been a more realistic effort to meet their demands. There is an increase in the Estimate from £670,000-odd to £953,000-odd, an increase of £283,000. The country will be happy that such an increase has been made in the provision for university education, vocational education and primary education, as well as secondary education in the coming year.

All over the world we have rich countries making increased provision for education, and it would be a reflection on our foresight if we are to lag behind in any way. I am not suggesting that the sum provided in the present year is sufficient to enable the various teaching institutions completely to fulfil the functions we would like them to do. We will have to face up to the fact that increased provision for science will have to be made in the years ahead, and in particular, that science will have to be given more attention in the secondary schools. It is hoped that adequate provision can be made in the coming years for science teaching. That will depend on the availability of science teachers— science graduates from the colleges. Therefore, it has to be more or less a three-pronged approach. First of all, to make facilities available for training teachers; secondly, adequate practical facilities for the teaching of science in the schools; and, thirdly, encouraging science graduates to undertake teaching in the schools, particularly in the secondary schools.

Therefore, it will be seen that the increased expenditure under all heads in the coming year is well justified in the national interests. It was stated yesterday by the Minister for Finance that the net increase, when one took into account the Supplementary Estimates passed recently, amounted to £1.86 million. Critics might well say: "Yes, but will we not be faced in the coming year with Supplementary Estimates perhaps up to the same amount?" But I think it is reasonable to expect, and certainly reasonable to hope, that some of the exigencies which arose during the past year and made these Supplementary Estimates necessary will not arise in the coming year.

I refer in particular to the extra provision of £1,160,000 for losses on the disposal of wheat and payments to wheat growers provided here recently, as well as subsidies on dairy products at £625,000. Added to that is almost £1,000,000—£987,000—for increases in the remuneration of public servants, including civil servants, Guards, Army, teachers and Post Office personnel. It is reasonable, I hope, to assume that these heavy charges or similar charges will not fall to be made in the coming year and that therefore the need for Supplementary Estimates to the same extent will not arise. I think it is fair to judge the net increase the Minister referred to yesterday in the region of £1.86 million over last year. It is a moderate increase having regard to the programme the Government have put before them and having regard, in particular, to the specific items in the Estimates which primarily reflect these increases. I refer again to the increases in agriculture for lime and fertilisers, and, in industry, for Córas Tráchtála, tourism and education.

I believe that the people are satisfied and will be satisfied that these increases are well justified and that they will get good value for them. Before I conclude, I must say I could not help noting an item in yesterday's Cork Examiner which reported a lecture given by an eminent Professor in University College, Cork, entitled “Decision—the Factor in Life”. His specific remarks relating to it could well be applied to Governments: “Decision—the Factor in Government”. He said:—

"The purpose of decision excluded dithering and drift. It involved the confident survey of an issue, the determined selection of a course of action, self-commitment and acceptance of the full responsibility for one's action."

I think that expresses in language better than I could use the actions of the Government in this instance. There has been decision; there has been a move away from dithering and drift; there has been the confident survey of the issue; there has been the self-commitment and the acceptance of the responsibility for these actions. The people are glad that there has been such decision and that there has been that move away from dithering and drift. I believe and hope confidently that the end of the next financial year will have an even better story to tell of hope and progress than those outside agencies such as O.E.E.C. were able to report.

General Mulcahy

Before the Minister leaves that point, does he not realise that decision is a vital element on the part of the people doing their job? Does he not realise that the lecturer said there were three main obstacles to decision: pressure, ignorance and anxiety, and that the latter was, above all, the thing that paralysed the psychic energy required for decision? Does the Minister not realise the condition into which the people as a whole have been brought as a result of anxiety, ignorance on the part of the Government and dithering and drift, and will he transfer the benefit of his talks on the lecture yesterday to the people who have to do the job? Will he realise that they have to get rid of that anxiety?

Mr. J. Lynch

I did not want to be hard on the Deputy and the Government he represented, but the real significance of the statement is reflected in the difference between the positive actions of this Government compared with their predecessors.

General Mulcahy

Decisions may be taken by the Government, but we hope they are proceeding to action.

Mr. Norton

Before I deal with the matters which are relevant to the Vote on Account proper, I should like to deal with one comment made by Deputy McQuillan, lest any silence may appear to give credence to what he said. Deputy McQuillan referred to the development of the Avoca Copper Mines and seemed to think it was a crime against the Irish nation to put 400 or 500 people into the job of winning minerals from the soil of County Wicklow. He seemed to think it would be better if something had been done—including coming to no decision—about the development of the mines rather than permit a Canadian group to exploit the mines in a manner that would produce wealth for this country and employment for Irish workers.

The facts of the matter relating to the Avoca mines are these, and there are records in the Department of Industry and Commerce which will bear testimony to what I say. The records could be put upon the Table of the House and they would prove every word of what I say. When the inter-Party Government took office in 1954, decision had been come to by the previous Government that as they could not apparently dispose of the mineral deposits at Avoca, 60 of the 80 men employed there were to be dismissed, the mines were to be put on a care and maintenance basis and 20 of the 80 people retained to keep the mines from flooding. That was the problem I inherited in the Department of Industry and Commerce, as far as the development of the copper mines was concerned.

I discussed with the Industrial Development Authority, the Department of Industry and Commerce and a variety of other people, the possibility of getting some commercial group who had skill and resources in mining to come in here and develop the Avoca copper deposits. The Avoca copper deposits are not the most priceless deposits in the world. Let nobody imagine that, because they are in Ireland, it is the best grade of copper in the world. It is not. The ore at Avoca is one of the lowest grade copper ores in the world. It can be worked economically only because of the availability of new methods of processing low grade ores. Because of the fact that copper generally is a scarce commodity, its price was high and you could get it only in some of the most troubled spots in the world.

It was in these circumstances that the Government endeavoured to develop the Avoca mineral deposits. We endeavoured to interest any and every mining group we could find to exploit the deposits in Avoca. Groups here were consulted and the friends of Ireland overseas were consulted. The general view was that nobody was interested in the Avoca mines. Groups were induced to come here and look at the mines only to say they were not interested. The nearest we ever got to making a lease of the mines was when a group in Europe said they would be willing to take a lease, provided they were not pressed to develop them. They wanted to get a lease on the mines and sit on them and not develop them in case their supply of copper ore from other parts of the world dried up because of political disputations in these parts of the world.

Finally, the only group that appeared on the horizon was the Canadian group. At that stage, any Irish group could have had the mines. Any other group in the world could have had them if they were in before the Canadians. Only one group wanted them and that was the group to which a lease was finally made. A hard bargain was struck. Not only were they required to take a licence under which they are compelled to pay a royalty, but they were required to pay back £500,000 which we spent in developing the mineral deposits in Avoca. That was a pretty good bargain from our point of view.

As a result, instead of grass, clover and weeds growing over the copper deposits at Avoca to-day, there is a fine mine there with a flotation processing plant, the like of which has never been seen in this country before and the like of which is not to be found in our sister island of Great Britain. Between 400 and 500 Irish workers are getting decent employment there. When you remember that is the present situation and that the inter-Party Government inherited the Avoca mines on the basis that of any 80 employed, you sacked 60 and kept 20, it was a worthwhile transformation so far as the deposits in Avoca were concerned. We have been able to get employment for between 400 and 500 workers who never before in living memory were employed in Avoca. That is pretty good business, so far as the inter-Party Government were concerned. It is an enduring business and it is no mushroom business.

I want to deal with the Vote proper. The Minister for Education took the soft and simple course to-day of following the Minister for Finance. What he did was to string out a lot of figures. He told us the amount of these figures. He compared the figures this year with the figures last year. He was doing a sum of subtraction or addition so that we could all find out by what amount the figures this year exceeded the figures last year. There was no attempt by the Minister for Education or the Minister for Finance to indicate what effect all this figure reading would have on the main problem—the fundamental problems which confront the nation. No effort was made to assess the effects of this Vote on Account or the Book of Estimates on the main problems which are still with us and which, so far as I can see, will remain with us, even when the moneys provided in this Vote on Account have been expended.

I think our main danger to-day arises from the rather comfortable attitude adopted by members of the Government and which has apparently been injected into a number of Deputies. Listening to Deputy Burke talking, one would imagine that the only problem is that the Utopia will be on top of him before he gets time to dress himself up and frolic when it arrives. Deputy Burke is only afraid that the deluge of milk and honey will strike him without giving him adequate notice that it is on the horizon at all. One would expect from Deputy Haughey a more sober appraisal of the economic situation. He says that at present the people in Ballyfermot are 50 times better off than they were in 1956.

General Mulcahy

He said things in Ballyfermot.

Mr. Booth

He did not. He contradicted it.

Mr. T. Lynch

I was here when he said it.

Mr. Booth

He contradicted what Deputy Norton said.

Mr. Norton

His speech is there for the Deputy. He can see what his speech was. He said the people were better off than they were in 1956. Let us examine the facts. The White Paper was referred to here as if the mere production of a White Paper is of itself a passport to prosperity and that all you have to do is to produce a White Paper, fill it with figures, keep quoting the figures and tell everybody what the figures mean and then sit back and do nothing and imagine that the mere production of a White Paper will have a mesmerising effect on the whole economy of the country and of the citizens thereof.

I want to test the White Paper. I want to test the Minister's speech. I want to test the enthusiasm of some Deputies who sit on the Fianna Fáil Benches against the realities of life in Ireland to-day from an economic point of view. I do not think it is unreasonable if the test is based on the standard of productivity, unemployment, emigration and prices. These are the four vital problems that concern the lives of the people.

I want the Deputy to quote all the figures.

Mr. Norton

Deputy Booth will have to do an exercise himself for the rest of the figures. The volume of production for 1956, in the field of all transportable goods, was higher than it was in 1957. But let us go on to 1958. This was the year of renaissance, according to the Fianna Fáil Deputies. If we take the figures for the first three quarters of 1958— these are the only figures so far available—we find that the average is 102.7. Therefore, in spite of the peals of joy and the whoopee going on about recovery, the position is that in 1956, the increase was 102.2 and that after going through 1957 and three-quarters of 1958, the figure is 102.7, an increase of .5 as compared with 1956, the year of Suez, the year of restriction, the year of shortage of petrol and oil, and the year in which it was found necessary, for balance of payments reasons, to impose levies which have had a very salutary effect in rectifying the balance of payments position. Therefore, when Fianna Fáil Deputies tell us we are now on the road to the millennium, let them have regard to these facts, because these facts expose some other facets, grim and bleak facets, of our economy.

Let us take the question of unemployment. We were told by the Minister in 1957 that his Budget was a "back-to-work" Budget. We were told during the last general election campaign that all the people had to do was vote Fianna Fáil and all the unemployed husbands would immediately be restored to employment, that the problem of unemployment would be tackled aggressively, that the problem of emigration would be dealt with in a new and vigorous fashion and that so far as prices were concerned, the Government would guarantee the continuance of the then existing subsidies and would also continue to control prices.

This Government have been in office for two years. That is not an exhaustively long or fatiguing period to wait. Nevertheless, it is half of the Government's normal period of office and although the Government promised in 1957 that they had a plan to put larger numbers of people back into employment, the fact remains according to the statistics issued by the Taoiseach's Office, that there are still 80,000 persons registered as unemployed at the employment exchanges throughout the country. There are 80,000 people unemployed two years after the Government's promise that they would deal aggressively with unemployment, two years after the Minister for Finance said his Budget was a "back-to-work" Budget. There is no indication in the Vote on Account or in anything that has been said by Ministers, that these 80,000 will do anything but follow the seasonal fall, that as an immediate result of the policy of the Government any serious inroads will be made on the number registered as unemployed.

Look at the question of the number of people employed under this Government, apart from the number of people unemployed. On 14th January the Parliamentary Secretary to the Taoiseach was asked if he would state the total number of persons in insurable employment for certain years. The Parliamentary Secretary furnished the information on the customary basis, namely, by ascertaining the number of social welfare stamps sold, dividing those by 52 and getting the total number of people who are regularly insured. That has been the method always adopted to ascertain the number of people in insurable employment. So long as you adopt that method in respect of all the years for which the information is supplied, it is as reliable a guide as any other.

According to the Parliamentary Secretary's reply, by this process of calculation, there were 489,000 persons in insurable employment in the year ended March, 1954; in the year ended March, 1955, there were 499,000; in the year ended March, 1956, there were 501,000; in the year ended March, 1957, there were 485,000; in the year ended March, 1958, the year of renaissance, according to Fianna Fáil, there were 464,000. Therefore, you have 80,000 people registered as unemployed and the Parliamentary Secretary to the Taoiseach assures us that there were 21,000 fewer persons in insurable employment in the year ended March, 1958, than there were in the year ended March, 1957, and 37,000 fewer in the year ended March, 1958, than in the year ended March, 1956.

These are significant statistics. However, this position is hardly to be wondered at because housing as a means of providing employment is a byword. Work under the Local Authorities (Works) Act, which at one time gave employment to between 5,000 and 13,000 persons, has ceased because of the deliberate action of this Government. Forestry work has fallen in labour content. There are fewer and fewer people employed on road work. Rural electrification has fallen and within the next couple of years will come to an end. This clearly indicates the reasons not only for the continued high unemployment figure but for the fall in the number of persons who are actually engaged in insurable employment.

We come to emigration. The unemployment figure of 80,000 is bad, but it would be much worse were it not for the fact that the gates have been open and that employment on a large scale is still available in Great Britain, with the result that emigration to Britain to-day is at an all-time high figure. In fact, the problem of emigration, the denuding of the rural areas, has been the subject of adverse comment by the Hierarchy, by priests and by rural organisations and, indeed, everybody who is concerned with the well-being of the country, who surveys the rural countryside, now feels obliged, as a national duty, to refer to the exodus of people from the rural areas—not merely single members of a family are going but the key is being turned in the door and whole families are emigrating. That is particularly true of those areas which are not industrialised and in which the people have to depend for their livelihood on the classes of employment which sustain life for the people and which have not made any economic advances.

Yes, the excess of births over deaths, so that the net emigration in the 12 months ended June, 1958, was, therefore, 60,000: 32,000 fall in population, and 28,000 in the excess of births over deaths. These are grave and grim figures. Is there anything in the Vote on Account or in the White Paper which offers any early solution of these problems?

Let us turn to prices. This Government, as is so well known, promised during the last general election that they would maintain the subsidies which were then running, but when they took office, they abolished the subsidies. They saved millions for themselves by doing that, but they broke faith with the people who voted for them in the last general election. The effect of what they did when they abolished the food subsidies, and the effect of their subsequent action in revoking a large number of the price control Orders, has been that the cost-of-living index figure which was 135 in February, 1957, increased to 142 in November, 1957, and stands at 146 for November, 1958, and all the indications are that the mid-February figures will be higher than 146. In the two years since they took office, the Government have permitted the cost-of-living index figure to rise from 135 to 146, an increase of 11 points within two years. It may be more than 11 points when we see the February figure, having regard to the way in which some prices have increased recently.

In reply to a question which I put down in December last, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Taoiseach gave us a long list of commodities which have increased in price since February, 1957. I shall not go into this long list, which ranges from bus travel and rents to potatoes, but it is worth knowing that according to the Parliamentary Secretary's figures, the price of butter has increased by over 15 per cent.; the price of bread has increased by over 58 per cent.; the price of household flour has increased by over 79 per cent.; and those who are fond of potatoes will be glad to hear that the price of potatoes has increased by over 96 per cent. These prices all increased during the reign of the Fianna Fáil Party.

I listened to the Tánaiste speaking at a function, recently, about what he called stability of prices. He took some special joy in showing that we had reached stability in prices. What kind of stability is this—stability where the price of potatoes goes up by 96 per cent., the price of flour by 79 per cent., the price of butter by 15 per cent. and the price of bread by 58 per cent.? Anybody can have that kind of stability. According to the Tánaiste, stability in prices has now been reached, but it is stability at the highest level of prices which this generation has ever known. We are paying more to-day for goods than has been paid in living memory and the Tánaiste gets some kind of Machiavellian satisfaction in saying that that is stability.

Now, look at the Government's record in the light of these figures, in the light of these facts. There are 80,000 persons registered as unemployed at the employment exchanges. There is nothing in sight, as far as they are concerned, except perhaps the seasonal fall in the number of unemployed. Sixty thousand persons emigrated last year and our population is now at its lowest level in living memory. Prices have gone up by 11 points since February, 1957, and the price level is higher than it has ever been in living memory, while the volume of production in the field of transportable goods has increased merely by .5, over a period of nearly three years. Does any set of circumstances more aptly justify the description that, in an economic situation which has given us these indices, we are entitled to say that economic situation is one represented by two words—frustration and stagnation? While the economies of every other country in Europe are vibrant to-day, and the economies of other countries are much better and are progressing at a greater rate than ours, here is the sorry situation in which we are.

The Minister for Education and the Minister for Finance quote figures of what we are providing for this and for that, but it was said in such a way as to give the impression that no other countries in the world are doing this except ourselves. Of course, other countries are doing it on a much more generous scale than we are doing it. They are doing it better than we are doing it but, apparently, we are so far away from the main stream of European traffic, European discussion and European thought, that we appear to imagine we alone are doing these things for the enrichment of our people and the attainment of prosperity. The fact of the matter, however, is that we are being outmatched by every other free country in Western Europe in the things we are doing to-day, and the rate of progress here is much slower than it is in any other country in Western Europe.

While we are talking about the large sums of money that will be made available this year, it is interesting to advert to one fact that was produced as a result of a parliamentary question in this House recently. I asked the Taoiseach what sum of money would be required to-day to buy the same quantity of goods as the 5/- old age pension bought in 1908. In 1908, the British Government introduced what was described as an Old Age Pensions Act. Some gentlemen, who then claimed to represent the Irish people, thought it should not apply to Ireland, that the Irish people would not want old age pensions, that their feelings would be hurt if the pension were offered to them, that it was quite all right to pay pensions to generals and judges, but it was most unedifying to ask a person who had managed to live in Ireland to the age of 70 years to accept an old age pension. However, the Act was applied to Ireland, and the first old age pension was granted at the rate of 5/- a week.

Nobody ever said that that was a munificent sum then. Nobody ever pretended that it was anything but a mere token payment of the State's approbation of a person having gone through the mill and having reached the age of 70 years. At that time, 5/- was granted, but, down through the vicissitudes of time, the cost of living has increased and, if we did no more than maintain the purchasing power of that 5/- granted in 1908, we would require to give an old age pension to-day of 24/6 a week, without having increased the rate of the old age pension. We are paying 25/- a week now, so that between 1908 and 1959, over a period of 50 years, we have not, in fact, raised the purchasing power of the old age pension in 1908, the 5/- then granted as a pittance to old age pensioners.

In all the millions of pounds that are talked about in this Vote on Account, and in all the millions of pounds that will be discussed on the Budget, there will probably be no provision for dealing with unfortunate people such as these. When one thinks of their struggle to-day, especially in this city where old people have to live on their own, and in the small towns and rural areas where they have to live on their own, providing some kind of house for themselves and whatever kind of amenities they can get in a house, it seems nothing short of a crime against humanity that, with the cost of living as high as it is to-day, we should be discussing a Vote on Account which makes no provision for lifting the poverty standard which must be tolerated by those who are unfortunate enough to have to live on 25/- a week.

I hope that between now and Budget Day, the Minister for Finance can be induced to assemble a deep concern for the welfare of those unfortunate people. Some 165,000 of them are compelled to live whatever life they can on a maximum of 25/- per week and, when one remembers that that has only the purchasing power of 5/- in 1908, or thereabouts, the injustice of keeping that pension at its present level must be manifest to all.

The Taoiseach recently spoke at a concert in the Mansion House in Dublin, commemorating the establishment of the First Dáil and, in the course of his speech, he uttered these wise words:—

"The obvious common-sense objective at the moment is to consolidate what we have got, and we have a lot to do before it is consolidated. We have to try and provide a livelihood for those born in this country so that so many of them will not have to emigrate. It is a difficult task but one to which we should devote ourselves."

These are wise words and one would imagine that, as a preliminary to taking these necessary steps, and devoting ourselves to these tasks, the Taoiseach would endeavour to bring about a situation in which a political and economic climate would be created for a harnessing of all the enthusiasm that is necessary to accomplish the objective which the Taoiseach says is a common-sense objective.

But having uttered these wise words the Taoiseach comes back to this House and says: "Now, lads, let us have another row over P.R.; let us have another row over something that will divide the House and the country in two. Let us now engage in all the disputations we like, on a matter about which nobody is concerned except myself." That is the Taoiseach's method of trying to devote ourselves to the accomplishment of that noble objective, and that is the best way of consolidating our forces to make sure we achieve it. We have wasted three months of the time of this House discussing a Bill for which nobody asked. We spent three months of valuable time that could have been employed in finding out how we could help provide jobs for the unemployed, finding out how we could help to arrest emigration, finding out how we could enthuse employers and workers to step up the volume of productivity in order that we might help to bring a greater measure of prosperity to the country.

These tasks were too prosaic for this Government. These mundane tasks did not suit the Taoiseach. Instead, we had to dissipate our energies and scatter our enthusiasm over a worthless Bill which has introduced more friction, and more disputation into the nation's life, than any other Bill introduced during the past 15 years.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

We cannot discuss the P.R. Bill.

Mr. Norton

I do not want to discuss it. The sooner June comes and we can lay that referendum to rest, the better. I do not want to conceal the fact that there are serious economic problems facing the country, but I blame the Government for not recognising the seriousness of the problems and for giving Deputies here a brainwashing to induce them to believe that everything in the garden is lovely. So long as there are 80,000 unemployed and 60,000 leaving the country every year, there must be a serious situation here. So long as the standard of productivity represented by the figures I have quoted fails to show any substantial upward surge, there must be a serious economic problem here. To let Deputies loose, as Deputy Burke was let loose and as Deputy Haughey broke loose, to say that the people are much better off now than in 1956 is to engage in a derisive mockery of the sufferings of the people.

I blame the Government for misleading decent people into believing that Fianna Fáil could solve these problems overnight, as they misled the people at the last election to believe. I blame the Government now for pretending to believe that the situation is well in hand, when every reliable index indicates that we have problems which are not in any other Western European country. The Government have the largest majority of any Government here in the past 25 years. There is nothing to prevent them from doing anything they want to do with the aid of their majority. If they have a remedy for these problems, as they said they had at the last election, then they can solve the problems. They can get the Bills drafted by the parliamentary draftsman; they can get their majority to press them or steamroll them through this House. They can do everything now that they could do, or said they could do, in 1957. If the Government say they are doing that, why have we the large number of unemployed and why have we the tidal wave of emigration and why such a low standard of productivity?

The plain fact is that in two years nobody can point to any substantial achievement by the Government. If there be any such achievement, let us hear of it. Recent speeches by Ministers indicate that the two chief talking points are the refinery at Whitegate and the copper development of Wicklow. I have no doubt they will try to claim these as their special, monopolistic achievements; but let us hear from the Government Benches what in fact the Government have done in a spectacular way in the past two years and then contrast whatever they have done with what remains in the form of economic problems to which I have referred.

Nobody stands in the way of the Government applying their talents, their energies and their majority to the solution of our basic problems. There is goodwill in this House for any such measure introduced by the Government. Why then do the Government not implement the promises they made at the last election? Why do they not put all the people to work as they then promised? Why do they not stop the tidal wave of emigration? Why do they not bring back that kind of prosperity which they formerly imagined was the inseparable characteristic of the Fianna Fáil Government in power? The Government with all their powers and their comfortable majority have failed to redeem the promises they made to the people. This Vote on Account is for £38,000,000. The Estimates for this year are larger than they were last year and when we have passed the Vote for £38,000,000 and the Estimates, with all the expenditure to be provided for, I venture to say that in the absence of some clear-cut decision intended to make an impact on our fundamental problems, next year when we come to discuss the Vote on Account, we shall be discussing the very same problems.

The Government have power to act: unfortunately for some reason known only to themselves they will not now implement the promises which they made at the last election. They will not now do the things they then promised to do. We would like to know why they will not do them.

Mr. Booth

Mr. Booth

No, it is not the figure and Deputy Norton knows perfectly well that it is not the figure.

Mr. Corish

Would Deputy Booth like to see this document?

Mr. Booth

I can see it perfectly well. I got it last week.

Mr. Corish

The figure 70,000 is on it.

Mr. S. Browne

It was 70,000 when you left office.

Mr. Lindsay

It was not.

Mr. S. Browne

It was.

Mr. Lindsay

We will hear your speech next.

An Ceann Comhairle

I must insist that Deputy Booth be allowed to make his speech in his own way. Surely he is entitled to that. His statement may be repudiated later on.

Mr. Corish

He was doing a bit of repudiating himself.

An Ceann Comhairle

Two wrongs do not make a right.

Mr. Corish

I know, but two Chairmen may think differently, too.

Mr. Booth

I am sorry if I have upset Deputy Norton.

Mr. Norton

I am enjoying the Deputy's discomfiture.

Mr. Booth

If this is discomfiture, it is all right. The real thing is to find out what conclusions can be drawn from the figures. It is well known that, if you select your figures with sufficient care and suppress other figures, you can prove almost anything. I am not sufficiently well qualified to draw the necessary conclusions and I think Deputy Norton quite clearly is not, either. In actual fact, there is no justification for saying that unemployment has not been reduced. There is no justification for saying that emigration is still mounting. The facts are, quite clearly, entirely to the contrary.

Dr. Ryan

Do not quibble.

Mr. Norton

There is no quibbling at all.

Dr. Ryan

Do not quibble.

Mr. Norton

What the Minister is saying is a falsehood; he knows it was not so.

Dr. Ryan

Do not quibble.

I need not go further than a recent issue of the magazine The Statist. On 28th February, 1959, there was a special issue dealing with the Republic of Ireland. The editorial comment on page one of the supplement started as follows:—

"Several factors have combined to create the new mood of optimism which is now generally prevalent in Irish industrial and trading circles, though it is slow to penetrate to the general mass of the people."

I hope Deputy Norton will read. The Statist when I return it to the library.

Mr. Norton

I shall buy my own.

Mr. Booth

If the Deputy would also read it, it would help. The Statist then carries on, in the second paragraph, by saying that the main reason is probably the emergence of a sense of direction at the centre.

It follows, in the fourth paragraph:—

"The year was also marked by the actual achievement of some worth-while economic projects which also contributed to the spirit of hopefulness. A few important undertakings which had long been mooted but never forthcoming took physical shape and new ideas began to break through the hard crust of official dithering and political immobility."

Now, The Statist is not an organ of Fianna Fáil propaganda, but it refers to the new spirit of optimism and it refers to the reasons for it, the “new dynamic” which is now apparent in the country.

We can give it.

Mr. Booth

The Statist goes on to comment:—

"Emigration decreased by a figure which has been variously estimated up to as much as 50 per cent. although this estimate would appear too high."

Although that estimate is probably too high nevertheless, if it is anything like 50 per cent. or even if we have reduced the rate of emigration by 30 per cent. we shall have done a good year's work in 1958.

It is either forgotten or not known by the Opposition that when you start a slump or are experiencing a slump, the first thing you must do is to prevent the situation from getting any worse— and that is a big job on its own. When you have the situation stable, it is a slow enough job to start the whole economy going again. It has taken us two years to start making progress, but if, in the second of our two years, we can show, according to a dispassionate estimate, that unemployment has been reduced by 6 per cent. and that emigration has decreased by a very considerable figure——

Mr. Coogan

What is the figure?

Mr. Booth

It is not ascertainable.

Mr. Coogan

Then, why talk about it?

Mr. Booth

Because there are various indications which are fairly reliable, as Deputy Coogan knows too. I was a member of a local authority. I know that, in 1956, the rate of emigration from my constituency was extremely high because corporation houses were coming readily on the market. They were being vacated by people who were getting out of the country. Consequently, the rate of rehousing on the housing panel was high, not because new houses were being built, but because houses were becoming vacant. That situation no longer obtains, so far as I know it, and I have no reason to think it is different elsewhere. All the indications are that emigration has been substantially reduced and there is no indication to the contrary.

The Statist also goes on to comment on the increase in imports:—

"In general, the increase in imports reflects the continuation of recovery in industrial production which began towards the end of 1957."

There again, by the end of 1957, when we had been in power for eight or nine months, during those eight or nine months, we had recovered from a depression and were beginning to show signs of that recovery.

I am not asking the House to accept my word for it. I am giving the dispassionate report of a leading financial journal. It comments also on the question of the external assets of the country:—

"The country's external resources have not been reduced. Indeed, on the contrary, the net external holdings in the banking system rose by £12.5 million between December, 1957, and December, 1958."

That, surely is something which takes some explaining by the Opposition if they are not going to accept our view that that shows a sign of financial and industrial recovery, namely, an increase in external holdings in the banking system by £12.5 million in one year.

The Statist editorial, in its concluding paragraphs, states:—

"However, the outlook is reasonably good. The price situation has been fairly well stabilised and the most recent inflationary pressures have worked themselves out of the economy. The external trading position has appeared to be developing fairly satisfactorily although it has to be admitted that the January figures are disquieting."

—that is, the 1959 January figures. It continues:—

"Above all, however, the country is reacting to the new sense of direction at the centre and the present mood of buoyancy and optimism is the result."

Why should there be a mood of buoyancy and optimism noted by the experts of this financial journal, if there is no reason for it? They are hard-headed men and they do not fall for political propaganda from anybody.

I want to read a quotation from the chairman's speech at the end of a meeting of the Bank of Ireland. He comments as follows:—

"With regard to other aspects of our balance sheet you will observe that Government and other public current accounts are greater by over £3,000,000, and an encouraging increase of over £6,000,000 is shown in deposit, current and other accounts."

That does not show dwindling savings, shortage of money, lack of confidence —quite the reverse. He went on:—

"During the period a number of substantial overdrawn accounts were largely reduced or ran into credit."

Is that important, do you think? Of course, it is.

I would refer to the statement of the annual meeting of the Provincial Bank of Ireland and the chairman's speech on that occasion. The Chairman of the Provincial Bank of Ireland comments as follows:—

"This brings me to a point where I may comment on what to me is one of the most encouraging features of 1958, the revival in the prices of Irish industrial shares after four years or more of neglect by the investors."

Four years, or more, takes us back, by coincidence, to 1954:—

"There can be no better indication of confidence in our country than investment at home."

That, from the chairman of a bank, surely deserves comment. That statement was made by the Chairman of the Provincial Bank and he says that this confidence is shown by the revival in the prices of Irish industrial shares.

General MacEoin

Nonsense.

Mr. Booth

We are beginning to make progress. That is where you are talking nonsense, and Deputy MacEoin too. The facts show that emigration is down, unemployment is down and that production is up. What more do you want? You want to go on rotting and rotting in the condition you left and I cannot blame you for that; you had not got a sense of direction, or a policy, to get yourselves out of the slough of despond into which you had fallen. That is clearly stated in The Statist, that at least we have a sense of direction, that we are grappling with the problems and that optimism and real confidence have been restored. But that does not have an immediate effect and will not and cannot reduce the figure of unemployment from 80,000 to 50,000, to 20,000 and to nil all at once. Anyone who even suggests that unemployment can be dealt with overnight, or even in two years, is talking nonsense and if he does not realise that, he would be better off keeping quiet.

I have no hesitation in coming before this House, or going before the people at any stage, and saying that we are grappling with the situation, that we are making progress. We are not doing it as fast as we would like to do it, but we are continually going forward and making progress. We have nothing to be ashamed of and we have confidence in the country, although the Opposition speakers seem to have none. We hope the spirit of optimism and confidence will spread, which will result in increased industrial investment and increased agricultural investment and lead to greater employment and a decrease in unemployment. It will also affect, and continue to affect, the rate of emigration. Emigration, to some extent, will always be with us, but we are reducing it to the minimum. We have done remarkably well in two years and I hope the Opposition will face facts and not try to spread alarm and despondency in the country and amongst those who propose to invest in it. That is doing a grave disservice to the country. Let the Opposition by all means criticise us for our policy, if and when they can, but do not let them try to drag the country down with them as they did before.

Mr. J.A. Costello

Two years ago, when this Government were elected, they took office in conditions far more favourable than those under which any Government ever took office since this State was established.

Mr. Booth

Tell us more.

Dr. Ryan

That is a good start, anyway.

Mr. J.A. Costello

They had received from the Irish people a vote of confidence and a direction to do a particular job of work as quickly as possible. They had been given an over-all majority to an extent that no Government had ever been given here in this House before, and they had received from the people, in the election held two years ago, the greatest possible direction that they were to carry out the promises they had made during the general election campaign. The particular job for which they were elected, and for which they had got this big majority, was to end unemployment and to stem emigration.

There can be no doubt whatever that that was the mandate given to the Government by the Irish people at that time. It was because they had told the people they were in a position—on one condition only—to end unemployment and to stem emigration that they got that majority. The condition that Fianna Fáil put up at that time was that they would get a clear, over-all majority and be a strong Government to do the job that had to be done and to solve the problems that faced the people. They got that strong Government; they got the over-all majority.

Two years have passed and how have they fulfilled the promises they made two years ago and what is the position of the country now? It was a very favourable position for any Government to be in; they had the confidence of the people and the clearest possible limited objectives to fulfil as a Government. In addition to that, we on this side of the House—I speak for the Fine Gael Party and I am sure with the approval of my colleague, Deputy Norton—offered our co-operation to the Government, with their clear majority. We realised our object in opposition. We realised, not merely from what we saw in the country, but from our own experiences as a Government for two years, that the problems that would afflict any Government were not easy of solution and required, above all, the co-operation of every section of the people, and of those in the Dáil, if there was to be any possible hope of an early solution and, therefore, I offered, on behalf of Fine Gael, and I am sure I had the approval of every section of the Opposition, to cooperate with them. We offered the Government at that time our co-operation and goodwill, and indeed our sympathy, in the job they had facing them.

We told the Government, and we told the people through the Dáil, that our paramount consideration, as an Opposition, would be to keep in mind the vital national considerations and the financial and economic problems that had to be faced and solved, if Parliament itself and Irish institutions were not to be put in jeopardy. The Government had these favourable conditions: they had a clear majority; they had a clear direction given to them by the people; and they had an Opposition that was prepared to cooperate with them and to weigh in, so far as it was possible to do so, in finding a solution of those problems. We felt, as I said at the time, that not merely were the Fianna Fáil Government on trial but that Parliament itself was on trial, and the effectiveness of parliamentary institutions and the working of Irish democracy would be tested and tried by the measure of success the Government's efforts met in the years that then faced them.

I think that was a favourable position for any Government to be in, but, apart from that, the previous Government which they succeeded, despite the jeers of the Minister for Health—in spite of the extraordinary speech he inflicted on the Dáil yesterday—had brought this country successfully out of one of the most difficult financial crises—and through economic conditions—that ever afflicted a Government since this State was established. With their clear majority, with their direction from the people, and with the offer of co-operation from the Opposition in this House, the Government were presented with the position that the difficulties that had afflicted the country for the previous 18 months had been overcome, and there had been put into partial operation a policy for production designed to increase agricultural production, and designed, above all, to give incentives to Irish industry to do what was then so vitally and urgently necessary in the national interests, to increase exports. Those were more favourable conditions than certainly any Government which I had the privilege of directing had during the six years we were in office.

The efforts made by the inter-Party Government in dealing with the financial and economic crises of the times solved the difficulties in the balance of payments and presented this Government and the people—we are glad we did—with a situation in which not merely was the deficit in our balance of payments wiped out, but, for the first time for many years, the country had a favourable balance in its international payments. Were those not favourable conditions for any Government? What has happened since in the international field? For two years, terms of trade have been entirely in favour of this country. During the years in which we were afflicted with the economic blizzard of the times, the terms of trade were violently against us. Had we had the terms of trade the present Government have had in the past two years, they would have made a difference of anything from £7,000,000 to £10,000,000 per year in helping us towards a solution of the problems that confronted us.

This Government have had those favourable conditions for the past two years. Terms of trade have remained constantly favourable. That fact cannot be denied. Import prices have fallen. Export prices have been maintained at a pretty high level. In our day, freight rates and import prices were constantly fluctuating and we had to face that condition of adversity as well as all the other difficulties and trials confronting the country. We were fortunate in overcoming them, but, with such favourable conditions to-day, the country was entitled to be assured by the Minister yesterday that substantial progress has been made in solving whatever difficulties this Government were elected to solve—chronic unemployment, emigration and decreasing production.

I listened to the last speaker and I heard him say that there was to-day a mood of buoyancy and optimism in the country. That mood of buoyancy and optimism may be found within the pages of economic journals like The Statist, but it will not be found in the ordinary people outside. Only last evening, I was told that 60 firms have either gone into liquidation or have closed down. Business was never so bad as it is at the present moment.

Deputies

Hear, hear!

Mr. J.A. Costello

There has been some little progress made in industrial production and some slight progress made in reducing the number of unemployed, but there are still people hungry and there are still people on the verge of starvation. That is the result of two years of strong Fianna Fáil Government. What was their attitude towards our offer of co-operation? It is an established characteristic of Fianna Fáil—indeed it is their boast from their Leader right down to the humblest member of the Party—that they will not co-operate with anybody. They want to be a strong, independent Government, and a strong Party. With nobody will they co-operate. They sneer and jibe at Coalitions and at the co-operation that existed between the various Parties constituting the Coalition Governments here. Their idea of co-operation is that everybody will do what they are told to do by Fianna Fáil.

I saw in this morning's paper that the Minister for Industry and Commerce is of the opinion that the problems of the country require a united effort by all sections of the people in order to solve them. But Fianna Fáil does not want the kind of co-operation we had in the inter-Party Government, co-operation from various interests and different sections all united in a common purpose for the promotion of the national good. Their idea of co-operation is to have a strong Government and a Parliament doing nothing except registering the will of that Government, having ceased to be a deliberative assembly, and the people doing precisely what Fianna Fáil tells them to do. That is not our idea of co-operation.

Had there been any substantial progress it should have been easy for the Minister, when opening this debate yesterday, to have given some indication of what had been achieved and some indication as to what hopes were for the future, instead of the dreary litany of increases and decreases in the various Estimates. We had strong comment on the bad case the Government have to make in the speech of the Minister for Health yesterday, a speech which was at once a disgrace to the Government of which he is a member and to Parliament.

Deputies

Hear, hear!

Mr. J.A. Costello

The type of speech made by the Minister for Education this morning should have been the headline for all the speeches made on the Government side of the House, considering they have now been a full two years in control of the affairs of the country. The Minister for Education made an effort to be at least constructive and he laid a foundation which would enable constructive debate to take place here. How did the Minister for Health approach the matter? His entire speech was a diatribe against the two inter-Party Governments and an attempt to show that all the ills that afflict the country are due to what he called the evil policy and the evils that were thought up during the inter-Party Government's terms.

We are accustomed to the type of speech the Minister for Health made yesterday. It consisted of nothing but misrepresentation of fact, defamatory innuendoes of a personal character and calumny of the worst description. The former Minister for Finance is put up by the Fianna Fáil Government as one of their principal speakers, if not the principal speaker, and, instead of dealing with the situation as it exists, instead of trying to show that the Government have made some progress in the last two years and hope to continue that progress in the years to come, he spent his time calumniating me and my colleagues.

Speakers should certainly not have been disposed in a debate of this character to go over again the alleged ills of the Coalition Government, thereby drawing from us, of necessity, a reply to the false accusations made by the Minister for Health against me and my colleagues. Those tactics ill-became the Minister for Health, the Minister responsibe for the infamous Budget of 1952, the Budget which has brought about, in my unalterable conviction, most of the financial and economic evils affecting the country to-day. It is the Minister for Health who must bear the responsibility for them, and for him to come in here yesterday and make the allegations he made against me and my colleagues was something which disgraces not only himself but the Government of which he is a member.

When we took office in 1954, we were met with a situation of no inconsiderable difficulty, caused principally by the withdrawal of the food subsidies and the incorrect diagnosis of the condition of the country in 1952. We had a serious task to face. I do not propose at this stage to go into all the answers that can be made to the Minister for Health and his allegations yesterday. I would merely point out that the answers will be found in Volume 127, columns 328 onwards, of the Official Report where I answered everything the Minister for Health said yesterday in so far as it was relevant up to the year 1952. I do not propose now to follow him once more in all the allegations he made yesterday. I want to draw a parallel between the 1952 position under his Budget and the position in which we find ourselves now under the 1957 Budget.

We took office in 1954 with a clear direction from the people. It was admitted by the Taoiseach that we had a mandate to form an inter-Party Government, and form an inter-Party Government we did. We found that the financial position had been distorted and the economy disrupted by reason of the financial proposals in the Budget of 1952. That was the greatest difficulty, the biggest fence we had to jump, to try to bring about a better situation that would rectify the disruption of the economy and the distortion of the finances that were brought about by the withdrawal of the food subsidies in 1952—all brought about by reason of the wrong diagnosis of the so-called economic ills in the year 1952.

Deputy Norton this afternoon saved me from considerable trouble by his quotation of certain statistics, and in so far as I make the points I have to make, I shall deal with them with the minimum of statistics. In 1954 and 1955, we set ourselves a task to try to undo the harm done by the 1952 Budget. Unfortunately, we were met at the end of 1955 and the beginning of 1956, and then all through the year, with the conditions which brought about the financial troubles of that year, culminating in the grave dislocation that was caused not merely in this country, but in practically every country in the world by the Suez crisis. But the Minister for Health says it was not the Suez crisis brought about the large unemployment in 1957; it was not the dislocation of trade caused by the Suez crisis in that year that was the cause, but the evil policies of the inter-Party Government. When one of the chief Ministers of the Government in existing circumstances is reduced to making such a case in order to bolster up the present condition of affairs under his Government, it is the greatest manifestation of the poverty of argument and poor case the Government have to justify the present condition of the country.

Deputy Norton has indicated the condition as far as employment, industrial production and the cost of living are concerned. I want merely to corroborate his statement and approach it, perhaps, in a slightly different manner. The first assertion I want to make —and it cannot be controverted—is that the Government have not yet, and probably never will, reach the achievement that was attained by the second inter-Party Government in 1955, when in that year the number of unemployed was 38,200—the lowest figure ever achieved. That was before Suez and the international situation brought about the conditions we had to meet. What hope have we got now from the policy of the Government, whether in the White Paper or elsewhere, or any policy or lack of policy, of ever reaching that position where we had the unemployment figure for that year at the lowest it ever was in the country, 38,200? No scurrility or buffoonery by the Minister for Health can get over that figure.

Take the position as it stands at the moment. For February, the unemployment figure was 80,001. There has been a decrease in unemployment— there is no doubt about that—a small decrease and a big decrease from the figure that resulted in 1957 when this country was afflicted by a petrol shortage and a shortage of every commodity that had to be imported and by the dislocation of trade caused by the Suez crisis. That was the year in which the peak of the unemployment figure was reached. I have given the figure for 1955. At the end of 1955 and in 1956, international affairs complicated the economic structure of this country as well as others. At the end of February, 1956, the unemployment figures were 70,800. That was after I had been down in Cork making the speech the Minister for Health referred to yesterday in which I warned the country that there were financial and economic dangers ahead.

Speaking from recollection, I made that speech some time in January at a time when we had warnings that conditions were worsening here, due to a crisis over which we had no control. Even then, the unemployment figures had only risen to 70,800. We thought it was a big figure at that time and for that reason I had to go down to Cork and at the Cork Chamber of Commerce, I warned the people that we were facing very difficult times. Two years after the Government came into office, with their strong Government and clear directive, and the figure was 80,001—10,000 more than the figure in a bad year. In two years' time, they have not yet got down the unemployment figure to the figure of 70,000 in February, 1956, when we were facing the bad times. After two years, that is nothing to boast about.

Deputy Norton also referred this morning to certain figures relating to employment. I have spoken about unemployment. He gave figures about those in employment, which are also very relevant and important statistics and an indicator to consider in the context of the buoyancy of the economy and the cheerfulness of the outlook. I shall give only a few figures, which lead to this conclusion, that while there has been a slight improvement in the past two years in the number in actual employment, the number in employment is still below our 1955 figure by over 6,000.

I am sorry.

Mr. J.A. Costello

I do not mind the Minister interrupting. I think we are probably at cross-purposes. I am pointing out that we did not in either period of the inter-Party Government do anything by deliberate Government action to increase the cost of living. On the contrary, we did everything possible to keep it down. We did everything that any Government could have done by controlling prices, subsidising foodstuffs, by exhortation and by resort to every device that human ingenuity could consider and we kept down the cost of living in the most difficult circumstances and in the most trying times. We did so not merely for the purpose of keeping down the cost of living; we did so because we felt it was in the national interest that it should be done.

Wages and wages policy were discussed yesterday by Deputy McGilligan. It was quite clear in our time that if the cost of living went up any more as it had gone up by the deliberate policy of the then Minister for Finance, Deputy MacEntee we were in for another round of wages increases, with consequent disruption of the economy. It was for the purpose of maintaining stability of prices, so far as we could do it, that we did everything possible to maintain the cost of living at as stable a level as possible and prevent it rising and certainly prevent it rising by any deliberate action of the Government.

We felt it was necessary to keep wages and prices stable. We had the example of the infamous Budget of 1952 which had effects which are still current in the economy of this country and which will be felt for very many years to come, due to the pig-headedness of the then Minister for Finance, Deputy MacEntee, and his wrong diagnosis of the economic conditions of the country and the future of the country at that time.

At that time, we pointed out that the removal of the food subsidies was not justified. Economists say that food subsidies are a bad thing. The gloomy scientists say that, as a matter of principle, it is a bad thing. In so far as there is any principle at all or science in economics, of course, it is a wrong thing from the point of view of principle, but when you are dealing with the unemployed and handling a political situation of a very difficult and explosive character, theories of economists are very far from reality and entirely divorced from the facts. The unemployed man does not care what brought about unemployment. All he knows is that he is out of employment and that he has to pay more for his food. The man in employment knows that if the price of his food is increased either he goes out of employment or he must get his wages increased.

No amount of economic theory will get over those human facts and it is those human facts we had regard to and not economic theories. We kept down the cost of living because we did not want to bring about instability through further rounds of wage increases. We were successful in that.

We pointed out on the 1952 Budget that the Government and the country, particularly the country, whatever about the Government, were going to make no gain because of the withdrawal of the food subsidies at that time. We were proved to be absolutely right in every detail. In regard to the so-called savings by the removal of the food subsidies in the Budget of 1952, when the Minister for Finance, Deputy MacEntee, said that wages and salaries had gone beyond the cost of living, we pointed out that what was going to happen was that any savings would be swallowed up by the increase in wages and by the increase in rates consequent upon the increase in the cost of living all over the country.

That is what happened. The economy was disrupted. The finances were disorganised. Wages increased. Several rounds of wage increases occurred and so far from the country or the Government getting anything out of that saving in the food subsidies, taxation was increased directly or indirectly and the people had to pay more in wages and in increased rates for the so-called saving on the food subsidies. That was a mistake, as we pointed out at the time.

The same mistake was made in 1957 by the withdrawal of the food subsidies. Nothing has been gained to the economy of the country by the withdrawal of £9.4 million of food subsidies through the Budget of 1957. Nothing whatever has been gained. There has been a partial increase in wages, due to the patriotic outlook of those in receipt of salaries and wages. The full demand they were entitled to make, consequent upon the withdrawal of the food subsidies and of the increase in the cost of living, was not pressed either by the trade unions or by the organisations representing the Civil Service, the Guards, the teachers and other sections of the community whose wages should have been increased. But small as were the increases, they have again dislocated the economy and disrupted the finances of this country.

Deputy McGilligan yesterday afternoon said that the rates were going up everywhere, due directly to the policy of the Government and brought into operation in the Budget of 1957. There can be no doubt that there will be further demands for increased salaries and wages.

We find on the face of the Book of Estimates for this year the figure for Other Services, as distinct from Capital Services, is £101,127,575, that is, just £1,000,000 less than the corresponding figure on the Book of Estimates for 1957-58, the Estimates that were prepared during the period when the second inter-Party Government were in office. In other words, taking into account that £9.4 million has been saved on food subsidies, taking into account also the fact that certain items which were in the Book of Estimates in our time under the head of current expenditure, have now been transferred to Capital Services, we are entitled to say that the Book of Estimates this year, one-third of which the Minister asks for in this Vote on Account, represents an expenditure of the same amount as was in issue in the year 1957-58 when the Book of Estimates was prepared by the inter-Party Government. That means that the Government proposes to spend as much in the forthcoming year as was spent at a time when the inter-Party Government were providing £9.4 million for food subsidies and also providing money for other services that were regarded as current and not as capital.

That £9.4 million is being lost to the community. It is being swallowed somewhere. It certainly has not been gained. It would have been expected that if £9.4 million had been saved through food subsidies, at least some millions of pounds of that might have been available to reduce taxation, but on the figures which now appear there is not a penny farthing available to reduce taxation. Judging by the amount of taxation that has been imposed on the people in the past 12 months, when the Budget comes to be framed, there ought to be room for manoeuvre in the Government's policy for the reduction of taxation.

In the nine months ended in December of last year, the Government have taken from the pockets of the Irish people, in customs duty alone, £37,805,000, not to talk about income-tax and all the other taxes. There is a mood of optimism and cheerfulness when 60 firms have closed down, when business was never as bad as it is and the unemployment figure is 10,000 more than it was in the year 1956 with the conditions that had to be faced then.

That is the general outline of present-day conditions. The Minister for Education, as I said, at least did his best to make a speech justifying the Government and to give some material on which discussion could take place. He went through the list of items on which the Government proposed to make expenditure: to assist industry and agriculture and to give further relief to education; and he went down through this White Paper that was recently produced by the Government as a so-called economic plan. It plans to bring certain aids to industry and agriculture and to give certain incentives to private enterprise, but there is no target. There is not a single word either in the study or in the White Paper itself as to what extent the figures for unemployment will be reduced as a result of this policy.

The one thing that is required above all to bring about some improvement in industry and agriculture, to end unemployment and stem emigration, is a reduction of taxation. I am as convinced now as I was when I was in Government that all these incentives, subsidies, and so on, are just palliatives, that the one thing that is absolutely required to bring about economic expansion and to end unemployment is a reduction of taxation. The Minister for Finance might sneer, but the Minister for Health would almost certainly sneer at that statement, but we are entitled to point this out, that several times the inter-Party Government reduced taxation and at the same time increased social benefits. Never at any time during the 20 years of Fianna Fáil Government have they once reduced taxation. Their history has always been to increase taxation.

Our policy was based upon expansion, the bringing about of such a condition in industry and agriculture as would improve our under-developed economy. We realised that by reducing taxation, increased revenue would accrue. That was the basis of the inter-Party Government policy operated in 1948-51, to decrease taxation and at the same time, increase old age pensions and other benefits.

There is no good in talking about optimism or buoyancy. The only thing that can help this country is a reduction of taxation and some enlightened policy in regard to taxation. I have had some experience over the years, both in Government and in Opposition, of knowing the difficulties of reducing taxation and expenditure, but we can point to what was done in that regard between 1948-51. We had hoped to do the same in the second period of office, if it had not been for the economic blizzard, but we did it on at least two occasions.

The Government can and ought to reduce taxation. They have tremendously increased means of taxation— customs and excise, income-tax and other taxation, direct and indirect— available to them this year. They may throw their hat at White Papers and economic surveys, studies, and all the rest of it, unless they can reduce taxation. It is the only way to stimulate business. There is no incentive at the moment to business or industry to expand. There is no incentive to produce more because the more you produce, the more profit you make, the more tax you give to the Government. That is why the people are not making the necessary effort.

I do not advocate that we should work towards what is recognised so clearly in the United States by the trade unions and by the employees, that the richer the employer is, the more profits the employer makes, the better off the worker is. That is their policy as I understand it. Perhaps it is over-simplifying it, but apparently they have no use for poor employers. The employees can get bigger salaries and wages, have more cars, refrigerators, television sets, and so on, if the employer makes more profit. We are stopping all private industry incentives here in this country and until you ease up from that position, you will not get any economic expansion, but if you can decrease taxation, then there will be increased expansion and increased revenue, and it will be possible again to undertake what is the second urgent task in this country—to increase the amounts payable to old age pensioners, widows and orphans, blind pensioners and those who are unemployed.

I am not advocating a reduction in taxation for the purpose of putting money into the pockets of the industrialists and business men or to make rich men richer. I am advocating that this is the only secure remedy for the present position of affairs and the only certain means by which that economic expansion, which is so absolutely essential if we are to make any economic progress, can be brought about. If you bring that about, you will have expansion in business and I believe that what occurred in 1948 to 1951 can occur again. By a reduction in taxation you will get even increased revenue, more revenue than was got from the higher taxation, but Fianna Fáil do not know how to decrease taxation. I am advocating that for the purpose of bringing about an expansion in industry and business and also so that we will be in a position to give what is absolutely essential at present—some alleviation of conditions for the old, the poor and the sick.

The two are intertwined. We did it in 1948 and 1951 and I am not talking now merely because I am in opposition. We can point to what was done in 1948 and 1951 when we reduced taxation and, at the same time increased old age pensions, widows' and orphans' pensions, blind pensions and unemployment assistance. That was done then, and what was done once can be done again. I have listened to people and read speeches of people representing industry and commerce, such as chambers of commerce and bodies of that character, talking about Government expenditure. We started a scheme for the expenditure of public moneys on capital services and in this study, this survey of economic development they clearly recognise the principle on which we acted at that time, when we started this policy of productive capital expenditure, the expenditure of public moneys on productive enterprises. It is recognised in this study of economic development, as well as in the White Paper, that the level of public expenditure by the Government and other authorities affects economic growth and therefore stimulates employment. If you reduce capital expenditure on the kind of works that were initiated— capital productive works—by the inter-Party Government in 1948, then you reduce employment and you increase emigration and decrease the wealth of the country.

According to some people who talk about it, expenditure of itself is a bad thing. So long as expenditure is on productive enterprises, not merely is it good but it is essential in the circumstances we find in this country. In this economic survey which has been circulated by the Government, you find recognition of the fact that the public capital programme which was in existence when this study was made clearly shows, in relation to capital expenditure by public authorities, which include the Government, local authorities, the E.S.B., Bord na Móna, and all those other bodies that that expenditure was growing less and less each year, and unless something was done to deal with that situation, expenditure on capital development would decrease as the years went by and finally disappear. It was to meet that situation that the suggestions made in this study and in the White Paper were brought out, inadequately, as I hope to show in a few moments.

Some of these people who talk about expenditure forget that the essential thing to remember is that provided the expenditure is for productive purposes, there can be no objection to it. There is no shortage of capital in this country, I believe, for productive enterprise, and it should be remembered, too, by these people who criticise public expenditure so glibly and talk about the necessity for having loans year by year, and thereby, when each loan comes along, add to the national debt the amount which must be added each year to current expenditure to provide for the service of the debt, that if the moneys which have been provided for productive capital projects are properly spent, this expenditure will result in increased production and that production itself will be self-supporting and tend to pay to a very large extent for the increases in the charge for the service of the debt.

That is overlooked but that is what happened in our time when we initiated and carried out a programme of capital development. What has happened at the present time under the Government's proposals is that there is a recognition of the fact that expenditure on capital projects such as building construction, transport, forestry, fisheries, fuel, power, industrial credit, industrial grants, national development and all the rest would tend to taper off, and in order to meet that situation which, if allowed to develop, would not merely not have solved unemployment but would have increased the difficulties of providing employment, these aids and savings referred to in the White Paper were devised; but the fact of the matter is that so far as an examination of this White Paper and its proposals are concerned, it would appear that the proposals are largely—perhaps it is overstating the case to say "largely"—are to a considerable extent illusory.

I have already referred to the fact that this White Paper issued by the Government does not set itself any targets, that it is not, and most specifically does not claim to be, a plan. It calls itself a programme for economic development. I think that when the programme is examined, it will be found that it will not result in securing any significant increase in employment. It is significant that either the study, or the White Paper which is based upon it, does not, at any place, try to estimate to what extent the proposals in the White Paper will make any significant contribution to the ending of unemployment, the stemming of emigration, or increased production.

I know, and it was pointed out to me by an economist the other night, that you may have increased production in agriculture, which is very essential and very necessary. Indeed, it may increase the wealth of the country and that may be a very valuable thing, but you may increase production and increase wealth, without, of necessity, increasing the number of people who will be put into employment. So while it is very desirable that the farmers should have their fertilisers at the cheapest possible rate, while they should have lime available to them at subsidised rates, and while they should have as many incentives as possible, and every aid available to increasing agricultural production, in order to save the country from the economic difficulties which it would have run into if agriculture had not been brought to the position it was in as a result of the policy between 1948 and 1951, nevertheless, it has to be borne in mind that all that aid to agriculture, necessary as it is, essential as it must be admitted to be, may not result— unless the programme is so developed and so organised that it will increase employment—in having any real impact on the unemployment problem.

There are certain matters that will bring about employment. In this study and in the White Paper, which is the child of the study, so to speak, we find that there are provisions made for increasing the amount available for industrial credit and for agricultural credit. There are provisions made, too, for matters in connection with the nitrogenous fertiliser project and other matters of that kind, but the amount that is forecast, or is thought, that will be available by way of industrial and agricultural credit is certainly in my view, entirely illusory.

When you take the experience of people who have availed themselves of industrial or agricultural credit in the past, and even if you say there will be an increased resort to these matters, then I think, on any reasonable view or on any possible, reasonable prospect, the amount set down in the White Paper for these will never be reached and where is the employment content in that? If you do not get your programme so framed that it will necessarily increase employment, then all these plans and projects for subventions in the White Paper will have no effect, from the point of view of dealing with the urgent problem of unemployment. There are £220.44 million, including a sum of £7,000,000 for the nitrogenous fertiliser project, adverted to in this White Paper.

I want to point out, first of all, in reference to that matter that £220.44 million is itself an illusory figure. It looks grand that you are going to spend £220.44 million in the next five years and perhaps those people, whom Government speakers have referred to as being optimistic and buoyant, are suffering from a rush of blood to the head because they saw £220.44 million going to be spent in the next five years, which it was stated would produce dramatic results for the country. But, when you divide that sum by five, it is practically the average at which capital expenditure has been during the past five years, and nothing more. That sum has only a nominal value of £220.44 million, but, of course, the value of money is falling all the time and, if the value of money continues to fall, there will of course, be less spent on capital projects, and in the formation of capital, which is so essential to provide employment, the result may very well be that the policy may be deflationary rather than stimulating to the economy.

At all events, the point I want to make is if that money is to be spent, it must be spent in directions which will produce employment. Arterial drainage may produce employment; the Local Authorities (Works) Act undoubtedly produced employment of a very valuable character, and it had the effect, not merely of giving employment, but also of assisting production. All that is swept away now. The Land Project gave vast employment. Not merely did it increase the productivity of the land and the fertility of the soil, enabling this country to achieve the situation it has now achieved that our agricultural exports have been doubled in volume and trebled in value since 1948, but it gave a considerable amount of direct and indirect employment.

Now this plan, which is expected to bring about such a record of buoyancy and bountifulness, proposes to do away with Part B of the Land Project, which is one of the ways by which employment could be given. Therefore, instead of providing employment by means of continuing the Land Project, or extending Part B which gave employment, and instead of continuing the Works Act, which undoubtedly gave employment, the Government now provide a certain amount of incentives to private enterprise, and hope for the best.

What guarantee have we that anybody will take up additional agricultural or industrial credits, and if they do, that additional employment will be given as a result of it? The expenditure envisaged in this White Paper to a large extent depends on whether private individuals and private enterprises take up the money. This is not £220,000,000 that is to be spent in any event. A very large amount depends on outside people—whether they will take up the money or avail of the opportunities which are placed at their disposal. Therefore, to a large extent, this White Paper, in so far as people are building their hopes upon it, merely gives a very shifty foundation upon which to build hopes.

There must be decreased taxation if we are to have any hope of expansion. There must be decreased taxation which will bring expansion and through expansion, greater revenue and, through greater revenue, ease for those sections of the community which so urgently desire it and require it, the old age pensioners, the widows and orphans and blind pensioners, and all the afflicted sections of our community, the sick and the poor. There must be order to end unemployment. There must be some plan or policy which will result in work, which will result not merely in the creation of wealth and increased production, but which will result in work and projects from which work will become available. Unless that is done, the futile efforts which have been so significant in the Government's policy during the past two years will still bring evil results to the country in the next two or three years.

Mr. M.P. Murphy

Coming from a constituency where Government policy is adversely affecting the population, both rural and urban, and where emigration and unemployment are rife, I think it mandatory on me to contribute to this discussion. It is quite true to say that a number of those people who, at the present time, are despondent about the future, are, to a big extent, the authors of their own misfortune. In the 1957 general election, some of them rushed to the polls to record their votes for the Fianna Fáil candidates, having, of course, in the back of their minds that bright picture painted for them by the potential Taoiseach, the Tánaiste.

Some time previously he told a Dublin audience—and through the Fianna Fáil Party newspaper, the Irish Press, and through other organs the nation in general—that the Fianna Fáil Party, if returned to power, would create a little heaven here in this country. Not only would there be no emigration and no unemployment, but we would have productive work to absorb at least 100,000 extra workers, much more than the number on the unemployment register at that time. It is no wonder, even despite the previous broken promises of Fianna Fáil, that a number of these people were gulled, and those gullible type of people were to be found, not only in West Cork, but throughout the country. They went along to the polls to vote for Fianna Fáil candidates, thinking that such a statement was in some way honest, and that the Fianna Fáil Party had in mind to do something to create productive employment. How disappointed they must be to-day, two years subsequent to the Fianna Fáil Party being returned as the most stable Government ever returned in this country. I want to protest against the dishonest tactics used by Fianna Fáil to secure the stability they enjoy to-day. Never in the history of native Government was a more dishonest document issued than that which was issued by the Tánaiste prior to the last election. It gave false promises of security to the people of which we are now reaping the fruits.

When Deputies speak of unemployment and emigration here, these terms do not mean the same thing to all of us. They have one meaning for people living in the more favoured parts of the country, Kildare, Dublin, Cork City, Wexford, Tipperary and such counties and another meaning in the districts represented by other Deputies, the congested districts, where there is little industrial development and little or no hope for many people except to emigrate. A new position at present obtains in many districts. When young people were unemployed a number of years ago, they could always emigrate mainly to Britain or to America, where employment at reasonable rates could be obtained. That no longer exists. Employment in Britain is receding and Britain was the outlet for our surplus population. People now returning on holidays say it becomes more difficult daily for Irish emigrants to get work in Britain.

If that is the case, and I believe it is, is it not all the more reason that the Government should bend their energies to meet a possible situation in which emigration to Britain would be stopped? What would we do then with our surplus population? Previous speakers have discussed what the Government might do to help these congested districts, but we find the Local Authorities (Works) Act, which was of immense benefit to farmers and provided productive employment generally, was completely wiped out when we got the stable Government which Fianna Fáil now enjoy. Supplementary road grants were reduced and milk prices were reduced. The Milk Costings Commission Report has been thrown overboard. It served Fianna Fáil well in their previous term of office from 1951 to 1954. That was the only advantage the people got from it. When the Government got the report, they threw it overboard; it was no longer required.

It may be said we can do no better. It has been said that we are grappling with the position, doing the best we can and that the Government are more optimistic about the future than the Opposition. In all sincerity, could the Government do no better? Are they responsible for some of the depression which now prevails, for some of the shortage of money which we now find obtains in a number of Government Departments?

The Minister for Education consoled himself with the fact that there was some decrease in emigration at present. There is bound to be some decrease because most of our young people have now left the country. They had no alternative. It is peculiar that in a State such as ours, the Government could not devise a policy to cater for 3,000,000 people. Other countries with lesser resources are catering for populations twice as great, but unfortunately the Fianna Fáil Government, which has had a monopoly of Government here since 1932, apart from two short periods, of inter-Party Government could not, cannot, or will not do anything to rectify the position.

The spending of money on the eradication of bovine T.B. is essential, but when one listens to the Minister for Agriculture saying that every effort must be made to eradicate this disease and that if we do not make these efforts, we shall be in danger of losing the British market for our cattle, we must remember that the Minister making these statements now is the very same person who, a few years back, declared that the British market was gone and thanked God for it. This clearly shows the unwise policy adopted by Fianna Fáil. To-day the main cry of Fianna Fáil is: "For heaven's sake, save us the British market. Get on with bovine T.B. eradiction. Do not lose the British market. If you do, we are gone forever." What a change in Fianna Fáil policy!

It is typical of Fianna Fáil policy. So far as Government expenditure generally is concerned, many people believe—and I share the opinion—that there are too many public servants. It is the general belief of people who are thoroughly conversant with the present position, that two-thirds or 65 per cent. would be quite sufficient. No matter where one travels in the City of Dublin, one finds the city packed with civil servants of all grades and one finds them also in every nook and cranny throughout the country. Seeing that we have such a small population, with so many unemployed and so many who cannot get the wherewithal to exist and who have to emigrate, more cognisance should be taken of the personnel of public departments and of local authority departments than is being taken by the Government. I cannot see why there should be duplicity of services in small areas, where there is an officer from one Department representing one section and an officer from another Department representing another section, and so on. When the people are asked to contribute taxation which is not to be usefully and gainfully employed— and it cannot be said to be usefully and gainfully employed in such circumstances—they are bound to feel reluctant and to grumble at Government policy. I think it is my duty to refer to that matter here, as it is one which should have the immediate attention and examination of the Minister. It has been brought up on many previous occasions.

I am not advocating that any officer should lose his employment, but I am advocating that the position should be reviewed and that where vacancies of a non-productive character arise they should not be filled. There is no use in providing unproductive employment which is of no advantage to the country and of no advantage to the people.

I should like to refer to a matter which is occurring now with greater frequency than in previous years, the establishment of State and semi-State bodies and the delegating by Ministers of their functions to such bodies. In some cases, it may be said that these concerns are doing useful work, but so far as others are concerned, their advantages can be termed doubtful. What I protest about is that once these State bodies are set up, and once the Minister delegates functions to such bodies, it becomes impossible for me or any other representative of the people to obtain information about such bodies, or even to discuss their general position. We are told by the Minister that it is a matter for the Board of the E.S.B., the Dairy Disposals Board, Bord na Móna or for whatever State body one seeks information about. That is wrong and should not be countenanced.

It recently happened in the case of the Minister for the Gaeltacht, that we established a new Department and, no sooner had we done so than that Minister came before the House and asked us to approve the handing over of the greater part of his powers and functions to a private board. Surely, if the Government felt it necessary to delegate those functions to a board, there is no purpose in having a Minister for the Gaeltacht. He is of no value and his presence is not required. Seeing that there is so little power attached to such a position, surely that work could usefully be taken on by some other Minister, such as the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs or the Minister for Justice?

Earlier to-day, in dealing with State-sponsored bodies, a Deputy referred to the granting of certain privileges to certain people. Mention was made of licences granted to certain importers by the Minister for Industry and Commerce. I regard that as a very grave and a very serious matter. It is a well-known fact that certain importers have got concessions from the Government and these concessions are supposed to be obtained through personal or political influence. By reason of those concessions, they are allowed to import goods which are generally restricted, or which are restricted to their competitors in business. That is a serious matter, particularly when the Minister tells the House he will not give any information to the House as to the name of the person getting such a concession or the reasons for granting it. I feel very strongly that if any business firm or merchant gets such a concession, Deputies here, as the representatives of the people, should get the information first and foremost as to the name and address of such a firm or individual, the reason why a special concession by way of these licences was given to such a person and the full details.

We know that many private firms are being well sheltered by Fianna Fáil by protective tariffs under the guise of promoting employment here. As a result of these tariffs, they are in a position to charge extra prices for their commodities, as competition is wiped out. I am inclined to agree with the statement made earlier to-day by Deputy McQuillan, that the only return some of these firms give is that members of their boards act freely on boards of companies directed by the Fianna Fáil Party. We got recently a list of names of people who are doing reasonably well in Irish industry as a result of protective tariffs. I do not grudge their doing well; business people, like any other section of the community, are entitled to make profits and are entitled to do well. What I do not like and did not like is that some of those people give their services freely to such boards to curry favour with the Government. That does not sound well; it does not seem well and it should not happen.

Progress reported: Committee to sit again.

Dáil Éireann díospóireacht - Thursday, 5 Mar 1959