I think I can argue that out with the Chair. Let me come to it in this way: The Fianna Fáil Party, before they came into office, announced their plans for ending emigration and for ending unemployment. The present Tánaiste announced the necessity for any Government who took office to find 15,000 new jobs a year for the people. According to the statistics published this year, it appears that the number in industrial and agricultural employment in 1958, as compared with 1956, which Fianna Fáil used to paint as the black year, showed a reduction of 32,000 people, that there were 32,000 fewer people in employment in this country than in the year that Fianna Fáil used to like describing as the black year of 1956.
That must be looked at in the context of what the Fianna Fáil Government claim as the aim of their policy to end unemployment. The Minister for Defence made it quite clear. I do not know whether I am to be precluded from quoting him or not. I would much prefer to be quite accurate and quite fair to the Minister for Defence in what I am saying. If I have to summarise my remarks, I shall summarise them. I shall do it, naturally, at the risk of losing something in accuracy and I shall do my best not to embellish.
The Minister for Defence, to the best of my recollection, in dealing with the aims of the present Government on this question of employment told the House quite bluntly that the Fianna Fáil Government were elected for the purpose of ending a situation of mass unemployment and mass emigration. That was two years ago next month. As between 1956 and 1958, a year after the Minister was speaking, the position was that, under a Fianna Fáil Government and under the policy pursued by that Government, there were 32,000 fewer people at work in this country than in the black year of 1956.
The Minister for Defence—again I shall summarise him if I have to; again I would prefer to quote him if I would be in order in doing so, and to be quite accurate in my quotations rather than risk misquoting him—to the best of my recollection, speaking on the same occasion, made the assertion that the people had put their faith in Fianna Fáil to remedy the situation regarding employment and emigration. How have they remedied it? They are now on their third Budget. They now have had every opportunity, with an overall majority in this House, with no group of people in this House sufficiently large to say "nay" to any measure the Government bring in. How have they remedied the situation? There were 32,000 fewer in employment in 1958 than there were in 1956.
The Tánaiste referred to the necessity for 15,000 new jobs to be found each year. Is there any great hope for the people, when, after the Fianna Fáil Party have operated for two and a half years, unemployment is still so high and, what is even more depressing, the number of people actually in employment has gone down by so much?
I was referring to the fact—I want to emphasise it—that whatever claims can be made for this Budget, there is one thing that no Deputy should overlook and one thing that I certainly do not propose to allow the people to overlook, if I can help it, that is, that this Budget maintains the position with regard to the removal of food subsidies. Under the financial wizardy of Fianna Fáil over the last few years, £9 million has been taken off the kitchen tables of the people in the removal of food subsidies.
That money has been saved to the Fianna Fáil Government. If there were any Government in power other than the present Government, £9 million would have been found and used for the purpose of subsidising the people's food, of keeping the prices of essential foodstuffs down. Fianna Fáil, the strong Government with the overall majority, decided that they would have nothing to do with that and they cut out the subsidies, saving themselves £9 million. What are they giving in return for the £9 million which they have taken off the kitchen tables and out of the cupboard of the people?
They are giving 2/6d. a week to pensioners; they are reducing income tax by 6d.; and they are freeing greyhound racing and professional boxing, and some other entertainments, from taxation of one sort or another. But there is this sum of £9 million of the people's money provided by the previous Government and the people are getting back, I calculate, under this Budget, something in the reign of £3 million by way of reliefs. I think in last year's Budget, the Minister gave some reliefs. I have not made a calculation of the total involved, but whatever the total of the reliefs in that Budget and in the present Budget, £9 million has gone down the drain, as far as the people are concerned.
It will be conceded by the Minister and his Party that their predecessors at least achieved the position in which the prices of essential foodstuffs were maintained at a reasonably low level. I do not know if any Fianna Fáil Deputy wants to contest that. I do know that a great number of people would like to get back to the position in which their food would cost them only what it cost them under the inter-Party Government. In connection with the price of bread and butter, the two main articles of diet in a number of houses, the Minister for Defence on 15th May, 1957, had this reference to make and I quote from the Dáil Debates for that date at column 1287:—
It is a fact, of course, that these subsidies were retained and that therefore the two items to which food subsidies refer, bread and butter, were kept at an artificially low level during the Coalitions period of office; but the question is at what price to the community in general were those commodities kept down and the subsidies retained? I think it was at a price which the community were not prepared to pay.
The Minister goes on:—
People realise now—and they showed they realised it by voting for Fianna Fáil at the last election—that there was no ultimate advantage to the workers in having low prices and no work.
What is the position now, after two and a half years of Fianna Fáil's best efforts, after two and a half years of Fianna Fáil "cracking"? The Minister for Defence was able to say in 1957 that during the period in office of the previous Government, it was a case of having low prices and no work. Will he or any other Deputy sitting behind him now deny that if that was true, the position now is a case of high prices and still no work, because there are 32,000 fewer people in employment than in the year 1956. What of the people who, according to the Minister for Defence, put their faith in Fianna Fáil to remedy the situation? What have they got out of a change of Government? The subsidies have been removed and there is nothing in this Budget which is replacing a penny piece of any of those subsidies. The prices of food have gone up and up and up and the work is still not there and the people are still emigrating.
Now, I think, it would be quite relevant in this context to remind the House of what the Minister for Defence said in the same volume at column 1283. He said:—
In my opinion, and in the opinion of any fair-minded person who even now goes back and looks over the speeches made in the election campaign, it is beyond all doubt that we were put in here as a Government to take the necessary steps to remedy the situation of mass unemployment and emigration brought about by the previous Government. It is useless for the Opposition now to try to pretend that the action we have taken has come as a shock to the people. The people definitely realised that it was necessary to take decisive and tough action and it was because Fianna Fáil were the only Party who could be trusted to do this that we were put back into office.
They were the Party that could be trusted to take decisive and tough action and the decisive and tough action the Fianna Fáil Government took was to remove the food subsidies and that was for the purpose of pursuing the policy of ending mass unemployment and emigration.
Is there any Deputy opposite who can feel complacent about the efforts of either the Minister for Finance, or the Government as a whole, towards achieving either of those objectives over the past two and a half years? Do any of the Deputies opposite seriously think that by endeavouring to monkey around with our election system and to abolish proportional representation they will achieve the goal of ending mass unemployment and emigration? That speech of the Minister for Defence was not made on the hustings in the last general election; it was made when the election was over. It was made in this House, an acknowledgment from the Front Bench opposite as to why that Government were in office. Two years later, is there any Deputy opposite who feels that he can give the Government a pat on the back for having gone any appreciable distance in the direction of achieving those objectives?
I have here a publication of the Fianna Fail Party calling on the people to vote Fianna Fail in the general election. I do not know what on earth the document is called; it has a photograph of the Taoiseach on the front page, with the slogan "Let Us Go Ahead Again". On page two, it starts —"All Energies Devoted to One Aim —Full Employment" and on page three, from which I propose to quote, is an article headed—"Action can Start Now." It reads:—
"Over 90,000 people are now out of work. The Coalition says it can do nothing for them now."
—the word "now" is in black type—
"Fianna Fáil believes that work must be provided at once."
There is nothing in any way weak or doubtful about that. Fianna Fáil proclaimed to the people that they believed that work must be provided at once. Here we are, three years later, with 32,000 people fewer in employment.
I do not know whether you are aware of it or not, Sir, but Fianna Fáil published a document when there was a by-election in Cork, asking the people of Cork city to vote for Deputy Galvin. This appeal contained an article telling the people of Cork city that "quick action was needed to avert national disaster" and that Fianna Fáil had plans "to end emigration."
Lest I be accused of misquoting in any way, while I shall not give too long a quotation, I want to quote the full text of this article. It says:
"The present spate of emigration is the most serious problem facing the nation. The recent census report has shown that the situation must be righted quickly if disaster is to be avoided. In contrast to the inaction of the present Coalition, Fianna Fáil has been preparing its plans for the day when the Party again take up the reins of Government. The full employment proposals announced by Fianna Fáil show how the Party intend to deal with the problem of emigration, by providing work for our own people at home. The Fianna Fáil plan proposes an increase over five years in the number of new jobs by 100,000. This would result in full employment and the end of abnormal emigration."
The people of Cork were told that Fianna Fáil were planning and that the Fianna Fáil plan proposed an increase, over five years, in the number of new jobs so as to place 100,000 people. Fianna Fáil have gone through half the span which they allowed themselves. They have been in office now for two and a half years. If the Fianna Fáil plan were worth a hang, we should have 50,000 new jobs created and that number of new people in employment since they came into office. Instead of that, the official figures published by the Government disclose the sorry position to which I have referred already—32,000 people fewer in employment in 1958 as compared with 1956.
Deputy Sweetman pointed out, when he spoke last week, that import prices have decreased by 10 per cent., that they have dropped from 117 to 107 and that, notwithstanding the advantage to the Government of that position, internal prices, the cost of living index, rose by the same figures, roughly from 107 to 116 or 117. When Deputy Burke talks of the Minister having given "hope to the people of Ireland and to every section of the people", I wonder if he is overlooking the fact that in 1958 total savings dropped by £15 millions on the year 1957, that they dropped from some £60 millions to £45 millions as between 1958 and 1957. Is he aware that the gross national production was down by 2 per cent. as between 1958 and 1957 and was also, I think, lower than in 1956— the "black year of 1956", as Fianna Fáil like to refer to it?
As I said when I commenced, there is nothing Fianna Fáil can find to raise any cheer about in this Budget. The Budget is a most disappointing effort. The Minister could not have done less on the income-tax front without being told he was insulting the people by offering a decrease of less than sixpence. From the reply given to a Parliamentary Question last week the amount which old age pensioners will be getting, even when they get this increase, will correspond roughly to 5/- in the year 1909 or 1910. I see the Parliamentary Secretary to the Taoiseach in the House at the moment. He was responsible for giving the answer to which I refer and no doubt he will be able to confirm that my recollection is reasonably accurate.
