When I finished speaking last week, I was dealing with the amount of money voted to the National Library. I said that I did not want anybody to say that I am making an attack on the Irish language movement. If anybody does I shall reply to him. I want to draw the Minister's attention to the Grant-in-Aid for the purchase of books by the National Library. The grant is £5,000, which is inadequate when we look at the increase in the cost of books and the increase in books of the type that a library like the National Library should buy. I want the Minister to note that we are in an age of great scientific advances and research and this scientific research has resulted in the publication of a great number of standard scientific works. The amount of money we are giving to the National Library would never give the National Library a chance to lay up a stock of the books. Another point is that the National Library should be able to buy practically every type of book published in the country because there are a lot of books published for which at first there is no demand but as time goes on people discover they are good books and start to look for them. I want to point out to the Minister how small and parsimonious £5,000 is when our fellow countrymen in Belfast get £20,000 for the same purpose, if I remember rightly.
Under subhead (b) (1) in the Votes, the grants towards the publications of books in Irish by independent publishers is £10,000 and the grant to periodicals if published in Irish, and newspapers publishing current news in Irish, is £18,000, making a total of £28,000. I had amongst my papers a list of publications published in Irish by An Gúm but unfortunately I have not got it with me now. It was a formidable list running into hundreds of thousands of copies. The only customers that could be found were the paper mills to pulp them. I made inquiries about the publications. I thought that many people who seem to be foremost in the Irish language movement would be customers for this type of book, but they were not. I asked was any reduction ever made in the price, and I discovered that many of them were reduced to nearly a penny each. The apostles of the language movement would not even give a penny each for them. Yet, we still vote this money. On Radio Éireann, we are broadcasting some programmes the people do not want to listen to, and now we are printing books and periodicals no one wants to read. People will not buy them even when they are offered at a fraction of the cost.
The Minister should look to the National Library. I read a speech made by a prominent member of the Oireachtas at a congress within the past few days, and the old cliché about our national heritage was trotted out. We should look to our heritage in the National Library. We should add to it and make it a worthwhile heritage for the generations to come. One of the difficulties in the National Library is that the reading room is overcrowded. I went in there again to-day and it was overcrowded. The Minister should see to it that immediate accommodation is provided in the National Library, the National Gallery and the National Museum. There is overcrowding in the reading room of the National Library; there is overcrowding in the store rooms in the National Gallery; and there is overcrowding in the store rooms of the National Museum.
On several Votes in this House I said that matter should be taken up with the various educational institutions and that where there are museum pieces of value, of interest or of sentimental value to an area—if there is something of sentimental value to Cork, Kerry, Limerick, Waterford, or Galway—it should be exhibited there instead of being stored in the cellars in Dublin. I am sure there are an enormous number of museum pieces relating to the '98 Rebellion which would be of interest to Wexford.
As I say, that is what we do about buying books or helping the National Library to buy books. We are treating the National Gallery in the same manner, throwing them money that can only be classed as pennies. George Bernard Shaw remembered the National Gallery in his will. I asked a Parliamentary Question three or four months ago and the Minister for Finance told me that the royalties, which George Bernard Shaw left to the National Gallery, from performances of My Fair Lady, ran to over £300,000. That has put the National Gallery in a position to buy the kind of picture which I am sure the Director and the Board would want to buy. They have them now and no thanks to the Government of this State—thanks to the man many people would not have any use for. He was always an Irishman, no matter what was said to him, and he was always proud to be Irish.
I have no doubt that the Director of the National Gallery has bought some pictures already. He, and the Governors of the Gallery, are the people who will buy pictures with this money. I have nothing to say about them. They are the best judges, but I will say that no pictures should be bought for this nation by any Government Department but the Department of Education, acting on the advice of the Director and the Governors. There is a great danger that a clever artist who wants to sell his pictures will try to paint not a work of art but the "man who".
Some time ago, I re-read a famous story by O. Henry entitled "Art and the Broncho" in which the equivalent of a Government or State Department in the United States was about to buy a picture. By an extraordinary coincidence, the name of the man mentioned by O. Henry was Senator Mullins. Senator Mullins went to his counterpart, another Senator, and said to him: "We are buying this picture." The other Senator looked at it and said: "I would not give six bits for it without the frame." Senator Mullins said: "You do not know who painted this picture." The other Senator asked: "Who painted it?" and the reply was: "It was painted by the son of the man who." The second Senator said: "Why did you not say that before. Of course we have to buy the picture." There is always a danger of that happening in this country. There is always the danger of an artist who may be "man whoing", painting the "man who", and we will find ourselves with a spate of these pictures on our hands. I saw one lately and I only hope and pray that it will not be bought by this nation.
Another matter to which I should have referred is the shortage of teachers. The Minister mentioned in Clery's Restaurant some time ago that there were tens of thousands of national school children who had never laid eyes on a trained teacher, and that 25 per cent. of the national teachers were untrained. I drew the attention of the Minister to the fact that that was the fault of his own Party and of his predecessor, the Leader of his Party at the time, and now the President, who was Minister for Education at one time. He came to the conclusion that the fewer teachers we had the better and he lopped off the de la Salle College in Waterford. That is why we were short of teachers. We were short of teachers because of the treatment meted out to them by the Minister's predecessors in that period. We were short of teachers—many teachers who were loyal supporters of this Government would like to forget it—because the Fianna Fáil Government batoned them in the streets of Dublin. That was one of the reasons we were short of teachers. There was no future for teachers. When the teachers came out on strike, they were not treated as the members of other unions were treated. They got the big stick from the Fianna Fáil Government.
I believe one of the Minister's predecessors went to a congress in Clare in the thirties and he was shocked and surprised at what he learned there. He did not know until then that the primary teachers were compelled to put all the children in their schools in for the primary examination, irrespective of whether or not they were mentally fit. He admitted that was a frightful state of affairs and he assured the teachers then that he would see to it that the position was remedied. It has not been remedied.
I mention the incident of the National Flag. That was not just a nine days' wonder. The flag is still there; it has been there for years. That action was due to an enlightened teacher who, with the aid of his manager, and the support of the parents of the children, erected a flagstaff; the National Flag is hoisted there with ceremony and it is taken down at the proper time. I draw the Minister's attention to it, though I do not think it should really be a matter for the Department of Education. But the Minister might make some suggestion to managers and teachers generally.
Deputy Declan Costello is here and I will leave it to him to deal with the problem of mentally retarded children, in whom I have some interest myself. I belong to an organisation in my constituency which is doing excellent work for these children. I do not say that I do any great work. It is an organisation of dedicated men and women. They are doing splendid work with, I will admit, some assistance from the State. The problem of mentally retarded children calls for attention. On a purely localised basis, the numbers may be small; there may be only one or two in an area. The Minister should examine the feasibility of having these children collected from the different areas and brought to a central school for training, returning home in the evening to their parents and the other members of the family.
I know the Minister is one of the fairer-minded Ministers in Fianna Fáil and I know that, when he is replying, he will pay me the courtesy of answering the points I have put to him. I should be greatful if he would reply to the point I made about the National Library, its reading room and any policy it may have with regard to the acquisition in the future of near-by properties. I should also like to hear from him with regard to the National Gallery and the storage space available there and I should like to be told what the policy is with regard to the National Museum.
I should also like to hear from him on the suggestion that the Vote for the National Library be increased and what he thinks of the suggestion that some of our national treasures should be sent on exhibition to various centres throughout the country for the education of our youth in particular.