Deputy Dillon gave a performance yesterday in the role of Mr. Facing Both Ways. He proclaimed at first his adherence to the European Common Market and a stronger and greater Europe and he then proceeded to try to arouse the most direful apprehension in the minds of our farmers, industrialists and workers as to the consequences for them. We are, he said, all floating about wondering what is going to happen to us in the Common Market. Now, unless the Deputy spoke for his own Party, we on this side of the House are not wondering. We know, and those who have been following the statements of the Taoiseach and others of my colleagues, know also. We know the Common Market brings, not only a challenge, but a great opportunity to every person of initiative and enterprise in our community; whether he works on the farm or is engaged in industry or in the ordinary business of commerce. Like all great opportunities it has its hazards as well; but none that cannot be overcome if men of vision and vigour are in charge of the nation's affairs. In short the nation has nothing to fear under its present leadership.
Adjournment Debate—Policy Review (Resumed).
Why did I promise not to interrupt?
It has everything to fear, if that leadership should fall again into the hands of those who twice before brought this country to the verge of disaster, first in 1948-51 and then from 1954 to 1957.
Yesterday, Deputy Dillon told us that in the ten years prior to 1957 this country had achieved the prodigy of doubling its exports and trebling their value. So far as the volume of exports is concerned the statement is true. It is true, however, for one brief year prior to 1957—but that year is not one for which Fine Gael can claim credit. It was the year 1954 when what the Fianna Fáil Government had sown was reaped by Fine Gael and its allies.
As to the statement that exports had trebled in value, if, by value, Deputy Dillon meant real value on the basis of the purchasing power of the £ in 1947, then it was not true at all. In that slick way of his, Deputy Dillon, when claiming that exports had trebled in value, wished the Irish people to forget that under the Government which Fine Gael formed and headed in 1948, and in which his Fine Gael colleague Deputy McGilligan was Minister for Finance, the Irish £ was drastically devalued; so that its purchasing power was ruthlessly cut to seven-tenths of its 1947 value, the value it had when the Fianna Fáil Government was in office.
Whether his statement was true in some particulars and false in others Deputy Dillon, with the megalomania which characterises his utterance on great occasions and mars it on all, wished it to be inferred that he alone had done it and, if not literally he alone, then with the Fine Gael Party which for him has the same significance: "L'Etát, c'est moi." The real truth, of course, is that so far as exports are concerned Fine Gael's record is not one for praise but for reproach and I shall show that from official statistics.
In 1947 the value of exports in the hard money of that year was £39.5 million and the index of export volume to the base year 1953=100, was £51.3 million. In 1948 the value in hard money was £49.3 million and the export index was £59.4 million. In the autumn of 1949 the Irish £ was devalued by the Fine Gael Coalition and its value cut to .7 of what it previously had been. The value of all exports thereafter was inflated. But, for what they are worth, here are the figures for the values of exports from the year 1949 to 1954 inclusive. Export values in 1949 were £60,000,000; in 1950, £72.4 million; in 1951, £81.5 million; in 1952, £101,000,000; in 1953, £114.1 million, and in 1954, £115.3 million.
The harsh fact is, as I said before, that these values are only .7 of what they would have been in 1947; so if we allow for this, it will be seen that, not for the first time, Deputy Dillon was trying to humbug the people when he made his grotesque claim that the value of our exports had been trebled.
To get back to the volume of our exports corresponding to the figures I have given, the volume index figures were: in 1949, 66.3; in 1950, 74.6; in 1951, 73.5; in 1952, 89.5 and in 1953, 100. In 1954, the year in which, as I said, Fine Gael reaped what Fianna Fáil had sown, the figure was 102.6. There is the truth, undistorted by currency changes, and it is this: the years in which the value of exports tended to be double what it was in 1947 were 1953 and 1954. Both of these were Fianna Fáil years.
Then came the second Fine Gael Coalition, headed as before by Deputy Costello and with a Fine Gael Minister for Finance. Not surprisingly the volume index in exports fell to £95.3 million in 1955 and £98.1 million in 1956 and the value fell to £110.85 million in 1955 and £108.2 million in 1956. Thus under the magnificent Deputy Dillon, under the Government of which he was a member, our external trade was tending to dwindle both in volume and in value.
There came a change in Government, and Fine Gael went out and Fianna Fáil came in. Fianna Fáil came in in 1957 and the change was immediately reflected in a rapid improvement in our external trade. The value of exports jumped to £131.3 million in 1957 and continued to rise until last year it was £152.4 million. The export volume index similarly rose from £116.9 million in 1957 to £129 million in 1960. It is clear, I think, from these figures that so far from helping, fostering or encouraging exports, the Fine Gael policy and the advent of Fine Gael to the Government had disastrous repercussions on trade and not only on trade but on production and employment in this country.
All of these things combined to produce the serious financial crises of 1951 and 1956 when, after a series of unbalanced Budgets and deficits on external account, the Fine Gael people could no longer go on. Now, as a result of the Fine Gael mishandling of the public finances in their first term of office, the country had deficits of £30.2 millions in 1950 and £61.6 millions in 1951. It is better that the public memory should be refreshed about this part of the Fine Gael record. But not only did we lose this £91.8 millions but we also borrowed £40 millions from the United States.
The people of this country have been carrying the burden of this financial improvidence ever since. They have had to find the additional taxation for the annuities which we have had to pay every year since 1951 to the United States in respect of the Marshall loan. When we had to realise in 1950 and 1951 £92 millions of income-earning assets, not only had we to go short of capital for essential development, we had to forgo the income from the investments which our banks were compelled to sell; and the Exchequer had to forgo the tax on that income.
I will have to go out. I just cannot hear such a tissue of untruths. The man who spent £22 million of the Marshall Aid money.
Of course I spent £22 million of the Marshall Aid money. I spent the £22 million that remained of the Marshall Aid money paying the bills which were due by the Fine Gael Government and which had to be met within six months after we took over in 1951. In fact, the political record of this country since 1947 is briefly this, that when Fine Gael went out, Fianna Fáil had to come in to clear up the mess and, I am glad to say, did clear up the mess.
Because of the fact that they did that, the country is in the strong position in which we find it today. Over the last four years we have been able to carry through an enormous programme of capital development in this country the like of which has not been seen here since, well, since we got our independence anyhow—and we have been able to do it and to balance our Budget. We have been able to increase our social services, to give more money out in social welfare benefits than was ever done under a Fine Gael Government and we have been able to do that without burdening ourselves with huge external debt. Over the past four years the aggregate deficit on our external account is merely the nominal one of £1.3 million. We are going to the country on this occasion as we went before, with our public finances in sound order, with the foundation laid for future progress and with men of vision, vigour and enterprise who will be able to see that that progress is maintained to lead us.
Last night Deputy Dillon wept bitter tears about the flight from the land and today he was on the same theme. What is the fact about the Fine Gael record on this matter of emigration? In 1948 the then Government headed by Fine Gael, with others who joined it despite their protestations that they would never enter a coalition, were scarcely warm in their seats when the Tánaiste on the 5th April appointed a Commission to consider, I quote: The present level and trend in population and recommend what measures, if any, should be taken in the national interest to influence the future trend in population.
That Commission was appointed on the 5th April, the day on which the income tax year was beginning for 1948. It presented its report on March 11th, 1954. It was printed by us, so that it could be easily read and studied after we left office in June of 1954. During the whole of that period, what measure did Fine Gael take to give effect to the recommendations of the Commission which had been set up by the first coalition Government?
I have, as Minister for Social Welfare, ransacked my Department. I have asked other Ministers can they find any record in their Departments that the recommendations of the Commission which they themselves set up were ever seriously considered. I asked them could they find for me any proposal which would tend to stem the tide of emigration. Not one of them could produce any tangible proposal whatever. The Leader of the Opposition, the Minister for Agriculture in the two Coalition Governments, had much pity last night for the boys and girls of the West of Ireland who have gone to England and elsewhere. Sad and regrettable the fact is, but, at least, while we recognise the sadness of it, we are trying to do something to cure it. We do not talk about it in hypocritical terms, knowing that, while we did not set up a Commission, as they did, to delude the people, we were giving serious concern to the problem of emigration, and that we did not intend, when we got the report of the Commission, to bury it away in the Government archives and do nothing whatsoever about it.
In its concluding passages that Commission made some very serious and searching comments about the future trend of emigration. It said: "Assuming the rate of emigration over 1948-1954 and that the present fertility rates will be maintained, we forecast in 1986 the population will be 2,899,500." That is to say, there will be a total decline over 35 years of 71,000, an average decrease of 2,000 per year.
What about the babies born?
That is taken into account. The population as returned in the 1951 Census was 2,960,000. In 1956, two years after this Commission had presented its report to the Government, the Census for that year revealed that the population was 2,878,000, a decrease of 62,000 since 1951, a decrease at the rate of 12,000 a year, indicating, of course, that the rate of emigration had considerably increased, because the existing rates of fertility were being maintained or, if anything, were tending to rise.
With these facts before them what did Fine Gael do about it? That is the challenge which Deputy Dillon and those who stand with him in the coming general election will have to face in regard to this question of emigration. The Opposition have tried to create the impression that in some way not apparent to ordinary people, and certainly in some way not revealed by any official figures, there has been a heavy increase in the rate of emigration from this country since Fianna Fáil took over. The fact of the matter is that the heaviest drain upon our population occurred during the period of the first Coalition and was repeated during the period of the second Coalition. In 1952, the intercensal estimate of net emigration, as returned on 23rd March of that year, was 34,300. That was the estimate of the net rate of emigration in 1952. In 1956, the estimated net rate of emigration had gone up to 47,500, an increase of 40 per cent. What were the Fine Gael Party and their associate in the Government doing in relation to that?
In 1957, the net passenger movement outwards, as returned for the end of February that year—that, of course, was the month in which we had the general election, the month in which the Fine Gael Coalition was in its death throes—the net passenger movement outwards was 44,200. At the end of February, 1961, it was 41,800. It is not a very satisfactory figure, I admit, but nevertheless it is better than that we inherited from our predecessors in Government.
Yesterday Deputy Dillon professed to be gravely concerned about the effect our adherence to the Rome Treaty would have upon our industries here. He tried to exculpate himself for the fact that in past years he had bitterly opposed the programme of industrial development which had been initiated by the Fianna Fáil Government when it first took office in 1932. It is ironical to hear Deputy Dillon profess any concern for Irish industry or Irish workers. I remember when he came into this House in 1934 and held up a little baby's semmit and said that was what we were expecting the people to pay for and that was what we were professing to have made in Ireland.
It is true that in that year our making up, clothing and textile industry in general was very insignificant in all branches, so the little semmit might have been a satisfactory symbol for it. Today that textile industry is a great one, covering all branches from spinning the raw cotton to the making up of goods for the export market, and it is giving employment to tens and twenties of thousands of our people. It is selling in competition on the export market. Its yarns are selling in competition in the most unexpected places. The products of our clothing factories are to be found in some of the most fashionable shops in world capitals. All that has been done in the face of bitter and vexatious opposition on the part of Deputy Dillon and his colleagues.
I have not any doubt whatever that when we enter the Common Market the opportunities for these making-up trades will be greatly increased, because we shall have access to a much wider market. The factories will be able to offer a much wider range of patterns and designs and they will have behind them to support them one of the most intelligent labour forces that exist anywhere in Europe or anywhere in the world. That is one of the great assets of our manufacturers. I have met a number of foreigners who have come here and seen some industries I know well. They have all been struck by the intelligent adaptability of our workers.
Our employers and managements, too, are as enterprising as any. There are small industries here which have been selling, as I know, to Peru, Mexico, the Barbados, Canada and South Africa, all in the face of competition. There is not any fear in my mind, at any rate, that those manufacturers who are worth their salt and who are really seriously concerned with their businesses and who have built up their businesses will have greater opportunities. But they will also have this hazard: they will not be able to rest on their oars. They will have to be alert all the time in their endeavours to improve their products and to find out new markets for them. But it can be done.
We have not any reason to fear in relation to our bigger industries that it cannot be done also. Our Irish Shipping is facing world competition in the fiercest sector of international trade. It has held its own very much better than much longer established lines in which the maritime interest has been a very great one. The same is true of our cement. We are exporting it in very large quantities.
We are exporting the product of Bord na Móna. I remember when that great enterprise was started— again, as I said earlier, by men with vision, men who were prepared to back their plans and to face the unbridled and unscrupulous criticism which they met here in this House. I remember when Deputy Dillon, and others, used come in here and talk about the wet turf in the sacks, and all the other things, just when we were starting to get our people interested in our bogs as a valuable asset which we could develop. I remember when Bord na Móna was started and we began to mechanise our bogs. I remember the jeer that used be made of that effort an our part. They talked about the Health Robinson machines we were using on the bogs. I remember when we came in here for money. We had to come in here many years for money before that project was set on its feet. I remember the way they used to turn to the Bord na Móna accounts and scoff at them.
Even during the war, when we had to carry on, when we were trying to make good the deficiencies in fuel, fuel which we formerly relied upon the foreigner to supply, no credit was given for the fact that we had to make do and mend with whatever remained of that machinery. After the war, we reorganised Bord na Móna, reconstituted it, and refinanced it. We were turned out in 1948. And for over 12 months the fate of that great enterprise hung in the balance because the members of the Fine Gael Party were anxious to kill it, as they killed the international airlines, simply because it happened to be a Fianna Fáil project. To-day we are dependent upon Bord na Móna bogs for one-third of our electricity supply. We are dependent upon them to an increasing extent for our domestic fuel. Not alone that, but we are actually exporting the product of our bogs to Great Britain and elsewhere. That sort of enterprise would never have been dreamt of, and could never have been built up had the present leader of Fine Gael, and those closely associated with him, been members of the Government during the most critical years of its development.
I referred to the international airline. We started to develop that airline in 1936. It is now one of the most successful operating in the world. On its European operations alone it earned a surplus of £277,000, making a net six per cent. On its capital investment in what is regarded as one of the most hazardous enterprises upon which anyone could embark. But we saw the opportunity which our geographical position presented to us and, before the war, we started —I think it was in 1936—the development of the great Shannon Airport, which is sometimes referred to as the crossroads of the world. How were our efforts seconded by the Deputy who professes to be concerned about the development of Irish industry and what its fate will be in the European Common Market?
I remember him coming in here and jeering. I remember him hoping for the day—indeed, he said he knew the day would come—when rabbits would be dancing on the runways in Rineanna. Now the development of our aviation service had to be suspended during the war. We resumed its development immediately that planes could be had and pilots were available. It is a great thing to be able to say that, in 1946, the predominance of this country in the development of civil aviation was so clear that, when the first provisional international conference on civil aviation met, it met here in this city of Dublin. Arising out of that, we saw our opportunity. We decided we would go after the transatlantic traffic and get into the transatlantic service, and get in on the ground floor. We pushed ahead with the construction of Shannon Airport. We bought the planes. We secured all the international way-leaves that we wanted. We had everything lined up for that service to start. The first Irish plane was to cross the Atlantic on St. Patrick's Day in the year 1948. Then, of course, there came a change of Government. The St. Patrick's Day flight was cancelled. The aeroplanes, that would have been worth millions to us in building up the traffic, were sold and the proceeds used to balance a Fine Gael Budget.
Undeterred by this terrible setback, one which we have been paying for ever since, when we came back in 1951 we tried again to get the transatlantic air service under way. We had entered into certain agreements. Again the Government changed and Fine Gael came back. Again everything was thrown on the scrap-heap. This time we have entered the transatlantic air carrying service for the third time. We had to start it with planes that were hired and naturally planes that were draining off most of the profit; but to-day, in the accounts of the Irish international airlines, you can see that in less than three years the deficit on working account has been reduced to only £94,000, and I understand from a statement made by the General Manager that, in the first six months of this year, that deficit will disappear. What position would we be in to-day as international carriers—one of the most remunerative business that any nation can get into provided, of course, it has the know-how and the ability to manage the concern—what position would we be in to-day if it had not been for these two set-backs that the country had to suffer at the hands of a Fine Gael Government? We would have been, as we were in 1946, amongst the foremost civilian aircraft operators in the world.
Last night I understand that Deputy Corish was complaining about the fact that our expenditure on social services now represents—I do not think I am misrepresenting him—a smaller fraction of our total tax revenue than it did in 1957. That is quite true but there has been a substantial increase in our expenditure upon pensions of all kinds: contributory old age pensions, non-contributory old age pensions, widows' contributory pensions and widows' non-contributory pensions. The total expenditure on all these services in the year 1957 was £13,670,000. It was even less than that in 1956. In 1961 the Budget provided for an expenditure of £18,576,000, an increase of £5,000,000 or, to put it another way, an increase on almost 40 per cent. in the expenditure on pensions in 1957. What is more extraordinary still, the expense of administering these enlarged services has gone down. In 1956-57 the Office of the Minister for Social Welfare cost £551,000. Today I am able to run that office on £494,000, so there is a saving of £60,000 due to the fact that the Coalition is out and Fianna Fáil is in.
I have perhaps overstayed my time by a few minutes. I could talk further at some length, but I understand Deputy Michael O'Higgins is to come in and I shall not stand between him and the House very much longer. I only want to say this, that yesterday's speech about emigration, yesterday's speech about the plight of Irish industry in the Common Market, yesterday's speech about the increase in agricultural production, yesterday's speech about our total increase in production, was a hollow sham on the part of Deputy Dillon. He is not at all concerned about these matters. All he is concerned about is the future of Deputy Dillon in Irish politics. He said last night that people were floating about wondering where they would go. That does not apply to us. But I am not surprised that it applies to Deputy Dillon and his Party, because, after all, a Party which is supported and sustained by windy rhetoric must float around some time.
There is a saying "the old dog for the hard road". I think we can show the truth of that saying and see the reason why the hoary old veterans of Fianna Fáil are being press-ganged back into service for this general election. Where would Fianna Fáil be if they were not able to hear that kind of pep talk on the eye of an election by the old maestro of Fianna Fáil, the Minister for Health, Deputy Seán MacEntee? "The old dog for the hard road." Deputy MacEntee is so long on the road that he knows exactly what spectacles to use and what colours to choose.
There were a number of things he chose not to see with the Nelson eye of Deputy MacEntee in 1961. There were a number of factors and circumstances which arose at the time of the last general election which it is right that this House and the country should consider, but which the Tánaiste, following his Leader's speech of yesterday, feels should be forgotten and put behind us now, that instead of considering the circumstances under which Fianna Fáil were elected four years ago we should forget everything except the challenge of the Common Market.
I do not propose to forget the circumstances under which the Tánaiste and his colleagues were allowed to form a Government here in 1957. In that year they were elected as a Government with an over all majority, an over all majority perhaps as great as any Government had in this country since this state was established by Griffith, Collins and Cosgrave 40 odd years ago. It is right on the occasion of this adjournment debate that we should examine the circumstances in which Fianna Fáil obtained that majority. It is even more important that we should examine just what they have done with that over all majority in the past four years.
What were these circumstances? One of them was the fact that in the year 1956 this country was involved in an economic blizzard over which the Government at the time had no control, brought about by circumstances which we in this country could not control. All of us remember how Fianna Fáil made political hay while the sun shone for them in the year 1956. There was very little assistance given to the then Government by the then Deputy MacEntee and other Fianna Fáil Deputies, speaking from these benches at that time. There were few of the Fianna Fáil Deputies, either front benchers or back benchers, who endeavoured to lend a helping hand at a time when the national solvency was at stake and when they knew, as we knew on those benches, that it was necessary for the then Government to take stern measures for the sake of preserving national solvency.
We had instead the Fianna Fáil propagandists endeavouring to portray to the public a picture of a weak and vacillating Government lacking in leadership. How wrong they were is well known to the people now because the Taoiseach has gone on record since as confirming that the steps taken by the inter-Party Government solved the problems that were before the country at that time. We know now that the Government which was in office in 1955 and 1956 had not only the moral courage to take the right decisions but they had the political courage to implement their decisions. Despite the political unpopularity which that meant, they had the courage to face the people in those circumstances. That was grist to the political mill of Fianna Fáil and according to their propaganda the Fianna Fáil Party were even going to outdo the Almighty. The Fianna Fáil mills were going to grind exceedingly fast. Fianna Fáil were going to get "cracking" four years ago; and they were going to get "cracking" on three main points: the cost of living, unemployment and emigration.
In all the atmosphere of the unpopular measures the then Government had to take and of the temporary dislocation of trade which was caused by those measures, the Fianna Fáil propagandists were pumping their propaganda into the political arena. There was talk of 100,000 new jobs and of a Fianna Fáil plan for full employment. There were posters, which have become notorious, placarded on every dead wall in the country calling on the housewives to get their husbands back to work. We had the Fianna Fáil promise, implicit in the poster, "Let's get cracking", that all that was necessary was to change the Government and there would be a complete alteration in the state of affairs then existing. That was one of the circumstances under which Fianna Fáil obtained office four years ago.
There was also the circumstance that a certain amount of political violence was taking place north and south of the Border and there was a feeling, and it was engendered by Fianna Fáil propagandists, that the then Leader of the Fianna Fáil Party was the person to deal with that kind of situation, that the firm hand of the then Leader of the Fianna Fáil Party was needed and that if he were back in office he with a firm hand would put down the kind of political violence which was coming into existence.
The members of the inter-Party Government, certainly the members of my Party who co-operated in that Government, always believed in the maintenance of law and order in this country and always believed, without changing, in upholding the authority of the legitimate Government of this country and believed in using the ordinary courts of the land to deal with any trouble which arose in this country. But, the Fianna Fáil propaganda machine was pumping out its propaganda and people were led to believe that the ordinary courts of the land were not sufficient to deal with the situation that then existed and that you wanted the firm hand of the then Leader of the Fianna Fáil Party to deal with it. That was another of the circumstances which existed at the time of the last General Election.
Then there was a fact, and it is a fact and I quite freely acknowledge it, that a number of people in this country had held in very great esteem the former Leader of the Fianna Fáil Party, a man who for 20 odd years had been first the Prime Minister and then the Taoiseach, as he was called. He had enormous prestige and people, even those who did not agree with his politics, particularly in his salad days in this country, held him in the kind of esteem that is associated with a venerable elderly statesman. Every effort was made by the Fianna Fáil propagandists to play on that fact and to get them to vote for the Fianna Fáil Leader to form the next Government. The belief was engendered that in voting for the Fianna Fáil candidates it did not matter what the Fianna Fáil candidates were like, that they were really voting for Dev. Every one of us knows that that propaganda existed at the time of the last general election. It is fair now that we should examine the circumstances which then existed and should ask ourselves how Fianna Fáil have used the overall majority which they obtained at the last general election, particularly in relation to the propaganda which they circulated at that time.
Let me start at the last matter to which I have referred. I wonder how many people in this country who voted Fianna Fáil because of their esteem for the Fianna Fáil Leader, because of the prestige associated with him as an elderly statesman, would have voted for Fianna Fáil if they knew he was going to throw in his hand as Taoiseach after a couple of years and pass on the mantle to a member of the Fianna Fáil Party who had never secured the confidence of the people at a general election. How many of the people who voted for Fianna Fáil because they felt their then Leader was the person who would deal firmly with outbreaks of political violence would have voted for Fianna Fáil if they could have seen into the future and could have known that virtually on the eve of the Presidential election the gates of the Curragh would be opened and that reliance was going to be placed once more on the use of the ordinary court machinery to deal with that particular type of offence?
With regard to the cost of living, the Tánaiste has just finished the opening of his election campaign for the coming election. I want to remind him and his Party of his election address in the last general election which contained these phrases—this is the Fianna Fáil election address for the Dublin South-East constituency—
In living memory trade has never been so bad, unemployment so rife and the necessaries of life so dear.
Let us analyse that for a moment. Here we have the present Tánaiste, then a Fianna Fáil candidate in Dublin South-East, issuing his appeal to the voters in that constituency to return him to this House and to return his Party to Government and doing that blatantly on the basis of his election address in which he was emphasising to the people that the necessaries of life were never so dear.
The next section of the election address went on to say:
But all this belongs to the past.
Will the Tánaiste read over that election address now and find out whether or not the dearness of the necessaries of life belongs to the past or belonged to the past in 1957 because in their very first Budget, notwithstanding the speeches which they made, quotations from which have been given here today, the Fianna Fáil Government abolished the food subsidies and by deliberate positive Government action increased the cost of living on the people? By deliberate positive Government action, they increased the prices of the necessaries of life on the people.
This election address of the Tánaiste concluded in this way:
If you do your part in this election to put a Fianna Fáil Government in office, we believe that we can look forward with confidence to a revival of industry, an increase in employment and greater security for all.
That, of course, was the theme of the Fianna Fáil propagandists throughout the election campaign.
There was all the talk about full employment and I have here the pamphlet issued as a General Election pamphlet by Fianna Fáil in 1957. The first page had a picture of their former leader and the words "Let us go ahead again. Vote Fianna Fáil." On page 2 there was the banner-line heading: "All energies devoted to one aim—full employment." At the bottom of that page there was another heavy lettered heading: "Unemployment can be cured" and on the next page, a banner-line heading: "Action can start now."
This was the document issued on behalf of the Fianna Fáil Party for general use in the last general election, for use in every constituency by all Fianna Fáil candidates and that was issued side by side with the statements of the present Taoiseach, then a candidate for the constituency of Dublin South Central. He told the people that unemployment was the test of Government policy and that if the Government policy were putting more people into work it was all right but if it were putting people out of work it was all wrong.
Every Fianna Fáil propagandist was out to paint the year 1956 as the black year for employment in this country. What is the position now after Fianna Fáil have been there for four and a quarter years with their overall majority? They have been in a position to implement any plans or proposals they liked. Simply by counting heads inside this Chamber—because there was no Party or no group of Parties strong enough in Opposition—they were able to put into effect any plan they put before the House. Where now is the plan for full employment referred to in this supplement of the Irish Press in 1955? Where now is the Fianna Fáil pamphlet, the Fianna Fáil plan for full employment? Why was that plan never brought before the House during the past four and a quarter years? There were times when there was not an hour's work for this House to do, when we were sent home early in the week or early in the day, when the holidays were protracted because there was no work to do.
Why did they not utilise that time in bringing before the House their plan for 100,000 new jobs? What has become of it? We are coming into another general election and are there to be more of these supplements issued of proposals for 100,000 new jobs? What has become of the original one? They have been there for four and a quarter years with their overall majority and what is the result of it? Instead of 100,000 new jobs, after a few years of Fianna Fáil Government we find that there are 51,000 fewer people in employment in this country than before Fianna Fáil were elected. There would be 51,000 more people now earning in good jobs under good conditions in this country if Fianna Fáil had remained out of office in 1957.
Fianna Fáil succeeded in putting them out of work instead of putting them into work and, while all this talk of 100,000 new jobs was going on, there was talk also of the door that was to remain closed. There was one avenue that was not going to be exploited to get employment and that was the Civil Service. We were told there were to be no extra civil servants, that there was to be a reduction in the cost of administration. But according to Government figures published in answer to Parliamentary Questions here a month or so ago, there are 500 more civil servants than there were before Fianna Fáil came back to office.
So, while on the overall picture, instead of 100,000 new jobs there are 51,000 fewer in employment, the one door that was to remain closed—the Civil Service—was opened and 500 civil servants have been brought in. That is the Fianna Fáil record on employment. The Tánaiste spoke about emigration. We have not found it easy to get figures from the Government on this question. It seems to be far easier to get them from the British Government and from British sources. I think that every Deputy in this House is conscious of the fact that according to the report of the British Migration Board a figure of 268,000 people is given as the number who left the Twenty-Six Counties and got work in Great Britain in the years 1957, 1958, 1959 and 1960.
In those four years, under Fianna Fáil Government, according to that source 268,312 people left this country and were given work in Great Britain. That takes no account of the number who were dependants of these people who were given employment in Great Britain and it takes no account of the children under school leaving age who accompany these people. It takes no account of the people who emigrated to America, Australia, New Zealand or anywhere else. Yet we have Fianna Fáil now patting themselves on the backs as regards their four years of office.
I do not want to weary the House by quoting Fianna Fáil sources but I do want once again to point out that when Fianna Fáil were elected in 1957 they themselves knew very well why they were elected—through the success of their propaganda in the general election and leading up to it. A new Fianna Fáil Deputy who was rapidly promoted to Ministerial rank walked into this House in 1957, fresh from his speeches and those of his colleagues, and as reported at column 1283 of the Official Report for 15th May, 1957 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 the Government to take the necessary steps to remedy the situation of mass unemployment and mass emigration brought about by the previous Government.
That was the reading of the position by the Minister for Defence. He had no hesitation in coming into this House and saying that Fianna Fáil were put into office specifically for the purpose of ending a situation of mass unemployment and mass emigration. How have they done that? They have forgotten their plan for full employment, they have forgotten their proposals for 100,000 new jobs but they are facing another general election with 51,000 fewer people in work and practically 270,000 people driven to emigrate in the past four years.
The Tánaiste referred to a saving of some £60,000 on administration in the Department of Social Welfare. That might be a welcome contribution to the taxpayer here but the facts are that whatever money was saved in that Department went out for a very much less worthy cause. I put down a number of Parliamentary Questions to try to find out what was happening to that money because, according to the Estimates published by Fianna Fáil, they are spending something in the region of £22,500,000 more than was being spent by the previous Government. Yet local rates have soared by some £3,500,000.
I tried to find out what was happening to the money. Bear in mind the Tánaiste has succeeded in saving £60,000, he says, on administration of the Department of Social Welfare. I found that they had purchased 33 new Government cars in the last four years at a cost of £44,732 2s. 6d. That £60,000 which the Tánaiste saved in the Department of Social Welfare has virtually gone to buy 33 new Government cars. The petrol used by Ministers and Parliamentary Secretaries in the 33 new cars in the last four years cost £40,786, so that on those two items alone, instead of a saving of £60,000 we see that £84,000 or £85,000 was spent on transport for Ministers and Parliamentary Secretaries.
I think that is a very cheap point.
It is not at all cheap. Spending £44,000 for 33 new cars is not my idea of what is cheap or spending £40,000 on petrol. We found that from 1956-57 to 1960-61 a sum of £84,000 odd had been spent on repairs and decorations for Arus an Uachtaráin. Where do those figures stand when the Tánaiste boasts of a saving of £60,000 in the Department of Social Welfare? I could give other figures and if Deputy Collins tempts me I shall do it, but I know there are other speakers who want to get in before this debate concludes.
Fianna Fáil are coming to the end of their period of office in this country——
What is the betting?
——and, as far as the people are concerned, it is not a day too soon. They have been paying dearly for the privilege of having a Fianna Fáil Government in office for the past four-and-a-half years. They have been paying 10d. per lb. more for Irish creamery butter, paying more for the loaf of bread, more for the bag or sack of flour, more for their cigarettes and tobacco, more for their petrol, more for their rates and rents, more for rail and bus fares, and, whatever Deputy Collins may think about it, I think he will find there are many people in the country—I believe, a majority— who have found out by now that Fianna Fáil are too expensive a luxury to have in office for another period. I think Deputy Collins and some others who may have been momentarily encouraged and uplifted by the old-dog-tackling-the-hard-road pep-talk of the Tánaiste this evening will find within the next few months that even the old dogs will be pushed off the hard road by the electorate.
One thing certain is that I shall not run out of West Limerick as the Deputy ran out of Dublin.
Listening to many of the speakers in this debate, I think there are only two or three figures of any great importance in assessing the success or failure of Government policy over the years. I shall mention only three figures. The first is the average rate of emigration in the 20's—16,000 a year—and the average rate of emigration in 1960 which was estimated at about 40,000. There has been a progressive increase between the first and the second figure. The third figure is the net emigration which is reckoned to be about 1,000,000 since the State was founded. These three figures add up to the joint achievement of the different Governments in control here since the 1920's. It seems to me, on those figures, it would be reasonable to suggest that the failure has been the joint failure of the great Parties and that the breaking up of these figures into the different years with which they may be associated is relatively irrelevant. The failure, virtually a total failure, is a joint failure of the political Parties and—most important—of their policies.
One of the most frightening things I have noted in recent years concerns the particular issue we are now dealing with, namely, the Common Market. It is the frighteningly efficient conditioning of minds that can take place relatively quickly when carried out by the now wonderfully highly organised propaganda machine in our so-called democracies. The most outstanding example of that in action occurred in the neighbouring country when a Conservative Government was returned on a particular policy and where now, of course, the policies, promises and undertakings fostered in the minds of the people about the possible achievement of that Government are being shattered.
Here, the question of the Common Market is one which has come to the forefront relatively recently from the point of view of public opinion and we now have the situation of the overpowering barrage of newspaper propaganda, political speeches, slanted, censored and presented in a way designed to create just one idea in the public mind, the idea that it is essential that we enter the Common Market. The extraordinary position is that confusion has been created, not only in the public mind but even among politicians here, because they have spent today and recent days— the Taoiseach, the Tánaiste and other leading speakers—assuring us of the wonderful prospects ahead, conceding certain risks but, generally speaking, envisaging splendid prospects if we enter the Common Market.
The most absurd and ludicrous part of it all is that having engendered the idea that this is a splendid opportunity, a most hopeful development for our people generally in industry and agriculture, they failed to emphasise the possibility that we shall not—through no fault of ours—enter the Common Market at all. It is possible that Britain will find that she cannot negotiate conditions satisfactory in regard to the Commonwealth and that she may then withdraw her application and that we shall find ourselves not entering the Common Market because, as the Taoiseach has said once before with exemplary honesty, emphasising and re-emphasising it, we are so inexplicably tied to Britain from the economic point of view that we must do what she does from the very simple, practical financial point of view.
So that we are now in a position where as a result of widespread political Press propaganda we have the public being rushed into a feeling of anticipation of great new opportunities lying before us in this Common Market, expanding markets, better social conditions and so on, when in fact the matter is still in doubt. It is quite possible that this vista of the Common Market may fail in a matter of weeks or months should negotiations with the British Government—not with us but with the British Government— fail. That emphasises the completely dependent situation in which we now find ourselves as a direct result of the policies of the various Governments since the foundation of the State. The Taoiseach is quite right; there is no alternative now to entering the Common Market with one proviso which I shall mention later. I think we are faced with this inevitable position and its inevitability is the creation primarily of the Taoiseach himself because of his industrial policy over the years.
I should like to refer to remarks made by the Tánaiste in which he referred to devaluation of the Irish £ in 1948/51. It was drastically devalued; that is quite true because we had to move with the British decision at that time. But does anybody doubt that Britain is in a position at the moment —probably "of bankruptcy" would be too serious a charge to make but certainly in a position of great economic difficulty—facing problems which to many people appear to be insurmountable especially in the present context of trying to become competitive in export markets? She is facing that in spite of the operation of the Chancellor of the Exchequer recently; she is facing practically inevitable further devaluation in the coming year and there is nothing surer than the fact that if she devalues, we will devalue.
The simple logic of the Taoiseach's own statements on many occasions, particularly on the B.B.C. in the radio interview there, is that we are so economically tied to Britain that we must do as Britain does and it seems to me that we, in the next year, will almost inevitably face this question of devaluation. Whether it is Deputy MacEntee or Deputy McGilligan who is in control of finance, he will have no choice but to do it. The Taoiseach I think, has glossed over the economic situation when he pointed out that the banks were going to increase the bank rate but we need not consider the other changes made by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr. Lloyd, in Great Britain. Again the logic of the Taoiseach's own repeated assertion seems to escape him. The logic of his assertion that we are so closely tied to Britain economically that if she finds herself in growing financial difficulty, as she does at the moment, from the stupidity of the policies of the Tory Government or for whatever reason, these economic difficulties facing Britain are merely three or six or nine months away from this country. The Taoiseach must know that as well as I do.
He must also know that there are no steps that any Minister for Finance can take, believing as they do in their conservative economic policies, which will obviate the consequences of our close economic ties with Britain and that we face the same boom-burst pattern of conservative economic finance. The boom period is coming to an end here as it must inevitably if it does in Britain, and the next period must be a period of serious depression. That is leaving aside altogether the question of the Common Market. It is one of the reasons why in Britain they have no alternative but to try to get into the Common Market to try to save what is left of their economy. So the Tánaiste may be talking a bit too soon when he sneers at the allegation of an Irish Government having to follow in British footsteps.
One of the incongruous sequels to this elation and exultation on the part of the Taoiseach and the Tánaiste, "the wonderful opportunities that are there", one of the consequences of all this favourable propaganda for the Common Market is the simple question: "If it is all that good, all that favourable, all that desirable, what have we being doing all this time?" The Rome Treaty was operated in 1958. Why have we not gone in to this paradise, why have we not sought these opportunities, why have we not given industry these new extended markets, why have our farmers not been shown into this wonderful land of promise flowing with milk and honey with the wonderful prices we heard Deputy Corry refer to to-day? What have we been waiting for? If it is all that good now it was very much better in 1958. Why did we not enter the Common Market in 1958?
Are we a sovereign State? Have we the right to decide these things? Surely it is a very sad commentary on the ambitions and the attitudes of the Leader of the Government that having examined this whole problem of the Common Market and all its advantages for Ireland, he either did not or could not seek entry without the authority of the British Government? He implied that in his statement, that if we had applied in 1958 as was suggested by some members of the Opposition, we would have incurred the displeasure of the British Government, which appears to be a shocking exhibition of the slave mind. Either we are an independent sovereign State or we are not.
Why do we play-act? Why do we pretend we have these rights to make these independent decisions and at the same time eagerly wait for the decision from the House of Commons, from Mr. Macmillan, as to whether we can or should enter the Common Market? Our noses were rubbed in it today by the Council of Ministers in Brussels, who have more or less assured us that our application is premature and that it certainly cannot be dealt with before the principal's application is dealt with, that we are merely minors. As I said, we are an unimportant concern in this great international take-over operation. Our wishes are relatively unimportant in this matter.
The Taoiseach appealed for an honest statement of the position in the approaching election. I do not think he is being honest in that regard. I think he is tending to conceal that. He has allowed a great propaganda machine to go into action, particularly in his own newspaper, the Irish Press, which, having indoctrinated the minds of the people for a period, carried out one of these gallup polls in order to get the mass of the Irish people behind the Taoiseach in seeking entry into the Common Market when in fact the question does not rest with the Taoiseach.
As far as the future of the country is concerned, the position now is that the Taoiseach and his great Party have as little say in the future development and expansion or contraction of the country as Deputy McQuillan and myself in our small group. This matter is now taken over by this supra-national authority we are entering, to which we are going to subordinate our sovereignty and by whose decisions we are bound. It is absurd for the Taoiseach to mention we will be allowed to put our view, to put the case for agriculture, for retaining our tariffs for a longer period, and so on. The position is that there is this Council of Ministers, in which France has four representatives, Germany four, Italy four and Benelux countries two each. We will presumably get one vote, and we will be bound by the majority decision. We can put a point of view, but it is a minority point of view and must always be a minority point of view, which carries little or no weight because we are relatively unimportant for many reasons, historical and otherwise, in this matter of the Great Powers.
This is a terribly serious dilemma for the Government. I do not pretend to ignore that fact. My charge is that it should not have arisen. It is conceivable that it need not have arisen if our policies over the years had been different from what they are and have been. Even if we were faced with going into the Common Market, as we are at present, there could have been a situation in which we could go into the bargaining chamber in a stronger position than we are at present. At present, because of the weakness of our industrial arm— and in spite of what the Tánaiste asserts it is a weak industrial arm— taken in the context of the great coal and steel belt in Central Europe, 80 per cent. of our industries have 50 or fewer employees and are unimportant industries that have no hope of surviving in competition with the great monopolies and cartels of Central Europe.
The Taoiseach has been uncandid in his failure to emphasise that fact. This is not a socialist concept interested in the common welfare of common humanity. It is a natural extension of capitalist accretion of wealth into a few hands. We have seen it in our own country, where a few great, wealthy families control most of our industries while we have a mass of poor and underprivileged people. That is going to happen in this great multilateral system in which the majority of the wealth will be centred in this central industrial belt and people on the periphery, like ourselves and Southern Italy, will find themselves either pauperised or denuded of population while their welfare will be a matter of indifference.
That is one of the developments we can see in the pattern emerging and likely to be followed by ourselves. I regret very much that there is not going to be great prosperity as a result of our entry into the Common Market. There is going to be denudation of the countryside. We have seen this particular pattern developing in Southern Italy, with its great poverty and unemployment, from where there is now a mass emigration into Central Europe. Some people might say that is a good thing, that at least they are going to get work. In fact, there are two points in relation to that.
First, in Central Europe they are now trying to insist on having skilled workmen. They do not want the unskilled workmen. But assuming the worker does get navvy or coolie work, that, regrettably, is the only kind of skill our people have, because of the failure of our various Governments to develop educational opportunities for the mass of the people. Ours is predominatly a coolie type of labour. They are not going to find employment in rural Ireland. They may find employment, as they always have, in Birmingham, Liverpool and London, but there will also be open to them Hamburg, Turin, Paris, Milan, and the various other great cities of Europe.
Is that the sort of society we want to see developing? Was that the ambition of these men, many of them still with us, who sought to win our freedom? Would they wish to see a society in which Ireland would become some sort of a paradise for refugees of various kinds from Central Europe and other places—people who have made a mess of their own societies and who come here to make a mess of ours while the Irish people continue to flock out in droves as they have been doing? Even in the last four years, the four years the Tánaiste was talking about, nearly 200,000 people have had to get out. That is the test of success or failure of Government policy.
There is the pattern developing. Even if we did not go into the Common Market in 1958, one of the tests from our point of view is to watch what is already happening. That is one of the things that is happening in relation to Southern Italy. The other is the influx of Germans into France—a peaceful invasion on this occasion for a change—where they are buying up land in Brittany and Normandy at prices which the unfortunate French young farmers cannot afford. We know of it here to a certain extent. It is happening there, too.
It seems to me the whole question has not been dealt with by the Taoiseach as candidly and as frankly as he suggested we should discuss this matter. Nobody is happier or more glad than I am that the chauvinist, sectarian, bigoted nationalism must go by the board. My only objection is that it should be going by the board in a system in which the basic dynamic is the creation of a society for the pursuit of profit and wealth. It is essentially a capitalist interpretation in which the profit motive is the sole dynamic for any decision.
This Common Market is merely an extension of what we have seen in Great Britain to a considerable extent and in America and France—the take-over, the amalgamation of many multiple firms into one great undertaking. Those on the fringe are the ones that will suffer, the ones that will go to the wall. We see the position most dramatically in Great Britain in the newspaper world where small independent newspapers, serving their own particular function in a great society, the small provincial Press, are being taken over and amalgamated into one great newspaper organisation, and for one purpose only. It is not to facilitate the giving of better news, more valuable information, or brighter newspapers. It is merely for the purpose of increasing the profit of the newspaper magnates. That is the sole motive. That is the dominating motive.
Let nobody believe that these great magnates in coal and steel, the heads of the great cartels and monopolies in Central Europe, will keep the Irish nation as a pet. They will not do it. To the extent that we can supply them with technological, professional, skilled or unskilled labour, we will be of use. To the extent that we can supply a market for what they produce, we will be of use. But they will not worry about the Brownes, or the Byrnes, or the Sherwins in rural Ireland, the smallholders——
I am not a small-holder in rural Ireland.
There are other Sherwins besides the Deputy. All this is bringing dishonesty to the point of absurdity. All these platitudes about what is likely to happen, the wonderful benefits that will come, are just so many bromides by the Taoiseach and the Tánaiste, and by their political supporters, all of whom are trying to lead the Irish people into believing that this is a prospect which they must accept, willy nilly, and this is the prospect they are trying to sell. The fact is they have no choice in the matter and that is the reason why they are concealing from the public the true implications of our joining the Common Market, leaving aside altogether any political implications.
The Tánaiste said he was quite happy about what will happen to Irish industry. He told us he knew we are able now to export to a number of countries. He mentioned Peru, the Barbadoes and South Africa. Of course, that is merely a question of taking in one another's washing. Peru and the Barbadoes are on about the same level as we are. There is no great achievement in selling to a non-competitive market. I should like to know from the Tánaiste what he thinks our chances are of selling any of our industrial products in Belgium, Western Germany, France, Northern Italy. There is no comparison as between selling in the Barbadoes and selling in Hamburg, Munich, Paris, and even London.
The Taoiseach cannot escape the fact that we have defended with great tenacity—relentless, persistent, repeated tenacity—our foothold in the British Commonwealth markets. Although we may have changed our flag we insisted, after the fashion of hardheaded shopkeepers, on retaining our trade in the British market. We might swop the Union Jack for the Tricolour but we did not swop the British market for some other market. We kept our foothold there and we kept it because it was a protected market. We did not go looking for competition from Denmark, Holland, or anywhere else. In fact we resented the possibility that they might get in and give us the competition the Tánaiste says we need not fear.
We have always feared competition. Every tariff and every quota is a clear indication of our fear of competition and the hypocrisy of the suggestion that we can stand up to competition is exposed by the very fact that we have not been able to dismantle our tariff system and our quota restrictions despite repeated attempts by the Taoiseach. I believe he has attempted to review tariffs and decided, in the light of his attempt, that we would be out of business in a year, perhaps in six months, if we were open to international competition at the level we will have to face in this Common Market. The Taoiseach knows that. The Tánaiste knows that. But that fact must be concealed from the people. It must be concealed from the people until the general election is over. The fact must be concealed that the possible repercussions on Great Britain will be financial catastrophe, possible bankruptcy, and certainly devaluation. That fact must be concealed, but that will be the evolution of events. That will follow as night follows day. That must follow here also. We cannot face with any degree of equanimity the prospects of competition in the Common Market.
I should like in support of that argument to quote, of all people, a most conservative economist, Garrett Fitzgerald, a consistent supporter of the Government, whether by accident or design, I do not know. Writing on 24th May of this year, he said: "It is extremely doubtful if the scale of most of the firms in the majority of Irish industries is such as to make it possible for them to compete against big European manufacturers." I do not believe anybody in his senses believes the contrary is true. Possibly we will get a period for adjustment, a transition period. We have already lost nearly three years of that transition period because we have left it until now to make up our minds as to whether or not we should enter the Common Market. Many tariffs have already been reduced.
As somebody said earlier, if the British, and that includes us, believe they will alter the Rome Treaty in the slightest degree in order to suit themselves, they can go to hell. That is the truth. I am certain of that. I am certain there will be no fundamental alterations to suit either ourselves or Britain. The only possible alteration of the Treaty will be a prolongation of the period of adjustment for those who find themselves in difficulties. But there is no way out of the prospect that we must face international European competition within the very near future.
It has been admitted by Ministers for Industry and Commerce over the years here that we cannot face international competition in our industrial sector. There has been a suggestion about rationalisation of industry in order to prepare ourselves for competition. Rationalisation might be possible in relation to about half a dozen old established industries, but there is no possibility of rationalisation or useful amalgamation where most of the others are concerned. As a result of bargains between the Government and the industrialists there is very little multiplication of industry in Ireland. Most of the industries which may appear to be under different management are, in fact, controlled by the same ownership. It is not as if one could take half a dozen flax mills or cotton mills, or other great enterprises, and merge them into one great monopoly or cartel to fit them to meet the competition of Europe.
Because of the relatively tiny market here, because of the failure of our industrialists to go into the export market in any big way, because of the protection they have always sought for themselves by way of tariffs and quota restrictions, and restricted trade practices to protect them from even home competition, they are largely inefficient, certainly unused to competition and, because of that, completely unfitted to face the tremendous impact of the European cartels and monopolies which will inevitably face them if we go into the Common Market.
Deputy Corry gave us a lot of figures in relation to agriculture. The Taoiseach was very honest about the possibilities for industry, on the one hand, and agriculture, on the other hand, and conceded that if anything will benefit it is more likely to be agriculture than industry. The only trap Deputy Corry walked into —I think possibly a trap deliberately laid for him and farmers like him—was in regard to the White Paper and the figures he read out by which I myself was impressed when I heard them and which indicate the great discrepancy between our figures and the central European figures.
However, there is this consideration. We must face the general principle under which the agricultural agreements will be made, that the future trading pattern will be based primarily on the old trading pattern in relation to the different countries. That in a way is an advantage for us in so far as we shall be sure of retaining a considerable part of the British market and we need not necessarily be swamped by competitors immediately. But it also restricts our access to the other European countries, even if we were sure we could compete with France, Germany, Britain and, of course, Denmark and Holland. There is the fact that these countries are virtually self-sufficient in agricultural produce. What is very much more likely to happen is that we will find surplus agricultural produce from these countries being exported to compete against our own farmers' produce because one of the first things that must go is all forms of subsidies and protection. The market will be thrown open. That can easily mean that our farmers will face, for the first time in their lives, cutthroat competition. There is no guarantee at all that we will find ourselves entering into greatly increased consumer markets in Europe as a result of joining the Common Market—quite the reverse.
On many occasions I have praised the Taoiseach, and I am prepared to do so at any time, for his decisions over the years in regard to the establishment of State industries. They will be there to his credit as long as the country lasts. At the same time I have always criticised him for what I believe was a major blunder when he decided to allow private enterprise to take over the creation of the industrial arm of our country. The State industries he established were largely of a social nature: transport, heat, light, shipping, road haulage, Bord na Móna and so on. They were either of a social nature or required such capital investment that it was unlikely that private enterprise would be interested in them.
That blunder is one for which we will now pay very dearly. I think it was his faith in private enterprise in the '30s which has led us now into the situation where we have a multiplicity of tiny, fiddling, relatively unimportant industries which will find it virtually impossible to make any of the adjustments required to face the intensive competition which they now must face from Europe within the next ten years. I believe the Taoiseach knows that to be true. I believe he knows it to be true from the fact that he refused to allow them to face competition in the past, that he refused to dismantle the tariff wall. He must realise that is the crux of the whole position, that in regard to the creation of a viable, dynamic, industrial arm he refused to put his faith in public enterprise.
That was the faith of James Connolly, which many of his comrades believed, but he was betrayed in his belief by those who survived the Rising. The Tánaiste who is one of the most conservative Ministers in Ireland, possibly in any country, made some most illuminating remarks. He told us of the achievements of Irish Shipping, the wonderful achievements of Aer Rianta, of Aer Lingus, Bord na Móna, the E.S.B. and all the other great State enterprises. I agree with him they are wonderful achievements. They are a credit to the Taoiseach but these are the only things of which we can boast. The big test, however, for the productive investment sector of our economy is its capacity to employ our unemployed. If it is able to do that then it has succeeded. Nobody can tell us the majority of people leave this country for any reason other than that they cannot find jobs. Most of us want to stay in Ireland. Private enterprise has failed to provide employment which would absorb the young boys and girls leaving school and the men and women who want to work in Ireland.
That was the great blunder of the Taoiseach, that he allowed these subsidiaries of British companies, of Japanese, Swedish and Danish companies, to be established. He gave them protection assuming they would expand and become great organisations giving employment. Instead of that they betrayed him. They sat down under their tariffs and under their protection. They failed to expand to meet the need of employment created by the increasing population. We have many subsidiaries of British industry, British industry which has now been shown to the world as one of the most incompetent and inefficient industries certainly in Europe, possibly in the world. That industry was based on cheap, semi-slave labour in the colonies, cheap, plundered raw material in the colonies and then protected markets in the colonies. Those three things are gone, and Britain must find her raw materials and her labour at world prices and compete in world markets with anybody that comes, and they cannot do it.
Those are the principals of which we are the subordinates. We are the minor partners in that decadent society. Those are the parent industries now to which we must turn and say: "What are you going to do about helping us to rationalise and to compete in the European Common Market?" Those are the industries which are fighting with their backs to the wall for their existence. They are on the edge of bankruptcy. They cannot help us.
We are now an economic colony. We changed the physical occupation by a brave act, admittedly, a courageous act, and we swopped that for the economic colonisation of the country for which we must now suffer the indignity of waiting for Macmillan to make up our mind and decide what is going to happen to our country, to our people, to our social services, to tens of thousands of our workers, to farmers in rural Ireland, to rural Ireland, what will be the demographic changes which must follow from this tremendous decision over which we have no control whatsoever.
That is the clearest point. This day three weeks or month the Taoiseach may call this Parliament together to tell us we are not going into the Common Market because Macmillan cannot resolve his differences with the Commonwealth. What are you going to do then? Where will you turn? You are going to turn where Macmillan turns or where his successor turns and if Macmillan's successor turns to East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Russia, Hungary, Yugoslavia, you are going to turn there too because you have got to; you have delivered yourself into the hands of the British political leaders. I am not complaining of that at all. I am merely saying you are now so completely dependent you have abrogated your right to say you are the Government in a sovereign State. That is the result of deliberate blundering policies by separate Governments in the last 40 years in Ireland.
It is one of the great ironies, I suppose, of political life that these people used to shout these empty, stupid slogans, "We will twist John Bull's tail" or "England's difficulty is Ireland's opportunity,""Burn everything British except their coal." All that kind of thing is now changed and if the United Kingdom seek entry into the Common Market, we do so too; if John Bull does, we will too. This is the ironical situation into which the Taoiseach and his colleagues have delivered us as a result of blundering policies in the last 35 or 40 years.
I was accused of hind sight in relation to this whole question. That is untrue. As long ago as 1957 I wrote on this question of the Common Market in the London Tribune and pointed out that our industries at that stage were unprepared for the prospect of the Common Market. It was clear to me as an individual citizen with relatively little information. It must have been clear to the Taoiseach; it must have been clear to the members of the Government. They must have been advised that this was an inevitable development. Instead of going into the Common Market, they joined E.F.T.A.
They did not. We never joined E.F.T.A.
Well, became associated with it in so far as the British were associated with it.
We did not.
It is quite clear that we have, as somebody said, come to the end of a political era, which is a great thing. It is quite clear there is a great conservative organisation in this country composed of the two major political Parties. It is quite clear that inevitable historical development must bring them together and it is quite clear also that we who are socialists, who believe in socialism, must now begin to prepare to take over to try to create a viable economy in Ireland, a socially just society, on the general principles as laid down by Connolly. First of all, I do not accept this worker-sharing business referred to by Deputy Russell. I believe the worker has a right to the total product of his work either directly in wages or indirectly in the form of social services of one kind or another. Secondly, I believe the only way in which we can get out of our present mess will be by the establishment of publicly-owned industry in all sectors of the economy, where the public invest its money, where there is public control of that invested money in industries and where the public is in a position to plan the disposition of that money to the best interests of the welfare of the community as a whole.
I do not accept the idea of the family industry. The purpose of a family industry is merely to make more wealthy that family or that small group of families leaving aside the welfare and the best interests of the mass of the people as a whole. That is the position which has developed in this country but, in order to control the direction of the spending, in order to plan the type of industry we want and in order to control it so that it will operate in the best interests of the mass of the people it can only be done under public direction.
The Tánaiste made the best case for public ownership here tonight in his many absolutely accurate assessments and appraisals of the many State industries which we have but all around us we can see that there is a collapse in Great Britain, the collapse of the system, the capitalist system, and that unless we take very drastic steps now—I believe it is so late that there is very little we can do—we will collapse with the collapse of the British system.
I believe the Taoiseach was right when he said we had no alternative but to enter into the Common Market. Whether it is a good thing or not, it is largely his fault that we have no alternative. He is one of the guilty men who have led us into what I believe to be effectively a trap which will have very serious and damaging repercussions on every aspect of the life of our country, the depopulation of rural Ireland, the mass closing down of our industries.
In holding out a glittering prospect of the opportunities opening up to us, the Taoiseach was the first to break his own undertaking to this House and to the country that he would deal in a candid, in an honest and in a fair way with the problems which are presented to the country by the prospect of going into the Common Market.
One of the most exhilarating moments of the entire debate today came during the speech of the Minister for Transport and Power when he in this House publicly apologised both to us on this side of the House and to the country generally for the former Fianna Fáil policy of thanking God for the departure of the British market from this country. He admitted that was a mistake and that the Fianna Fáil Party has at last discovered that the fundamental market from our point of view is that of our best customer and nearest neighbour. The only further thing I want to say on that matter is that the Minister's apology, given quite shyly, was not quite frank because he indicated that the statement of this policy came from some Deputy of the Party and he suggested that it was made by some fellow up in the back benches who decided that it might enliven an otherwise dull debate, whereas he knew, I knew and every Deputy in the House knew that that remark was made not by a back bencher but by a gentleman whose lustre shed itself all over the Fianna Fáil Party and helped to bring them back year after year as the Government Party.
We are glad to see that even at this late stage we can expect from the Fianna Fáil Party something of the policy we on those benches have adumbrated down the years and I am happy to feel that the gap between our side of the House and theirs is becoming less. That is because the Fianna Fáil Party are accepting more and more every day, the policy which has been part of our platform throughout the years. I hope this will not become just another sudden discovery of Fianna Fáil. I hope Fianna Fáil will not represent it so at the coming general election.
There are several matters which, though important, are not of such an exotic nature as some of the points made in this debate. On the 2nd November, 1960, I put to the Minister for Finance a question relating to statutory instruments. He told me some 4,200 statutory instruments had been passed by the Oireachtas in the ten years from 1948 to 1958. We must not forget that matters of that nature are very important because a statutory instrument can, by reason of its provisions, put a man out of business or affect his life in very serious ways, and those of us who practise the law know it is increasingly difficult not alone for the ordinary citizen but for the fully qualified lawyer to find out where the rights of the citizen lie and how far they are affected by these instruments.
It is therefore most important that there should be a handy reference to these statutory instruments and the Minister for Finance assured me in 1960 that this index for statutory instruments would be ready by the first half of 1961. As far as I know, it is not ready yet and I would ask the Taoiseach to see that this document is prepared as quickly as possible.
We in this House must reflect the minds and the hearts of the people who sent us here. We hold sacred certain freedoms—freedom of political thought, freedom of discussion and freedom of religion. We have suffered as a race from lack of those freedoms, imposed by those who tried to destroy them, and when we were suffering in that regard we derived consolation and courage from the countries who assisted us, both morally and otherwise, in our struggles. It is therefore shocking to me to find that we, the Irish people, are in many ways assisting the Soviet Union and the Communist Party generally by importing goods not only from the Soviet Union itself but from its Satellite States in Eastern Europe.
Two years ago I asked a question here regarding our imports from countries behind the Iron Curtain. It is reported at column 966 to 970 of Volume 178 of the Official Report. On the 11th April, 1961, I asked a similar question in relation to our imports from the Iron Curtain countries during the year ended October 31st, 1960. It is reported at columns 3 to 10 of Volume 188. Further unsolicited figures in the same regard in respect of the period from January to April, 1961 are to be found in the Report of the Central Statistics Office. I was disturbed by the answers received because when you compare the 1960 figures with those of 1961 an unpleasant pattern is unfolded. I am still more disturbed however by the pattern unfolded for the period January to April of this year.
The figures in regard to imports from the Soviet Union in the year ending 31st October, 1959, show that we imported goods to the value of more than £268,000. It means that we are giving succour to the Soviet Union. In the following year we find that we took £625,555 worth and for the four months from January to April of this year, we took £460,796 worth. If our trade with the Soviet Union for this year continues on the same basis as for the first four months, we will have taken over £1,800,000 by the end of the year representing a five fold increase in our trade with the Soviet Union over a period of two years. I am not suggesting that this is official Government policy but I think the Government should investigate the matter and assure the people that it is not official Government policy and that we, the Irish race, will not encourage the twisted economy of the Soviet Union.
Similarly for Communist dominated Poland. The figures of our imports from Poland in the year ending 31st October, 1959, were £739,833; in 1960 the figure was £697,048 and from January to April of this year it was £725,323. If our trade with Poland continues on this basis, we will have imported £2,176,000 by the end of the year showing a three-fold increase in the two year period. In regard to Eastern Germany, the import figures are: 1959, £433,195; 1960, £505,176 and from January to April this year, £302,545 — meaning that if we continue on that basis we will have imported from East Germany £900,000 worth of goods by the end of this year, a two-fold increase.
In 1960 we, in this Christian country, imported from the heart of Communist dominated Czechoslovakia one cwt. of religious objects. We brought them into this country and evidently they were sold here. These were objects prepared by impious hands and sent here by cynical exporters for profit.
Could these not be from Poland?
No, from Czechoslovakia.
Would the Deputy seriously object to trading to some extent with these countries?
I have complete objection to it when we are undoubtedly encouraging the economies of these countries, encouraging Governments who are denying the freedom of political thought and religious exercise. I think in no way should we do anything that in the slightest degree could be taken as an encouragement of the regimes in these countries.
I appreciate that but what about the ordinary folk in Poland?
There is a principle involved in the matter and I think that if we are going to succour the economic policy of the Government of Poland at the moment we are not assisting what the Deputy describes as the ordinary folk. We can assist the ordinary folk in Poland by helping to bring about the downfall of the regime under which they suffer at present. We are not doing that by suffering their trade.
In 1960 we took about £10,000 of imitation jewellery, if you please, from the same source. I ask the Government to investigate this. Who are the persons importing these things? Are they Irishmen? Are they citizens? When did they come? How long are they here? What stake have they in the country? Why are they operating here? Why was it necessary to buy £15,000 worth of shirting, dress cloth, gauze, muslin and handkerchiefs from the same source? We could have got them in more friendly markets nearer home in countries where we would not be encouraging the type of Government I have already referred to.
Who was the anonymous gentleman who in 1960 purchased from East Germany 4,600 dozen pairs of nylons and other ladies stockings? They cost him £3,744, which meant that he got his nylons at 1/5d. per pair.
I do not want to disturb the Deputy's line of debate but he is going into too much detail for a general debate.
In point of time I am years ahead of most of the speakers who spoke already. It is my duty, and I think I should be allowed to point out to the Taoiseach that certain persons in this country are importing such things. As a Deputy for Cork where we ourselves can manufacture all the nylons necessary, I think it is only right to point out that we resent the importation of nylons from behind the Iron Curtain, apart from the fact that we appear to be selling our souls for 1/5d. nylons.
I asked a question to-day in regard to the visit of a British naval flotilla to Glengarriff and I am asking the Taoiseach now to clear up a matter about which there appears to be a misunderstanding between this Government and the British Embassy. I can assure the Taoiseach that the British Embassy published a statement saying that the Irish Government had refused facilities for a regatta at Glengarriff. One would not expect the British Embassy to make an untrue statement. On the other hand we have a solemn assurance from the Minister for External Affairs that permission was never sought for this regatta. It would be in the interests of relations between the two countries that what is obviously a misunderstanding should be cleared up at an early stage.
I want to express regret at the trend making itself so obvious in this House, and the results which have made themselves obvious recently, of our divesting ourselves not alone of our powers but also of our duties. The results were tragically obvious yesterday when certain allegations, which I believe to be fully justified, were made about the type of recruiting being done for the Irish Television Service at present and when we were told by the responsible Minister that he can do nothing about it. I do not blame the Government for that. I think every Party is involved. We found ourselves in the same position in regard to the closing down of branch railways. We are here to govern, to deal with the problems of the country and we must be fundamentally responsible for them. I wish to decry the growing practice of passing over, not alone our rights but our duties and our powers to outside bodies over which we then have no control.
I hope that I shall get a chance to speak. I have been sitting here for three hours and I am tired of getting up and down like a Jack-in-the-Box.
As there are other Deputies who wish to speak I shall guarantee not to delay the House. Yesterday the Taoiseach made a statement that was very important to the people when he said that probably this Dáil would never assemble again and that we are to have a general election. Going through the country, as I do, I find that probability very welcome because, after four years of the present Government, considering what they said they would do and did not do, what they said they would not do and did, the people are glad to have the opportunity of letting the Government know their views. I was delighted that the Taoiseach made that statement.
I must deal with one matter to which I think there has been no reference so far. Questions have been put down to the Minister for Lands and some to the Taoiseach regarding the number of foreigners buying land in this country. Listening to the replies given by the Minister for Lands, I wonder what he or the Government are trying to hide. We have heard him say very little land is sold, that it was snipe land, land of no use and that it was a good job somebody was coming in to buy it whether they were Jews, Japs or Germans.
The Minister and the Taoiseach know that is not true. The Minister for Lands and Deputy S. Flanagan and others in Fianna Fáil actually say that rural organisations are not entitled to protest on this matter. Deputy S. Flanagan says he would not attend a protest meeting but I want to tell the Taoiseach and the Minister that they cannot hide anything from those rural organisations. I want to remind them of places where this terribly bad land was bought and the amount of it. I have a list here which shows that in County Wicklow, at Enniskerry, 180 acres were purchased. In the same county in a place called Valleymount 100 acres were purchased within the last 12 months. In a place called Tinahely 100 acres of land were purchased; in Portarlington 100 acres; in Carrig, County Wexford 100 acres; Kilmore 100 acres; Blackwater, 200 acres; Bree, 160 acres; Tullow, County Carlow, 200 acres; Inistioge, County Kilkenny, 200 acres; Moyvalley, 250 acres; Edenderry, 1,600 acres; Knockdrin, 1,600 acres; Athy, 500 acres; Naas, 160 acres; Straffan, 200 acres, and another farm in Straffan of 150 acres; Culmullen, 250 acres; Kells 200 acres; Athboy 500 acres—I do not want to delay the House. That is the land the Minister for Lands tells us is snipe land.
You have in Deputy Killilea's constituency and my own constituency in Galway 16,561 farmers trying to exist on less than 30 acres of land. In the past 12 months thousands of acres of the best land in Ireland, as I have just read out, has been sold to those foreigners. I want to put it to the Taoiseach that that is a matter which, if this Government does not deal with it, I hope the Government we will have in 6 or 8 weeks will. When I am in this House no matter which side of the House I am on, no matter what Government is in power——
The Deputy must be sure of getting back.
I am full sure I will get back. Deputy Killilea knows I have the safest seat in this House. I do not know whether Deputy Killilea expresses Government policy. Personally, I do not think he does. I do not know if the Taoiseach noted what he said. Speaking on Wednesday, July 19th, Vol. 191, as reported at col. 1357 Deputy Killilea said: "I am interested only in who is going to pay the biggest price and I will say ‘thank you' to the buyer whether he is a Spaniard, a German, a Frenchman or from any other place." I wonder was Deputy Killilea expressing Government policy on that? Is it the policy of the Taoiseach and his Government that no matter who they are or where they come from, they will be allowed in here to buy the best land in this country while the tenant farmers are running out of this country?
I wonder does the Taoiseach realise that over the past 4 years over 200,000 of our people have left this country? Deputy Kitt told the people about the plans this Government has and what our exports are. Our chief exports are our own flesh and blood, our own people. This Government and the Taoiseach have nothing in the world to boast about. I have spoken about the promises they made and did not carry out. Now I must talk about a promise they did not make, but that they carried out, that caused all this trouble. The export of our people and the export of the tenant farmer started when they raised the price of the loaf of bread and the bag of flour. That was the cause of all the trouble. The Taoiseach on another day speaking at Belmullet during the last election said "They are saying we will abolish the subsidies but we never did what they said we would do." The result was the subsidies on food were abolished and the tenant farmer had got to go. Also, his family had got to go. In many cases the father and mother went as well and the home was closed up.
There was a famous character called Lord Lucan. Some Deputies in this House would know who he was. He made one statement, referring to the tenant farmers of this country in which he said: "Let them go, they are uneconomic." I wonder does the Taoiseach intend to repeat that? Is the Taoiseach's view: "Let them go; break up those small farms again and put them into big ranches as Khrushchev or Stalin did in Russia"? I could hardly believe it is, but certainly I put it to him that he is doing nothing to stop it. As I said at the start no matter what Government is here, while I am in this House—and I will be longer in it than some of the Deputies on the other side would wish— I will keep up a continuous campaign so that that class of people will be prevented from coming in here and depriving our own people of land. The land of this country belongs to the people of this country. In the great days of Sinn Féin long ago that is what was stated; that is what we feel and that is what we thought then.
I am afraid we were making a mistake because in the last 12 months in this House we had the Minister for Lands saying that this thing was not happening. He has a better opportunity of finding it out than I have. This list is here and if the Taoiseach wants it he is welcome to it. I am sure he will agree that it is a disgrace that over 10,000 acres of land have been bought by these foreigners over the past 12 months. While he is still in power I would ask him to do something within the next week or 10 days to prevent that happening here. I advise him not to give any heed to Deputy Killilea—indeed I am sure he does not—when he says: "I will shake the hand of the one who gives me the best price and I do not give a damn whether he comes from Spain or France."
The Deputy would not do that if he were selling his holding?
I do not sell anything like land.
I have listened to this flight of oratory for three hours. If you do not stick your neck out, you do not get a look in.
The Deputy is quite mistaken. He was next on the list.
They were like speeches from the dock; and, of course, that is what they are. This is the last meeting of this Dáil and we are all on trial. It is the practice of Parties to indulge in battles over statistics. Although it may be true that statistics do not lie, politicians make them lie. Each statistic seems to be different, depending on whatever side you are. It is easy to make a case using statistics. If you see something that suits you, you adopt it; if not, you leave it to one side.
I shall deal with self-evident matters and not with such generalisations as statistics. I noted a few points in the Taoiseach's speech. He said he hoped the election would be an example of democracy in Ireland. That brings me back a few years to when, in fact, he tried to change our form of democracy by trying to do away with P.R. and having the straight vote system. In trying to do that he was trying to deprive the people of democracy inasmuch as he was trying to make it impossible for anyone to become elected to this House except he was a member of one of the two big parties. Whether he likes it or not, P.R. at least allows a certain number of people to maintain their independence and come in here and speak their minds.
If individuals who are independent by nature had to join Parties, they would be muzzled. At least, as individuals we can speak our minds, we do not have to worry whom we hurt and we do not have to cover up for any one. Our mission here is to see that at least some truth is told amongst all the lies. We serve the same purpose as an independent newspaper. Tied newspapers cannot tell the truth all the time. They must cover up. Independent papers have nothing to gain by hiding the truth. In fact, they gain by telling the truth. We in our way serve that purpose—maybe not in any massive way but in a small way. Anyway, a little truth is more important than a bundle of lies.
The Common Market seems to be the main feature of this Debate. I am no authority on it, but I know lots of others are no authorities either. I read and think as much as any man. In my opinion, we have no choice but to do what Britain does. I have listened to the criticisms of the Fianna Fáil Party. My attitude towards the Fianna Fáil Party is this. They have the power, they have the "bees and honey." Because they have that, I criticise them. There is no point in criticising the Opposition. There would be no point in a "bald" man going into a pub and looking for a pint from another "bald" man. He would look for it from the man with the money. If there were a change of Government, I would have the same attitude towards the new Government. I do not want to be taken as anti-Fianna Fáil or pro-anything else. I am an independent, and for the purposes of the last two years I have been anti-Government. They are the people who have the "bees and honey."
I have always supported Fianna Fáil's industrial policy. Whatever people say about the future, I believe they were right in trying to develop industry. Even if many of them go to the wall, some of them will survive because of the experience of the past few years. There is no point in saying we should have developed agriculture instead. Your plan of battle depends on information and events. I do not know what the future holds, but we must enter the Common Market if Britain enters. There is no real evidence she will enter. She is applying for membership merely to see what the conditions will be. She may not join at all. We, of course, to make certain we have a finger in the pie, are trailing behind. If Britain backs out, we will back out.
We are dependent on the large British market beside us. I hope Britain will not fall flat. Although I am a Republican, I wish Britain the best of luck, because her luck will be ours. I hope everything works out for the best. To start talking about the crisis we are going to face does not serve any purpose. It would be wrong for the Government, however, to paint a rosy picture of what is going to happen and make this Common Market a sort of Persian market. The Government should not try to capitalise on the great prospects for the country. They should stay clear of that in the election. I am only too well aware that the main purpose of parties and, I suppose, individuals is to deceive people. That is the art of politics.
I read only yesterday the Fianna Fáil literature for the last general election. Part of the policy put forward by the Dublin branch was that if they were returned to power, differential rents would be reduced to one ninth. But since they got into office they have never opened their mouths about it. That is deception. They could not do it anyway, but they said they would do it. A month after I was elected I made a public statement in the papers that it could not be done, and I have stuck to that. I have made opponents for myself because the chumps like what they can get and not what they will not get. I have always spoken the truth. Again, that justifies independence in public life. This is really a canter for the elections.
With regard to employment, my mind flashes back to 1932. I remember the former Fianna Fáil Taoiseach stating on the eve of that election that this country should employ, and be able to provide for, 20,000,000 people. He probably thought then that what he said was true. Then we had the statement that there would be 100,000 new jobs. I do not really know whether the Taoiseach really thought that, or whether it was just another "phoney." I am against that kind of propaganda. Practically 1,000,000 people have left this country since the inception of this State. During the past four years it has been bragged here that employment in Dublin is around the 180,000 mark. To my knowledge, it was 120,000 a few years ago. That was not due to any productive policy on the part of the Government. The fact that there are not more in employment means that more people have left the country.
I hold the Government responsible for misleading the people into believing that the Government would do what they did not do. I hold them largely responsible for the plight of our people in Britain, our people who are living in hovels in slums, and under conditions that are bound to affect the morals of many. We must accept some responsibility for them. We sent them there. We also must accept responsibility for the fact that there are approximately 20,000 husbands in Britain today. In the Constitution we brag about the sanctity of the home, and all we do is to divide the home. But we promised that the opposite would be the case.
With regard to social welfare, I listened here tonight to the Tánaiste. He makes a good speech. It is a pity we have not got television here. He spoke about the great benefits and the increases that have been given. The increase in the contributory pension scheme was paid by the people themselves, and the Tánaiste must not brag about what other people pay for as if some credit was due to him. All he can brag about is the 1/6d. he gave to the non-contributory pensioners. In the past year we had a Rent Restrictions Bill in this house. Under that piece of legislation every landlord was given the right to raise rents by 12½ per cent., irrespective of whether or not he carried out repairs. That does away with the 1/6d. increase immediately. What has the Minister to brag about in relation to social benefits? An old age pensioner gets 30/- but, if he earns a few quid, he gets nothing. What is there to brag about? A woman came to me last week. She had a job and she got £5 per week in that job. Because she was in receipt of that £5 her husband received nothing by way of pension. Recently she lost her job. Now the husband will get a pension but, because the wife earned £5 a week for the first six months, that is taken into consideration and the husband will not be given the full 28/6d. What sort of policy is that? Was she supposed to save something from her miserable fiver?
On the question of Partition, I am not at all satisfied with the position. I raised this matter last year. I am not irresponsible. I am not the sort of fellow who believes we should march to the North. I know we would not have a ghost's chance of marching in one yard, but I do say that we should never give up the right to march in. That is my point. I think the Taoiseach has done very little to bring about harmony among the various national groups. His policy seems to be: "We are the national Party. We will do it and, if we do not do it, it is none of your business." Taking the country as a whole, the Taoiseach represents only 30 to 40 per cent. of the people. Taking the Twenty-Six Counties he represents little more than half of the people. I blame him because he has not tried to lead these young people. He has not tried to advise them. Had he done so, there would have been no trouble on the Border. These young fellows may be irresponsible, but they are honest. They are as honest as we were when we were young. We should try to harness their goodwill and not lecture them or snub them.
I have raised some matters here in the last four years and no attention whatever has been paid to them. The Taoiseach said that they would engage in law reform. Will the Taoiseach justify to the House why local authorities should have such dictatorial powers under the Summary Jurisdiction Act of 1851? If a tenant defaults in the payment of rent to the local authority, the local authority can bring that tenant into court and, as the law stands, the court must give an order. What sort of justice is that? There is no option. There is no appeal. This injustice will in years to come probably affect at least two-thirds of the population. That is something into which the Taoiseach should get his teeth. A court should have the right to decide whether or not an order will be made. As it stands, there is no option. There is need for law reform there.
Again, the State can bring a charge against an individual. That man proves his innocence. He is put to all sorts of expense. He suffers all sorts of loss and inconvenience. Not alone does he suffer the indignity, but he must bear the cost of proving his innocence. That is another direction in which there is grave need for law reform. Such a man should get his costs from the State. Indeed, he should get compensation from the State. In an ordinary civil action, the victor gets his costs. When it is the State, the unfortunate individual gets nothing. He can go bankrupt proving his innocence and he will not get a halfpenny from the State.
I do not have to make my case here for next October. I make it in my daily work. I am a wholetime member of this House. I am not like others who hop in now and again and hop out just as quickly to make their money in their businesses. The Government has not a whole lot to brag about. It is the policy to give no one else any credit. Everybody has something to his credit and something to his discredit also. The Government cannot brag about the state of the country when we remember the masses of our people living in hovels, ten to a room, in Britain, and their children running wild. The Government must accept responsibility for that. They must accept responsibility for the low scale of benefits available under the so-called social services. They must accept responsibility for denying benefit on the feeble excuse that people are not looking for work.
Sending people to Britain was a sort of Gestapo practice, thus making this State a little more prosperous, having fewer mouths to feed. The Chinese did that; they gave away their children, and negroes used to eat their parents. People are sent off to England and then we have an artificial prosperity which will ultimately weaken the State. The State is weak in many respects due to this artificial prosperity.
I intervene to refute particularly the statement made by Deputy Sherwin in which he complained of the miserable sum given to the old age pensioners. I would remind Deputy Sherwin that when the Minister introduced his Budget recently a penny was put on cigarettes in order that we might be able to provide this money for the old people and Deputy Sherwin walked into the lobby to vote against that increase.
Against other things.
Deputy Sherwin has made his speech.
I shall always rebut an untruth.
It is all very fine to say that people should get increased benefits but it is quite a different thing when it comes to paying for them. The Government must raise the money to pay for these benefits from some source. There are no gold mines or oil wells from which it can be provided. If Deputy Sherwin is as honest as he would have us believe he would go into the lobby to vote for that extra taxation.
The Deputy did the same when he was in opposition.
I should like to remind Deputy Corish also, since he interrupts, that before the previous Budget Deputy Kyne, a member of his Party, on a motion put down by his Party asked for increased benefits for the social services and advocated in his speech here in the House that the Minister should increase the tax on beer, spirits, cigarettes, cinemas and other luxuries and that the proceeds should be used to give increased benefits to those needing them.
He also said dance halls.
He did not. Furthermore I complimented him on his speech and on the realistic approach we had had for the first time from the Opposition Benches. The Minister a few months afterwards put a penny on cigarettes and tobacco as advocated by Deputy Kyne. He stated when he was putting on that penny that it would realise £900,000 of which half would be given to the old age pensioners and the other half, £450,000 distributed amongst the other social welfare beneficiaries.
That 1d. went for income tax and surtax.
When the Minister's decision was being challenged here in the House Deputy Kyne and the members of the Labour Party went into the lobby and voted against it.
It was not for old age pensions.
Order. Deputy Corish has already spoken.
Other interruptions have been tolerated for the past few days.
The unfortunate thing is that some Deputies would wish to have things both ways. They would wish to give everything but nothing should be taken in order to provide it. That is all I have to say on this motion except to tell Deputies opposite, who have assured us of their intention to occupy these benches after the general election that they are vastly mistaken. If they knew the people of the country as the Deputies on these benches know them they would realise that they are living in a fool's paradise. I have no doubt in my mind that the people generally recognise the Leader of this Party as a statesman who is to be trusted, who has in the past given tremendous benefits to the Irish people, and who will in the next five years do much more to increase the prosperity which Deputy Sherwin says is artificial prosperity but which nevertheless is prosperity. Our wish is that the prosperity should be increased whether it has the label Deputy Sherwin gives it or not.
The Taoiseach in his address last night appealed to candidates in the coming election to combine to give the world a fine example of Irish democracy. I would that his colleagues in the benches behind him or beside him would heed that injunction. I am one hundred per cent. with him; if there is apathy, disillusionment and cynicism today it is because of the actions of political Parties. As soon as the coming election campaign begins we shall have the same smear, the same vilification, the same intemperate and extravagant language as before. The results afterwards are sufficient to kill any national feeling that exists in our people. It should be borne in mind that the young people of today particularly the intellectuals, those who have been in secondary and vocational schools and many of our university graduates are very disillusioned. They feel they are the people who have to face the emigrant ship. They go away with poisoned minds blaming the Governments over the years because they are forced to leave, having had a liberal education here, to seek their living abroad.
I have met intellectuals in the past few months who have surprised me with the intimate knowledge they have shown in regard to the policy of all our Governments over the years. They could very well become a danger to this country if they happened to get together in order to wedge apart the two main political parties in an effort to get control of the country. There is cynicism largely brought about because there is no national objective today. It is a question of one Party versus another seeking votes in the coming election. It is a choice between two Parties with more or less the same economic approach to the problems that face this country. Therefore there is no reason why there should be any heat displayed and no reason why this election would not be conducted on the plane on which the Taoiseach spoke last night. His address was well thought out and moderate, perhaps subtle in parts whenever he wanted to convey a point with a political veneer on it. Nevertheless I would hope his own Party would accede to the request he made and that the other members of the House will follow on the same line so that we shall have decency in Irish public life.
I dislike very much going into personalities but when Deputy Corry was speaking here this evening he mentioned the names of two people who have never been here but who have been selected as candidates for East Cork. He mentioned those two names in conjunction with that of Deputy Barry who was not here at the time. It is disgraceful and contemptible that he should produce a card that these men had issued and, just because the words "Fine Gael" were not on the card, try to make political capital out of it. In inscrupulousness and vilification it is very difficult to find Deputy Corry's peer. He attacked the Leader of the Opposition in a very personal way. He said he was not worth so many pence.
Deputy Dillon, the Leader of the Opposition, is the greatest democrat in this House, certainly the greatest Parliamentarian, certainly the greatest observer of political procedure. Time and again I have seen him help the Chair on difficult points. Very few can point back, as he can, to two generations who gave magnificent service to the struggling Irish to hold on to their homes. Let us have a sense of decency at least in that respect. Deputy Dillon is very well able to defend himself and it is, perhaps, hardihood on my part to mention this.
We must remember also that national appeal is waning and many of the men in the opposite benches or on these benches, if they come back after the next election, will hardly seek election in the election after that. Before they leave this House they should ensure that the Parliament they are leaving behind them is safe-guarded in every detail for those who will come afterwards. The men of 1922 or of 1932 who came into this House did not ambition to be here. They came in because they took part in a revolution, because they were the natural choice, nearest to the people at that time. They had no political ambition. I doubt if ever again we will have a Parliament composed of men equal to them in outlook, objective and national sentiment or of men as great, as noble and as patriotic as these men were.
I wish to refer briefly to the Report of the Committee on Electoral Law. This Committee has given a good deal of time, thought and attention to this very delicate question. I am glad they did not adopt the proposal for compulsory voting. That would be disastrous. The secret vote is the very basis of our democracy and should be guarded and respected. Is it respected on election days when one sees transport bearing political labels provided for voters? Can we say honestly and conscientiously that that is a secret vote? I have heard men outside a polling booth say at the end of polling day that such a candidate got so many votes and such another got so many votes. Is that the way to conduct an election?
I make the suggestion to the Committee on Electoral Law that they should consider the proposition that nobody should be allowed to stay outside the polling booth on an election day. Neither should there be allowed transport carrying labels or banners of the Parties or individual candidates for whom that transport is used. It is an abridgement of the principle of the secret ballot and should not be allowed. We should have grown up after 40 years and should realise that the secret vote is a most fundamental and most democratic right which under no circumstances should be abused, as it has been in the past.
I know people in past years who were afraid to come out to vote. They were afraid to pass the army of agents around the gate accosting persons going in to vote and almost compelling them to vote for this person or that person. That is all wrong. We should be very careful in that respect in case we take it too far because in some countries where there are dictators today they are there because democracy failed and democracy failed because it was abused. Let us cherish what we have got and try to restore confidence in our young people who are disillusioned and disappointed and who feel very seriously about the position and their future circumstances if they remain in this country.
The tendency in recent years is for Governments to delegate power to independent bodies. That is very evident. There are the E.S.B., C.I.E. and Irish Shipping and other bodies established in recent years, specialist bodies like An Bord Gráin, An Bord Bainne and Bord na Muc. If that tendency persists I cannot see why we should have a Ministerial Cabinet of the dimensions of the present one. In the early days of this State there were eight Ministers in the Government. That was at a time when these men had a difficult situation to face, when we had no Civil Service operating as we have it today. It was a time when Departments had to be built up, when men were completely inexperienced. Now we have a Civil Service, in which there are experts who are equal to any in the whole world, to advise at all times. Where is the necessity for having a Ministry of that dimension? I cannot see it. That is one reform which should be made. The money that goes to pay the extra Ministers could be devoted to some more laudable and essential purpose. We should try to reduce the cost of administration which is out of proportion to our limited circumstances.
There is the question of State cars. In the early days there were no State cars. Not until the assassination of the late Kevin O'Higgins, beannacht Dé le n-a anam, was a State car used. I cannot see why Ministers, young men, could not drive their own cars. I do not mind what they get in the way of an allowance to operate the cars or to provide drivers. The provision of a State car creates a false impression and a false conception. It makes people very cynical when they see Ministers of State driving around at the taxpayers' expense. It is altogether wrong, especially when there is so much poverty amongst us.
There is the tendency for Ministers to avail of every opportunity to attend functions. I do not blame Ministers. They are invited to these functions. Ministers should devote their full time to their respective offices. It would seem that there cannot be a ceremony in connection with a new housing scheme, or new bridge, school or Garda Barracks without a Minister being present. It is all wrong. Surely some local citizen could preside as efficiently, without putting the Minister to the inconvenience and cost of travelling from Dublin? I do not think it is fair to Ministers. I am not blaming them for that.
It is obvious that the number of Deputies could be drastically reduced. I have said this before. It is appalling at times to see the sparse attendance in this House. If a record were taken, the average hourly attendance would not reach 20 in a Dáil comprised of 147 Deputies. Large bodies move slowly and are unwieldy and certainly the number of Deputies could be very drastically reduced if we had the will to do it. I do hope the Taoiseach will get down to fundamental facts and, if he returns to office, will try to make the necessary reduction.
I regret the fact that in the next Parliament Dublin will have almost 25 per cent. of the Deputies. That is out of proportion to the rest of the country and is not fair. The argument has been made that a vote should have the same power in any set of circumstances. There is something in that. Consider the convenience Dublin Deputies have. They do not have to leave home to attend Parliament. It is as easy for a Dublin Deputy to represent 30,000 as it is for a rural Deputy to represent 10,000 in Connemara. The disproportion is too great and should be remedied. It can only be remedied by amendment of the Constitution. Somebody ought to tackle that problem in the near future.
This Government have lived almost their full life and have had an unchallengeable majority and every opportunity of putting their programmes into operation. I believe all Governments should as far as possible implement the programmes which they put before the people, but I agree it is not fair to charge one Government with the difficulties which can arise in any one year, as happened in 1956-57 with the last inter-Party Government. The same difficulties can arise again. They have begun to arise already in Great Britain. The very same circumstances have compelled the British Government to take similar austere measures in the past few days to safeguard their economy. Let Governments here beware; there is no safeguard against such events.
As Deputy Russell very wisely pointed out, it was therefore very wrong to select 1956 as a year for comparison. Surely some appreciation should have been had for the difficulties of that year. The present Government were lucky in that outside circumstances were favourable in the past four years. They were anything but favourable in the two last years of the inter-Party Government—1956 and 1957. Then we were selling our goods abroad in a falling market and buying our imports in a rising one.
The Taoiseach spoke of unemployment. Certainly unemployment has gone down and it is very pleasant to read the figures, decreasing as they are week after week. Of course it is impossible for us just now to give an accurate gauging of the situation until the new census figures are available at the end of this month. We are also awaiting the emigration figures in the same form of statistics. I am afraid emigration is still a very live problem throughout the country despite the fact that thousands who have left would give their very lives to get back here —I have at least a half dozen cases in mind where boys and girls left of necessity and are pining to come home again to anything approaching decent living conditions.
While on the point of emigration, there is a great deal to be said for the suggestion made during this debate that Church and State should get together to try to hold in units and groups our people who have gone abroad. I was talking to a priest recently who had for years ministered in London. He told me the most harrowing tales of Irish emigrants who had forgotten the Irish way of living, who had given up their religion and who could easily be won back were there a liaison between State and Church to look after those of our people living in the big cities in Britain.
Agriculture has been mentioned during this debate and I doubt if the position is as rosy as was suggested by many Deputies from the Government benches. Our farmers, after the severe hardships of last year, have great commitments to meet. The old system of farming does not hold good any more. Now there is the capital outlay on farm machinery, and what happens when replacements are needed? The machines cost thousands of pounds for a start but how is the capital to become available for replacements? This is where the old co-operative swopping system would be invaluable and I think the Government should do everything possible to foster its reintroduction. The trouble is that small farmers have lost confidence because of the hard deal they have been having during the past decade or so. Credit has been easily available to them and they have availed of it, but what happened when the disastrous harvests came along?
There is no doubt the flight from the land will continue so long as industry is so comparatively attractive. In the past few weeks, within no less than six miles of Cork, a farmer who used to employ up to four or five men told me he had advertised week after week for a second and a third man. There were no replies at all, though the terms he offered were outstandingly attractive. It is a sad outlook for those who deplore the flight from the land.
A lot has been said here about the desirability and otherwise of our joining the Common Market. It has been pointed out that many of those who originated the idea of a European Economic Community were actuated by politics. In our proposed application for membership we must be fully aware of all those implications. I should like, now, to refer to the present wave of crime and delinquency in the country. Here again, a spirit of co-operation is needed. If the people do not help the Garda I am afraid the situation will become worse. This is something we have imbibed from abroad, but it is something we shall get rid of if our people work together to help our organised police forces. We have lost sight of our moral obligations and I think that if the Government does not give a lead in that respect and make an effort to use the instruments of the law to cut out these petty larcenies, thefts of all kinds, then it will be dangerous for the future of our society.
Mr. Killilea rose.
The Deputy appreciates that the Taoiseach will be called at 10.45.
I should like to raise a point of order. We arranged that the Taoiseach would get in at 10.45 and I think it is hardly reasonable that a Member of the Government Party should take up the time remaining before the Taoiseach replies.
My speech will be short.
So far seven Fine Gael Deputies and five on the Government side have taken part in the debate.
Surely it is the time that is the important factor?
Very well, I shall give way to the Taoiseach.
We are only suggesting that speeches, for the last five minutes before the Taoiseach's three-quarters of an hour——
I think all of us must appreciate the speech of the last speaker. It should be an education for a number of people who sit opposite and particularly for the Deputy on the Speaker's immediate right. I certainly have always listened to Deputy Manley with a very deep interest; he has always been very helpful, very outspoken and honest in his criticism. I am afraid the others on those benches are not of the same mind or mentality. The vast majority of them, I think, could have had their speeches recorded five years ago and played them off here again because they were the same speeches—
When Deputy Manley says he is retiring he means it.
We do not obey the crack of the Whip.
The Deputy who has spoken is very much afraid and he has reason to be——
Deputy Killilea did not move to the mountains anyway.
It was never a habit of the O'Higgins family to run to the mountains. We know what they suffered.
The Deputy knows very little. I do not think I interrupted anybody in the course of this debate.
Deputy O'Sullivan should allow the Deputy in possession to make his speech. He has only two minutes in hand.
He grabbed the last couple of minutes.
I just wanted to refer to one little item and that is the very deep and keen sense of responsibility that the people on the Opposition Benches are supposed to have for those in rural Ireland. They were sweating about them tonight but quite recently when they contested the Electoral Bill and when we saw here the other day that Deputies on the Opposite side of the House collected the vast amount of almost £11,500——
Mr. Ryan
And the Government side got £28,000.
We have not got the figure paid to Deputy Ryan.
Mr. Ryan
£28,000 for the Government side.
The figure for Deputy Ryan is hidden and so he can speak.
Mr. Ryan
£28,000. The Deputy does not like the other side of the picture.
Deputy Ryan should cease interrupting. I am now calling on the Taoiseach to conclude.
I suppose it was to have been expected that Opposition Deputies in this final debate, commenting upon the Government's operations during its term of office, would concentrate on the sectors in which our achievements were less than we hoped and seek to disparage generally the Government's accomplishments. I do not complain of that even if they have considerably distorted the picture. I suppose that is the stuff of Party politics as they understand it.
It is true, as we were frequently reminded during the discussion today and yesterday, that the Government had to take drastic measures in its first Budget in 1957 to remedy a critical financial situation which we had inherited from our predecessors. It is true that these measures included increasing a number of taxes and withdrawing food subsidies then in operation. I think, however, that the public understood or came in time to understand, the need for that action and have recognised that because of the management of the public finances of this country in the intervening period, because, indeed, of the very measures taken in 1957 no subsequent problem of that kind has arisen and, indeed, it has been found possible for us in the last two Budgets to arrange for not inconsiderable reductions in tax rates.
Whatever views may be held about that, I want to say, on the occasion of this final meeting of the Dáil, that if it should be that there is a change of Government as a result of the general election, the incoming Government will find the finances of this country in a healthy state. They will, in that respect, inherit the same situation from us as the Coalition Governments inherited in 1948 and 1954. I will guarantee to them that if there is change of Government there is no deficit of £10 million left to be covered.
Do Deputies opposite not know that is why the previous Government, without being defeated in the Dáil, without any preliminary notice, without telling their own Party members, dissolved the Dáil rather than face that problem?
It is perfectly true that at the end of this term of office we have still with us this major national problem of a declining population. We expect the census returns will show that since the previous census in April, 1956 a decline in population of approximately three per cent. will have occurred due to the persistence of a high level of emigration. I think Deputies might have taken note, if they wanted to be fair and objective in their examination of this problem, of the significance of the substantial reduction in emigration recorded in this year. That reduction proves that the economic measures which the Government have adopted are at last beginning to make an impression, even upon this old problem of Irish emigration. The impression which it has made is not nearly sufficient: there is a lot more to be done. I said yesterday and I repeat now that that is the main test of policy, of the adequacy and sufficiency of national policy now and in the years immediately ahead of us.
But is it fair, honest and truthful, as Deputy Dillon urges us to be, to represent this as a problem which began in 1957? Let us get the facts in that regard straight. When we came into office in 1957 emigration was running at the rate of 50,000 per year having risen to that figure from an annual average of 40,000 in previous years. In the most recent period of 12 months, the 12 months ended May 31st, the net emigration figure was 30,000. Let us, against that background of very considerable reduction in emigration, look at the position regarding employment. When the previous Government decided to cut and run in February, 1957, on the day they dissolved the Dáil, the number of registered unemployed in this State was 95,267 and was still rising. On Friday last there were 34,939 and still falling. Even making allowance for the seasonal variation in these figures, that is not an insignificant change.
Since 1956 there was an increase in the total national income of £74,000,000 per year, an increase in the total value of the goods and services produced by the labours of our people of those dimensions. In 1956, which was the final year of the previous Government, the year I am contrasting with the final year of this Government, the national income figure revealed a fall of £3,500,000 on the previous year and that was the only year in the past decade in which a fall was recorded. The 1960 figure for national income shows an increase of £26,000,000 on the previous year and it is still rising. The agricultural contribution to the national income, about which Deputy Dillon tried to mislead the Dáil yesterday, increased since 1956 by £9,500,000. During 1956, agricultural income fell by £11,000,000 as compared with the previous year. In 1960 it rose by £5,000,000 on the previous year.
There has at least been a change in direction. I do not know what Deputy Dillon was trying to mislead the House into thinking when yesterday he beat his breast and said: "Between 1947 and 1957 agricultural exports doubled in volume and trebled in value and I was responsible for that."
I said total exports doubled in value.
Agricultural exports.
I did not say agricultural.
Let us look at what happened exports. Deputy Dillon was not Minister for Agriculture in either 1947 or 1957 but he was in the years 1954, 1955 and 1956 and in 1954 the value of our exports was £115,300,000. The volume index for exports was 102.6 and by 1956 they had fallen in value to £108,100,000 and the index to 98.1. In 1956 the index for agricultural prices fell to the lowest point reached in this decade. I concede at once that the increases in agricultural prices which have been brought about since then were not enough to rectify the position that prevailed in agriculture. That was, to some extent due to weather conditions, but the main problem arose in the abnormal conditions prevailing in international trade in agricultural goods, due to the extension of the price subsidy arrangements which the great and wealthy industrial States are operating.
For me, one of the main attractions in the possibilities of our membership of the European Economic Community is the prospect that it offers of a more rational and profitable trading situation in respect of agriculture. In 1956, the last year of the previous Government, the average number of persons employed in industry fell by 2,200 as compared with the previous year and in 1957 it fell by a further 4,500. These are the figures. In 1955 the number employed in manufacturing industry was 156,600; in 1956 it had fallen to 154,400 and in 1957 it fell to 149,900. In the first quarter of this year the figure was 161,500, an increase of 11,600 over 1957 and of 5,800 over 1960. If Deputies study these figures they will note the acceleration of the upward movement that has taken place. In 1956, the total exports of this country fell in value by £2,800,000 as compared with the previous year. By 1960 they had been increased by £44,000,000 above the 1956 total. They were £22,000,000 in 1960 above the 1959 level, and they are still rising.
I give to the Dail at the end of our term of office this over-all picture to study. We came into office with emigration and unemployment rising rapidly, with agricultural and industrial output, exports and the national income falling steeply——
Nonsense.
We are leaving office with emigration still high but well below the average level of the previous years; with unemployment at the lowest figure in our history; with agricultural output and agricultural income rising; with industrial output and industrial employment at an all-time high level, and with national income expanding apace.
And fewer people in the country than ever before.
A few minutes ago, Deputy Manley was complimenting Deputy Dillon on his Parliamentary manners, believe it or not. We are not satisfied with these results. We do not think these results are good enough. We do not think a satisfied Government is ever any use, but the trend of all the speeches of the past two days is that Fine Gael thinks that the 1956 level was good enough. They have been trying to represent 1956 as a sort of golden age in Irish history. Do they think that the public have forgotten the facts altogether? Maybe they have. But for my part, if conditions prevailing now were not better —and a good deal better—than in 1956, I would not have the hardihood to present myself to the electorate at all.
Deputy Dillon works on the theory that if you repeat a falsehood often enough and proclaim it loudly enough, it will be accepted by someone. He has repeatedly asserted that I promised in the election campaign of 1957 to produce a state of full employment in five years. I want to state my personal position in this regard. I believe that full employment must be the aim of any comprehensive national policy, the aim of any worthwhile Government. But in stating that aim I am not attempting to minimise the national effort that will be required to bring it about. It is traditional for Fine Gael to deride those who want to bring Ireland into line with the world. We remember when the very idea of export industries, or of a modern transport system was described as evidence of megalomania. They, in their thinking, have not yet moved out of the donkey-and-cart age.
In the year 1955, it is true, I tried to calculate the requirements of a full employment policy, tried to estimate what it would necessitate in the way of increased employment, and to calculate whether there were sufficient financial resources available to the State to support a policy of that kind. I made calculations which, in my view, justified giving an affirmative answer to that question. It is, perhaps, worth mentioning that in the same year the Executive Committee of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions carried out the same exercise and arrived at the same answers.
This is what Deputy Dillon forgot to tell the House yesterday. In the following year, in 1956, I went back to the same audience at the same venue and made a speech, published in the same way, in which I had to explain that after one disastrous year of Fine Gael Government, because of the rise in unemployment that had come about, because of the wastage of financial resources which had occurred, the calculations which I had made were no longer valid and the conclusions I had reached the previous year could not then be sustained.
What is the position now? We had reached the end of 1958 before the slump which began under the Fine Gael administration was finally arrested and the upturn in our affairs began. It began slowly but it has been gaining speed ever since. Calculating on the basis of the sales of social insurance stamps, and assuming that 52 stamps sold equal one man in full employment, since we brought into operation the Programme of Economic Expansion the number of people in employment on the basis of full-time working, has increased by 24,000. At the moment, as I have already mentioned, we have 35,000 people registered as unemployed. The yearly average may, of course, be higher. That unemployment represents 5.3 per cent. of our wage-earning labour force, excluding agriculture.
Defining full employment, as I attempted to do it before, as a condition in which not more than three per cent. of the workers of the country are unemployed on weekly average, then it is clear that if we can double the present rate of economic progress, full employment is within our grasp; but we have got to double our rate of progress. That is the estimate I gave the Dáil last year. That is the estimate I repeat this year.
We have been in the course of this debate discussing the European Economic Community and the implications for our economy of our membership of the Common Market. Nobody could make or even pretend to make a confident prediction of the effect of the emergence of the European Economic Community and of our membership of it upon this country's prospects of economic expansion. It represents a fundamental change in the circumstances in which our trade has been carried on—a new deal of the cards. That may be a bad metaphor because it implies that luck is a factor in this situation. I do not believe it is. I reject completely the argument of Deputy Corish and Deputy Manley that luck enters into this at all. It is my faith at any rate that a confident, enterprising people with a competent Government can determine their own destiny in any international circumstances. It was obvious over these two days in the speeches we heard from Deputy Dillon, the Leader of the Fine Gael Party, and repeated by other members of his Party, that Fine Gael are frightened by the problems of Irish association with the European Community and are afraid to face up to them.
Not a bit.
They have shown no confidence either in the Irish people or in themselves. I do not think that is the mood of our people. It is true that there are many questions being asked by the representatives of many economic groups in our community, but these questions are in the main being asked for the purpose of helping those concerned to get the measure of the problems so that they can organise themselves to deal with them.
It is late in the day you began to seek membership.
The Fine Gael election slogan forecast in this debate, "Wirra, Wirra, we are sunk for sure", will find an echo only in the hearts of pessimists and defeatists, and there are still some of those amongst us.
Are you going to use "Let us get cracking" again?
We are still cracking.
Cracking is right.
I do not deny——
This is the example of perfect Parliamentary behaviour!
Order!
I do not deny in our membership of the European Economic Community there will be problems galore, great, serious and difficult problems, but there will also be possibilities. Let us not forget about the possibilities while we are worrying about the problems. Deputy Corish urged yesterday that this question of Irish membership of the European Community should not be made an issue in the general election —not made the football was, I think, the phrase he used.
Not made the umbrella.
In the course of this debate it is true that it was revealed that there is no fundamental difference of viewpoint amongst us regarding the question of our application for membership. That, therefore, cannot be an issue in the election in the ordinary sense of that term. Deputy Dillon, I notice, said in a public speech some days ago that the basic issue in the election is whether Fianna Fáil or Fine Gael are to conduct the negotiations. I think that is a reasonable and legitimate issue, but I do not think it is the main issue. I think the main basic issue is: who is to be entrusted with the task of organising the Irish economy so that the progress which has now started will continue in the new circumstances? I think that task requires qualities which Fine Gael have never shown—the qualities of initiative and consistency and capacity for work. In my view, they were disastrous as a Government, but they were unconstructive and ineffective as an Opposition.
He is a great bluffer.
I did not represent the speech I made yesterday when introducing this motion as being a comprehensive review of either current events or of the policy of the Government. I think, therefore, it was somewhat unfair to suggest, as some Deputies have suggested, that because some important policy matters were not referred to then by me it shows I have no interest in them.
Deputy McQuillan, for example, concluded that because I did not refer to the work of the Government in restoring the Irish language in the daily life of the people, I had no interest in the matter. My views in that regard are well known. But in case anybody might believe that assertion, let me repeat there has been no change of purpose in that regard since I became Taoiseach. We are, as Deputies know, carrying out, through a Commission appointed for that purpose, a review, a reassessment, of the methods heretofore applied to achieve that national aim. We are awaiting the final report of that Commission. One or two interim reports have been already made. I hope when we get it we will be able to initiate a vigorous effort to complete the realisation of the objective we have set ourselves.
Deputy Corish referred to the part which public enterprise can play in national economic development. Let me say, I am in full agreement with that and, indeed, I believe that State enterprise will have to play a part of greater significance in national development in the future. We have already gone to each of the State organisations responsible for commercial activities and have directed them to explore the possibilities of extending their activities in new fields associated with their present work. Some important developments have already resulted and others are in prospect concerning which some announcements may be made soon.
The outcome of the General Election, if it takes place before we are due to re-assemble, is unpredictable.
The Taoiseach is right there.
It may be that Fine Gael will again emerge as the Government. I have to admit that possibility, God save us all. I do not know what reasons Deputies opposite who have spoken in this debate have for the confidence in the outcome of the election which they are displaying. It may be that their confidence is not genuinely felt.
In concluding this speech in this final debate, I want to say that we in the Government have served the country to the best of our ability. What the people have seen of us in action is the best we have to offer. I hope they will think it is good enough.
They will not.
We know—we are very conscious of the fact and have discussed amongst ourselves the implications of it—that no Government in the history of this State ever succeeded in getting an overall majority at two elections running. We know that that indicates that there is a prospect that we may not succeed either, but we also know this: no Government, other than this, ever left office with a better record of achievement to present to the electorate.
The Government are pleased with themselves in any case.
I will make no claim upon the Irish public on the grounds of gratitude for past achievements. What is past is history. What is written on the record cannot now be changed. What matters is the future. The future will present difficult problems and hard tasks and I shall not attempt, when I go to the electorate, to minimise either the difficulties or the magnitude of the tasks. I believe in the gospel of national salvation through work and effort, and hard work and consistent effort are things that Fianna Fáil are good at.
Tá
- Bartley, Gerald.
- Blaney, Neil T.
- Boland, Gerald.
- Boland, Kevin.
- Booth, Lionel.
- Brady, Philip A.
- Brady Seán.
- Breen, Dan.
- Brennan, Joseph.
- Brennan, Paudge.
- Breslin, Cormac.
- Cummins, Patrick J.
- Cunningham, Liam.
- Davern, Mick.
- de Valera, Vivion.
- Donegan, Batt.
- Dooley, Patrick.
- Egan, Kieran P.
- Egan, Nicholas.
- Faulkner, Padraig.
- Flanagan, Seán.
- Galvin, John.
- Geoghegan, John.
- Gibbons, James.
- Gilbride, Eugene.
- Gogan, Richard P.
- Haughey, Charles.
- Healy, Augustine A.
- Hillery, Patrick J.
- Hilliard, Michael.
- Johnston, Henry M.
- Kenneally, William.
- Kennedy, Michael J.
- Killilea, Mark.
- Kitt, Michael F.
- Lemass, Noel T.
- Briscoe, Robert.
- Browne, Seán.
- Burke, Patrick.
- Calleary, Phelim A.
- Carty, Michael.
- Childers, Erskine.
- Clohessy, Patrick.
- Collins, James J.
- Corry, Martin J.
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Níl
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