At the time of this campaign, in Dublin city alone, when these conspirators found themselves facing the responsibility of office, instead of 1,564 houses there was a sudden drop to 1,000, then down to 460, a slight rise to 505 and then down to 207. We have the miserable situation today in Dublin that it is hoped this year, doing the best they can, that they may possibly reach 500 houses. The result is that today there are 9,000 families seeking houses in Dublin city; of those 4,000 are affected by one medical condition or another and have been passed as urgent cases by the city health authorities.
That is a miserable record. Whoever is responsible should and will be held to account. Perhaps in the very near future the test of public opinion in this city and county will be applied to that miserable record in relation to housing. However, there was more. When they began to assume office, they talked about taxation. I wonder does the Deputy from Cavan who was not in the House at the time remember the word "levies" and how the poor people who had to import Jaguar cars were listened to with sympathy by Fianna Fáil because of the import levies they had to pay on motor cars, television sets, radios and things of that kind? In the general election campaign of 1957, taxation became the bye-word of Fianna Fáil. People were being taxed too heavily. The burden of taxation was such that it could not be borne by the people and the Fianna Fáil Government would see it end.
These things now must be subject to review. Take employment. Unemployment figures were bad in 1956. They began to improve in the beginning of 1957 but they were not good. Fianna Fáil used the expression: "Employment figures are the test of any Government" and with buglers blowing a fanfare the Taoiseach gave us the Fianna Fáil plan for 100,000 new jobs. All that had to be done was to vote in a Fianna Fáil Government and jobs would grow like mushrooms in summertime after a shower of rain. Emigration would cease and the Irish people would find jobs growing all over the country.
I have here the Dáil Reports which make rather amusing reading now six years later. It is a Dáil Report which contains speeches by Fianna Fáil Ministers in the first flush of victory after their election to office on March 20th, 1957, just this time of the year. When the Vote on Account in that year was moved by the Fianna Fáil Minister for Finance, it was formally opposed by the Opposition because the Minister made it clear he had not had time fully to examine the details of the Supply Services of that year which, as the House would appreciate, he said, were prepared by his predecessor. He gave an undertaking that there would be an earlier Budget and, in the Budget, people would see evidence of Fianna Fáil's concern in relation to the reduction of taxation. And so the Budget came.
It is well that Deputies should remember that in that year a sum which appeared large—in fact, Fianna Fáil Deputies described it as "shocking"— a sum of £111 million was required to run the State. "Shocking" said Fianna Fáil, in effect—"but, of course, we had nothing to do with it. It was a figure that was there because of our predecessors but we shall deal with it now."
In his Budget statement of that year—and I am reading from Volume 161, column 939 of the Official Report —the Minister for Finance had this to say on the subject of taxation and State expenditure:
In the short time available since the Government took office it would obviously have been impossible to examine critically and justly all the objects of expenditure of the taxpayers' money. The searching out of wasteful or unnecessary expenditure and its elimination will require keen and continuous attention...
I shall just pause there to ask the sympathy and understanding of the House for what we felt over here on these Benches when we saw and heard the Minister make this statement and say those words: "the searching out of wasteful or unnecessary expenditure and its elimination will require keen and continuous attention."
Hawkeye Ryan was on the job. This new Minister was coming in to clean out the Augean Stables. We were to have a vista, we were told in the Budget statement, of keen and continuous attention, the concentrated activity by this new Government searching out wasteful and unnecessary expenditure. He goes on:
...but the urgency and difficulty of our budgetary problem this year required that a start should be made at once.
Then he says:
I shall mention a number of specific economies which have already been decided upon but which represent merely an instalment of what the Government in time intends to do.
—"merely an instalment"—and he goes on to say:
It will be no surprise that I should begin with the administrative machine.
The present annual cost of the Civil Service, Garda Síochána and the Defence Forces amounts in round figures to £25,000,000
He tut-tutted mentally and said:
almost £17 million for the Civil Service, over £3½ million for the Garda Síochána and nearly £5 million for the Army.
He went on to say:
The existing Civil Service structure seems too elaborate for our needs. The grading system is to my mind unduly complex. I intend that these matters will be examined and radical changes made which will, I believe, ultimately produce worthwhile economies.
So spoke the Minister for Finance of the newly-elected Fianna Fáil Government on 8th May, 1957, when he was asking this country and the taxpayers to provide for him and the activities of the State £110 million.
We propose to examine those sentiments and to see whether there was much behind them other than the thought which promoted the framing of the words. In the six years, since, I do not know whether Deputy Dr. Ryan, as Minister for Finance, applied "keen and continuous application" to the expenditure requirements of the State. I do not know whether he succeeded in cutting out "wasteful or unnecessary expenditure." I am sure he had good intentions. The way to a certain warm place is paved with them.
We cannot proceed according to what may have gone on in the mind of the Minister for Finance. We cannot judge what changes of policy may have been decided on by the Government nor what shifting of feet on different problems may have brought about in the past six years. We can only judge the results.
To day, the Civil Service, the Garda and the Defence Forces cost something over £10 million more than they did when these brave words were uttered six years ago. The existing Civil Service structure which in 1957 seemed too elaborate for our needs and about which the Minister for Finance said he intended to make radical changes is still the very same—with this difference, of course, that there are more civil servants to-day than there were six years ago. Today we are spending more on the Civil Service, more on the Defence Forces, more on the Gardaí, more on these particular headings of expenditure which the Minister extracted as an example in his Budget statement of 8th May, 1957.
Maybe the increase in expenditure could not have been avoided. If it could not have been avoided, the question is whether it should ever have been seriously put forward as a legitimate enterprise by the Government in the way of economy. The fact, of course, is that no serious effort appears to have been made by the present Minister or the present Government to examine, in a careful and responsible way the manner in which State expenditure is assessed and the national requirements in that regard because to-day, instead of £110 million being required for the expenditure of the State, after six years of Fianna Fáil, we have now reached a new record. This year, the requirements of the State will total £200 million. That is not bad, in the short space of six years.
Adding in the Central Fund the total increase in State expenditure is over £50 million. That is a pretty poor result for the Minister for Finance who, in the flush of victory in May, 1957, held forth to the taxpayers the belief that very shortly radical changes would be brought about. We are now spending £1 million a week more on the requirements of the State than we did when this Government were elected to office. That seems to suggest a certain amount of inefficiency. It seems to suggest that the Government have not the ability to carry out what they said they would do. It may be that what they said they would do is incapable of achievement and, if so, it should not have been said. If it is capable of achievement, why has it not been achieved?
It is certainly remarkable that in 1963, when a suggestion was put forward by the Government—and dropped like a hot potato—that there should be a pay pause, and when everybody was told: "For heaven's sake, take care; control your demands", that the one institution and organisation in the State that applies no strictures to itself should be the Government. It is remarkable, surely, that the requirements in relation to the Government's demands continue to shoot up, with not a single explanation or apology for it. We now have a record State expenditure of £200 million, that is, £4 million a week, and still no member of the Government is the slightest bit apologetic on that account.
I remember reading through the Dáil debates of other days, other years, and other personalities. A short while ago I read with interest the horror with which a member of this House in 1931 viewed the expenditure of those days. There was a tall Deputy who used to speak from this side of the House at that time. Referring to the requirements of the State, which at that time totalled the sum of £30 million, he turned to the then Leader of the Government and said: "You are running the State as if it is a mighty empire". Even applying the ordinary three-fold rule of thumb to the changes in the value of money, there is still a tremendous difference between the requirements in the way of State expenditure today and the requirements of 30 years ago.
I have no doubt that most people, even those on whom this bill may press unduly hard, would say: "Well, if the money is needed so be it. It has got to be paid." If it were genuinely needed for the provision of essential services in the State, the average person might not like it but he would certainly feel there was nothing that could be done about it. There is a conviction, amounting almost to a certainty, that there has not been any responsible scrutiny of the requirements set out in this Book of Estimates, and that no real effort has been made to apply what was promised: a keen and alert attention to the demands in relation to the particular services. For that reason we can justly say that this Book of Estimates is another demonstration of the inefficiency of the Government and their unsuitability for the tasks which they have set themselves.
That is not the only record we mark this year. Six years after Fianna Fáil came into office this record figure of £200 million is only one record. There are two others that we reach this year. In this financial year we also reach a record figure for the national debt of £500 million. Never before has this country owed so much money. There was a time when a certain Party in this House used to be so concerned about the national debt that they got out posters showing the three golden balls of the pawnbroker and decorated hoardings of the city with these posters saying: "Watch out; the country is being put in pawn."
