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Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Thursday, 14 Mar 1963

Vol. 200 No. 9

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

I sat throughout this debate—at least when the leaders of the Parties spoke—because usually the backbenchers follow the line of the leaders. I admit that, from time to time, you will get a new line from the backbenchers. They are not all just as "back" as that, but, on the whole, they take the line of their leaders. Nevertheless some of them act like the proverbial hatchetman of the Party to whom Hitler on one occasion referred. They try to get a little bit dirty. I listened carefully to the Party leaders. Last night I listened to Deputy McGilligan. He is a brilliant lawyer. In fact, there are a great many lawyers in this House—perhaps 30 or 40. It would appear to me that the majority of those men are brilliant men, honest men, as individuals, which is something different from politicians. They are a sort of Jeykll and Hyde. They are as honest as the sun. As politicians, they do not care how a bounty is earned. They take the view that it is a Party game. I made some remarks about the Party game. The last time I spoke I was insulted. Nevertheless, everything I said was true. I do not think I got personal. When I made references to the Opposition, I was not referring to the present Opposition: I was referring to Oppositions.

However, getting back to Deputy McGilligan, he took the view that this was going to increase the cost of living. He pleaded, as a good counsel will in court.

We all know what counsel does in court. His object is to make his client, even though that person may be a rougue, the fairhaired boy. His job is to make his opponent the biggest blackguard thinkable, even though that person might be an angel. His job is to discredit the witness. That is his training. They seem to take the same line in here. The public outside are confused, just as a brilliant counsel would confuse a jury, were it not for the fact that there is a learned judge there to point out what is material and what is not. That is not the job of the Ceann Comhairle. Both sides can bluff all they like. His job is to see to it that they do not box. There is no one to tell the public what is true and what is false. I try to do that in my own little way. If I differ from others, it is because I came in here as an Independent. My whole upbringing was that of an Independent. I could have been in Parties long ago, but I chose the role of Independent because I had a little experience of Parties and I do not like Party politics. I do not like wrangling. I am not trying to be a holy Joe; I am just saying what I think is correct. I try to inform the people. I try to do what the learned judge does in court. I hope to help them in that way.

I never heard so many "I's" in a single speech.

You are the typical hatchetman I referred to. You are a good attender—I will grant you that— but you are always interjecting.

Suppose we had something on the Vote on Account now.

Yes, Sir; I am preparing my ground. I am trying to make out that this game of politics is played by a lot of gentlemen, some of them not so gentle. This is the sort of game in which corruption pays dividends. I know that.

I agree the Deputy does.

It is a game in this House. That was proved by the fact that when he was speaking Deputy Corish said he hoped we would approach this matter by leaving Party politics out of it. He said it would be a pity we could not deal with such matters as debates on the Adjournment without Party politics. Surely he was hinting at something he was forced to be a party to which he was ashamed of? Even the Minister for Transport and Power said it was a pity we could not get together and discuss problems privately. He said we could discuss costs and honestly find out whether a thing was possible or not. In a nutshell, what he was saying was: "It is a pity you do not do things in a constructive way here instead of making outrageous statements and promises to the public which are impossible in practice." There have been hints thrown out to drop the Party game, and I am preparing the ground.

Most of the attacks on the Vote on Account were not constructive, but were playing the Party game. On the last debate, we had Deputy J. A. Costello, the former Taoiseach, denouncing the previous Government for making things difficult for him when they were in Opposition. He brought the Party game to the notice of the House. All the contributions made here were made with an eye not so much on the Vote on Account but on the next election or the by-election in Dublin North-East.

Deputy McGilligan said the new sales tax would increase the cost of living. We are told the new sales tax is required to get the money to take the place of what we will lose by dropping tariffs. If we are going to lower tariffs, will goods not come in cheaper? Even if the sales tax means that luxury goods are to cost more, will those goods not come in cheaper because tariffs are being lowered? Deputy McGilligan did not mention that. He mentioned only the rotten part, but did not mention the rosy part at all. That is the game. Attempts have been made to make the game work in a better way, but they have failed, and the cause of the failure is this threat of an election. If there were an election only once in five years and no by-elections and if the seat becoming vacant were given to the Party of the occupant——

What would the Deputy do if that happened?

I do not get you.

Supposing an Independent died, causing a by-election, who would select a successor?

In Dublin Corporation, we regard it as a personal matter. When the late Alderman Byrne died, we put in his son. The seat is won by an individual's effort and money, and his family should have the right. Ways and means can be found.

Is the Deputy advocating a change in the Constitution?

No, he is being walked into it.

I am putting my finger on the sore point. If there were no immediate threat of an election, men would forget trying to arouse passions and would be constructive for four years out of five. In the United States, the executive power is the President. He is elected once in four years. He does not resign because some Bill is defeated. Everybody loves and helps him for at least three years out of the four, and he is then subject to the usual attacks for the last year. If we had that system here, we would have less of the Teddyboyism, which takes place here from time to time. If it were not for the Ceann Comhairle, Standing Orders and the Guards, that is what we would have here. It is no use saying we are decorous. We are only decorous because we have to be. Deputy Costello's complaint was that the Opposition of that time hounded him when he was in difficulties. That is my point. That is the role of the Opposition—to mislead, to misrepresent and make things difficult for the Government, in case an election might break out.

I have a lot to say about housing. People spoke about housing who knew nothing about it. The fact that a person is a member of a city council does not mean he knows anything about housing. He could be a member of the council and not a member of the housing committee, and he could be a member of the housing committee and not attend the meetings.

We have 18 on our Housing Committee and there are never more than six, seven or eight present. So it is no argument to say that a man is a member of the corporation or a member of the housing committee. I am telling you here and now that there are only two or three people here who know what they are talking about when they talk about Dublin housing and I am one of them. I would say that Deputy Barron and Deputy Timmons are others and that is about all. We attend the Housing Committee day in day out. We never miss out. I have not missed four meetings in eight years. I have everything at the tips of my fingers, apart from taking an interest in it and making a study of it. You all know the vice-chairman has to take pains to find out all the day-to-day facts. The ordinary member strolls in without looking at the agenda and there may be a big number as the meeting proceeds. But the vice-chairman cannot do everything.

I have listened to the Opposition here debating housing and when those questions were discussed by Deputy Declan Costello. The most startling facts were statements made by the Opposition. Deputy Ryan is a smart young fellow and a friend of mine who should know better. But of course he is a solicitor. He must win. That is my point. It was said that in 1959 a very small number of houses were built. In an interjection, he reduced that number by one-third. Why, why, why? If the official statement—whatever it was—said there were 270 odd houses built in 1959, why should he reduce that number to 200? Why did he not leave it at 270, or whatever it was? Again, when the official answer was given that there were 9,000 people with their names on the waiting, he said 9,500 were on the waiting list.

That was bilge.

You see my point— that words do not seem to mean anything. They are bandied around here —shots in the dark.

There is another statement he makes. Imagine, he says, 9,000 people with over four in a room. That was the most false statement made in this House yet. He ought to know better because although he is not on the Housing Committee, he could easily find out. The truth of the present housing position is that there are 9,000 on the waiting list and, for your information, there are a lot of people from the country, who have just come up. Once you come up, you write in and get an application form, fill it in and you are on the waiting list.

The culchies?

Yes, they have just come up. The bye-laws set out that you must be four years resident before you can be considered for housing. But the names of those fellows who had just come up are there and they were mentioned as part of the 9,000, and even as families of over four. When you put that sort of thing over here, can you blame me if I am cynical and if I try to spill the beans to the public? The truth is that there are only about 4,500 on the list who are considered by the local authority as requiring houses. The rest is a fictitious number. If the City Manager were a politician, he would not have given that number but being an honest man, he gave every application for a dwelling. He even gave the names of people who had three rooms. It does not matter what you are if you apply; if you own a mansion, it does not matter if you apply. They will be included in an answer to a query on how many people there are on the waiting list.

The truth is there are little more than 1,000 people of four and five. That is all there are on the housing list. Just imagine a statement that there are 9,000, with four. The truth is there are only a little over 1,000. Of those 4,500, there are 1,100 families of one and two. How does that compare with the statements made here— reckless statements, all made so that the people outside will think this is a terrible Government? I think there is no truth in it. I will make the case that it was a mistake for the Opposition to make any reference to housing at all. It would have been better for themselves if they never opened their mouths about houses because they were speaking in total ignorance—even the former Minister for Local Government. He had a good knowledge of housing then, but he knows nothing about houses now. He might dig up an answer by reference to books and getting data. But that is no use. You cannot get the feeling of the thing from books; you can only get the feeling of the thing from living with it.

I have the official number—it is 4,401. It might vary. Amongst that number there are actually 1,100 families of one or two persons. There are only a little more than 1,000 families of four or five persons. That puts an entirely different complexion on the position. Of those 4,500, there are 750 families returned from England. Do not forget that in the past two years we housed approximately 750 families from England. More than 1,500 families came back—and we had to house them. The 750 we housed naturally had to get priority on the list because of the size of their families. We could not leave a wife and a gang of children out on the street. If you take those from the 4,500, it leaves only 3,000. That would be the true housing position, if it were not for the fact that people came back from Britain, not through any fault of anyone here. We did not expect these people to come back, and we could not plan for something we did not know about. You might say that the local authorities along the seaboard in France should be blackballed by the French Opposition because they had not houses ready for the Algerian refugees. How could the local authorities know that de Gaulle would throw up the sponge and pull out of Algeria? How could they know that these refugees would descend on their areas? If suddenly a million people come back, would it be fair to say: "You never built houses; look at the housing list."

That is not the truth. Up to 1960, they were running away. The housing problem was practically solved in 1960. I can prove it. Then suddenly the British brought in a measure—the Rent Restrictions Act. At one time in England if one were being overcharged, one could go to a local court and get the rent reduced to 30/-. In 1960, the Rent Restrictions Act was amended and landlords were given power to charge what they liked. That has a lot to do with people deciding to come here and preventing those at home from going away. They started to charge £3 and £4 per room and that is what is being charged at the moment.

Apart from that, in and around 1960, there was a lack of overtime. The unions decided against overtime. All those were earning up to £20 a week—double time for overtime, treble time for Sunday and they were making £20 a week and so everything was rosy in England. Rent was 30/- and income £20 a week. The fact that all this ended up around 1960 was something we did not know. How could the Housing Committee know? Gradually the housing vacancies began to reverse. Since we found there was a changing approach, we started to plan again. But again we hear this cry: "You only built this number this year." It takes two years from the planning stage to produce a house. It takes three or four years from the planning stage to produce a flat and there is a wait of two or three years.

The Opposition made a political issue out of this and I am going to see that it boomerangs on them, although I have no desire to do it. I might be supporting the Government, because there is need for the Government, and I make no apology for it, but I have no intention of taking sides in a general way on politics. I have been a member of the Dublin Corporation Housing Committee since 1955 and as vice-chairman I was attacked, although the main attack was on the Minister for Local Government who had nothing to do with it at all. The Minister for Local Government at no time refused a penny to Dublin Corporation nor did he at any time hold up sanction except for the usual short periods. Whatever guilt may attach to me, he is the innocent party. This business of trying to make political capital out of this situation has no foundation at all. Evidence would want to be produced to show that we asked for money and that the Minister refused to give it, or delayed giving it.

We asked him only for what we wanted. The City Manager and his officials are the executive authority and they administer the estate. The committees, such as the Housing Committee, are the policy makers. It is the Housing Committee which decides: "We will build flats, or we will build houses; we will build so many flats or so many houses, or we will not build them." If any brickbats are to be thrown, they cannot be thrown at the Minister for Local Government. We decided in 1959 that we would not build any more houses on the perimeter—and that is the only place we had land—that there was no demand for houses, that the people would not go out to them and that instead, they were coming in. It would have been unfair to the ratepayers. The houses were being wrecked by children playing cowboys and Indians in them and lighting fires. Under those circumstances, what sane person would decide to go on with the housing programme on the perimeter of the city?

Deputy Dillon was guilty of one big evasion. He said that 270 houses were built in 1959 but he did not refer to the 1,600 vacant houses, which meant that there were really 2,000 dwellings which nobody was taking. It would condemn the whole Opposition if that evasion were dragged out in court. The fact that there were 1,600 houses vacant actually put the corporation in a position which was almost as good as they had been in in 1950 when there were 20,000 people in urgent need of dwellings. I can give you the details from all the official corporation minutes which I have here. There were 800 applications for transfers back into the city from Ballyfermot and Finglas in 1959 and 1960. There were 1,500 refusals to go out. There were 1,500 houses lying idle for months where one after the other people said: "No; we want a nice flat in the city, around the corner from where we live at present." That is the truth and the figures are there. As I said, children were breaking windows and the ratepayers were being billed for windows, frames and doors which had been smashed and the ratepayers were in a panic. Yet Deputy Dillon comes in and says that only 270 houses were built in 1959. Although in 1959-60 there were 3,000 on the waiting list for houses, half of that number had been offered houses and would not take them. Deputy Dillon read out only one side of the picture without referring to the other.

In 1951, there were 2,588 houses built and the vacancy rate was only 194, which was nothing. Now we come to 1960-61 when 279 dwellings were handed over. There were 1,260 vacant dwellings, making an actual housing contribution for those on the waiting list of 1,539. That was as recently as two years ago. In 1959-60, there were only 505 dwellings handed over but there were 1,605 empty dwellings. We actually had 2,110 dwellings to hand over to those who wanted dwellings. How can the Opposition make a case there?

Members here are ignorant of the position in Dublin and likewise the people outside are ignorant but the members here are in a position to elicit the necessary information. How can the people outside judge a statement, which may be bandied around at the next bye-election, that no houses were being built, that only 500 were provided, when actually the truth is that there were 2,110 available in 1959-60 as against a total in 1951-52 of 2,239, almost as many dwellings provided when there were 20,000 on the waiting list, and they were bad cases.

Do I require to proceed any further? I will. As they say in court, when one side introduces a certain line of argument the other side is entitled to rebut it and I will certainly do that. Considerable play was made with the fact that in the first two years of the regime of this Government housing dropped; that in 1958-59 the present Government built only 460 dwellings. But it had nothing to do with the Government. Do not forget that if there were only 460 houses built, there were 1,393 vacancies. If only 460 houses were built in 1958-59, who was responsible? Who planned two years in advance? If only that number was built in that year, that was because in 1956 there had been no commonsense planning.

When a decision is made to build houses, there is, first of all, what is called a rough sketch plan, and to that the committee agrees in principle. That plan goes back and, after a month or two, we get a working plan with all the details. We examine that. We may alter it. If we alter it, it has to go back again for perhaps a fortnight, after which it is sent to us once more. If we agree to the working plan, it must then go to Local Government. They, of course, have hundreds of applications, and there are such things as priorities. It may take a fortnight, or a month, or two, before it comes back from Local Government.

Then we have to prepare bills of quantities—100 houses to be built, so many rooms, walls of such and such a thickness, so much wood, so much glass, etc. These are advertised and the contractors tender. Time is passing. When we eventually decide which is the best offer, we must once more send it to Local Government because they must approve the expenditure. It comes back and we must bond the contractor; we must make sure that he has money and that he is not like some of the fellows in 1956 who went bankrupt and left houses half finished. All that takes a year. By the time the builder gets on the site, 14 months may have elapsed. That cannot be avoided. The important point is that it takes about two years from the time the actual decision is taken to the time the house is handed over.

If there were only 460 houses built in 1958-59, it must be remembered that Fianna Fáil came into power only in March or April of 1957. No one could expect them to get cracking immediately. They are responsible only for the last three or four months of 1957. The song and dance here is about the few houses built. There were few because there was no planning in 1956 and, because of that, there was a big drop. There was a big drop in the previous years, too. I have evidence here that, between 1956 and 1957, 1,100 workers were sacked; about 1,000 houses were not built and all these workers went to England. Later, when we tried to get going again, there were no workers available.

I have here the minutes of the Municipal Council of the city of Dublin, 1957. Now if I were to give the names of the Fianna Fáil people on the Council, there would be cries of "Ah!" I will give the Coalition names. No one can call them liars. Councillor Denis Larkin, T. D., Chairman of the Housing Committee, and a supporter of the Coalition Government: a good man on housing, he asked how many dwellings as distinct from cottages, flats and reconditioned houses were under construction in July in each of the years 1948 to 1957 inclusive. I shall deal with the last two years because they are the vital years.

Why not give us the other years?

No. One might as well go back to the Treaty. My point is that there was a crisis in 1956 which resulted in no houses being built in 1957 and 1958; that, in turn, resulted in 1,100 workers going to England. That is the vital period. If the Deputy built 1,000 houses ten years ago, well and good. I am not concerned with that. I am concerned with the cause of the drop in building in 1958 and 1959. That is what the Opposition have been hammering at.

Did you not reach your target in 1960?

I am concerned with 1957. The reference is page 151 so that the Deputy can look it up for himself. The total number of cottages and flats built, or houses reconditioned, in 1956 was 2,423. The Coalition must accept responsibility for the position in July, 1957, because Fianna Fáil had only just returned to office: there were 968 houses built. There was a drop from 2,423. In 1956, the number employed on corporation housing was 1,857; in July, 1957, it was 925. Housing collapsed. The collapse started in 1956. I have proved that. I looked up the Irish Independent for the last three months of the relevant period. I am not saying the Irish Independent is a Party paper, but it has leanings.

It has advantages over the Irish Press.

It has leanings. I make the point—it is an important one—that I am not quoting from the Irish Press. In the Irish Independent of 6th October, 1956, General Mulcahy, then Minister for Education, referred to the building of schools; he said there was a strained economy and “that is responsible for the slowing down of building”.

Councillor Larkin—Irish Independent of December 4th, 1956 — said that delay in sanctions meant that the corporation could not complete its target. Councillor Larkin was Chairman of the Housing Committee.

There is another important reference —Irish Independent of 20th October 1956. There was a mass meeting in the Mansion House under the auspices of the Dublin Trades Council and a resolution was passed: “An end to indiscriminate cuts in Government expenditure. Restitution of credit for socially progressive projects and Small Dwellings (Acquisition) Act Building.” Placards were carried: “16,000 families living in slums” and “Building workers idle”.

Here is a gem. This is the Dublin County Council. On December 22nd 1956 Senator Carton, Fine Gael Chairman of the Housing Committee, described the position of housing as ghastly. The manager said that there was no delay by the council, there was a crisis in regard to loans and delay in sanction. Senator Carton accepted the manager's explanation.

Why would he not?

They built as many as they built in Cavan. The Deputy got the figures yesterday.

Do not worry. The Deputy is getting his answer now.

Order, Deputy Sherwin.

We shall give them to you today, again. Remain in the House, like a good boy.

I have here a report of a statement by Denis Larkin, then Lord Mayor, supporter of the Coalition Government, on February 21st in his Report to Council. I could mention Fianna Fáil to you but I shall not.

Mr. Browne

Are you not Fianna Fáil yourself, now?

No, I am not. I am an Independent and a Nationalist.

Mr. Browne

Then why do you not leave the Minister——

If you become the Government, I shall be criticising them—remember that.

There is no danger of that.

This is what Mr. Denis Larkin, then Lord Mayor, had to say on 21st February, 1956, in the Report to Council:

While there would be a time lag in the expectation of money, the corporation could not be expected to enter into contracts binding themselves without an assurance that the money would be forthcoming.

We had been promised money. We had a deputation to the Minister for Local Government, then Deputy P. O'Donnell. I was on the deputation. I was a witness to all this. I am not the type of fellow who comes in here once in a blue moon and takes a shot in the dark. I am a witness from day to day. Not every man can say that. I think I have the best attendance record for all corporation meetings. I would get a medal for my attendance at corporation meetings—and I am there for the beginning of the meetings. Mr. Denis Larkin said:

While there would be a time lag in the expectation of money—

We had been told we would get money but we were not getting it because there was a credit squeeze. Eventually, we got money from the Local Loans Fund but in 1956 we were hamstrung. Mr. Denis Larkin said that the corporation could not be expected to enter into contracts with builders in the expectation of the money without an assurance that the money would be forthcoming.

I looked through the Irish Independent for a period of three months only. I could have looked at the other papers. I could bring in a million quotations. I did not go through the Dáil Reports because notes from the Dáil Reports are all cod. There is no truth in them in the sense that the case made in the case the person wants to make; when he comes in here, he skips the bad things and takes the good things.

I am not reading up this case at all. I was one of those who went to the Minister for Local Government in 1956. We were told we would get the money but, as Councillor Denis Larkin, the then Lord Mayor, said, we would want a guarantee. Anyway, 1956 was a notorious year for the building trade and, as has been proved, as a result of 1956, there was no planning in 1956 or at the beginning of 1957: there was delay in planning. As a result, 1,100 workers lost their jobs and went to England just about then.

It is significant that, just about then, things began to get good in England. There were a few years there and things were rosy. The boys were making plenty of money and they started to move out. I want to be fair to the Opposition. Actually, we did not really require a lot more dwellings at that time.

If we did not require them, it was not due to any foresight on their part: we could have needed them. Actually, the crowd began to leave the corporation houses in droves. We were housing families of three in those years: that is a small family. We even housed families of two in many cases. Surely if any family of three could get a house without any trouble, it indicates that houses were available. However, those are the years 1958, 1959 and 1960. That is my point.

Why do you come along and try to make political capital out of something when there is no truth in the assertion that the Minister for Local Government or the Government were at fault here? They may have been responsible for many things but why do you say they were responsible for any drop in housing? Who have they as witnesses?

The Deputy is unaware that they claimed they built more houses. We are merely contradicting that statement.

No. The case you are making is that there was a tremendous need and that they let the people down.

There would be no point in your argument, otherwise. You are appealing to the people outside, now, who want a house. There would be no sense in your argument if that were not your case. Everything said here is not for the enlightenment of the fellows on the other side. We are all wise to one another. Do not worry about that. What is said here is for the benefit of the people outside.

The case was put that this little crisis was due to the fact that we did not build dwellings. The truth is that there was no need for any extended building of dwellings until 18 months or two years ago. That is all. Then we got cracking immediately and we saw a slight change. There was not much of a change—a change of half a dozen—and we said: "We will go off again." This year, there has been an increase of 100 per cent. Eight hundred dwellings are being provided this year. Only a couple of hundred were provided last year. That was a vast improvement when you remember that we had to gear ourselves up again.

You cannot start from nothing. You cannot gear up in a month. It took Hitler seven years to have a go at France. You cannot suddenly say: "We will build houses"—and up they go like mushrooms. We had not the workers—they were all away. There was difficulty about carpenters, bricklayers, and so on. But we had to gear ourselves. We built 800 dwellings in the past year as against a couple of hundred in the previous year. I think there was a cement strike last year. That knocked us out of two months' building.

Do not forget that we have had two months of snow and that, in that weather, you cannot work on housing. You cannot ignore it. You cannot, on one hand, come in here and do a song and dance about the poor people being snowed up and say the Government are responsible and then ignore that bad weather when it comes to an assessment of the housing position. We lost at least 100 houses in the three months of this terribly bad weather. I know all about it. People were coming to me about differential rents and I know they were working only two days in the week, and so on.

We reversed the position of last year and, in spite of the fact that 750 more came back from Britain, in the oncoming year we shall have a thousand. The Minister expects that there will be about 100 under construction for next year. He is wrong. There will be a thousand. This statement is made by the City Manager— not by a politician. It is an informed and an honest statement. At the moment, 800 houses are under construction but inside the next couple of weeks, we shall have entered into contracts. It is only a matter of this week or next week when the other 200 or 300 will be in operation. Therefore, if you put forward the date by a fortnight or three weeks, a thousand houses will be under construction. That is the answer I got yesterday from the Principal Officer of Housing—and he proved it to me, although nobody has to prove it to me as I know it myself.

Here is a little gem—an item on page 19 of the 1957 Report of the Dublin Corporation municipal minutes —a motion moved by Councillor J. Barron, one of our Deputies here. The only two men who know anything about housing in this House are Deputy Barron and Deputy Timmons. This motion was: "That the Council are of opinion that no further building by the Corporation on the perimeter sites of the city be carried out and that we should concentrate on building flats in the city." That motion was referred to the Housing Committee and we adopted it in a few months. There are some wise guys who talk about the bad job the Government did on housing, but where were they in 1959 and 1960? They did not make any public statements as to the likelihood of 1,500 people coming back. They are wise after the event and their talk is just politics.

Before I finish with the subject of housing, I should like to read a statement by the City Manager in 1962. He said:

In 1960-61 the previously increasing vacancy rate started to reverse itself——but only in 1960-61: do not forget that—

—but still these vacancies provided 1,260 dwellings.

That is the key to the whole situation. You do not buy a loaf of bread if you have the press full. He went on:

In 1961/62 the figure had further fallen to 856 dwellings, and in the current year it is estimated that no more than about 700 will become available. Immediately that tendency became pronounced steps were taken again to develop the momentum of increased housing production. For the reasons indicated above, however, this necessarily entails a time lag before its results are available. During 1960/61 only 277 new dwellings were completed. This was somewhat increased last year to 391, and in the current year it is estimated that it will have increased to 698——

—or approximately 700. The statement continues:

There are at present 1,035 dwellings in course of construction by the Corporation's contractors. Summarising the housing operations from 1948/1949 to date, 18,198 new dwellings have been built under the Housing of the Working Classes Acts, and 8,758 financed by way of loans under the Small Dwellings Acquisition Acts.

I may mention the fact that they took a census to access the needs in 1948/49 and they said we needed 20,000 dwelllings to end the housing problem in Dublin. Instead of providing 35,000 houses, we actually provided 37,000.

The statement goes on:

A further 10,465 families have now got new tenancies as a result of the net vacancies to which I have referred, making a total of 37,421 families re-housed in that period. In addition 4,793 grants have been made to private householders, supplementing State Grants to enable these people to put their houses in a better state of repair. During that period the Corporation's capital expenditure under the Housing of the Working Classes Acts amounted to £32,504,900 and under the Small Dwellings Acquisition Acts to £13,203,794—total £45,708,694.

Notwithstanding these vast housing operations, however, pressure for new housing started to build up again about 18 months ago.

That is vital because, as I said, it takes two years to produce a house. It goes on:

As I have already indicated, this was essentially due to the substantial drop in net vacancies and in the number of new houses becoming available. Moreover, during this time a number of families returned from England, and even though many of them had surrendered Corporation houses, they sought immediate priority over persons who had been on the waiting list for a considerable time.

When families with more than one child are given priority on the waiting list people start growling. That is human nature. The quotation continues:

In assessing the present housing deficiency no useful purpose is served by emphasising the fact that the applications list totals over 9,000. A majority of these applicants are persons whom the City Medical Officer does not consider to be in immediate need of housing and many of whom, either because of their short residence in the city or for some other reason, would not be housed by the Corporation anyway. When I referred above to the housing requirement as estimated in 1948, the deficiency of 20,000 represented families and persons whom the Corporation accepted as being urgently in need of re-housing.

Later on, we decided to invite anyone to apply so actually this figure of 9,000 is fictitious. It should be 4,500.

The case I am making is that the Housing Committee have done tremendous work. They work as hard as members of this House and the active members of the Housing Committee deserve to be paid as much as members of this House but they do not get a stamp. We can attend to our business because of the fact that some councillors attend regularly. Most of the councillors do not attend at all and they cannot know anything about this problem. When they talk about it, they are just taking a shot in the dark.

The main point is that at no time did the Minister for Local Government refuse money. The Housing Committee are the policy-making body. They ask for their requirements and they get them. If they did not build too many houses in 1958-59 it was due to the collapse of their finances brought about by the Coalition Government in 1956. I have said that it takes two years to build a house but it takes three to four years to build a flat, and the lack of flats goes back to the lack of money in 1956.

Some Deputies shed crocodile tears over people looking for houses, but if in 1956 or 1959 a Deputy had gone around saying he could get houses in Finglas or Ballyfermot, he would have been told: "We do not want a house in Finglas or Ballyfermot; we want a flat." The present position is that we have no more land in the north city. We have land in Raheny, which is a nice place. A tribute must be paid to Mr. Molloy of the Housing Committee who acquired land at a time when we had laid off housing. He said: "To be on the sure side, we had better acquire the land." That land is now developed and we have land for 3,000 or 4,000 houses, enough to solve the problem for the immediate future. We believe that a year or 18 months will clear the urgent demand, but there are always people who want houses at once. I have people coming to me who have just got off the boat with six children and have no place to go. These people have to be given priority. Next year we will have 1,000 houses and the following year we expect to have the same. After these two years, we do not expect that there will be any crisis in housing.

I want to say this much, that the Fine Gael Party should forget about housing as a political argument. It is extraordinary that the Labour Party had so little to say about it but, of course, they could not condemn their own Chairman of the Housing Committee. I will say no more about it. I have heard talk about the Taoiseach's reference to a cast-iron dog laughing. I have to laugh fairly often when I hear about these things but many simple-minded people outside accept those arguments. Deputy Dillon referred to a few houses built in 1959 but there was not a word from him about the 1,600 houses empty at that time. Getting back to the Vote on Account——

It is about time.

I am not a Party man and I never was. On two occasions earlier on, not within the past 20 years, I thought I would go into a Party but I got browned off and left again.

You would not like to tell us which Party?

It does not matter. All Parties are the same in that respect. I speak what I think is the truth. If a barefaced lie is told, I may forget it but if that barefaced lie reflects on me, I will answer it. Those who start that business are attacking Denis Larkin, the Chairman of the Dublin Housing Committee, and Senator Carton, chairman of the County Dublin Housing Committee. If you want to attack anybody, attack the Housing Committees. The members of the Housing Committees do not bring politics into their work. They operate as teams. If you are going to talk like that, you should remember that the Housing Committees of Dublin County Council and Dublin Corporation are coalition bodies. Since I became a member in 1955, they have always been coalition committees. The Housing Committee of Dublin Corporation numbers 18 and there are only six Fianna Fáil members.

And they are good Housing Committees.

If you are going to make politics out of things like that, you will have to attack yourselves.

So it seems that a coalition housing committee is a good committee.

You are doing the solicitor now. I hope I will not have to stand up here again to talk about housing.

You would not talk about the pay pause.

I heard Deputy Barry's interruption. He is one of the hatchet men but he is a good attender in this House and I am prepared to put up with his interruptions. I am well able to look after myself and when I go to the public I always tell them the truth. Of course there are some stupid people.

And you make them intelligent.

I try to. When they come about a house, I ask them all the questions necessary and if the answers are not satisfactory, I tell them that they cannot get a house. I am not like some of the people who say they will do their best. It is a lie to tell a person that you will do your best when you cannot do anything.

I believe the Government so far have been a good Government, and I believe the majority of the members of this House believe that. I do not mind what they say in here because, as I said before, all politicians are Jekylls and Hydes. When a motion was put down here in connection with the pay pause, the Labour Party did not vote for the resignation of the Government. They were having no nonsense. They appreciated that anything connected with wages was their business but they understood that the Government were trying to preserve the status quo, which is not bad.

The last increase in wages was due only in part to an increase in the cost of living. It was largely an increase in the standard of living, and that was admitted by members of the Labour Party. Now the position of those who have a job is quite good. If we are to argue on the question of social benefits I would argue against the record of the past and not on the future. The argument must be against the existing Government and their record of the immediate past, not the distant past. If we did that, we would be going back to the Civil War.

The fact is that whether it was brought about by mismanagement or by the Suez crisis, things were bad in 1956, as everybody knows. The Government of the time were depending on a few votes and it is one of the failings of democracy that when a Government are up against it, and the Coalition were up against it in 1956, there is likely to be ratting amongst some of their supporters. The play is always against the Government. The people who might shout now for the Government's resignation would shout three months later for Fine Gael's resignation. The politicians know, and they are the people who are always "lying into it," all those distortions of truth.

If you want to compare the present Government and be just, you can compare them only with the immediately preceding Government and if we do that, we find things were pretty hopeless in 1956. We remember the housing problem with all the housing workers idle and no credit. Perhaps the Government at the time did not deserve the mounting of attacks by Fianna Fáil. The then Taoiseach, I know, is quite an honest fellow. I believe he did his best and I know he felt very bitter afterwards. About a week ago, when I was having my little argument with Deputy Dillon—a man I greatly admire but I think he lost his head on that occasion—I said that Deputy Costello had said the same thing. Deputy Costello said they had acted like partisans in the French Revolution misrepresenting everything.

Do you blame me if I am cynical and express my contempt for the Party game? That is my mission here and I am not trying to be a "holy Joe". I came up without Party help. In fact, Parties did their damnedest to keep me out. However, I still believe this Government should continue for at least another year or two and should be helped.

Deputy Corish made a good speech. He put his Party point of view and made it clear that he was not trying to trip up the Government. He was not trying to harm the economy because he has the workers' position in mind. It was a fair speech for a political Party Leader. A Party leader can be as honest as the day is long but he must do a little playing with words. It is all in the game. There is such a thing as white lies but barefaced lies are different. Deputy Corish was not trying to cause a general election. He knows the actual position and the trouble that arose from the Common Market difficulty. He hopes that things will go along merrily as they are. At least I am sure he would like things to be better but that, to put it in Lincoln's words, he feels that to change horses in the middle of the stream might make things worse for the people.

I make no apology for defending the Government. I do not defend all they do, but when supporting a Government, you cannot play around with such an important function as government, even if you disagree on some minor sidelines. That would be a cheap performance. In the main, I think the Government have done well. At least they deserve, if not support, constructive criticism. We know Parties have to play the game and there is a bye-election coming on. We should give the Government credit where credit is due. It is impossible for a Government to be always right. In my opinion, all Governments honestly try to do a good job, even though they make mistakes and even though on the way to power, they do a lot of playacting. Once they get into office, that is suspended and they try to make the country economic and do the best possible for all the people. On the way to power, with the sort of system we have, you must bandy about untruths and distortions. You must misrepresent the Government and give them no credit if you hope to win and get the support of the 20 or 30 per cent. of the people who never ask questions. I shall continue to support the Government until I am satisfied that we have a state of affairs something like 1956. Then I shall not support them, but I am not going to risk the present position which is not so bad just because it might get me a few "hurrahs" from a few people outside who do not understand. I shall put up with their sneers which are not often genuine.

About a year ago, some 15 letters appeared in the papers abusing me and eight saying a good word for me but of the 15 letters of abuse, 11 of them came from a political club in North Dublin that met that week and decided to write the letters. I proved that and I have witnesses in this House to it. I do not mind what the people say outside.

The last speaker told us he would vote for the Government and sacrifice a few "hurrahs". If he continues as he is going, he will have to listen to a few "razzes" as well.

I got the highest vote of any Independent in Ireland.

I am delighted to hear it. He also told us that were it not for the fact that we have a Chair in this House, we would have nothing but teddyboys on both sides. He told us that Party politicians consisted of nothing but teddyboys——

I qualified my statement.

——and that on the way to Government, a Party politician would do anything to obtain his ends. The Deputy can never hope, I am afraid, to aspire to Government by the method he is using. I do not believe we are teddyboys in this House.

I qualified my statement. Do not misrepresent me.

I believe the people on both sides of the House and all political Parties——

I said they were gentlemen or something else. Do not use solicitor's tactics on me.

I think the people on both sides are endeavouring to do their best.

(Interruptions.)

Deputy Sherwin has spoken at length and should allow Deputy O'Donnell to speak.

I know, but I qualified my statement.

The Deputy spoke for an hour on the Vote on Account and confined his speech entirely to a discussion of the housing problem in the city of Dublin. That is filibustering, in my opinion.

I know all about it.

He is trying to evade the fact that he himself within the past two weeks supported the Government who were about to introduce a standstill order——

They did not.

He voted with the Government and he now comes along and says to the people of Dublin: "I am in here fighting for houses for the poor of Dublin." But there is not a word about his reason for voting for the standstill order. He tells us—I shall deal with housing now—that in 1960, Dublin Corporation had reached their housing target but that since then, a new situation has arisen and there is an influx of people from Britain to Dublin and, were it not for that——

That is a lot of codology.

That is not the reason.

We all know that, but this is what Deputy Sherwin is telling us.

A half-dozen people coming back from England—you cannot blame it on that.

1,500 came back.

I do not know where they are.

Deputy Dunne is right when he said it was codology.

He knows nothing about it.

Does he not?

You do not.

Deputy Sherwin is the proprietor.

Everybody is out of step but our Johnny.

Deputy Sherwin has told us that only three members of this House know anything about the housing of the people of Dublin. One is himself——

He said two, actually.

If that young Deputy waits, I shall name them. One is himself, Deputy Sherwin and then Deputy Barron and Deputy Timmons. I notice there was no mention of Deputy Briscoe and he was the gentleman who knew all about housing. Did the Deputy say that Deputy Burke was on that Housing Committee?

No. He is a new member. We are talking for the period from 1955 on.

Order. Deputy Sherwin must allow Deputy O'Donnell to make his speech.

I do not mind his telling yarns but he has the advantage —he is speaking after me.

(Interruptions.)

We had Deputy Burke and Deputy Briscoe on that Housing Committee during that time. I am glad to hear Deputy Sherwin say that they knew nothing about it. I always had the impression that Deputy Briscoe knew nothing about it.

You are acting like a solicitor now.

I am only taking you at your word. You told me that only three Deputies, Deputy Sherwin, Deputy Barron and Deputy Timmons knew all about it. Therefore, the other three do not know all about it.

One was a new member. Deputy Briscoe was never a member. He could not know as much as the other three.

Deputy Sherwin told us what they were doing for the building of houses in Dublin. He said that, if there was a hiatus in the building of houses, it was the Minister for Local Government in 1956 who was responsible for it. In the next breath, he tells us that, if there are not new houses built in Dublin, we should not blame the Minister for Local Government but we should blame the Housing Committee. In March, 1956, I informed Dublin Corporation that they could have £2 million for the building of houses. At that time I received Deputies Larkin and Briscoe——

And Deputy Sherwin.

No. He probably did not make an impression on me, because I have no note of him. I told them they could have £2 million and they told me they did not want it until mid-April. I asked them to get on with their building plans, that there was £2 million available for them whenever they required it. Nothing was done. I accused them, there and then, of sabotaging the housing programme in Dublin.

Deputy Larkin was on it.

I do not care who was on it. I am telling you what I told Dublin Corporation at the time. At the same time, I told them they should review the position, that I thought they were building too many houses on the perimeter and that they should concentrate on building multistorey flats in the centre of the city. The reply I got from the Housing Committee was: "Mind your own bloody business"—that they would decide policy. I told them I believed the building of these houses in Ballyfermot and other places was responsible for cluttering up the city with traffic. These people had to be transported from their homes to the city and back. It was straining their resources to have to pay for transport. I told them I was afraid these houses would become vacant. Deputy Sherwin now confirms what I said. Again, for the record——

The Deputy has the advantage.

Deputy Sherwin has spoken for an hour and a half.

He spoke after me. He has the advantage over me.

There will be an opportunity when the Budget comes up. We will find that no matter what blisters are in the Budget, the Deputy will vote with the Government. For the Deputy's benefit, I want to quote some figures given by the Minister for Local Government in reply to a question by Deputy Declan Costello. He was asked to state the number of houses and flats being built by Dublin Corporation to date in the current financial year and in each year since 1950.

What is the date?

I have not got the exact date. I am giving the reply from the official records of the House. For the financial year 1950-51, between flats and houses combined, there were 2,588 built. In 1951-52, 1,982——

And 256 vacancies.

In 1952-53, 2,200——

And 215 vacancies.

In 1953-54, 1,353——

And——

I cannot make out whether he is saying mea culpa or not.

He is hiding the truth.

There is no excuse for interruptions, and I shall not tolerate them.

In 1954-55, 1,922 flats and houses built; in 1955-56, 1,311 built; in 1956-57, 1,564 built.

You are not impressing me at all.

In 1957-58, 1,221 built.

And 1,300 vacancies.

I have informed Deputy Sherwin that I will name him if he continues interrupting.

But, Sir——

I shall have no argument.

All right. We are only getting half the truth.

I want the Deputy to listen to the figures for 1958-59. Up to this I have been dealing in thousands. In 1958-59, there were 450 houses and flats built; in 1959-60, 505.

And 1,600 empties.

In 1960-61, 277 built.

And 1,260 vacancies.

If Deputy Sherwin continues, he will have to leave the House.

He wants you to throw him out, Sir, because it is becoming awkward for him.

Do not throw him out, Sir. Please let him hear these facts. In 1960-61, there were 277 houses and flats built. For the eleven months of 1961-62, there were 320 built. The present Minister for Agriculture was Minister for Local Government for 12 months. I remember him saying in 1958 that, when he came into office, he dealt with a back-log of housing in respect of houses and flats in Dublin. I wonder where were those houses and flats built? We cannot find them in the official records.

There are vacancies.

The Deputy is going to tell us now that they continued from 1958 to the present day to build somewhere in the neighbourhood of 1,400 houses when they had vacancies in the city? What caused these vacant houses?

Do not drag in emigration now.

Is it that they were built in the wrong places? If it is, then it is a very serious accusation to make against this famous committee— that they built all these houses and nobody will occupy them.

There were no sites in the city.

Why were they built? Was it just for the sake of giving employment that we built all these houses which Deputy Sherwin told us had their windows smashed and were broken up and left lying idle? What caused those houses to be sited there? Who was responsible for siting them? Was it this famous Housing Committee of the Dublin Corporation? If it was, it is a very serious matter. What is going to be done with these houses? Are they to be left lying vacant? If they are, they should be known as somebody's "folly". It is a disgrace. I have dealt with houses in the Corporation of Dublin because I wanted to bring to the notice of the Deputy—

I will take that up publicly with the Deputy anywhere but not here.

It will not be the first time we met in public.

Now I am going to take the Deputy up on another matter. On 11th March, 1961, I asked the Minister for Local Government a very simple question. I asked him if he would state the amount of money actually spent on the building (a) of local authority houses and (b) private houses during each of the years ended 31st March, 1950 to 1960. That was not for Dublin Corporation. That was for houses built throughout the State, including Dublin Corporation, of course. What was the reply I got? The amount of money spent on the building of houses—it is well worth remembering—in the year 1949-50 was £9,557,645; in 1950-51, it was £10,417,927; in 1951-52, it was £11,468,612; in 1952-53, it was £10,607,675; in 1954-55, it was £7,619,230; in 1955-56, it was £6,993,246; and in 1956-57—the bad year—

Your year.

——it was £7,064,081.

That was your year.

I will say the next one in a low voice. For 1957-58 the amount spent was £4 million.

That was your year also.

No. The amount was £4,456,085.

Things are planned two years in advance.

We spent £4½ million in 1957-58; in 1958-59, the amount was £3 million odd.

And £5 million worth of empty houses.

£3 million remember. In 1959-60 the amount spent throughout the State was £3,041,327, exactly half was spent in 1959-60 as was spent in 1956-57, the bad year.

And you got £10 million worth of houses for nothing.

Is it not an awful state of affairs when a Deputy belonging, as he says, to no Party, but an honest person, tells us we have spent £10 million building houses which nobody wants? It will be a great relief to the ratepayers of Dublin to know that Deputy Sherwin, the vice-chairman of the Housing Committee, is able to tell us there is no need for houses, that anybody who wants a house can get one.

That was in 1959-60.

Have they been filled yet?

You could not get people for them; they were refusing them.

Now they are all rushing back because the Rent Control Act in Britain has been abolished.

Fifteen hundred are back from England.

Fifteen hundred families are back from England?

I am not guessing. I have the figures but I do not need figures.

Would the Deputy and the House like to hear what money was spent by Dublin Corporation? I have dealt with the number of houses built, the amount of money spent on the building of houses, and now I am going to tell the House the amount of money which was spent by Dublin Corporation. I will just give it in round figures. In 1951, they spent £3 million odd; in 1952-53, £3 million odd; in 1953, £2 million odd; in 1954, £3 million odd; in 1955, £2 million odd; in 1956, £2 million odd; in 1957, £2 million odd; in 1958, £1 million odd; in 1959, £1 million odd; and in 1960, no millions, but a fraction of——

And 1,600 empty dwellings.

In 1961, they spent only a fraction of a million. This is the great housing programme——

What about this year?

I have not got the figures for this year but I will tell the Deputy the number of houses built in eleven months of the year. It was 468 as compared with 1,564 built by us in 12 months of the last year we were in office.

There were 800 built——

Is Deputy Sherwin going to interrupt constantly?

The Deputy is speaking towards me; he is looking at me. If he looks at the Chair perhaps——

I would never turn my back on him.

The Deputy is trying to make two speeches.

(Interruptions.)

Deputy Sherwin is taking no notice whatever of my remarks. He will either conduct himself or leave the House. I am giving him his choice; either to conduct himself or leave the House.

I believe that Deputy Sherwin believes what he said but he has not got the facts——

I am not discussing——

I am telling the House, through you, Sir, that the Deputy has not got the facts right.

I am responsible for the conduct and the decorum of the House. Deputy Sherwin is not adding to either.

That is my impression too, Sir. I have explained to the House what has been spent on the building of houses throughout the State, the number of houses built, the amount of money spent by Dublin Corporation and all of that shows a decline, year in year out, since the inter-Party Government left office.

You never paid for them.

Of course we paid for them.

You did not pay for them. You were not able to pay the grants.

I am certain this Deputy from Cavan cannot know much about it. He probably did not catch what Deputy Dillon said yesterday.

I caught him out.

It might be no harm if I repeated what Deputy Dillon told him yesterday about houses built in Cavan.

Is the Deputy finished with Dublin?

Does the Deputy wish to leave the House?

(Interruptions.)

If the Deputy is not interested in the pay pause, I will come back——

I am not here to defend the pay pause; I will defend myself.

If the Deputy is not interested in the pay pause, he can go home. For the benefit of Deputy Dolan, I want to repeat now what houses were built in Cavan over the last number of years. The particulars are given in a reply by the Minister for Local Government to a question asked by Deputy O'Reilly from the constituency of Cavan.

(Interruptions.)

As I was saying —I hope I shall not drive Deputy Dolan out of the House as I should like him to hear this reply—on 24th November, 1962, Deputy O'Reilly was interested to know, and requested the Minister for Local Government to tell him, the number of new houses built by Cavan County Council, the number of new houses built by private enterprise and the number of houses for which the Department paid reconstruction grants between the years 1954 and 1961. It is worth while putting it on the record. Cavan is a poor county like my own. They are, of course, a progressive people. They have not the same emigration we have. They have not the same influx as Deputy Sherwin told us Dublin had last year—1,500 families.

Here is the record for Cavan. In the year 1953-54, Cavan local authority built 78 houses; private enterprise built 145; and 254 houses were reconstructed. In the year 1954-55, the local authority built 99; private enterprise built 169; 250 were reconstructed. In the year 1955-56, 86 were built by the local authority; 154 were built by private enterprise; 304 were reconstructed. In the year 1956-57, 65 were built by the local authority; 166 were built by private enterprise; 396 were reconstructed. We went out of office in 1957. We no longer had any responsibility.

Remember the supplementary grants were stopped in 1956 as a result of Deputy O'Donnell's circular.

We are told the supplementary grants were stopped. We agree they were stopped in 1956, but in 1956 the local authority built 55 houses, private enterprise built 156 houses. In 1957-58 only 36 were built by the local authority; 131 by private enterprise. In 1958-59—we had no responsibility of any kind—29 were built by the local authority and only 56 by private enterprise. Again, we had no responsibility. In 1959-60—we had nothing whatever to do with it—eight were built by the local authority and 80 by private enterprise.

Why had you no authority? The supplementary grants were cut out in 1956.

Why did the Deputy not reintroduce them?

Because we had not a majority on the county council, as the Deputy knows.

Does the Deputy know what he did in 1960-61? In that year the Cavan County Council built no new houses, not a solitary one, but 72 were built by private enterprise.

Maybe there is no one living down there.

(Interruptions.)

The Deputy left the builders and traders there without a house in 1960-61. We, at least, built houses.

(Interruptions.)

Not one solitary house was built in Cavan in the year 1960-61. Deputy Dillon pointed out that this Vote on Account is a record one. When the Minister asks for a Vote on Account he asks for one-third of the revenue necessary to run Government for the next twelve months. This year what he asks for is a record. What local authorities are asking for to-day is a record amount for rates. These records stem from two things, and two things only. First, they stem from the slashing of the food subsidies and, secondly, from the reckless expenditure by the present Government. I use the word "reckless" purposely. In 1956, as every Deputy on the other side has pointed out, we had a financial crisis here due to the Suez crisis. For the first time in our history, other than in a national emergency, we had petrol rationing.

(Interruptions.)

Order, please.

We found it necessary to put an import tax on luxury goods.

You put on a squeeze.

It was the Deputy put the squeeze on housing. He built none. We found it necessary to impose a tax on imported luxury goods, but we stated the tax would be a temporary one, and nothing but a temporary one. We went further. We said the moneys we collected would be used for one thing, and one thing only, namely capital development. That was in a time of international crisis. Today I do not see any international crisis. There may be a national one, but there is certainly not an international one. Why the necessity for this squeeze today? I cannot understand it. But I think there is a very good reason. There is no doubt whatever the present Government were sure that we were going to enter the Common Market, and that all we had to do was catch on to the coattails of Great Britain and, whatever terms Great Britain got into the Common Market, we would follow suit.

The Government never anticipated that Britain would be refused. They never bothered to think what the alternative would be if Britain were refused. On one occasion the Taoiseach, with his tongue in his cheek, proclaimed: "If Britain is refused, we go it alone." Those were his words. Do we hear anything today about going it alone? We certainly do not.

What are we going to do now? Immediately Britain was refused admission she started negotiations with the EFTA countries. She called in, through her diplomatic channels, the Commonwealth Prime Ministers. She had to look for an alternative. What have we done? Nothing whatever. Even now the Taoiseach is going to Great Britain merely to have talks. Talks on what? We have not been told. We have not been told whether he is going to try to negotiate trade talks, economic talks, political talks, or any other kind of talk. He is merely going. He could be going to present shamrock to Mr. Macmillan on St. Patrick's Day.

The North-east has a serious problem. They are badgering the British Government to improve the economy and to do something for the unemployed. Here we are, down in the South, twiddling our fingers, doing nothing. We have a problem. Is it not time we began to talk with our neighbours across the Border? Is it not time we became realistic? We sent a note of thanks to the head of the RUC when he escorted the President over the Border to Armagh on a recent sad occasion. But when it comes to economic talks with the Northern Government, we refuse to recognise them.

Who said that? We never refused to recognise them.

That is a lie.

The term "lie" is unparliamentary.

I withdraw the word and substitute "untrue". We never refused to enter into economic negotiations——

So, we now have a change of policy enunciated by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Taoiseach. For the first time, down through the years, this Government recognise the Six Counties——

The Deputy said "economic negotiations".

I said "... refuse to recognise them." If you recognised the Government of the Six Counties down through the years, why have you never come out on your political platforms and said so?

The Deputy is talking nonsense.

Very well; I am talking nonsense, maybe; but if you recognise the Government of the Six Counties, it is time you consulted with them and that they consulted with you on the economic situation existing here.

The Deputy should use the third person and speak through the Chair.

I am speaking through the Chair. When I say "you", I do not refer to the Parliamentary Secretary: I am referring to the Government. I say now that it is time that the Government said, in effect: "We have similar problems North and South. Let us get together. Let us discuss our economic problems. Let us discuss the other problems which may be common to both of us and let us see where we go for the future." It is time that were done and, if it were done, we should know where we are going.

We made that offer several times.

The offer that we are prepared to discuss economics with them on every occasion.

You are very fond of building up that Border here and there, without any hope of bringing down the tariff wall between it——

Who put the Border there?

You did not do much to take it away.

You built it.

We did not put it there, though.

I am certain no member of this House consented to it.

Did Fine Gael not vote for it in 1927?

You provided the material for it.

I do not think the Minister was here at the time to oppose it.

I know Fine Gael voted for it.

The Deputy will not get me away from these matters. I am very glad to hear to-day people such as the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance talk about the number of cattle we have in this country. He boasts of the number of cattle on the hoof in this country at the moment. We are all proud of that. I wonder if Fianna Fáil are as proud of it as the Parliamentary Secretary is? Do you remember what they said about the cattle industry in this country? Do you remember what they said some years ago when they hoped every ship crossing the Irish sea carrying a four-footed beast would go to the bottom? Do you remember when they advised the people of this country to slit the throats of the calves?

That is when you operated the Blueshirts.

We had to fight the Blueshirts——

The Government are now depending on two Blueshirts to keep them in office. Do not insult them.

That was the time you supported the British and were Quislings.

Were it not that we had some very good officers in the Irish Army at that time to control these gentlemen when they were running wild——

I do not like that. It is personal. There is no need for that. Let us have none of that sort of stuff. The Deputy said it because Deputy Egan has a brother in the Army. The period of the Economic War is a period which Fine Gael should be damned well ashamed to mention in this House.

You acted the Quisling during the Economic War and the Irish people have repudiated you for it.

The land of the O'Donnells would not be the first to surrender.

Would Deputies please cease these interruptions?

On a point of order, I want to draw attention to a reference that has been made to me by Deputy O'Sullivan. He termed me a "Blue-shirt." I have no notion of stooping as low as Deputy O'Sullivan. Going around his native Millstreet, one is struck by the fact that he is not held in very high esteem. I am quite willing to meet the Deputy anywhere, either inside or outside this House, and, if he looks for it, he will get more of that, too: I shall tell him a bit more.

The Deputy will sit down.

The Minister for Finance started it by entering into personalities.

It was you, over there. I should be very ashamed to be on the same platform as you over there.

Deputy Sheridan is deliberately disobeying the Chair.

I am sorry——

Deputy Sheridan stayed on his feet talking and refused to listen to me. So did several other Deputies. Deputy O'Donnell is discussing the Vote on Account. He should be listened to, without interruption.

I apologise——

I am not suggesting——

I apologise to the Chair but certainly I shall not allow anybody to get away with anything on me.

The Deputy has interrupted me and deliberately stood up to speak while I was standing. He should be sufficiently well acquainted with the rules of the House to know that that is not allowed.

There is such a thing as provocation.

Deputy Dunne will not interpret the rules.

I appreciate how the Chair feels about being interrupted. Seeing how often I have been interrupted, I appreciate how the Chair feels about it.

Deputy O'Donnell, on the Vote on Account, without interruption.

I thank the Chair for that. As I say, we should be getting down to serious matters.

Hear, hear. Come down to the Vote on Account now.

We should try to see where we are going. I believe the Government do not know where they are going. They are telling us now that all the money, all the expenditure, they have poured out during the past few years has been on the building up of industries in this country. Where are we to export the manufactured goods turned out by these industries? Can any person tell me that? We thought, when we voted the money for these factories, we would export into the Common Market. That is closed to us. Where now will our manufactured goods go to? That is what I should like to know. Will the Minister tell us?

They are going out.

Various countries.

Russia, for instance.

Will they go into the Common Market countries?

Some of them.

With a tariff wall?

Some of them.

There is the answer we get: "Some of them, but we will not tell you where they go." Supposing, for a second, Britain gets the Commonwealth to rejoin her, with a tariff wall around that Commonwealth. Where are we to export our manufactured goods, our industrial goods?

Did you not lead us out of the Commonwealth?

Does the Minister propose to lead us back?

Did the Minister object?

I do not find any fault——

The Minister finds no fault: we are agreed on that. Again, we have Denmark looking for a greater quota for her agricultural produce. What are we doing to increase the quota which Deputy Dillon got for us in 1948? Nothing whatever. I have not heard of the Minister for Agriculture visiting the British Government for a good many years back to try to negotiate better terms. We were so certain we would get into the Common Market that we did not bother our heads to look into the future. These are all very serious matters.

It is all very fine to say that there is a gap of £100 million between our imports and exports. That gap has been caused by the importation of raw materials for processing and of machinery for the setting up of industries here. However, the Minister must tell us and the industrialists where they are to export their manufactured goods. He must also tell the farmers what he is doing to procure markets for our agricultural produce. I do not believe he knows. Let me end with the biblical quotation by asking the Government : Quo vadis?

It was rather amazing to listen to Deputy O'Donnell. Were it not that the Irish people are the most charitable race in the world, they would never vote again for Fine Gael or Labour, because on two occasions when they got an opportunity of taking over the Government, they sabotaged the economic interests of this nation. In spite of that, they have the cheek to speak to the Irish people as they have spoken here since this Vote on Account was introduced. They ran away from their responsibilities in 1951 and left the Fianna Fáil Government with a very ugly job to do in balancing the budget. They were bluffing the people that everything in the garden was lovely. I remember the Taoiseach saying from the other side of the House after we had been defeated in the election: "We are handing over this State in a sound financial position; give it back to us the same way". The economic position of the country was never better when we handed over office to the inter-Party Government. Our external assets at that time, even in Britain, amounted to over £400 million.

The first thing our Minister for Finance had to do in 1951 was to try to rectify the economic mistakes made by the inter-Party Government. In 1952, we on this side of the House had to swallow a very hard pill in standing over the Budget of that year in order to put the national finances on a proper footing. We did that, putting the interests of Ireland before the interests of our Party. We felt that if we never came back to office, we had to put the country right financially. That was done and again the propaganda and the whispering started. In 1954, we were again defeated and from 1954 to 1957, things went from bad to worse with the inter-Party Government. Deputy McGilligan who was a member of that Government came in here last night criticising everything this Government were doing. I look upon him as an honourable, decent man but I cannot say that his politics were honest. Deputy Dillon, Deputy McGilligan and Deputy Sweetman, in spite of all that happened when they were the Government, will tell the people they have the cure for all ills now.

In 1957, for the second time, the Minister for Finance, and his colleagues in the Government had to face up to a shocking financial position left by the inter-Party Government and had to do unpopular things for which we have been criticised by Deputy McGilligan and Deputy O'Donnell. I should like some building contractors from the city and county of Dublin to have been listening to Deputy O'Donnell, especially those whom he forced to go to Canada, Australia and the United States by his plausible talk here when he was Minister for Local Government, advising building contractors that there was money for everything. Many a decent contractor accepted Deputy O'Donnell's word at that time and some of them are in Canada and Australia still. In my constituency at that time, there were no housing loans or grants available. In 1955 and 1956, people were leaving the country as fast as they could. They did not even bother to give up the key of the house to the local authority. Yet Deputy O'Donnell now tells the House what he did. There was not the price of a bag of cement left when the inter-Party Government left office, not to mind sufficient money to build houses.

When the Minister for Finance took office, he had to get a number of local authorities out of difficulties. There was no credit available from the banks or from building societies. Industry of all kinds had come to a standstill and the Fianna Fáil Government had to restore the people's confidence in the country. The banks started to advance money again. Then the Government, through the Minister for Finance, once more had to pay the debts that were incurred by the inter-Party Government on housing. There were then no grants for houses, no agricultural grant, no schools being built.

I must pay the former Deputy Mulcahy the compliment of saying that at that time at least he was honest. When he was Minister for Education and when I complained bitterly about the school building programme in Dublin, he replied with words to the effect that you cannot take trousers from a Highlander—you cannot build schools when there is no money available. Yet we had Deputy P. O'Donnell today saying there was plenty of money. He knows very well that it was action taken by him which deprived SDA applicants of their loans. I did not come in here armed with documentary proof of all this but I cannot let it rest when I hear Deputies opposite making such obviously dishonest statements.

Under Fianna Fáil government, the workers were never better off than they are nowadays. There was very little for anybody in 1956 when the other crowd left office. Immediately afterwards, social benefits increased, wages and salaries went up and the building industry was given a new lease of life. Industrial grants are now available and the people of Ireland are generally a jolly sight better off than they were under the inter-Party Government. I hope in the national interest the people will never trust them again.

Deputy P. O'Donnell spoke of the housing programme of the Dublin Corporation. Neither the Minister for Local Government nor the Minister for Finance has impeded in any way the Corporation's housing plans and I should like to point out that last year about 1,700 SDA loan houses were built. Through supplementary grant schemes, things have become much easier for those anxious to build their own houses, and all I hope is that the present Minister for Finance will continue the good work. As Deputy Sherwin has pointed out, Dublin in 1948 had an estimated housing deficiency of 20,000 dwellings. It was further estimated at the time that an additional demand for about 1,000 dwellings per annum would accrue as a result of normal family growth.

I have here a report from the City Manager for last year which tells how this problem was tackled:—

In planning to meet the deficiency, it was estimated that about 200 dwellings per annum would become available for new tenancies as a result of net vacancies in the existing housing estates. By net vacancies I mean the complete vacation of houses and not transfers of tenancy on the death of a tenant to some other member of the family continuing to live in the house, or inter-transfers between tenants.

The net vacancies began substantially to increase in 1954-55 when they amounted to 605 dwellings; in 1955-56 the figure increased to 763, and by 1956-57 had reached 986. During the administrative years 1948-49 to 1956-57 inclusive, 15,279 new houses were built and the net vacancies reached a figure of 3,777. In that period, therefore, 19,056 families were rehoused. At the same time, operations under the Small Dwellings Acquisition Acts helped 5,879 families to provide homes for themselves — a total of 24,935 families. Capital expenditure in that nine-year period was £25,283,234 under the Housing of the Working Classes Acts, and £8,838,493 under the Small Dwellings Acquisition Acts—a total of £34,121,727. The combined effect of this was that the pressure for new housing substantially decreased.

I do not want to delay the House much longer in reading this report, but I think it is necessary in view of the statement made by Deputy P. O'Donnell. The City Manager goes on:—

It had been decided to pursue the construction programme with all possible expedition until the housing deficiency was made good, and to that end substantial acquisitions of further sites were made which are noted in Appendix II of this report. However, when the substantial and continuously increasing vacancy rate was noted and considered in 1956, this resulted in a suspension of new development proposals and some delay in placing new housing contracts. Net vacancies continued to increase for a further three years. In 1957-58, they provided 1,294 dwellings, in 1958-59, 1,393, and in 1959-60, 1,605. During this period, new building reduced from 1,564 dwellings in 1956-57 to 1,021 in 1957-58, 460 in 1958-59 and 505 in 1959-60. During that three-year period, therefore, 6,278 families were housed.

The Chairman of the Dublin Corporation Housing Committee is Mr. Denis Larkin and it cannot be said that he would not have the interests of the working classes at heart. The City Manager and the members are all most anxious to see that everything possible is done to provide adequate housing. Deputy P. O'Donnell's contribution here then was nothing but another effort to sabotage housing operations in Dublin.

Even though we met with a reversal in our attempts to join the Common Market, everything possible is being done by the Government to stimulate external trade but unfortunately everything we do is being met with opposition from the Fine Gael Party who seem out for sabotage of the national effort. I thought we were all at one in relation to international affairs, but apparently the Fine Gael Party are more concerned with their own interests and their own petty outlook than they are with the national interest. Of course I should have known that because they have proved it over the years. When Deputy O'Donnell started to talk about the Economic War, he mentioned cattle. He should have been ashamed of himself because they played England's game at that time. What happened during the Civil War could have been reversed if we had had a Party in this House other than the Fine Gael Party, or the Cumann na nGaedheal Party, as they were then.

I am sorry to go back on history like this but they brought it on themselves. Deputy O'Donnell raised this question in the House or I would not raise it. We on this side of the House are anxious to go ahead and not back. Because it was raised, I want to make clear the position in which the Irish people found themselves at that time. We were betrayed and Fine Gael played England's game. They are now telling the country to get rid of Fianna Fáil and that they have cures for everything.

Fianna Fáil always have, and always will, put the interests of Ireland before their own interests. Whether we are in office or out of office, we will always be concerned about the interests of the nation. We will not play with the economic interests of the nation as did Deputy McGilligan, Deputy Dillon and quite a number of others who spoke. They sabotaged the country, and left us in economic ruin when we defeated them in 1957.

Mr. Browne

This Vote traditionally gives us an opportunity of reviewing the economic position of the country and it is appropriate that a rural Deputy such as myself should avail of the opportunity to put before the House matters which affect my constituency. I do not want to extend the discussion which has been rather protracted and, in fact, has become very localised. From the discussions that have taken place, it is quite obvious that there are two schools of thought in the House, that there is the city man and the rural man. Deputy Sherwin talked for something over an hour and a half this morning and he discussed, nothing but housing and Dublin Corporation. That may be all very fine for Deputy Sherwin who is a Dublin Deputy, but the economic conditions prevailing in the country at the moment concern more than the townsman, the city man or Dublin Corporation.

I want to refer to the people who are affected by the prevailing economic conditions in my constituency. Perhaps I can segregate them into three different communities: (1), the farming community; (2), the traders in the small and big towns; and (3), the workers. I think it appropriate for me to say at this stage that the farmers must be considered the most important members of the community for many reasons. When I say that, I do not wish to detract in any way from the importance of the small town dweller, the big town dweller, the road worker or the factory worker.

I think it has been conceded by all politicians and by all economists that we are an agricultural country and, as such, our basic economy must be agriculture. I am glad—and I say this without apologies to anyone on either side of the House—to see that the farmers to-day are organised. I am glad to see the farmers members of the National Farmers' Association, Muintir na Tíre or any other branch of the farming organisations. I think it was well past time when the farmers should organise themselves as an economic unit. The working man who joined a trade union movement has reaped the reward of his organisation and to-day, as a result of the efforts made by the trade unions, the working man is guaranteed at least what he is entitled to: a fair wage for a fair day's work. Many years ago the worker was not paid for his labour. Perhaps that was a result of the stigma left over from the old days of the British rule when they used our great grandfathers as slave labour.

I am glad that the farmers have organised themselves in a manner somewhat similar to the trade union movement. No matter what Government are in office, the important part to be played by the farming community must be recognised. The farmer has now become educated and respect is due to the poor farmers' sons who became highly educated. I want to pay tribute to those who went into the various Civil Service Departments, gained experience and passed it on to their organisations. I want to advise them in my own small way. Let the farming organisations keep clear of all political Parties and proceed on the lines on which they are proceeding at present, and Ireland will benefit from their efforts, and the farmers in general will benefit from the results of the efforts of these organisations.

I do not want to be personal towards the Minister for Agriculture but he must take responsibility for his Department and he must take responsibility for the well-being of the agricultural community. I regret to have to say in this House that, in my modest opinion, the Minister for Agriculture has completely abandoned and neglected the farmers, and especially the small farmers of Ireland. It is quite easy to talk about the industries in rural Ireland but we must never forget that in rural Ireland small farmers with small families, and sometimes small farmers with large families, are little old-established industries which, I regret to say, are quickly disappearing.

I very much regret having to criticise the Minister for Agriculture, who is not travelling to London on 18th March with the Taoiseach and the Minister for External Affairs. I think the Minister for External Affairs has enough travelling of his own to do to New York, Brussels and Paris and now we find him going to London when the Minister for Agriculture should be going there to talk to his opposite number in the British Government about finding a market for the produce of the small farmers of the West of Ireland and the large farmers of the midlands.

The Taoiseach still seems to be interested only in industry and he is still talking about industrial expansion when our entry into the Common Market is in jeopardy. It is considered by our economists that if we fail to become a member of the Common Market, there is no hope for the survival of many industries established over the past ten years. Is it not true to state that in many cases where large grants were passed on to industries in the past eight or nine years, these industries are now beginning to collapse? That is wasted money. There is one thing for which there is always a market, and that is, the produce which we can grow on the land of Ireland.

Great publicity has been given by Government speakers to the amount of money allocated to agriculture but I must repeat to the House what the House already knows, that is, that the farmers' income last year dropped by something like £20 million. I want seriously to ask the House what good there is in giving a grant to a farmer to erect a piggery, or a cow byre, or a henhouse, or to reclaim his land. If you do not provide him with a market for the produce he is going to get from his land. That is completely irregular planning.

A great amount of capital expenditure has been thrown at the Irish farmer that is not worth the snap of his fingers to him. What we want at the moment is a market for the Irish farmer. The egg from which the farmer's wife used to get the money to run her household, is gone. The pig is gone. What have they left? We are depending entirely on our cattle trade to keep up our exports, and in the west of Ireland we suffer from the disadvantage that when there is a possibility of profit to be made out of the store bullock, we are short of grass and must dispose of him. I must appeal to the Minister not to be demanding that the farmers should improve their holdings, and, at the same time, not making any effort to provide a market for their produce.

We in the west have probably been hit hardest by emigration. When speaking on the Vote on Account last year, I drew attention to the fact that we had 20,000 emigrants from Mayo in the previous ten years. The indications are that there will be a further increase in that movement. I was amused this morning to hear Deputy Sherwin talk about all the people coming back to Dublin. I think he is confused by the number of people coming here from the west of Ireland and stalling in Dublin looking for work. It is that rather than the number coming back from England that confuses him.

I have quite a good knowledge of my constituency and, apart from my political movements through it, I have quite a good commercial knowledge of it. In any town I go to, or in any small village, I see no movements back from England but I can see quite a big movement from Ballina station out of my constituency. That is a big loss to us.

I do not want to extend this already protracted discussion but I must refer to the position in my constituency with regard to the rates. Speaking here this time last year, I drew the attention of the House to the fact that a week or two earlier we had been discussing our estimate at the meeting in Castlebar of the Mayo County Council and I mentioned that the indications were that the rate for County Mayo would be 50s. in the £. It ultimately turned out that the rate was 55s. On that occasion, I beseeched the Government to do something for the seaboard counties of the west, as they could not, from their own resources, curtail the high expenditure.

On last Saturday week, one year later, I was present at the meeting of Mayo County Council with my colleagues. May I put it on the records of this House that there are 31 genuine members of that council who sit in Castlebar and who, irrespective of their political affiliations, are concerned to produce as low a rate as possible and at the same time to give the people as good a service as possible? The rate struck by any local authority is the price you pay for the services you give your people. On last Saturday week, for a poor county like Mayo, we struck the abnormal rate of 62s. in the £ and I am predicting here and now that the people of Mayo will get no better services, medically or otherwise, than they got last year.

That brings me to a section of the community which, in my opinion, must receive consideration in the forthcoming Budget. I refer to the small shopkeepers and business people of the small towns and villages in Mayo. They are a section of the community with a genuine grievance because they have had to suffer a progressive decline in their business. If you have a dwindling population, you must have a decline in business. To that misfortune must be added increased wages, rates, transport charges, electricity charges and so on, without any increase in business and in most cases, with the advent of supermarket business, reduced profits. In my constituency, many of the smaller towns such as Swinford, Killala, Crossmolina, Charlestown and Belmullet are just hanging on. May I repeat what I said at a county council meeting that in bringing our rates to 62s. in the £, we have drawn the axe on the small towns of County Mayo.

I do not see how we can discuss the increase in rates on the vote on Account.

Mr. Browne

I am very sorry. Will you attribute it to my inexperience as a new member of the House?

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance should have more experience and he did it.

Mr. Browne

Despite the fact that I may have gone over the line to impress on the Minister opposite that we have a grievance, I hope the Minister at the next Cabinet meeting will whisper my remarks to the Minister for Finance. At various times in the year in my constituency, we have numbers of unemployed and quite a lot of work to do in connection with unemployment assistance and stamps and the dole. I am sure the other Deputies from the constituency will bear that out. It is a terrible state of affairs that accommodation roads in my county are in a disgraceful condition——

I am sorry to interrupt the Deputy but the question of accommodation roads should relevantly be raised on the Estimate. It is not really a matter for this debate.

Mr. Browne

I was about to correlate it with expenditure out of which money will be provided in the Vote on Account. I shall bow to your ruling but if you permit me to correlate my remarks, I think you will find that I am relevant.

Surely, so far as Government policy or lack of it impinges upon the situation, it is relevant to discuss it on the Vote on Account?

If that were the case, everything would be relevant.

Practically everything apropos of Government policy other than specific itemising of Estimates is relevant.

Does the Deputy not agree that Deputy Browne is itemising when dealing with expenditure on accommodation roads?

But he has indicated to the Chair that he is going to relate that to the expenditure on the Vote on Account. With due respect, I think the Deputy is so entitled.

The Deputy is not so entitled.

It is difficult to blame the Deputy or any other Deputy when the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance referred to the 70-hour week worked by the Labour officials and the desirability of the Labour Party transferring their votes to Fianna Fáil in the by-election. When that was permitted, anything is permissible.

Everything cannot be permitted. Only matters of general policy and expenditure are permitted.

(Interruptions.)

Mr. Browne

I quite appreciate the position of the Chair. He has been more than tolerant and he has to put up with quite a lot from other speakers. I do not propose to take up the time of the House. I want to make constructive criticism in an objective way for the benefit of the Government and ultimately for my constituents and I felt it my duty to bring these facts before the House. If the Chair would be patient and allow me to correlate my remarks to what I had in mind, I think he would find they are relevant.

The Department of Social Welfare pay £3 to £3 10s. in unemployment assistance each week. That is no use to a married man today. It is like giving biscuits to an elephant. I should prefer to see co-operation between the Board of Works and the Department of Social Welfare in this respect so that instead of giving a man £3 10s. for doing nothing—and in so doing, simply making him lazy physically and mentally and no addition to the economy—where there are accommodation roads to be repaired and schemes generally under the Board of Works required to be done, the Board of Works would put up another £3 10s. and do productive work which would benefit the constituency and benefit the individual who will have a decent income and a decent job? That is the suggestion to which I wished to correlate my earlier remarks. In that way accommodation roads would be immensely improved and they require it urgently. The recipient of unemployment benefit would be getting a respectable wage and doing respectable, productive work. You could also have him opening drains and working to benefit the land which would result in further production.

The time has come when something must be done for western seaboard counties. I do not know if it is relevant to suggest it now but the Government will have to consider seriously setting up a rates equalisation fund for counties like Mayo, Galway, Roscommon, Sligo, Leitrim, Donegal, Kerry and Cork. In Mayo, we are in the unhappy position that valuations are small and the population declining and therefore the per capita contribution expected from the remaining population has become an unbearable burden. We shall have to get more aid from the central authority. The Government have access to funds that no local authority could hope to get and if a burden becomes too big for any section of the community, we shall all have to make our contribution from the central authority to meet that problem. Here is a problem and if you do not do something about it, there will be no west of Ireland.

I appeal very strongly to the Minister sitting opposite, a Connacht man himself, with, I am sure, as much experience of West of Ireland problems as I have. He is a much older man and although a member of the Government, I believe that close to his heart he must have the very grave situation that arises for the farmers and townspeople in the West of Ireland, especially in places like Mayo and Galway.

I want to criticise the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Lands for his neglect since coming into office of the fishing industry in the West of Ireland. I was quite pleased when a young Parliamentary Secretary was appointed to that important position because I always believed, although I come from an inland part of the constituency, that there is a tremendous potential of wealth along the coast of Ireland, especially the north Mayo coast outside Erris and Achill. There is tremendous scope there. Almighty God has provided the material to raise the fish. All the fishermen on the west coast require is adequate boats, equipment and landing facilities. Yet it is not unusual to find that in the West the fish we eat on Fridays has been brought down from Dublin.

These are matters that would relevantly arise on the Estimate for the Department.

Mr. Browne

Provision will have to be made in the Vote on Account for fisheries. Is it not relevant to advise the Parliamentary Secretary how that money should be spent?

The position is that the Deputy will get an opportunity on the Estimate to discuss fisheries.

Mr. Browne

When the Budget is brought in, the money will be voted at that stage. I bow to your ruling, Sir.

It has never been in order to discuss details on the Vote on Account.

Mr. Browne

I would not want to depart from the accepted procedure, Sir. When the young Parliamentary Secretary was appointed, we hoped he would put initiative and drive into the fishing industry. I could not understand how a man from an inland part of the country was put in charge of fisheries, but I presumed he had a fishing background, either as a rod fisherman or as a deep-sea fisherman. Along with the other two Deputies from the constituency, I have attended many meetings in the Erris area and have gone on deputations to the Parliamentary Secretary. I regret to say he has done very little with regard to landing facilities in either Achill or Erris or the provision of fishing boats or gear.

These are matters that do not arise on the Vote on Account.

Mr. Browne

I hope the Parliamentary Secretary will change his policy in that respect. Otherwise, he will be hearing more from me.

Finally, I appeal to the Government to take immediate steps to provide marketing facilities and a guaranteed market for farm produce. I appeal to them also to consider the plight of the towns in the West of Ireland. What is to keep them in business? I can assure the Government that I will never encourage either the NFA or trade union workers to look for anything unreasonable. But I want to tell the Government that, so long as I am a member of this House, I shall never hesitate to back up any section of my community who I feel are not getting a fair crack of the whip from Government policy.

I do not intend to take up the time of the House making a long political speech. As an Independent Deputy, however, I should like to make a few observations. My voice is not very often heard here. I feel my time is much better spent looking after the needs of my constituents than taking part in some of the political debates one has to bear with here at times. I am sick and tired of listening to the howls from the Opposition since I came into this House—I say that with emphasis—telling the people that the Government have brought the country to perdition. I am also sick of the Government answering the Opposition back by asking: "What did you do in 1955-56?" It reminds me of my school days, when one young fellow said to another "Strike me and I will strike you back."

The time to end this political bickering is long overdue. I do not agree that this Government, or any other Government as far back as I can remember, are perfect; but I think the Government are doing their best. Apparently, the Opposition think they would do much better if they were in government. But they are not in government. That is the will of the people. I would appeal to the Opposition, if they have any constructive advice to offer, to put it forward. In that way, they will be doing a good day's work for themselves and, above all, for Ireland, instead of adopting a negative attitude.

I am sorry to say that the example set here has gone further afield. One has only to read the debates of county councils and county committees of agriculture down the country. You will find those bodies reeking with politics. Political play-actors, I would call them, with one or two gluttonous speech-makers wasting the time of the sincere people on those bodies. They have only one idea in mind—to get their names pasted across the local papers.

This is the largest Estimate ever to come before this House. The only consolation in it for me personally is that our primary industry is being voted a large amount of money, which it richly deserves. It is still, and always will be, our basic industry. I am glad to say the Government have recognised that. A great deal of publicity has been given recently to an increase in the price of creamery milk. If such an increase is given, I shall welcome it indeed. Many people in my constituency have changed their former pattern of farming and have gone over to milk production. If an increase is given, I am sure it will be welcomed by all. At the same time, I appreciate the difficulties. I know the heavy subsidies Bord Bainne have to face at the moment. I do not think it is as easy as Deputy T. O'Donnell told us it was last night. I do not think we can find these markets in the countries mentioned by the Deputy.

I was present at an international milk conference in Tours, France, last May two years. With the exception of the Iron Curtain countries, every country in Europe was represented there. The delegates had only one aim in mind: to find a market for milk and milk products. Leaving that conference after three days, we were just as wise as when we went in. The president of the conference, Mr. Vincent, who was also chairman of the NFU said, "You will see that every gun at this conference is pointed at the British Market." Various references were made on that occasion to India, Africa and various places were named in Africa, such as Nigeria, where we could find a market for our milk and milk products. The Germans who had already tried those places got up and laughed at such a proposal. They said: "We tried those places but we came to realise that we were not a charitable institution; the market is there but we have nothing to get." That is my humble opinion, unless that trend has changed within the past two years. That is how I found it in the milk business. If anybody wants to get into the milk business or if anybody has high hopes of export markets, then I am not the one to depress him.

Speaking on this Vote last year, I explained the need for changing the Undeveloped Areas Act so that counties such as those I represent would get the chance to have new industries. I am glad to say that now through the enterprise of local people, a new industry is mooted for Mullingar. This is a meat factory which will benefit the farmers as well as the townspeople and the workers. We have high hopes that this factory will materialise some time next year. I ask the Minister to be prepared to give us all the help we will require when it comes to that time.

Last year, I also appealed to the Minister for Agriculture to give us the seed scheme which operated in other areas and now I want to express my gratitude to the Minister for making that scheme available to the farmers in North Longford. As they say, every little helps.

The Inny drainage scheme is a great boon to my constituency at the moment. I hope when it is finished, some other scheme will be made available by the Government for that part of the country. It is giving large-scale employment at the moment and greater benefits will come when swampy land becomes suitable for grazing and tillage. I should also like to compliment the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance on the working of this scheme.

I should like to remind the House that there is great uneasiness about increased rates on agricultural land. Deputy Browne also mentioned this. Rates can be a very heavy burden, although I am not unmindful of the reliefs given last year. I hope the day is not too far off when the Government will be in a position to give full derating on agricultural land. On the subject of rates, I am not forgetting people who need sympathy in this direction. I am speaking of people who are living in large useless buildings in towns and villages, whose businesses have been whittled down and whose backs are being broken by heavy rates. I do not know what can be done for them unless they form themselves into a body like other bodies which are doing all the shouting about rates.

Last Thursday morning, I saw looming before my eyes in the newspapers mention of the very large sum of £5 million to be devoted to setting up supermarkets. I wonder who is at the root of this venture? I wonder who is to benefit by these supermarkets? I wonder how decent business people, small and large, who have borne the brunt for so long of good business and bad business, whose families have been engaged in the same business for generations, will fare against such ventures? Are we to turn our backs on these people? Are we to leave the rural towns like a city about which I read recently where supermarkets have taken over and where flats have replaced business houses and where the streets have become carparks and the ladies and gentlemen who deal in the supermarkets walk from their cars from places which once throbbed with good business? The Government should look very carefully into this matter and see if by any chance this is investment by foreigners because I can tell you it is not for love of the ordinary people of Ireland that they are coming in to start supermarkets.

Some time ago and also recently, there was great talk from the Opposition, and from other people, too, who were not so much of the Opposition, about Germans buying up land and about "hot" money coming in. I have not heard one word about the business people who are being put on the road by the invasion of supermarkets. Is the sympathy created now for the farmers merely because they have a strong organisation? I am glad that they have a good strong organisation because I am a farmer myself, and a farmer of no small dimensions either, and I need all the sympathy that is coming to me, whether from the Government or from an association. But I would ask the people who shouted here before about the Germans to take up the cudgels now for the business people of rural Ireland and the city of Dublin and to see that they are not put on the road and that they will not be found standing at the labour exchange.

There is another matter to which I should like to refer, a matter which, thank God, has not got far but which has sounded the deathknell of a certain section who were always decent, hard-working people and who were never found at the labour exchange. Some time ago, some financiers got the idea that they would start a business here called the cattle mart and they would eliminate the middleman and the farmers would have an assured market for all time. They even got around some of the county medical officers of health to publish items saying that fairs held in the streets were not healthy. They succeeded to a certain extent in doing that. Is the market for the farmers any better? I think it is a whole lot worse for them and for the business people of Ireland. Together with that, they have put some decent, hardworking people out of business. Once more, I should like to remind the House that they should be careful about the supermarkets.

I did not intend to intervene in this debate but I have listened to the speeches made here during the past couple of days and, having done so, I feel it incumbent upon me to say something in relation to the matters that have been discussed. Listening to the Fine Gael speakers is a depressing experience. I can only regard them as a Party who project gloom and despondency. They have pursued a course of denigrating the Government and the efforts the Government are making to develop and improve our economy. No doubt their speeches are largely coloured by the fact that there is an impending by-election in North-East Dublin, a constituency I have the honour to represent, caused by the lamented passing of Deputy Belton.

In all the speeches made by the Fine Gael Party, there has been no specific proposal to reduce the large bill before the House. I should here like to compliment the members of the Labour Party, who have contributed to this discussion: they had a constructive approach and, if they had any criticism to make, it was that the bill is not large enough. Fine Gael, on the other hand, have endeavoured to represent to the country that our economy is unsound. Everybody knows we have a sound economy. It is through the efforts and the policy pursued by Fianna Fáil since they returned to office in 1957 that the economy has been made sound once more. To-day we can see the success of that policy.

I should like to refer to the housing position, on which some stress has been laid here. Fine Gael are trying to make political capital out of the present housing difficulty. They do not like to be reminded that it was their mishandling of the affairs of the country a number of years ago that produced some of the conditions that exist to-day. Every member of this House who is a member of a local authority has detailed the causes of the recession in the building industry in this city. I, and other members of the corporation, know well the reasons why building tapered off.

Since the return of the Fianna Fáil Government, building has been considerably stimulated. Today, there are over 1,000 houses and flats in course of construction. Another 3,000 are projected, and plans have been advanced for the building of a further 4,000. The effective waiting list is in the region of 4,000 or 5,000 applicants. With the impetus, encouragement and financial assistance given, I see no reason why the housing problem should not be solved within a reasonable period. The problem has been complicated somewhat by the fact that our emigrants are returning. On the waiting list to-day, there are at least 800 families who have returned from England, because of the employment opportunities resulting from the policy pursued by Fianna Fáil.

And the decreased employment in Britain, which is much more operative.

There are increased employment opportunities. The columns in the newspapers are full of advertisements seeking employment. The records of the Dublin Corporation stand in testimony of the situation.

In this Vote on Account, there is an additional sum of £400,000 for housing. That will help to stimulate further building activity by both local authority and private enterprise. That is in marked contrast to the experience in the Dublin Corporation when Fine Gael were the predominant partners in the Coalition Government some few years ago. In those depressing years, there were, in north-east Dublin, vacant building sites and uncompleted houses, a monument to the ineptitude of the Coalition Government. The builders emigrated to America, Canada and England and, of course, the building operatives followed them. We had the colossal figure of 100,000 unemployed. We had conditions which produced marches by the unemployed in this city.

The Deputy marched them all off to Birmingham.

Were they not lying on O'Connell Bridge?

They were able to elect from their ranks a member to this House.

The Deputy knows what happened to him. He had to emigrate.

Fine Gael have the cheek to criticise the efforts of the Fianna Fáil Government. I am giving the facts. The Coalition Government had tremendous unemployment and emigration was mounting week after week. Thanks to the efforts of this Government, and the policy pursued, that situation has now changed. That policy is outlined in the Vote on Account.

And in the White Paper Closing the Gap.

An increased sum of £8 million will be spent on stimulating agricultural production and helping the farmer to catch up and to find new markets for his products.

Progress reported; Committee to sit again.
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