Committee on Finance. - Resolution No. 11—General (Resumed). – Dáil Éireann (17th Dáil) – Thursday, 16 Apr 1964

Committee on Finance. - Resolution No. 11—General (Resumed).

Debate resumed on the following motion:

That it is expedient to amend the law relating to customs and inland revenue (including excise) and to make further provision in connection with finance (Minister for Finance).

Mr. S. Dunne

The Taoiseach yesterday, in the course of his attempt to justify this Budget, said it would probably be called the farmers' Budget. I have another name for it. I suggest its proper title is the 8½d. Budget because that is what the old age pensioners and the blind will get out of it in terms of purchasing power. The Taoiseach said he was satisfied that if his original advice had been taken when the ninth round discussions were initiated and if the agreed increase had been settled at seven per cent, the workers would be as well off today.

In other words, this was an admission of the fact that within a few short months the much boosted, advertised and exploited increase of 12 per cent— by which, incidentally, the bulk of the workers are bound hand and foot for more than two years—which was largely instrumental in gaining two by-elections for the Government, has been diminished by reason of galloping prices and Government taxation to a seven per cent increase within a couple of months. If we accept that proposition of the Taoiseach and apply it to the miserable, mean, paltry, poor, petty half-dollar——

Mr. Coughlan

Alliteration.

Mr. S. Dunne

It is not meant to be. It is purely a description of this thing. There is nothing very literary about this annual piece of infamy of the halfcrown perpetrated in this House. If we apply the proposition of the Taoiseach to the halfcrown, we find that all the old age pensioners and the blind have been given is 8½d. The total amount set out for what is euphemistically called relief of the old-aged and the blind—relief moryah: never was language put to more crooked use— is £750,000. But for the farmers, by way of rates relief alone, almost double that is provided in this Budget.

I understand the system of rates relief, if it works as it used to when it was my duty and obligation to journey among farmers and try to persuade them, by one means or another, that the people whom they employed were human beings, entitled to live. The system of rates relief is such that the farmer who benefits most by it is the man who has most property, most land and most workers. I understand it was based on a per capita basis so far as the employment of workers was concerned.

Why do this Government insult the poor with this annual halfcrown to the extent of £750,000 when they are able to give the farmers, and particularly the wealthy farmers who employ more people, double what they give to the old age pensioners, the blind and those in the social welfare classes? I do not know if everybody sees the plight of the old-aged in the same light as I do. I know there are people drawing old age pensions in rural Ireland who use them as a saving box, people who have made over their farms to their eldest sons thereby qualifying for the pension and exploiting it.

I am not talking about them. I am talking about the old age pensioners living in cities and towns at the end of their days, very often lonesome, perhaps single people living in tenement rooms or basement rooms, people living in third-rate lodging houses without a halfpenny, never having earned enough to be able to put one penny on top of another. These are the people I am talking about, the people who are to get 8½d. out of this Budget while we are giving the farmers twice as much in the relief of rates alone.

The farmers are organised and seem to be organised into a very effective pressure group. It is axiomatic that the Government who do not pamper and pet the agricultural community in this country have not much of a life to look forward to. The question of justice does not enter into it but the question of political expediency does. I want to raise the question of justice as against the question of political expediency. The Minister's statement contains a number of references to the so-called gap between the amounts earned in agriculture and the income earned in other occupations. I want to challenge this right away.

How is the farmer's income determined? Will anybody tell me that? How is it known what a farmer earns? Is it measured as other workers' incomes are measured, by reference to the amount of cash that is known to go into the house? If it is, there must be some new machinery to divine it, considering that there is no yardstick by which farmers' incomes are examined, such as income tax. The farmer does not have to pay any income tax.

The farmer is not subjected to a minute scrutiny of every halfpenny he earns as is the city worker, the rural labourer, the county council worker or the boy or girl from my constituency in Ballyfermot travelling into the city to work. How then is the farmer's income determined or discovered? Suppose there is some answer to this and there is some way of divination of this mystery, how is his standard of income to be assessed by the statisticians who background these Budgets with a phraseology calculated to mystify and deceive the ordinary people? How is the farmer's income to be determined particularly in relation to the essentials of life which come readily to him and which are not available to the people in the towns and cities and which come to the city worker at the highest possible price when everybody else, the farmer, the distributor and the shopkeeper, have had their rake-off?

On what basis is it claimed, as it is claimed on page 18 of the Minister's statement, that agricultural incomes in Ireland are lower than those earned in other occupations? I do not see any proof of that and I do not accept it. The standards of comfort which might have been said in other years to be available to city residents have become available to the agricultural community with the advances in electrification, television and so on. Even in my lifetime, which is still less than half a century, I can remember 25 and 30 years ago during the Economic War, living for some two years on a small farm of 15 acres. I remember the standard of living then. I remember how rare it was to get a bit of meat and how hard it was to keep up the standard of pseudo-respectability so dear to the hearts of the people in the rural areas by trying to keep the suit bought five years ago in some kind of presentable condition for Sunday Mass.

I remember the mud floors and the oil lamps and the general air of depression, gloom and hopelessness there was in the rural areas in those years. Going through these areas now, it is rare to see a thatched house and there is hardly a farmer's yard without its Consul, its Mercedes or Zephyr when it used to be the ass and cart. Good luck to them—they are entitled to it—but let us have an end of the poor mouth which they seem to have adopted as their badge.

It is nauseating to hear members of this House, whose special interest is the alleged representation of the farmers, shovelling the plamás on with No. 9 shovels. One would think that these gentlemen of the land—as if we did not all come from it—were in some special category, some special cocoon of their own, something very special, and that what they did in the fields was out of this world and absolutely superior to anything done in the cities and towns by way of labour and work. As I say, the people who allege they represent the farmers here have tried to create this impression. I am now going to try to destroy the illusion.

The farmers do not live in a vacuum and when they talk about the people in the cities and towns, the workers who have established for themselves reasonable working conditions and reasonable wages, they should talk in whispers because, if it were not for these workers in the towns and cities, the farmer would be in a very bad way indeed, no matter what produce he brought to the market. If this pool of consumers in the cities and towns were not there, and able to buy, what would be the condition of the Irish farmer?

Not alone is the worker, the artisan and the white collar worker in the cities and towns throughout the country, keeping the farmer going by buying his produce but he is also paying for the farmer's surplus produce as well. He is paying by way of taxation in this Budget, as he has paid by way of taxation in previous Budgets, to ensure that butter, for instance, which we over-produce, will be marketed and the farmer will be at no loss in relation to this over-production, with the incongruous, unjustifiable and grotesque end result that in some parts of Africa the people can eat Irish butter at less than 2/- per lb. while the people living at home, cheek by jowl with the producers, must pay double that, and sometimes more. Let us have a little less now of the ullagoning and the keening on behalf of that allegedly exclusive sect, the agricultural community.

No mention is made in this Budget of any effort to increase the wages of the farm workers. Not many of them are left, God knows. They are running from the land, and have been running from the land for the past 15 years, as fast as their legs can carry them; and Birmingham, and Coventry, and London, and Liverpool, and every shire in England bears witness to the treatment meted out to the Irish spalpeen or agricultural labourer. No stratum of society in this country has been more determinedly driven off the land than the Irish agricultural labourers, and all because of the disregard and the contempt shown for them by those who had the privilege to employ them.

An Ceann Comhairle

I should like to see the relevancy of this.

Mr. S. Dunne

I am saying, Sir, that there is nothing in this Budget that I can see—I think there should have been something in it—to encourage the retention of agricultural labourers on the land. Again, as far as I can see, they are a dying race. The agricultural labourer, in my opinion, has been a very important part of the backbone of this nation. He has been consistently ill-treated. In this Budget an effort is being made to relieve the farmer from the point of view of rates and to increase the price of his milk but there is not one word said about the agricultural labourer and no concern shown for him.

I referred to the Taoiseach's admission about the effective reduction of the 12 per cent to seven per cent. Everybody listening to him yesterday heard him admit that the increase of 12 per cent was only an illusion. I remember years ago—I think I was in the House or, if not, I read the report —when a former distinguished member of this House, General Mulcahy, recited here a conversation he had had with the founder of the Fianna Fáil Party, the former Deputy de Valera, now President de Valera. It was an interesting sidelight on the recent history of Ireland because General Mulcahy claimed that, as a young man, he had been advised by the then President of the Republic that, if he intended to continue in politics, he should read The Prince.

Mr. T. Lynch

I was here in the House when that was said.

Mr. S. Dunne

This Budget shows clearly, to me at any rate, that the principles, if they can be so described, enunciated by Machiavelli in relation to political life, did not cease with the transition of the eminent personage I have mentioned to another exalted office. The tradition is being carried on. It is quite obvious now, perfectly obvious to me and to any thinking person, that, after the North-East Dublin by-election last year, when it was plain that the people were incensed because of the 2½ per cent turnover tax, remembering that that constituency was the strongest Fianna Fáil constituency in the country, and seeing that it could not be held against an aroused people, it was decided something had to be done.

The Machiavellian mind was set to work. The gap is closed. It is time to go ahead—the green light. Although the unions had to do the horse work of negotiations and the horse work of getting the workers to accept the 12 per cent—no mean feat as anybody knows who has had any experience— the hordes of Party ward heelers, very efficient men, descended, mainly from the north of Ireland and the plains of Kildare, and proceeded to convince the people, the innocent, simple, country people of Kildare, that this wonderful stroke of fortune—the minimum £1 and, in some cases, up to 35/- a week increases—was the brainchild of our new political saviour, Deputy Seán Lemass. At times in Kildare, mark you, it became hard for the people to distinguish Deputy Seán Lemass from the late President Kennedy; that ploy was engaged in as well.

The Taoiseach, a very clever man, a very active and energetic man, a man whom many have to admire in many aspects of his character, and I number myself among them, was in this instance Machiavellian in the extreme. He saw the situation. He said to himself: "I must recover the fortunes of this Party or else it will sink forever." He conceived this notion of convincing the people he was the architect of the 12 per cent, all the time knowing—as he must have known because no man has had such an intimate experience of the ebb and flow of prices and demand; no man has such a comprehensive knowledge of the forces which create the cost of living, which increase or reduce, which repress or excite, and so on—that the step he was taking was going to incite price increases and that by Government action, he would secure a reduction of the 12 per cent to what it is at the moment, seven per cent. I have not the slightest doubt that before this year is out the seven per cent which stands at the moment will be very much further reduced because no attempt has been made, beyond a passage at arms between the Department of Industry and Commerce and the Sugar Company, to put any kind of brake on prices; rather the reverse.

As I said at the outset, to me this Budget is significant for giving a miserly 8½d., which is what I estimate the old and the blind are getting from it. It could be said that the principle upon which the ninth round of wage increases has operated is one of giving with one hand and taking back twice as much with the other.

I have a particular interest, as I think is known by now to a few members of the House, in the largest working-class area of this country, that is, Ballyfermot. The major problem there for many years has been the lack of housing which affects every second family in that vast housing estate. Hundreds of the houses in Ballyfermot hold Corporation sub-tenants. I was hoping this Budget would show some hope that these people would be housed, that there would be some evidence of a departure from the methods which have produced the inertia which has characterised Dublin Corporation particularly and perhaps other local authorities throughout the country over the past number of years. I was hoping that some new break-through on the housing problem would be apparent in this Budget. I was hoping, for instance, that the Government would provide 100 per cent house mortgages for the sub-tenants of Ballyfermot and Corporation schemes throughout the city and on the borders of the city to enable them to buy houses. There is no mention here of any such progressive step.

I have been assured by the Dublin City Manager that out of some £13 million advanced to borrowers under the Small Dwellings Acts by Dublin Corporation over the past 15 or 16 years, the amount of defaulting has been negligible. Therein is the best possible argument for the giving of 100 per cent loans to newly-married couples, to small families and in some cases very big families who are forced to live as sub-tenants in the Ballyfermot scheme. In one house I know of, there are 22 people in four rooms, and 21 people in another house down the road. These conditions seem to be let ride and nothing done about them.

This Budget is designed for the farmers in order to try to stop them from marching up and down embarrassing people: get them off the Bridge of Athlone and do not have them marching around Merrion Square in their thousands as they used to do in the inter-Party Government days. That is one of the purposes of this £5,500,000 which is provided here. Another purpose is to project the Taoiseach as the farmer's friend. It was obvious when the Taoiseach found his present high estate, there was a prejudice against him in the country. Many people in the agricultural community, particularly, felt that this was a Dublin man who knew all about industry, who knew all about the city, but whose horizons did not extend beyond the city boundaries. That prejudice was there and to a large extent it is still there. Fianna Fáil now feel, particularly after the Cork by-election, that, having the urban population in their pocket, they must convince the farmers that the Taoiseach is their friend: "Look at what he is giving you, a present of £5,500,000." I suppose it could be described as a legitimate political ploy—perhaps none of us is so ingenuous as to eschew that kind of activity at certain times—but when that is put in contradistinction to the treatment of old people, when one sees wealthy farmers being bribed to vote for the Government at the expense of the old age pensioners and the blind who live in misery, it is not a commendable practice. On the contrary, it is a shameful thing.

This Budget also contains provision for increases in the prices of petrol and oil. This will hit many thousands. I would say there are 200,000 workers in this city alone, apart from the country, who have been forced to buy mopeds and bicycles—for which I understand, they use a mixture of petrol and oil—to travel to and from work because of the policy of CIE which has been, when any problem arises: ransack the pockets of the Dublin workers; let us provide transport for the agricultural community as cheaply as we can. This is another political effort to court the agricultural community. Whenever CIE want to redress a balance, want to remedy any awkward financial situation, the simple thing is done. All the gentry at Kings-bridge who arrive every morning in their cars, who do not like travelling in buses, know very well that people from Ballyfermot who work at the North Wall, or, perhaps, in Blackrock, have to pay around £1 a week for one individual to travel to work by bus. They say: "We will take a few more shillings from them. They must pay it. What can they do? No year goes by in which bus fares are not increased and, as a result, more and more people have been driven to the hire-purchase companies to obtain alternative means of transport such as autocycles, mopeds, and cheap old cars which can be more expensive in the heel of the hunt. They are the people who will be badly hit by the increase in the price of petrol and oil.

The young married people who are very commendably trying to buy their houses in Walkinstown and other suburban areas of the city were looking for some relief in income tax. It is not here. There is no income tax relief for them. The last halfpenny is being wrung from them. Over the past couple of months since this 12 per cent increase, moryah, was given, the following items have increased in price: bread, milk, sugar, bus fares, rents, rates; now petrol, oil, cigarettes and the pint. It almost recalls the calamitous Budget of 1952 when, at one fell swoop, the food subsidies were abolished and 30,000 people demonstrated in O'Connell Street. The following year the Government were abolished, so to speak, and put out of office. History has a habit of repeating itself.

It was to be expected that to help the working classes there might have been an increase in children's allowances. There is no evidence that that was considered. There is a further increase in the price of pigs of 8/- and 5/- per cwt. Surely that will increase the price of bacon to the consumer. In very sanguine fashion, the Minister referred to the increase in the price of petrol and oil and said: "...bus passenger fares should not be affected." What guarantee have we that they will not be affected?

Mr. T. Lynch

Of course, they will.

I am completely satisfied from my observations—and I think any reasonable man must be—that what we have seen here is another exercise in Machiavellian, clever politics. It is clever politics, if you like, to set out conditions developing in Europe which any far-seeing man such as the Taoiseach would see and respond to. Any man of perspicacity must develop to meet these conditions. European and other economies are prospering and the demands are there. We must sell our exports and let us seize the situation and take political advantage of it. Let us harness the situation with a set of so-called principles for economic expansion. Let us impose these on the situation and claim that we have created it. That is what has happened. These so-called programmes have been tailor-made to fit existing conditions. I am convinced they have had little or no effect whatsoever in so far as our present relative economic comfort is concerned.

Could something else not be done rather than to deprive the Dublin worker of his pint? Was the economy in such a parlous condition that the pint had to be put almost beyond reach of any save the most highly paid workers? The bottom price of a pint of black porter in Dublin will now be 2/1d. Did we ever think we would see the day and did I ever think I would see the day when my distinguished colleague from County Dublin would support that? I never did. It represents a tremendous expense not least of all upon Deputies who have to buy them for other people but it will represent a tremendous expense on the people. I think it will put the pint out of their mouths and put them out of the pubs.

It may be that the Minister is possessed by a Father Mathew zeal but the pint is a very simple pleasure. It induces a mellow, relaxed feeling. There was a time when it was calculated to set the brain on fire but that gravity has gone from it for many a day. If anything, it is no more than a sedative. The working man and the ordinary person and large numbers of white collar workers in Dublin enjoy drinking the pint at the end of the day, talking about things, reasonable things; but now they are being deprived of that. I do not know why it happened.

The pint of plain black porter is one of the few things that we produce here from, one might say, the grass roots. It employs the agricultural community in the production of barley. It employs the people who transport it. It employs the large numbers who work in that excellent and admirable and much-to-be-commended establishment, Guinness's famous brewery. That family is to be commended for having done so much social good in so many ways, quite apart from employment, in this city. Who could calculate how many thousands of people it employs in its distribution and sale? What are we trying to do? Is this a deliberate effort to kill the whole thing stone dead?

Surely the pint could have been exempted, at any rate? One entirely agrees that imported spirits should be taxed, and should have been taxed long ago. It is completely wrong to put another imposition on the ordinary pint of stout which was the sole relaxation of the working people and of many thousands also of middle income white collar workers. It is very wrong to do that. It is socially wrong.

I shall not say that nearly all publicans are unscrupulous but unscrupulous publicans will get ld. out of it and will increase it beyond even the penny. This increase in the price of drink has far-reaching social implications which I do not propose to develop now. It has implications which could affect family life adversely. This increase in the price of the pint of stout is something which the Minister should not, in my view, have undertaken at all. It is unjust, unwise and most unfair to the ordinary man.

The Taoiseach is trying to court the farmers. This is another wayside mossy seat on the road where that courtship continues. A Deputy claimed that this would be called a farmer's Budget. Now, I want to label it the wretched 8½d Budget. That is all it is. It is a deplorable and pitiable thing that all we could find for our most helpless people is such a miserable sum.

Mr. P.J. Burke

I did learn something from my colleague. The one thing he did not give us any credit for when he was speaking here——

Mr. S. Dunne

Before the Deputy proceeds, I should like to say that I have just received this telegram from the County Dublin vintners asking that the tax on black beer be rescinded. I hope Deputy Burke will refer to this. It is from a very old friend of his.

An Ceann Comhairle

Deputy Dunne has made his speech.

Mr. P.J. Burke

The Deputy did not give us any credit at all for the wonderful prosperity of the nation under Fianna Fáil. I see on the papers that even though tradesmen are offered 9/- or 10/- an hour, they cannot be got, and neither can builders' labourers be found. I throw my mind back to 1957. Where I live in Santry 300 houses were left unfinished at that time. To-day there is an air of prosperity in the country and the nation is on the onward march economically, socially and politically. The Fianna Fáil Government, under the leadership of the Taoiseach and backed by the Party, are responsible for bringing that about.

I remember the economic depression there was in the country in 1956-1957 when we succeeded in taking over the reins of office. During that period there was no money left to pay for old age pensions or widows' and orphans' pensions. No business man could get credit. Building tradesmen and labourers were leaving the country. We had over 1,800 tenants leaving Dublin Corporation houses. They did not even give up the keys to the Corporation. No schools or hospitals were being built. Road grants were cut down and there were pot-holes in the roads. There was no money for anything.

We had a very bad school in Brittas. It was a disgrace to Ireland. I remember asking the then Minister for Education, General Mulcahy, what he was going to do about that school. We had succeeded in getting a site and everything else was cleared up. He told me there was no money there and that you could not take the trousers off a highlander. I complimented him for making an honest statement.

It is all very fine for the Opposition to be critical of Fianna Fáil economic policy. It is that policy which has brought the country back. It has inspired confidence in every section of the people. Quite a number of our people have returned from England. I know, as a member of the Housing Committee of Dublin Corporation, that hundreds have come back during the four years I have been there. That, coupled with the dangerous buildings, has created the housing crisis we have to deal with. I have been on deputations to the Minister for Local Government regarding housing in the city and county of Dublin. The Minister assured the deputation, and assured me personally, that there was no shortage of money for housing. The only thing the Minister is concerned about is that we are not building quickly enough. That is a matter of personal concern to him and the Government. Since last June over 1,140 people have been rehoused.

The last Deputy spoke about sub-tenants in the Corporation area. About six months ago the Minister for Local Government made a clear statement on that issue. He said that where sub-tenants were in overcrowded conditions the Corporation or county council would get the full two-thirds subsidy in respect of rehousing them. The Minister will not allow anything to stand in the way of the rehousing programme. Abuses some years ago in regard to subtenants had to be stopped. I know of one case where eleven families were rehoused out of the same house, whereas other people should have been housed. In 1952, the Department of Local Government decided that they would only give the two-thirds subsidy in respect of people living in dangerous condemned buildings, in houses unfit for human habitation or of those suffering from some disease. The position has now been changed by the Minister's decision to give the two-thirds subsidy to all and sundry. That is as far as we can go.

Deputy Carroll is a member of the Housing Committee. He knows we are trying to get more sites and trying to get builders to do the job more quickly. There is all the money required to build the houses needed. That is a big change. Today we are even short of building craftsmen and labourers. That shows the prosperity of the nation.

The last speaker said that the workers who went down to Kildare convinced the people there to do what they did. The electors of Kildare are intelligent people. I worked there for three weeks. I admired the way they listened to every argument you put up. The vote of the people of Kildare and Cork was a true vote. They put the national interest first. They were fooled by the inter-Party Government's promises in 1948-51 and again in 1954-57. Any of them who had regard for their families or who wanted to see the nation go ahead were not going to allow themselves be fooled again. For that reason they voted in the national interest. If we have failed in anything, the failure is not our fault. The economic recovery of this nation has been really wonderful from 1957 onwards. It took us some time to get on our feet.

The last Deputy who spoke said if we did nothing at all, economic conditions in Europe would ensure a sale for our products today. If we had no representatives abroad, if we sat down and did nothing here, surely the Deputy who represents the Labour Party, does not think we could sell in an international market unless we were geared economically to do it, unless the Government gave our exporters a lead, that it can be done just by sending some products out to a foreign country and that they will be bought there. Does he not realise all the work and salesmanship involved before that point is reached? Does he not realise travellers have to go abroad and that our diplomatic missions abroad have to carry out all these negotiations?

These are the things we organised for the betterment of the people of this nation. We hope to continue to organise and we hope to see the day when the economic trend will improve year after year. We are all concerned about our adverse trade balance. We are most anxious to see that we sell at least as much as we import, and possibly more if we can manage it.

The Deputy referred to the subsidy to farmers for their agricultural produce. It is all right to make that statement here in the Dáil. It may go down very well in urban areas throughout the country and in this city, but the wellbeing of the man employed in Dublin, of the man living in Ballyfermot, Dorset Street or Finglas, is linked with that of the farmers. If the farmers were not able to export their agricultural produce, the standard of living would be very low here. Deputy Dunne knows that very well.

Our economic conditions would be very poor unless we were able to encourage our farmers to gear themselves to sell more and more of their agricultural products in order to keep our adverse trade balance right. That and the tourist industry, plus our industrial output, are responsible for the standard of living we have here today. The people in Ballyfermot, the people in Finglas, the people in the remainder of County Dublin and in the city of Dublin, would fare very badly if anything happened to our farmers. If we fail in our agricultural output, we have had it. What else can this Government, or any intelligent Government do, but try to subsidise the farmers to a greater degree so that they may export more and do better for themselves and the nation as a whole?

Any man who has land should realise it is the nation's land and that he should at least play his part. If he can do anything to help, and gets any encouragement from the Government, he should do it. While I am on that subject, I want to say I am most anxious to see that the great co-operative movement, especially among small farmers, should go ahead. We have tried it in my constituency. It is getting under way in North County Dublin, but I should like to see more of that co-operation among the farmers throughout the country.

Farmers are buying machinery at £2,000 and more through the Agricultural Credit Corporation and other sources. They are paying for it over four to five years. This machinery would do the work of four or five farmers with a good system of co-operation and co-operative marketing. All these things are coming and we have to move with the times: tempora mutantur, times change and we have to change with them. Farmers here will have to adjust themselves to changing times just as farmers in other countries of Europe must. If we are ever to get into the Common Market, we will have to have a competitive spirit amongst our farmers here.

Great progress has been made in our time and great progress will be made in the future, please God. People say we are a farmers' Government. We are not. We are a Government who are responsible for every section of our people, irrespective of class or creed, and we want to be fair to every section as far as we can. I do not want to see these increases in taxation and neither does the Minister for Finance. He would prefer to come to the House and present a Budget without any taxation increases. But what is the use of carrying on the hypocrisy that was carried on by the inter-Party Government when they were here? They failed to balance their Budgets. We are trying to be honest with the whole nation. We are trying to do certain things, and we will do them. If there is anybody who can stand up in the city of Dublin or in County Dublin and say that we have been more generous to one section of the people than another, that we have been more flathúlach to one section than to another, I will challenge him to a public debate on the point.

I also want to refer to the agricultural labourer. Everything we do to help the farmers will also help the agricultural labourer. I should like to see, like other speakers here, a development amongst the agricultural community that would enable the farm labourer to get at least £9, £10 or £11 a week. I should like to see that economic development brought about. We would then have a levelling up as between the industrial and the agricultural worker. That is one of the things which concern every one of us. The farm labourer is as dear to me as the farmer or the industrial worker. We are concerned about how best we can improve the lot of the farm labourer. It is the concern of our Party; it is the concern of the Government; and it is the concern of the Minister for Finance.

We have set ourselves the task of trying to solve these problems and we hope some day to solve them, provided the present prosperous situation is maintained. It has been said that it was the trade unions which succeeded in getting the increase of 12 per cent in wages. It was stated, even in Kildare, that the Taoiseach had nothing to do with this increase in wages. May I say that the Taoiseach and Leader of the House, when he was Minister for Industry and Commerce, did much for the workers of this country and for the uplifting of those workers by the numerous industrial Acts he introduced here?

He created industrial employment through the establishment of new factories and by making greater efforts to get into the export market. No man could have done more for the workers than he did. He knew that as a national Party we should look after the wellbeing of every section. When he saw that the nation could afford it, he brought representatives of employers and employees together to hammer out a national wage agreement.

In the past I have been associated with a number of disputes and I can honestly say the Taoiseach did a great job on that occasion. As a result of his efforts, there was agreement on a 12 per cent increase. I hope more such conferences will take place in the future because it is by agreements of that kind that the nation can be saved the destructive tactics which bring about misunderstanding and illwill. When the lead is given from above, when parties are brought together in an endeavour to achieve worthwhile agreement, then the nation is going ahead. The spirit of goodwill and common understanding cannot be bought by money. It is very easy, on the other hand, to purchase illwill.

Despite what speakers at Cork and Kildare as well as in the House had to say, the Taoiseach did a very good job in initiating that conference between workers and employers. The results were wonderful and show again that the prosperity of the nation is increasing. This is due, of course, to greater production in both the agricultural and industrial sectors, plus an improvement in the tourist position. It is a combination of these that is responsible for our present prosperity.

It is our fondest desire that this wonderful economic progress will continue. Whatever they say about the second phase of our economic programme, it had to be put in book form. Matters concerned with our economic position had to be considered from every aspect, and our programme is criticised only because it was put into book form. We can stand by the progress we have made. I can see in every phase of our industrial sector today nothing but progress.

In 1958, had I the money to buy land, I would be a wealthy man today. The land was there, valueless. Today land in Dublin is changing hands at as high as £10,000 an acre. What is responsible for that? The economic prosperity of this nation is responsible. In 1956, had I been farseeing and a keen business man, I could have bought that land for £100 an acre or less. It was given away at that time as being of no value. Today, land even far out in County Dublin, is going for £1,000 or £2,000 an acre.

The purchasing power is there. Our people have undergone an economic uplift. There is greater competition for participation in the good things to come. In face of all that, we are asked what we have done. Let us consider first the question of the social welfare services. Every year since we came in we have succeeded in increasing the reliefs to all those sections—old age pensioners, widows, orphans, the blind and all the others. We have succeeded in doing some good for those and if our economic progress continues at its present rate, we shall be able to do something really worth while in the future.

Last year, Opposition members voted against the increases we gave in this section. I suppose they will vote against them again this year. Indeed some Fine Gael Deputies who represent farming communities voted against farm subsidies. It is hard to understand these things. I thought the Leader of the Fine Gael Party yesterday would give us some enlightenment on his Party's plans for the future. I welcome the criticism and am most anxious to know what national programmes the Leaders of Fine Gael and Labour have.

All they have given is destructive criticism, whether it refers to a Budget or to any other sector of Fianna Fáil's programme. If we could only get some constructive criticism, I should be only too eager to listen to Deputy Dillon. When he did get an opportunity last year of putting forward a programme, he told the people in a general way that he would give them so much more. I put down a question seeking information on what this would cost and found it would be in the region of £77 million. Deputy Dillon was to do that without increasing taxation one iota.

That was the national lead we got from the Leader of Fine Gael. It was the type of stuff which implied: "Anything you can do I can do better". They will not tell us how they will do it. It is the easiest thing in the world to make a statement of that kind. When I began, I said the prosperity of the nation is obvious to everybody. The purchasing power of our people, their standard of living, have increased.

In particular, I should like to comment on what we are doing for education, even if I would like to see twice as much spent in that field. An educated people will think for the nation as well as for themselves and the nation will accordingly march onwards. A lot of extra money has been spent on new schools and I welcome the recent statement of the Minister for Education that additional grants will be available for the building of secondary schools. That was overdue because for too long religious orders have been trying to carry on in face of rising costs. I welcome also the increased grants for roads in county Dublin. That is also a national advance.

I am concerned here with one thing and one thing only, that this nation is going ahead, that the Minister for Finance has made arrangements through the Budget that the nation will continue to go ahead and prosper and that we will get more and more into the export markets with our industrial and agricultural products, that more and more tourists will come to this country. Our people should be re-educated with one object in view, that they should put all they can into the country and do all they can to improve it in their time. That is the object and aim of the members of this Party.

Mr. Cosgrave

In considering this Budget, we have to examine what has been achieved by the turnover tax. When that tax was introduced last year, the reason given by the Government was that the traditional sources of taxation would not yield adequate revenue. The turnover tax came into operation and it has been followed by rising prices and rising costs of production. These rising prices were subsequently followed by the wage and salary adjustments arrived at by agreement by the employer-trade union conference which brought into operation the 12 per cent increase. The increase was stated to be for the purpose of compensating those affected by the rise in prices and to enable wage and salary earners to pay the increased costs resulting from the turnover tax.

That adjustment was not merely welcomed by the recipients but was regarded as compensation for the increases in prices and costs. Within a very short time, that wage and salary adjustment was followed by more price increases and during the past few weeks, and during all the early months of this year, price increases have followed each other with extraordinary rapidity and monotonous regularity. These have now been followed by the new taxes on the specific commodities and goods which, only last year, the Government said could not bear any additional taxation. More recently this year, in the early weeks of this year, statements were made to the effect that the turnover tax was necessary because the usual sources of revenue would not bear any tax increases.

Now these items, described as traditional sources of revenue, have been taxed again. Added to the burdens imposed on bread, butter, food, clothes, medicines and other goods, additional taxes have now been put on petrol, tobacco, beer and spirits. Having reached that situation, it is appropriate to inquire what precisely is the Government policy and what do the Government set out to achieve. Little over a year ago, a White Paper was introduced which had the title Closing the Gap. It was asserted at that time that no further wage or salary adjustments could be contemplated, that if they were to be granted, they would jeopardise our trading position and raise the cost of national production, impede agricultural and industrial expansion and interfere with our competitive capacity.

In a short time that particular line of argument was eliminated because the Taoiseach said the gap had been closed and not merely had it been closed but the situation justified the increase in wages and salaries. We now find that not merely have these rises in prices attributable to the turnover tax come into operation but we have in this Budget substantial additional taxation, taxation on the commodities that have been regarded as traditional sources of revenue and an additional heavy impost announced yesterday by the Department of Posts and Telegraphs. This means that we must now have one of the most expensive postal services in Europe. It costs fivepence to send a letter from one part of this city to another, from one part of this country to another. It only costs one penny more to send a letter from this country to Europe. That is an indication of the extent to which our postal charges have been increased. I need not cite the other charges.

One of the matters adverted to in the report of OECD relating to its economic survey of this country is the need to maintain economic stability. If we are to maintain the rate of growth of economic expansion under the economic programme being put into operation, that economic stability is essential. It is obvious from the substantial increases in taxation that have taken place this year and that are further added to by this Budget that the prospect of economic stability is extremely remote. The new charges must press on industry. They must, and will, affect distribution costs. The tax on petrol and the increase in Post Office charges will both have a direct effect on shopkeepers, traders and business concerns engaged in distribution because these will all have to communicate and distribute. All these charges, following on the other added charges put into operation last year, will react considerably on costs of production. But that is not the whole story.

Last year the increases brought about were also followed by substantial increases in social welfare contributions. Taking the combined total from employers and employees, these increases amounted to a sum of something over £7 millions. In fact, the figures increased from £5.5 millions to £13 millions. That substantial increase must be borne by both employers and employees.

So far as prices are concerned. I think it is fair to ask what actual policy the Government are pursuing. It is generally recognised that price stability is a desirable objective. In the past, on some occasions, price stability was interfered with; on two specific occasions, the Korean war and the Suez Crisis, external factors jeopardised price stability and interfered with the price situation because they operated to such an extent that no Government and no Department could regulate or nullify their effects. On these occasions the price structure was interfered with by external factors, factors outside the control of any Administration.

In recent years import prices have shown generally a fairly stable condition. There was for a period, in fact, a drop in import prices. During the past couple of years, there has been no serious change. But we have here an internal price inflation. If we are to have a sound incomes policy, we must plan for stability in prices. We must ensure that Government action does not interfere with or jeopardise that desirable objective.

One of the major defects in the agreement arranged in regard to salaries and wages is that it was decided by the Government rather than by direct negotiation, that direct negotiation which has proved so satisfactory in the past between representatives of employers' organisations and the Trade Union Congress in matters of this sort. In certain European countries a system has been adopted whereby negotiations of this sort are conducted between the employers' organisations and the trade unions, with Government representation as well. On this occasion, for the first time here, there was a departure from the existing practice; the Government intervened directly. From the point of view of achieving a quick solution, that may have been satisfactory, but it is obvious that intervention of that character must carry with it political considerations and must be motivated by such considerations as well as by political expediency. In fact, haphazard intervention of that sort is open to abuse and, having once started on the slippery slope, it is difficult to see what ultimate solution will be adopted.

The important thing, I believe, is to plan for stability in prices, a stability essential if we are to have a sound incomes policy. In turn, a sound incomes policy must be based on a realistic approach to prices, followed by a stable incomes policy. So long as prices continue to rise, so long will wage and salary demands inevitably follow. Price rises which are irregular and excessive, stimulated or touched off by Government policy, must produce wage and salary increases which are irregular and which are unrelated to production costs or to the ability of the economy to meet them. In our situation import prices have been reasonably stable and price rises have been due in the main to internal factors brought about by Government policy and because of the fact that, over the past number of years, successive Budgets have brought substantial additional taxation.

One of the claims made for the imposition of the turnover tax was that it was necessary to spend money on certain desirable objectives such as the improvement of social conditions, and investment in productive enterprises. The social objectives which should predominate appear to me to be housing, education and social welfare benefits. The annual statistics published by the Central Statistics Office show that during the past three years the total number of houses built by State aid, both local authority and under the Small Dwellings Act, amounted to a little over half the number built during the last three years of inter-Party Government. The figure for the three years of inter-Party Government is 31,000 houses in round numbers. During the past three years, the figure is 17,000.

Whatever policy is being operated, up to the present, there has been a slowing down in the building of houses. The best achieved during the lifetime of the previous Government has not been maintained. I know that it is proposed this year in the Capital Budget to spend £4,500,000 more on housing. That is welcome. But it is a deplorable situation that not alone in this city but also in my constituency of Dún Laoghaire and Rathdown there is a very serious housing shortage, so serious that the waiting list is not alone not being cleared and people moved from insanitary and overcrowded conditions but is overstrained by the numbers coming along and it will be many years before local authorities see anything like a diminution in the numbers awaiting rehousing.

So far as education is concerned, there has been a great deal of talk in recent months about the need for a new approach. I have consistently advocated that and it is disappointing to find that the proportion of the Supply Estimates spent on education up to this year was only 12 or 13 per cent. This year it will be something over 14 per cent compared with 30 years ago when it was 19 or 20 per cent. It is true that the actual expenditure on education has increased but the proportion of the Supply Estimates being spent on education is still less than it was when nothing like the present public interest was focussed on it or the public investment which is nowadays regarded as essential in education and essential in planning for the future.

It is indeed one of the significant changes that there is a general recognition that if we are to invest in the future, we must invest in education and that there is a need for providing adequate means of educating all those who are prepared to avail not only of primary education but secondary, vocational or university education. In the past six or seven years, the total amount of money borrowed here has increased substantially and the fact that despite that heavy borrowing, fewer schools were built than during the previous period is surely an indictment of the approach made to this pressing problem. The decision to provide funds to assist in the building of secondary schools is a welcome development but, as I say, the percentage of the Supply Estimates at present being spent on education is lower than it was many years ago and has not kept pace with expenditure in other spheres of public investment.

As well as the taxes imposed by the Budget and those advanced by the Department of Posts and Telegraphs, this year has also seen a very substantial rise in the rates demand by all local authorities. One of the claims made consistently by Government spokesmen and Fianna Fáil spokesmen is that conditions have improved here. A very significant figure is contained in Table 15 of Economic Statistics for the Budget, 1964. It shows that in 1963 there were over 70,000 fewer people at work than in 1956 but those who are still employed and those who live here have to bear a substantially increased burden. The increase in rates, the increases imposed in respect of Post Office charges, and so on, have all to be borne by a smaller number in employment. These added burdens will press on the costs of production and will affect industry in particular and indeed agriculture as well.

If we are to compete effectively in the changed conditions in Europe, it is essential that we should complete under the most favourable conditions. I have consistently advocated the need for a review of our trading arrangements and I was glad to hear from the Minister in the course of his Budget Statement that it was proposed to renew our negotiations with the GATT.

One of the features of our trading arrangements with Europe over the past number of years, almost since the war, has been the fact that the European countries with which we have trading arrangements, and particularly the European countries who are members of the Six, sell four times as much to us as we buy from them. That trend has continued pretty well unaltered and the fact is that these trading arrangements have now been in existence for many years. In the main, they have been conducted under bilateral agreements negotiated in the post-war period and renewed with minor modifications on a yearly or longer basis.

The time has now arrived when these agreements should be reviewed and reviewed in the light of the changed conditions which now exist, in the light of the decisions which were taken that if a new approach to trading problems is to be secured, then the most satisfactory approach would be a multilateral arrangement under which all the participating countries would benefit by the same conditions and the same arrangement.

One of the defects in the existing machinery is that we buy substantially more from these countries than they buy from us. It is true that these agreements have in them scope for expansion and scope for further trading but in practice it has been found the pattern remains the same. The decision now to renew our application for membership of GATT will bring other questions into consideration, in particular, the question of our most favoured trading arrangements with Britain. In that regard we must consider whether a tax such as is imposed in the Budget on imported spirits is in conflict with, or in any sense affects, the terms of those arrangements. I believe there is ample justification for that decision but whether these taxes, which are protective rather than revenue, can be justified is a matter that will have to be considered.

We should ensure that the terms of these agreements apply in practice as well as in theory. It has been our experience under the OECD and under the old OEEC in regard to the 90 per cent liberalisation of trade that this country subscribed to that arrangement not merely in theory but in practice but that some other countries who are competitiors and who had accepted the liberalisation measures applied administrative or other devices to evade the effects of it. These administrative and other devices nullified or weakened the effects of that liberalisation and it must be our constant endeavour to ensure that in any future trading arrangements, respect will be paid to the terms of the agreement in practice as well as in theory.

The increases in social welfare benefits certainly are dismally small. It is a matter that has been the subject of comment that although wage and salary increases which were given to other categories in the community took effect from February or the early part of this year, the social welfare benefits and the increases granted to pensioners, will apply later in the year. I believe that the economic situation, the cost of living, the difficulty of meeting rising prices, the problems presented by the increases of prices of all goods, particularly food, clothes, shoes and medicines, justified a much more substantial increase in amounts of benefit.

It is easy, of course, to say we would have been glad to do more. The fact is that, compared with other sections of the community, the weaker sections, the old, the widowed, all those categories, have received less generous treatment. I believe there is a very strong moral justification, on any examination of the national accounts, for paying better benefits, and paying them more expeditiously to the weaker sections of the community. The wage increases which have been granted have already been reduced by the price rises which have already occurred and by the impositions in this Budget.

I agree with the view that has been expressed that a penny on the pint, particularly on black beer, hits the old age pensioners, the workers, and the lower paid sections of the community. That 1d. on black beer has raised the price to the point at which their ability to pay for the drink they have been able to enjoy up to now will be affected. I believe that not merely is that decision unfair, but that it should be possible to work out some price arrangement which would exempt black beer from the increase.

The fact that the increased social welfare benefits will not be paid until later in the year means that they will be illusory for the weaker sections of the community, and in the meantime they will have to bear substantial increases in prices.

Mr. Carroll

To say I am disappointed in this Budget is to put it very mildly. It may be said that it could have been worse. I voted against last year's Budget. A colleague of mine said that unless the old age pensioners received an increase of a "dollar", he would vote against the Budget. They did not receive a "dollar" last year and they did not receive a "dollar" this year. I would have expected that the Minister would have been able to give some relief to the retired pensioners whose plight is deplorable at the moment.

I stressed the fact that I was opposed to a 2½ per cent tax on essential foodstuffs. While I have not been given credit for it by the Press and others, I did not support the 2½ per cent tax. I agreed with a 2½ per cent tax on commodities other than foodstuffs. Surely there should be some relief for the weaker sections of the community, though I am not suggesting that they should go around with a badge on their coats? The Minister may have his difficulties but we can find £500,000 for a display pavilion at the World Fair in America. Surely that money could have been devoted to assisting the weaker sections of the community? I understand it is expected that 100,000 people will leave this country to see that exhibition. The Minister has no money but we can spend vast sums on a building at the exhibition in New York. For what, may I ask?

There is no hope for retired persons who have been denying themselves even black beer over the years. They do not get the 12 per cent increase. Surely the old age pensioners at least should get relief in respect of the essentials of life? I would have no objection to a purchase tax and, indeed, I know how well it works, but I object to a 2½ per cent tax on foodstuffs. The poorer sections of the community have contributed largely to making this country what it is, and this is the reward they get. Deputy Burke says the country is on its feet. The old age pensioners are on their knees, and I guess they will never be able to get on their feet again.

I will not speak against the penny on the pint. I am not too concerned about the increase in the price of cigarettes. Let us look at the increase in the price of petrol. That is a move I would not have expected from a man with the analytical mind of the Minister for Finance. It is an increase which will hit retired people who want to go out at least once a week. It will hit the small business man. Consideration has been given to CIE because of the fact that an increase would have been passed back on to that oft-spoken of section of Dublin, the people of Ballyfermot. I am beginning to understand now why a pub in Ballyfermot realised £87,000. Ballyfermot now gets more publicity in this House than any other part of the country. It used to be the Gaeltacht that got the publicity.

I hope that in addition to the £4 million made available for housing, another £4 million will be made available, if necessary. As has been stated, small dwellings have never shown a loss. I am not one of those who continually vote against the Government. In fact I am noted for the way in which I sometimes appear to be Wrong-Way Corrigan.

I am not against all taxation. The insurance corporations are making money ad lib and they would not be affected if the 2½ per cent tax were made five per cent. Greater consideration should be given to those industrialists who grace this country and enjoy the benefit of relief from taxation for ten years, apart from the grants given to these ventures, with no guarantee that they will last longer than two, three or four years.

On the social welfare side of this Budget, as recently as last Friday, I found some of the 5/6d. insurance stamps which are only a couple of years out of date. Now, they are 11/10d.

It was stated this morning that the Government are pandering to the farming community. I was rather surprised when Deputy Seán Dunne stated that, in his opinion, the agricultural worker has now a very fine standing. Until the agricultural worker enjoys the same amount of money per hour or per week as the Dublin city labourer, this country will not be on the right road to progress. If a builder, whether in Dublin or otherwise, goes to some remote part of the country to build a church, he must pay at least twice the amount of money per week to the young labourer who comes along as that labourer would enjoy when working for his farmer employer. It is rather ridiculous, then, to expect that boy, having enjoyed £10 or £11 per week, to go back to £5, £6 or £7. Therefore, if one of these millions of pounds given to the farmers were a subsidy towards higher wages for the agricultural worker, it would be money well spent.

I did support a Vote of Confidence in the Government and I cannot say at the moment I am thoroughly satisfied it was a misplaced confidence. Nevertheless, I was expecting some relief for our old age and other pensioners, whether by way of greater remuneration to that section of our people or exemption in some manner from the turnover tax. I am sure that, on reflection, the Minister would be inclined to agree with me. There is no use in saying that this country is booming. Of course it is booming. But that section of our people who are so dear to us and who have paid so much in their own way are not even able to moan and it is a disgrace.

It is not sufficient to say that the increase in taxes on oil and petrol will not affect our people. I do not know how it cannot. From the bus stop yesterday at Pearse Bridge to Rathfarnham, a distance of two bus stops, the minimum fare was 4d. How can they go any higher? It is stated that at the moment it is cheaper to drive a car, but will the people be able to run the cars? Will the petrol companies be able to give the £10,000 for an acre, to which Deputy Burke referred, in the city of Dublin? Will that change? Consider the people in suburban Dublin. Take even Ballyfermot, where they have cars, too. It is just as cheap to run a car now and certainly it obviates waiting for 20 minutes to get a bus. But what will be the position when the renewals come in June? Of course, it will not affect the petrol companies. I think it is an unwise move.

The penny on the pint, I suppose, will not make any great difference. I remember when it was 8d. Cigarettes are a vexed question also. However, the Department of Posts and Telegraphs increases are just unpardonable. I have no objection to taxation, provided at all times it represents an advance and a benefit to the nation. I have had experience of deputations coming to me and asking me to get the concreting of back lanes done, public lighting improved and the rates kept down. I appreciate that point but I certainly cannot agree with this spending—and I do not use the word "squandermania": I certainly would not. But at least this year there must be some curtailing of what I consider unnecessary expenditure by the Government.

Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Lands (Mr. Lenihan)

It is quite evident in the course of this Budget debate that the Fine Gael Party in particular have not departed from their essential negative attitude towards economic and social development in this country. That negative attitude is inspired perhaps by an essentially pessimistic approach to this country's development and future. I am glad to say that this approach to our economic development is not shared by the leading financial and economic authorities in the world today.

Quite recently, the annual Economic Survey of the OECD on Ireland was published. This independent international body in the second sentence of its booklet says: “The five years of the First Programme for Economic Expansion witnessed Ireland's period of fastest economic growth in this century.” There is a complete vindication of the planning that has taken place under the present Government since the initiation of the First Programme for Economic Expansion. This international authority that not alone surveys Ireland's economy but the economy of every subscribing State to OECD, on an assessment of all the available facts, comes down solidly to a decision that the first five years, on all the evidence, had witnessed Ireland's period of fastest economic growth in this century—the five years from 1958 to 1963. The rate of planning announced in the Second Programme for Economic Expansion, a rate of anticipated four per cent annual increase in gross national product, is twice the rate envisaged and exceeded in the First Programme for Economic Expansion.

The survey of the OECD goes on to deal with the Second Programme for Economic Expansion and regards these targets as reasonable and attainable. The first Fine Gael reaction to the publication of the Second Programme for Economic Expansion was one of destructive criticism and pessimistic outlook It was said that the targets were ill-conceived and could not be achieved. This international organisation says that the targets are well conceived and attainable and the Government, since the publication of the programme, have announced the measures necessary for their attainment.

The Budget which we are debating is the main instrument used by the Government in the attainment of planned targets of expansion. The old-fashioned notion of the Budget as a mere balancing of the annual accounts of revenue and expenditure is no longer valid in this age. It is still an important part of the approach to the Budget, but there are other purposes more important for which the annual Budget is merely the instrument. Any discussion on the Estimates must take into account the broader issues of that Budget and the Government's approach to our economic development in the context of the planning which is taking place. I suppose it could be said that, apart from balancing revenue and expenditure, the Budget has two important purposes in our modern age. First, it is an instrument to promote economic development and, secondly, it is an instrument to secure a greater and fairer distribution of incomes in accordance with the accepted canons of social justice.

Let us take the first principle—the promotion of economic development. Right through the expenditure contained in these Estimates, we see evidence of expenditure geared essentially to economic development which has as its overall objective the increase of employment. If one goes through the various figures in the Estimates and takes out the major increases of the big-spending Departments, one finds them directly related to expansion for further employment.

The biggest single increase in the Department of Local Government relates directly to local government housing, private housing grants, water supplies and sewerage. There is an increase of £80,000 towards local authority housing and an increase of £289,000 towards private housing grants, making a record total expenditure for the construction and reconstruction of houses. In the case of water supplies and sewerage, there is an increase of £270,000. Therefore, the major increases in that Department do not relate merely to increases necessitated by the 12 per cent increase but to direct grants in which there is very little staff involvement.

In the case of the Department of Lands, the biggest single increase in the Estimate relates to increased funds for the purchase of lands for the relief of congestion—again not a staff matter.

Dáil Éireann díospóireacht - Thursday, 16 Apr 1964

Committee on Finance. - Resolution No. 11—General (Resumed).

Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Thursday, 16 Apr 1964