It is very interesting to contrast the speech made by Deputy Dillon—wild statements, wild allegations, predictions of ruin—with the very interesting and constructive speech made by Deputy Corish. Deputy Corish's criticism was highly constructive, and can be appreciated by the Government. He admitted the economic progress we have made, the progress we have made in securing more employment for our people. He asked for greater speed. He said it was not sufficient, and he spoke of the difficulties in regard to the cost of living and suggested the Government should pay more attention to cost of living increases. He made that criticism but in the background of his speech there lay an absolutely clear understanding that we are making progress, and that we are making progress on a faster scale than in previous years of our country's history.
I must say I almost wept for Deputy Dillon when I heard him speak of the marvellous balance of payments position achieved in 1957 of £12 million, and how our currency was backed at that time. I recall the fact that two years before there was an adverse balance of payments position with no evidence of sufficient economic growth to cover it, with no volume of external assets held by the banks or the Government sufficient to stay it, with no growth of exports or income sufficient to enable it to be carried over for the period. At that time the adverse balance of payments that gave rise to the 1956-57 disastrous crisis was due to the Fine Gael Party—influenced, I think, by Clann na Poblachta—having ever since the war been extremely careless in their attitude towards the balance of payments position in our country.
We had the former Taoiseach, Deputy Costello, roaring around the country saying what a good thing it was to restore to this country foreign assets held abroad, without reservation, without making clear the danger that would lie in such policies unless they were used for productive purposes. We had a tremendous balance of payments deficit in 1951 of £61 million at a time when the country was totally unable to deal with the situation based on then existing taxation. For the next three years we had a Fianna Fáil Government in office and we were continually frustrated by futile arguments in which we made it clear we had to take certain financial steps to put the country financially in order, and the Fine Gael Party spent all their time talking about increases in the cost of living, increases in the cost of commodities, promising to reestablish the price status quo by bringing the economy back to the 1951 level but when they were in office they put very heavy taxation on the people.
At the end of their period of office, the cost of living was rising steadily by three per cent per annum. So when Deputy Dillon poses as an apostle of economic sanctity it amuses me, because the most serious problem we had to overcome and eliminate was the fearful despondency in which this country found itself in 1957 at the end of the three year period of the second Coalition Government.
The only mistake we made at that time was that we did not sufficiently advertise to the people at large the warning given by the present Taoiseach in October, 1956, that any predictions he had made in regard to the number of persons who could be given employment in any period had to be related to the very serious state of the economy, and that all such calculations had to be revised. When Deputy Dillon constantly talks about the promise of 100,000 jobs, he deliberately ignores the very detailed statement made by the Taoiseach at the end of 1956, in which he made it quite clear that the road back to prosperity after the second Coalition Government might be harder than anticipated. It is very like Deputy Dillon to conveniently forget whole speeches made by the Taoiseach when it is to his advantage, and when he thinks he can achieve some result by doing so.
Deputy Dillon, as usual, made some fearful predictions about our future. He spoke as though he deliberately wished to discourage the investment of capital by suggesting our economic state was very grave indeed, but he offered no solution to the problem at all. We have heard no solution from Deputy Dillon. If he really believes the country is in such a desperate state, why did he not make proposals today, his own proposals, and not merely tatters of badly expressed Fianna Fáil policy, with some amazing additions which would cost the country anything up to £80 million more a year?
We should like to hear more from him as to whether or not he thinks he could put right this mysterious economic situation and how he would set about doing it. For example, as usual he spoke melodramatically about foreign investment in this country. What he said was enough to discourage anybody from investing capital here. Does he think he is contributing to our industrial revival by statements of that kind?
We have not got the know-how, the technical knowledge, about a great many new industries. We thought we had the belated agreement of the Fine Gael Party for our policy of establishing industries throughout the country, that at long last, after a considerable period, they had begun to believe in the establishment of Irish industry. What does he mean when he talks about foreign money coming in? I understood we all welcomed foreign capital, that most of all we welcomed the investment of Irish capital in Irish industry and that, where possible, we welcomed a mixture of Irish and outside investment here, and that if that could not arise we welcomed foreign money. Does he want it to stop?
Again, Deputy Dillon and the Fine Gael Party apparently agree with us that we should join the EEC in circumstances that would favour our admission. If Deputy Dillon examines the situation in the Common Market he will find that international investment from one country to another is proceeding steadily and continuously. Does he believe foreign investment from one country to another can be arrested in respect of our country?
As usual, his statement was extremely exaggerated and can only have the effect of making the sort of people we want to attract and encourage wonder whether we are really serious about it. This, of course, goes back to Deputy Dillon's old suspicion of our industrial policy a suspicion so well illustrated by his statement in Dáil Éireann in 1952 that the tariff quota industries set up by Fianna Fáil were merely badly run relief works. A good illustration of that would be the women's clothing industry. Exports in that industry about 14 years ago were £50,000 a year. The exports in a recent year were £5½ million. That is a typical example of what Deputy Dillon calls a badly run relief work, because it was established with the aid of protection and of tariffs.
It illustrates the lack of appreciation of our industrial policy by Deputy Dillon. Every time he speaks I wonder whether he has really accepted in his heart the industrial proposals of his own Party which are, in turn, a clear imitation of ours, though not so well expressed or not expressed with the same confidence and belief as we have in them.
Deputy Dillon spoke of the Taoiseach as a gambler. We have always believed in taking calculated risks. We have seen such a frightening decrease in the population since the time of the Famine, and with it all the psychological attributes of character that go to make for continued emigration, that we have been determined to take measurable risks in economic development. I recall Deputy Dillon saying in May, 1947, in regard to Shannon Airport: "I venture to say that five years from today, when the rabbits have started playing leap-frog below in Rineanna, that the wireless masts will be used as knitting needles..."
That was a typical refusal of Deputy Dillon to accept the idea of taking a calculated gamble in a new venture. Today, there are some 4,000 persons employed at Shannon. Today, we have seen the end of the decline in the number of transit passengers as a result of overflying by jets, and an increase in terminal passengers which bodes well for the future.
I wonder why Deputy Dillon made the completely malicious suggestion that the heifer grants scheme was carried out at the last moment, without any consideration as to its financial cost, solely for some obscure political reason that he did not even name. Was it because it was yet one more new policy devised to increase agricultural production and that Deputy Dillon, at long last, has had to realise that Fianna Fáil as always had an agricultural policy and that the present policy completely outclasses anything ever dreamt of by Fine Gael or the Coalition in 1956?
Perhaps the most remarkable feature of his speech—whether it has any significance I do not know—is that for the first time he barely referred to the agricultural position. Perhaps he has been at last convinced that the Fianna Fáil agricultural policy has proved a success—that the number of cattle and sheep are increasing rapidly, that butter production has been at a record figure, that cattle exports have risen tremendously and above all, that farmers are showing confidence in the future. More and more they are now using modern methods; more and more they are borrowing from the banks and from the Agricultural Credit Company the wherewithal to improve their holdings; more and more they are using increased quantities of fertilisers due to the provision of Government subsidies to the figure of £4 million, whereas in Deputy Dillon's time it was a mere £200,000 or £400,000 a year.
Maybe that is the reason Deputy Dillon, in desperation, tried to raise some peculiar hare over the heifer grant scheme. The reason why the grants exceeded our estimate was perhaps because we were too conservative in our thinking of how far there would be a response to the offer of these grants. It was very difficult for the Government to predict the welcome proportions of that response, which exceeded the expectations of the previous and the present Minister for Agriculture.
The fact is that since 1957 the incomes of farmers per head had gone up by 1963 by 36 per cent. Though we should like to see a still greater increase to match the increase in incomes of the rest of the population, we can see that real progress is being made. Deputy Dillon referred to the number of people who emigrated over a set period and had the audacity to suggest that the policy of the present Government had something to do with it. He knows perfectly well there was record emigration during the last period of his office, that the whole problem lay in the quite simple fact that the national income rose only by one per cent from the end of the war until about 1959.
He knows that during that period the Coalition Government were in office for two periods, with an uneasy period of Fianna Fáil Government between 1951 and 1954. He knows very well his Government had the major responsibility for devising new policies for this country in the post-war period. He knows very well the whole atmosphere of both his Governments was that the people were entitled to a good living, that Fianna Fáil had indulged in what they called hairshirt economics. He knows very well that at the end of it all, there was nothing but the economic disasters of 1956 and 1957. With the attraction of employment in Great Britain and with the perpetual customary emigration ever since the time of the Famine, it was inevitable there would be a great flowing tide of people out of this country when the national income was rising by only 1 per cent.
Deputy Dillon should also know that after a period of time, between 1957 and 1959, during which, admittedly, the Government's programme of expansion had not shown any major results, we did at last get the economy of the country moving. The real growth in the incomes of our people moved at a faster rate upwards in the last six years than in any other period in our history since we became an independent nation operating under peace-time conditions. He cannot deny that the figures are there, that there are statistical records. He has no way of denying the progress we have made. It took us some considerable time before ensuring, as a result of Government aids and grants but, of course, very largely as a result of the greater confidence shown by our people which was an essential factor in ensuring progress, that for the last period of one or two years, for the first time so long as we can remember, as many people are gaining employment in the non-agricultural field as are leaving the land.
That is not sufficient. The figures given by the Taoiseach this morning showing the growth of employment in industry and the growth of employment in the non-agricultural sector are heartening and livening. We shall have to go further if we are to succeed in providing an employment world that is entirely satisfactory. At the moment, we provide it in certain areas. There are areas in Ireland where there is full employment in towns, and fifteen miles outside them, for anyone who wants a job. There are certain types of industries in Dublin where there is full employment. There are other areas where progress will have to be made before we shall have achieved our ideal, and I do not say we shall achieve our ideal quickly. It may take some time and there are all the special dangers we have to face at the moment. They were well outlined by the Taoiseach in his speech when he gave a realistic impression of the national economy. The fact remains we succeeded in equating the increase in the number of those employed in non-agricultural occupations with those who are leaving the land, and it was a triumph, from that point of view, that we reached that position.
Deputy Dillon and Deputy O'Sullivan referred to the high taxation in this country. We have made it absolutely clear that we need a great deal of money to promote the economic life of our country and we shall need more money in the future, particularly, for the inevitable growth in our educational services. We have never denied that we must take from total national income a considerable amount for national development. The facts are that in 1956-57 total taxation in all its forms in relation to the national income was something between 22 and 23 per cent. Even including the turnover tax and all the other additions to taxes that have been made since that time mitigated by increased allowances for income tax, and so on, the percentage taken at the end of this year will be, I gather, something of the order of 24 and 25 per cent.
We are taking no more in taxation, or no more than a fractional amount more out of the total national pool of income than was being taken during the last disastrous years of the Coalition Government. I want to be absolutely frank about this question of taxation. There have been periods in the history of Europe when Governments hoped that if the national income rose the amount people would have to pay would represent a lower and lower percentage of their incomes, taking the incomes of the whole people. Sometimes that situation was achieved. We know that the bill for national economic development, in all its forms, will be so high for us that we have quite clearly indicated in the Second Programme for Economic Expansion, so that everybody can see and read it, that there is no hope whatever that there could be a very large diminution of the percentage of income in taxation during the period from now until 1970. We have not denied it, nor have we heard from the Fine Gael Party any proposal whatever as to how they could alter the position. We had a promise of eliminating the turnover tax during the Cork and Kildare by-elections, but no suggestions as to where the £13 or £14 million were to come from or what services would be reduced in kind and in what Departments.
We had absolutely no proposals from the Fine Gael Party as to how they would alter the Second Programme for Economic Expansion in its main features. We hear that they intend to do more actual planning than we did but they have not described how they propose to do that. We had no major criticism of the basic framework of the economic programme from Deputy Dillon. He says at one moment that it is bluff but he does not say why. He does not deny the possibility of achieving certain industrial and economic targets in a given period. He makes no comment as to how we are to avoid maintaining taxation in the same proportions of national income, with slight variations upwards and downwards, between now and 1970, if we are to equip this country and provide it with the social needs and ensure a steady economic development in all its phases. We have had no proposal from Deputy Dillon and no suggestion of a change in the system or a change in policy.
Deputy Corish spoke about the need for the Government to consider increasing social services. As Deputy Corish knows, every year that it has been possible to do so social services payments were increased. Deputy Corish knows that the total record of the Fianna Fáil Governments is one that can be well contrasted with the Coalition Government in relation to social welfare legislation and increases in payments under the various heads in the Minister's Department. I should like to illustrate the progress we have made since the dreary days of 1956 in increasing social welfare service payments. These are just illustrations.
Very often, people only mention the figure for a single man or a single woman whereas, of course, we should be very interested also in the position of men with families. Take unemployment and disability benefit for a man, his wife and three children—and we will assume that the three children are under 16 years of age and include the children's allowances. In 1956, such a man would receive £3. 7. 8 a week. He is now receiving £5. 18. 8 a week, an increase of 75 per cent. That, of course, is a very much larger increase than the increase in the cost of living since that period, which is something over 25 per cent, and illustrates the help we are trying to give to people in that kind of position. A widow with five children, including the children's allowances for all of them, received £2. 11. 4 in 1956 and is now getting £4. 13—an increase of 81 per cent.
None of us would suggest that those payments are necessarily adequate in relation to the cost of living and the growth in the standard of living. All of us want to see further improvements. We want to see the social assistance payments increased in line with the growth of national income in this country. The Government are determined to devote portion of the proceeds of taxation in every successful year, which will increase as we become more prosperous, in order to ensure that these social welfare payments become of a nature of which we can all be proud. I am merely mentioning the fact that there is quite evidently a massive improvement in the position since 1956.
Deputy Dillon said something about the by-elections which seemed to give the idea that we ought now to be going to the country because of the results of recent by-elections. It might be well to remind Deputy Dillon that if we take the Cork, Kildare and Roscommon by-elections and take the preference votes for Fianna Fáil in the previous general elections in those three constituencies it will be seen that in 1957 we received 45½ per cent of first preference votes and we received 39½ per cent in the general election of 1961 while in the recent by-elections we received 47 per cent of the votes, indicating a higher percentage than in 1957. Nothing has happened since the Roscommon by-election to make me believe that there has been a major change in the attitude of the people towards the present Government.
No extraordinary emergency measures of any kind were announced in the Dáil or were not already being considered in the Dáil since the Roscommon by-election. The only thing that has happened, in actual fact, is the announcement of the 15 per cent levy and the very wise measures adopted by the Government to aid industry in the dilemma with which they are faced. As far as I know, that is the only major thing that has happened since the Roscommon by-election. If the whole lot of by-elections were taken together, then, as was pointed out by the Taoiseach, what we received in votes since 1961 is quite reasonably satisfactory.
As I said at the beginning of my speech, Deputy Dillon is trying to bluff his way out of an admission that great progress is being made and he does it by exaggerating in an alarmist way the problems that we face in the future. We can contrast the wise and calculated statements of the Taoiseach on the balance of payments position and certain problems we face in the future with the wild, unjustified outpourings of Deputy Dillon. The problems we have to face relate to the very great need for ensuring that productivity in industry goes up as much as possible in the interests of the workers themselves.
We are most anxious that this national incomes policy should be considered, debated and discussed on its merits at all levels. It is not a perfect system. It does not work perfectly in Northern Europe where it operates but it does ensure as far as possible that when wages are increased the workers, by the calculations made in advance, will be able to keep the greater part of the increase they are given and will not lose that increase when the cost of living increases. It also ensures that the whole income of the people is going up in a way which makes our trade competitive and that we can offer more employment to the children of the workers, that we can ensure a growth of employment, a growth in the scope and character of employment everywhere and that we can ensure that employment in one industry increases if there happens to be some inevitable redundancy in another industry.
This planning for growth is something which is not new at all. It is new only to us. It is a common feature of negotiations that take place every year between employers and trade unions in Scandinavia, Holland and Switzerland. If one looks at the real increase of purchasing power of the workers in those countries one can find that they have made tremendous progress. There is nothing to suggest that they have not gained their full share from the growth in prosperity of the country concerned. As the Taoiseach said, when one looks at the state of the economy at the moment one can see that part of the increase in the cost of living recently is due simply to the increase in the price of beef, mutton and potatoes which reflects on the farmers' prosperity and which is certainly not under control by the Government. Part of the increase in the cost of living is due also to the increase in labour costs in industry.
We all hope that when the National Industrial Economic Council present their report on the economic state of the nation, and when that report is validated, verified and signed both by employers and representatives of the Trade Union Congress, what they have to say will be carefully considered by employers and by the trade unions themselves when they come to discuss the statement on the state of the economy—employers with reference to how much profits they are ploughing back into reinvestment, new machinery, new equipment and how much they are distributing to their shareholders; and, in the case of the trade unions, how much more they can aid greater productivity in various ways and how much more the worker himself can help and enable still greater employment to be given and to ensure that when wages are increased, workers will genuinely benefit from the wage increase through this system of training which has proved very successful in other countries, even though no system like that can be perfect.
In connection with the national incomes policy, there are always matters which will require elaborate discussion between employers and trade unions and the various operative grades in each industry involved. If there is a growth in automation, a growth in the complex character of machinery which is used, it alters the character of a man's work and there is that to be considered. There is the question of workers who may have been left behind in previous wage increases and who need to be considered. It is a most complex matter and not in the least an easy one.
The simple statement about growth in the national income of any amount in a certain year by way of a basic increase in wages is something that needs to be examined by the trade unions in all its implications and importance. Nevertheless the Taoiseach was quite right when he stated what we in Fianna Fáil all believe and expressed the opinion that this kind of thinking would be possible. Indeed, one of the major reasons for setting up the NIEC was that there could be a body independent of political discrimination to present economic reports upon which could be laid the foundations of policies for the ensuring year that would bring the greatest prosperity to the greatest number.
There are many facets to this problem which no one considers when striving for wage increases in some particular sector of industry or trade. There is the fact that if non-agricultural incomes mount very rapidly inevitably the Government may find it necessary to transfer some of the income to the farmers by way of subsidy, apart from what they were getting the previous year. If they have to do it by way of taxation, then the workers and salaried people would be losing part of what they gained by way of taxation increases transferring income to the agricultural community. This kind of question does require careful consideration. From what I have seen of it working in Northern Europe the workers have certainly gained immensely in real purchasing power since the war and in some countries where they have managed to restrain inflation to a fantastic degree, such as Switzerland, where the cost of living went up only some 16 to 20 per cent since 1953, the real purchasing power has been quite extraordinary because of the very careful examination of all factors in relation to the economy when adjusting the rewards as between employers and employees from the growth in production.
I do not think I need say any more except to remark that making wild statements, such as those made by Deputy Dillon, is no substitute for sound, constructive policy at a period of our history when our progress has been very definite and when we face certain problems in the coming year which require clear thinking, problems in relation to a balance of payments situation which is not drastic but which could become difficult, in relation to the 15 per cent levy, in relation to the future purchasing power of the British people during their period of difficulty. A speech such as that made by Deputy Dillon can be no contribution whatever to the future of this country.