I understand that Deputy Ó Ceallaigh wishes to resume, and as soon as he is finished, the Chair will call on Deputy O'Hara.
Committee on Finance. - Vote 3—Department of the Taoiseach (Resumed).
Debate resumed on the following motion:
That the Vote be referred back for reconsideration.
—(Deputy Cosgrave.)
Deputy O'Hara rose.
Is Deputy O'Hara not in possession?
No, there was a misunderstanding. The Chair understands that Deputy Ó Ceallaigh reported progress and that in fact he wishes to resume. Immediately he has concluded, the Chair will call on the Deputy.
With respect, I want to point out that the Deputy did start to report progress at 27 minutes or 28 minutes past ten and I stood up then. It was just coming on time and I moved to report progress and I have the right——
There was evidently a misunderstanding on Deputy Ó Ceallaigh's part. The Chair will call on him to resume and the Deputy will be called on immediately he has finished.
Fé mar adubhairt mé aréir ní mian liom bheith ag gabháil siar ar na rudaí a thárla sa tír seo le 40 bliain anuas ach is éigin dom é a dhéanamh nuair a dheineann na Teachtaí thall tagairt dóibh. Do mholfhainn dóibh feasta claoi leis am mBille a bhíonn ós comhair an Tí agus leasú nó feabhas do dhéanamh air. Má bhíonn ciall ar bith le h-aon leasú a mholann siad, tá mé cinnte go nglacfar leis ar an dtaobh seo den Tí. Ar aon chuma, b'fhéidir le cúnamh Dé, go mbeidh meas ag muintir na hÉireann orthu agus seans go bhfaighidis fé cheann bliana nó dho an rud nach bhfuaireadar sa toghachán deireanach.
Ná beidis ag ceapadh go gcuirfidh aon chaint a bhí ar siúl acu le dhá lá anuas dalladh púicín ar an phobal. Ná ceapaidis go bhfuil muintir na hÉireann ar mire agus gur féidir leo bob do bhualadh orthu.
Do gheall mé ar maidin nach gcuirfinn moill ar an dTeachta O'Hara. Dá bhrí sin, níl le rá agam ach comhairle a thabhairt don dream thall agus tá súil agam ná ceapaidis gur comhairle cóngarach é. Tuilleadh cainte do chuirfinn chugaibh a bheadh snoite suaire i bhfriotal pointe ach dom mheas nár cheart dom buairt do chur tré chroí gach duine riam agaibh.
In the course of a lengthy speech in the House two days ago the Taoiseach certainly shocked the House and the country. We are aware of the Fianna Fáil propaganda throughout the country not alone in by-elections but during the entire campaign leading up to the recent general election. I want to say deliberately here that the Taoiseach has deceived this House, that he has succeeded until now in deceiving the country also.
It is no source of satisfaction to me to say that. Far from it. It would be far better for all concerned if the economy of this country were on a sound footing. Unfortunately, according to what we were told by the Taoiseach on Tuesday and from what research we have been able to do ourselves, we find that the position is worse than ever it was in the history of this country. Since the Taoiseach made his statement, I have been on the telephone to some of my constituents and I have been told that there is real panic among the business people and other sections of the community in my constituency.
I have no doubt whatsoever that a similar situation arises throughout the length and breadth of the country. It is shocking to think that the Leader of the Government, down through the years, has been painting pictures of prosperity for the people for the purpose, as we all realise now, of getting himself and the Fianna Fáil Party into office. This has been going on for years. As I have said, it is a sad thing to think that a man in the responsible position of Taoiseach should indulge in that type of thing.
Indeed, for myself I must say I did not expect a great deal better from him because I have known him for quite a long number of years and have known him to engage in that type of practice in my constituency throughout the years since 1951. On that occasion I was elected to the House and I remember that in the course of the election campaign a typical type of Fianna Fáil propaganda was engaged in. Promises were made but were never fulfilled. I remember the manner in which the people were deceived in that 1951 election campaign.
Two or three years after, a by-election, one that will long be remembered, was held and won by Fianna Fáil on false promises. May I remind the House of some of the false promises made in the town of Ballina at that time? Of course, the venue was an ideal one for making such statements because Ballina is the capital town of my constituency and there are something like 5,000 voters.
So the Taoiseach, then Minister for Industry and Commerce, came to Ballina and on the eve of the election, for the purpose of vote catching, promised we were to have a biscuit factory there and that there would be hundreds, perhaps thousands, employed in that factory which, he said, would solve all the economic ills of the constituency. When the election was over, when Fianna Fáil had won, we got no biscuit factory. From that time onwards, I can assure the House the people of North Mayo did not attach very much importance to or place much reliance on the statements of the Minister for Industry and Commerce, now Taoiseach.
Later, a situation arose in my constituency in which a gentleman went forward as an Independent. He was elected as an Independent and subsequently entered this House as an Independent. To use a crude phrase, he was got at by Fianna Fáil to vote for the turnover tax. During the entire period of his term in the Dáil, he supported the Fianna Fáil Government. We know he was got at by the Taoiseach and many people throughout the country know that happened.
What has this to do with the Taoiseach's Estimate or with the Prices (Amendment) Bill?
The Taoiseach has appealed to us on this side of the House for co-operation in this most difficult period and the Leader of the Fine Gael Party has assured the Taoiseach that he will have the fullest co-operation of this Party. I wish to follow that line but I also wish to point out to the Dáil and to the people of Ireland that the Taoiseach is not the saint he pretends to be. It is very important that the people of Ireland, even at this late stage, should be made aware of the type of man the Taoiseach is.
However, I was proceeding to point out that the gentleman who voted for the turnover tax is not now a Member of this House but his vote had the effect of imposing that turnover tax on the Irish people, with the dire results we realise and appreciate today. The removal of the food subsidies, which were maintained by an inter-Party Government, a Government to which I had the honour to belong as a Deputy, brought about a chain reaction affecting the economy of every household in the country.
Because the inter-Party Government maintained the food subsidies, the people of the country were able to get a bag of flour for 28/-, a pound of tea for 2/8d., a pound of butter for 3/6d. or 3/9d. That action on the part of that Government served to keep down the cost of living to a manageable level. Is it any wonder I have said I was honoured to be one of the Deputies supporting that Government? I did so because I realised that if the cost of living went up, as it did under Fianna Fáil, a situation would arise in the economy of the country similar to that described to us by the Taoiseach in his statement on Tuesday. We would have had at that time, without the food subsidies, demands for increased wages, strikes and all the ills that go with them.
May I point out one of the ills consequent on the policy of Fianna Fáil through the removal of the food subsidies and later the imposition of the turnover tax? The local authority in County Mayo of which I am a member were faced in the current financial year with the job of imposing an increased charge of not less than 10/- in the £ on our ratepayers as a result of increases in the price of foodstuffs, due to demands by officials and other workers for increased wages and salaries. The cause of this increased rate demand can be traced back to the removal of the food subsidies which the inter-Party Government maintained while in office.
In County Mayo we now have a rate of something like 79/- in the £. Most of the rank and file of the people in the country think that county councillors, their elected representatives, are putting up the rates of their own accord. I am a member of the mental hospital committee and the situation with which we were confronted when dealing with our estimates this year was that we were told by the accounting staff that before proceeding to deal with any business, as a result of awards made in respect of wages and salaries, we were faced in that department alone with expenditure involving an increased rate of 2/2d in the £. We were told we were committed to that, that we had no control over it, despite the fact that we, the elected representatives of the ratepayers, were considered to be the people with the power to keep rates, if not at the level of the previous year, at least within reasonable bounds so that our people would be able to pay them.
Subsequently, we attended the Mayo County Council estimates meeting. The meeting lasted three days in all and there we were faced with the prospect of an increase of 7/9 in the £. Day after day, after very careful consideration of the estimates, having listened to the county manager's explanation—we co-operated with him in every way—we were faced with an increase in the rates of 10/- in the £. Is it any wonder that in a poor county like Mayo, where the rates are already at an exorbitant level, it was necessary for the bishops of the western dioceses to call a meeting in Charlestown to form a committee which has become known since as the Defence of the West Committee? The efforts were backed by that great priest from Donegal, Father McDyer.
Thousands of people attended the inaugural meeting in Charlestown. It had the backing of Most Reverend Dr. Browne, Bishop of Galway, Most Reverend Dr. Fergus, Most Reverend Dr. O'Boyle, Most Reverend Dr. Hanley and of many priests and people. It was a singularly wretched situation in the western areas which caused the priests and people of different religious to assemble in Charlestown. An emergency situation caused that meeting for the purpose of doing something for an area very rapidly dying. It is still dying according to the most recent statistics and in the present state of the economy it will continue to die.
When the Dáil reassembled after the recent general election, the first question on the Order Paper was tabled by me, addressed to the Taoiseach. I asked the Taoiseach if he was aware of the existence of the Defence of the West Committee. I asked him if he was aware of the serious plight of the people of that area and I asked him what steps he proposed to take to deal with the situation there. Of course, it was no trouble to the Taoiseach on that occasion to give me an absolutely dishonest answer, one which was completely misleading. I say that in all sincerity. His reply to my question was that if I waited until the Estimates were dealt with I would know what the solution was with regard to the major problem of the west of Ireland. I am not quoting his exact words but they are on record. The matter was so involved, so complicated, and the matter was receiving such study and attention it would be impossible to deal with the whole question in a short reply such as he gave.
However, as I say, he misled the House. He did not cod me because I did not believe him at the time. Most of the Estimates have now been dealt with and we know there is no solution for this problem. At least, the Taoiseach has no solution for this major problem. It is a shocking situation and it makes sad news for our people. As I said at the outset, the Taoiseach came into this House two days ago and, far from indicating an improvement in conditions, warned us of bad times ahead. So far as the west of Ireland is concerned, and any other region in this country as well, things could not be much worse. If we had not got an outlet to England so that our people can go over and back for seasonal employment and some of them go and take up regular employment there and never return, I just wonder what the position would be?
The matter did not finish there. We had the Connacht Fleadh Cheoil at Foxford and no less a figure than the son-in-law of the Taoiseach came down for that. He was invited down and we all met him there. He enjoyed the day the same as we all enjoyed it, listening to Irish music, song, dance and the rest. Lo and behold, at the official opening which took place in the market square in Foxford, and at which the Minister for Agriculture spoke, he announced, above all places, at that Fleadh Cheoil, that a Parliamentary Secretary was being appointed to look after the underdeveloped areas. No doubt he had at the back of his mind the question Deputy O'Hara had raised in the Dáil and he wanted as quickly as he could to smother things up.
He availed of this extraordinary occasion, as the Taoiseach and Fianna Fáil Ministers often do, to announce all this. He made a sort of major statement on Government policy at the Connacht Fleadh Cheoil in the town of Foxford. That evening, at the dinner at which I spoke, I said I would accept the Minister's assurance in good faith and as far as I was concerned, as an individual, he would have my fullest backing and support, regardless of what Party I belonged to so long as the Minister pursued that line.
What is the position? We heard from the Taoiseach in this House on Tuesday last that there is now no money in the kitty. There is not a doubt in the world that this country, if it is not bankrupt, is very near it, and the position is due to the policy pursued by Fianna Fáil, not last year or the year before, but all down the years they have ruled this country. I am sure the people who heard the statement of the Taoiseach in Ballina at the street corner on the occasion of the last general election and that of the Minister for Agriculture at the Connacht Fleadh Cheoil at Foxford will say to themselves that it is hard to place any reliance on these gentlemen who are capable of making these statements for no other purpose than that of deceiving the people. I have already said it is no source of satisfaction to me to have to say these things.
I live in a rural area roughly four miles outside the town of Foxford. I was born and reared on the land and engaged in the export business for a long number of years. I have exported goods as far back as the period of the Economic War. I have exported eggs, poultry and many other things, not alone to Great Britain but to Spain and Germany as well. I know how the rural population live. I know how they have lived. I can go back on books and records available to me over a period of roughly 65 years. I can now tell the Minister that during the time my area was thickly populated. I engaged in the egg export business, pig buying, wholesale and retail grocery and gave employment to 17 people there. If the Minister or the Taoiseach wants to see for himself, he can now see the situation in that place, my home town, which was once a place of business. It is shut down because there are very few people to come in to what was once a very busy centre. That is only one instance. There are several others.
We had the spectacle in recent times of the Taoiseach coming down to Geesala. I was glad to see him coming there. I thought his visit would do some good. As far as I was concerned, he was very welcome to open up a grassmeal plant down there. I have never stood up to condemn these things and I shall not do it today. I am glad if it improves the lot of the people of the Erris area and I wish that project every luck and every success. According to my information, there are only about ten or 12 people employed there. I hope there will be more employed in it with the passing of time. I wish it every luck because it will be of great value to the people in that area and the economy of the country if it is successful. I was doing a good job as a private businessman carrying out my own business, and no one seemed to be excited because I employed 17 or 18 people. The Taoiseach did not come down to open that place or ask how I was getting on, but he did think it worthwhile to come down to open the grassmeal factory.
I know that bits of factories have been started in different centres, particularly in the eastern part of the country, at Shannon, and in the south, but while all that has been going on, scores and scores of private businessmen have been shutting down. Thank God, I did not go hungry. I turned to other lines. When I conceded that there was no hope, I paid the travellers as they came in, and then I shut the door and locked it. That is going on all over the country.
I am sorry I was not in the House when the Parliamentary Secretary, Deputy Flanagan, was speaking. I know his home town very well. There are very few towns in Ireland I do not know through business contacts. I travelled the whole of Connacht last year—town after town and business house after business house, and I know at first hand how things are. I pass through Ballaghaderreen once a week on my way to Dublin. I used to pass through it three times a week in connection with my business. I know the business people of that town, and I know the rural population. You would scarcely see anything on the streets except a couple of Monica Duff lorries going up and down the town delivering their wares.
I was in the town of Charlestown a few weeks ago with my son. I sat in the car watching the street. I looked up and down and there was not a sinner on the street. After about 25 minutes, I saw a woman with a shopping bag in her hand and, being a businessman, I could guess that she probably had four ounces of tea, two pounds of sugar, a loaf of bread, and probably two ounces of walnut plug for the "old man" which all cost her about four times as much as it would have cost during the period of the inter-Party Government. It was no source of satisfaction to me to witness that but I did witness it, and I could witness the same thing on the streets of many towns in my constituency.
I knew that town when I used to buy eggs every Wednesday for export. That was not many years ago, and I would venture to say that at least 100 shop-boys were employed in the shops in Charlestown. In some shops there were three or four shop-boys and it was difficult at times to meet the boss to buy eggs from him because he was so busy. The whole position has now changed and the streets of that town are deserted. The amount of money in turnover and the amount of business done in those days are things of the past. Other small towns like Kiltimagh and Gurteen are nearly wiped out. I consider my home town of Foxford to be reasonably well-off because we have a woollen industry there which employs about 250 people. We had some employment on the sewerage scheme and on the Moy drainage scheme for the past couple of years but some of those things will pass on. Perhaps that town will not be as depressed as some of the other towns—I sincerely hope it will not—but, as I say, we are fortunate in having that woollen industry.
If Fianna Fáil spokesmen want to see those things for themselves, I cordially invite them to come down. I will go round with them, if they wish, and point them out. If they tell this House and the people of Ireland that the Government who are responsible for all this misfortune, for all this depression, and for all the emigration that goes with it, are the Government who improved the lot of the people, I am hanged if I can see it. In fact, things are so bad in many of the western regions that people have long ago thrown up the sponge, packed up, and gone. Now the people who are left cannot pay the rates. I said more than once in this House that at one time there were 26 happy homesteads in my native village. That figure is down now to 12. We have many modern amenities. We have rural electricity; we have tarred roads; we have telephones for the past 30 years so we are not out of touch with the outside world; and we have television; but we would have none of those things were it not for the fact that our people who went to England, America, Australia, and elsewhere, sent home money so that their parents, their brothers and sisters would be able to live on the "old sod."
The Taoiseach's statement will come as a shock to many of those people. I know hundreds of them. I receive letters and inquiries from time to time. After my election to the Dáil, I received scores of letters and telegrams. People who have spent 15 or 20 years in England or America, and who have been looking forward to the day when they could come home—and like many Irish people, they were deceived by all this ballyhoo about the prosperity we had in Ireland—will be shocked when they see in their papers the mess the country is in after 25 years of Fianna Fáil rule.
I could go on and on, but I think the Minister must be aware that what I say is the truth. If he is in any doubt, he can inquire from the Parliamentary Secretary, Deputy Seán Flanagan, who knows these things as well as I do, because he lives in a town that is as badly hit as any I know.
Yesterday the Minister for Industry and Commerce brought in some tranquillisers for the Irish people. The bad news had spread very quickly, as bad news does spread, and in order to pull the situation out of the fire to some degree, the wily old Taoiseach, realising that the Minister for Industry and Commerce is a man whose word is taken by many people inside this House and outside of it, told him to come in here and try to soften the thing up. I believe he did soften it somewhat. Unlike the Taoiseach, the Minister's word is taken and accepted; he is respected for what he is, a decent man.
The Minister tried to administer a drug to our people and to tell them that things are not all that bad. But things are bad. Everybody must agree that they are bad, particularly when the bishops of the western dioceses thought fit to hold that protest meeting in Charlestown and to hold another meeting in Foxford. The position now is that over 17,000 people in Mayo alone, people of different political Parties and different religions, have come together in the realisation that there is a serious problem to be dealt with, that the whole of Connacht is dying, that the people are leaving the rural areas and the towns because they are not able to keep going. These people will be deeply disappointed to know that there is no money available to solve their problems. When I asked that question to which I have referred, the Taoiseach told me that if I would only wait for his Estimate, I would know the solution he had for the problem. Now I know.
On the question of the control of prices, I agree with Deputy Dillon that this is a lot of eyewash. I am convinced that the Taoiseach feels that way about it also. He was well aware that prices were soaring, that the cost of living index figure had gone up, that there was a succession of strikes, that we had round after round of claims for increases of wages as a result of soaring prices. The Taoiseach was well aware of what was happening and he will forever stand condemned in the eyes of the Irish people for his failure to take any action whatever.
The election is over, and the Taoiseach thought we would have a short debate on this matter and that he could take advantage of the fact that there were no national newspapers in existence. He thought the people would be kept in the dark but he has not succeeded in keeping them in the dark. The ordinary citizen has known for some time what was going to happen. At the height of the tourist season, many thousands of people arrived in Dún Laoghaire and found that there were no buses to take them into Dublin. These people had to avail of hired cars to bring them to Dublin and to the west and south of Ireland. These holidaymakers will be slow to come to this country again.
All this, the newspaper strike and all the other strikes, are the responsibility of the Government. The whole situation has been created by the failure of the Government to act and by the removal of the food subsidies which drove up the cost of living. Fianna Fáil were warned. I was a Member of this House when these warnings were given to them. I was defeated in two elections prior to the last one because I could not face up to the lying propaganda and false promises of Fianna Fáil. I would not follow them in that way. I am glad to be back here now but I am sorry to have to relate the tale of woe I have to relate here today.
In his speech yesterday, the Parliamentary Secretary was very critical of our people. He said they had lost their patriotism and inferred that the younger generation are very bad citizens indeed. I do not agree with this. He laid the blame on the teachers and I do not agree with that at all. I remember the period of the Emergency when we were threatened with war. I remember that the people, and they were not all Fianna Fáil supporters, rallied behind the Government and if they did not join the Regular Army, they joined the Local Defence Force and the Local Security Force. They let the people outside the country know that they were ready to defend their own land even at the expense of their lives.
I joined the Local Defence Force as a private. I recruited 123 men to that force and I had no difficulty in doing so. I went into it as a private and was offered promotion but I did not take it because it might be said that undue influences were at work so I came out of it as a private. We let outsiders and foreigners know that when it came to the pinch, like those who had gone before us, we were not going to shirk our responsibilities.
If the Parliamentary Secretary thinks the teachers of this country are not patriotic, that the children and their parents are not patriotic, he is making a great mistake. The Parliamentary Secretary is a highly respected man. He has a great record as a sportsman on the football field and I am sure he is interested in the people of his county and of the west of Ireland, as I am myself. I regret that he made that statement, for the people are as patriotic today as ever they were. Let the Parliamentary Secretary not forget it is hard to expect patriotism from people who are obliged to leave their native districts and are forced through economic circumstances to go to England or America. They have learned the Irish language at school, perhaps some of them have spoken it at home and, to be honest about it, and to my own personal knowledge, many of them have spoken it in England, particularly those from places like Achill and Erris, where they are native speakers. If they are losing the language, it is not their fault. In their own communities in Liverpool, London and Glasgow, they speak the language among themselves. It is hard to expect these people to continue to speak it in the environment into which they are forced to go.
I want to go on record in this House as protesting against that statement and saying that I feel the national, and other, teachers of this country today are as fine a body of men and women as you could get in any part of the world. I will go further and say that the generation of teachers who went before them were a great body and made great contributions. In times gone by, they did not worry about hours of work. They did not count the cost, but many of them, when the time came, were prepared to shoulder the gun and go out in defence of this country at the risk of their lives. When the Parliamentary Secretary makes a statement like that, I deplore it, first of all. It was a terrible statement to make and I really feel he should not have made it.
There is another sad thing I should like to mention. I visited Achill not so long ago at the invitation of a committee known as Muintir Aichill. The parish priest presided at the meeting and Deputy Calleary and Deputy Lindsay were there also. We are the three Deputies representing North Mayo and it is quite a usual thing for us to do this. We put aside our political affiliations and meet local committees or groups such as Muintir na Tíre, the Irish Countrywomen's Association or any other organised group who have as their main objective the improvement of the lot of the people.
At the meeting in Achill, I would say the vast majority of the people present were Fianna Fáil supporters. Achill Island is tremendously Fianna Fáil. I did not mind that one bit. Perhaps some people also supported the Labour organisation, but at that meeting it was made very clear to us, in no uncertain terms, not alone by the parish priest who presided, but by the ordinary lay people present there, good, intelligent, hardheaded people, that the people of Achill Island, so far as the ordinary residents are concerned, are getting out in big numbers and the trend today is that they are not coming back. They are staying in England and all because they feel that native government had let them down.
I know Achill Island well. I was out there hundreds of times last year, if not more, and I know practically every person in it. I certainly know the business people there and I had to agree with them in what they said. They told us that all down through the years, they had given their support to Fianna Fáil in the hope something would be done for them but very little has been done. In fact, some of them said that nothing has been done. With that I do not agree. I will admit the housing problem in Achill has been to a large extent solved. Housing conditions in Achill have much improved in my time. I pointed out that roads have been improved and that now a major water scheme has been laid on in order to help them in the tourist season.
All this is not sufficient to keep the people there. What they really need is regular employment. They have the natural resource there because it is an island. If they were provided with boats and gear and proper facilities for fishing, I believe these people could supplement their income to an extent that would make it possible for many of them, at least, to stay at home and marry and settle down there.
Let us not forget this. When Ireland was really put to the test in the dark and difficult days, when religion was being persecuted in this country and when people who were pro-Irish were being tortured and put to death, it was the people of these remote areas who really stood by the country. It is from such places, in the main, that very distinguished citizens have gone abroad and have distinguished themselves in foreign lands, in the mission fields and in other walks of life. They should not be neglected. I think they should be the first call on our Government.
It is very hard indeed to imagine the Taoiseach coming into this House and pointing out, as he did, if even for the first time, the importance of the Irish cattle trade in the economy of this country. He laid great stress on that. He did not seem to appreciate its importance all down through the years. His contribution towards improving the lot of the farming community is very poor indeed. The contribution of the Fianna Fáil Party as a whole is poor indeed. Now the Taoiseach tells us we have run into part of the main cause of the depression, that a balance of payments problem arises because the cattle trade at the moment, and the numbers of cattle being exported, are not up to expectation. The reason for that is that over a period last year, and the year before, abnormally high prices were being paid by the British for cattle because, evidently, they were short of cattle and were glad to get them. It was not for love of us they were taking them and paying those prices. It is because many people disposed of perhaps too many cattle at that time that we now find a situation in which exports have fallen which has helped to create this problem to which the Taoiseach pointed.
I am aware there are hundreds of farmers who have not the capital to stock their lands as they would like to stock them. They cannot get the capital; at least they cannot get it now from the banks, the Agricultural Credit Corporation or anybody else. The grass, in many instances, is growing up to the fences. If a beast went into some of those fields today, you could hardly see its head up with all the grass in the field and not alone is it there in the field but it is along the roadsides as well.
These people were told during the election and have been told over a number of years that credit was readily available to stock up with cattle. We had the Heifer Subsidy Scheme. They were told by some of the banks that if they were credit-worthy, they would give some money to try to help them stock up. A few people availed of it and to their advantage. But, at that time, the economy of the country was sounder than it is now. I am admitting that the few who did avail of it have gained as a result. There are many who cannot avail of it for one reason or another. If the honest-to-goodness people, perhaps people who live in remote rural areas, go to a bank, where they probably never stood in their lives before, they are not able to make a very good case for themselves and are automatically refused credit because in the eyes of the bank manager, they are not what one might call a good risk. For that reason, many of those people have to leave their holdings under-stocked and when the time comes when there is an increase in cattle prices or when something could be made on cattle, those people do not stand to benefit in any way for the reason that they have not the stock and are unable to get them.
Now, we were told by the Taoiseach here on Tuesday last these people need not be crying for any more money because it is not there for them and they cannot get it. The credit squeeze is on. Hire purchase is being restricted. As for bank loans, there is not a bob to be lent to anybody. It has been known for a month or two past that this was the situation because reputable people have been refused credit for many good projects and good development works.
This credit squeeze will cause more and more unemployment. I can see more unemployment in the motor trade as a result of a recession. I can see more unemployment in the television and radio trade. I can see more unemployment in business as a whole. This country, far from being on the road to progress, as the Taoiseach tried to make the people believe some time ago, is certainly in reverse gear at the present time and, according to the Taoiseach's words, will so continue for quite a while to come.
We heard down through the years a lot of ballyhoo about the Border and the Irish language. We heard talk that the Border would be removed, that our people would be brought back from England, that 100,000 jobs would be created, and all the rest of it. Despite all the lying propaganda and deceit that succeeded in keeping the Government in office, we have not heard much about the Border. I should not like to be guilty of saying anything here that would be the cause of delaying the day when Ireland will be united—God forbid. Nobody can deny that the majority of our people look forward to the day when this country will be united and when we will have a 32-County Republic. But I doubt very much if the statement here in this House of the Taoiseach is much of an attracation for these people to come in and join us—far from it. If, over 40 years, a native Government have achieved only what the Taoiseach told us on Tuesday, then it is a pretty poor record. It is rather hard to expect those people in the North to come in and join us here. It might be as well in the circumstances that I should not elaborate on that but I feel that it certainly will not have the effect of speeding the day when this country will be united and when we will have a 32-County Republic.
In his opening remarks, the Taoiseach appealed for co-operation on the Prices Bill. As I said at the outset, the Leader of our Party assured him that we would do everything possible to help him over the difficulty. I was a member of this House from 1951 to 1956. I distinctly remember what happened in 1954 when an inter-Party Government took office. I do not like to go back on the past but I feel it necessary in the interests of truth and decency in Irish public life to expose here, or anywhere else where we have a platform to do it, the dishonesty of the Taoiseach and of those associated with him in Government.
During those years we ran into many serious problems. We ran into a balance of payments problem in the period between 1955-56 and the problems we were confronted with were not of our own making. They were problems which arose as a result of the Suez crisis which, as everybody knows, caused a very serious upheaval in this country. Petrol had to be rationed and over a period, many other commodities were in short supply. I remember Deputy Norton, God be good to him, who was then Minister for Industry and Commerce coming into this House, and, as an emergency measure, moving the emergency powers legislation a Minister must move in such circumstances in order to ration petrol. On the following day, or a couple of days after, he dealt with that situation. He was cool, calm and collected. He did not panic. However, the Government of the day had to take measures to meet the situation, a situation which was not of our making.
The overthrow of the then Communist-inclined leader of the Argentine, President Peron, created a further problem for us. He was chased out of his home country and in recent times he put up in Spain or Portugal and was chased out of there as well, and deservedly so. His overthrow created a further problem for this country. The Government which took over in the Argentine were faced with the problem of trying to put some shape on the economy of the country after misrule and, in my opinion, they were obliged at the time to dump their meat on the British market at sacrifice prices. The inter-Party Government in office here had to meet that situation. Now, we know very well that if the British hotelier can buy beef at 3/- per lb. from the Argentine, he will not pay 5/- or 6/- per lb. for our beef. Consequently, they turned to the purchase of Argentine meat and our cattle exports decreased very seriously, creating very serious problems for this country because of the collapse of the cattle trade at the time.
The Argentine Government got on their feet again. The founder of the Argentine Navy, Admiral William Brown, came from my home town of Foxford. At that time the then representative of the Argentine Government in Ireland was in Foxford preparing for the unveiling of a statue in memory of Admiral Brown. Some people were not too happy about the statue because they realised that at that time the Argentine Government were cutting the ground from under us in our traditional meat market in Britain. Some people who were not depending on farming were quite amused at it, but it was no laughing matter from the point of view of the Government and the people who depended on the export of meat.
Progress reported; Committee to sit again.