Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Thursday, 13 Apr 1967

Vol. 227 No. 10

Committee on Finance. - Resolution No. 4—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).

Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries (Mr. Davern)

It is indeed very easy for any Member on this side of the House to speak on this Budget, more particularly having listened to the reiteration of the tales of woe that have been cast and forecast time and time again by the Opposition speakers. Their lack of conviction in their contributions only emphasises more clearly the many benefits of this Budget. It also highlights the work of the former Minister for Finance and the present incumbent of the office. These men, by taking appropriate action at the proper time, have ensured the nation's welfare, have ensured that the financial position of the nation is well under control and that the maximum benefits are being distributed as equitably as possible.

Last year we were told that the country was "bust". We were told we would never live to see another Budget and that the nation would degenerate into economic chaos. This was nothing new for us to hear. We have been hearing it almost constantly for the past 30 years. The many new housing schemes, the road improvements, the hospitals, and the rising standard of living of our people are evidence of Fianna Fáil policy and, contrary to the speeches and the reiterations of the Opposition, these are realities. There is no mirage there, and certainly the intelligent public cannot and will not accept the Fine Gael propaganda on this matter.

I sympathise with the Opposition in their task because they seemingly think their duty is to criticise the Budget and nothing more. They must find it rather hard to do so because this Budget is one that looks after practically every section of the community without putting any great strain on anybody. There are only two slight increases in taxation and these are infinitesimal when weighed against the benefits accruing to the majority of the people. The deficit of £8 million which was a relevant factor last year has, by the cautionary and necessary measures of the Taoiseach, the then Minister for Finance, been reduced, and in fact the estimate which he made at that time has resulted in a surplus this year of four-fifths of £1 million. When one considers that the Budget was over £250 million, one realises that four-fifths of £1 million is a very small margin of error; indeed estimates being what they are, it was as near to accuracy as any human forecast could be. It is beneficial to the weaker sections of our community in that the small farmers, the social welfare classes and the less well-off generally in our country will receive reliefs of various kinds.

In many spheres, and particularly in the medical sphere, this Budget brings great relief to many people. The allowance of between £50 and £300 for certified medical expenses is something that is appreciated and welcomed by those less fortunate people who have had constant illness as a visitor to their homes or who have had their next-ofkin hospitalised for long periods. We would hope that within the capacity of the economy to pay for them, such benefits as these will be increased in the future. That is and has been the practice and the policy of Fianna Fáil, to be realistic socialists. There is very little good in publishing pamphlets calling for just societies or anything else, if one is not in the position to make these wishes reality. It is very little consolation to people to have an abundance of ideas but a poverty in regard to the means by which to implement them. Despite the freedom of action the Opposition have, they have been singularly bereft of any new ideas in their contributions so far on this Budget.

Income tax, which many referred to as "the burden of taxation," is in fact our common contribution to the welfare of the State and towards the amenities we enjoy. It is our common duty to share with the less well-off sections and to permit them, too, to enjoy some portion of what the State regards as a just share of the tax allotment. The Minister has quite rightly stated that there is too much emphasis on this cliché, the common burden, and not enough on the common interest we all have, or should have, in our fellowmen. I am not saying that any of us enjoy paying income tax, but I think the incidence of income tax on us is overstressed in many instances. Indeed the people who benefit most, and who will continue to benefit most under this Budget, are those most entitled to benefit, namely, the parents of young families. The allowance in respect of children under 11 years of age has been increased to £135. Last night, Deputy Ryan wondered why there should be a differentiation between children under 11 and those over 11. He obviously had not read the Minister's statement or, if he had read it, was deliberately trying to evade the issue. Children over 11 years of age are in receipt of an allowance of £150 per annum free of income tax. Added to that is the fact that free post-primary education will become operational this year and that will ease the strain on the finances of parents in regard to schoolgoing children over 11 years to a degree so far unprecedented in the history of this State.

Social welfare now stands at a figure of £42½ million. There is a 5/increase for widows, old age pensioners, blind pensioners and social welfare recipients generally. This increase has been denigrated by Fine Gael. I wonder why. Deputy Ryan spoke about the last time Fine Gael were in office. I am at a loss to know whether he was referring to 1931 or whether he meant that Fine Gael were alone in office in 1956. The record, of course, was one of a 10d per annum increase in social welfare benefits; indeed, 2/6 was the highest single sum ever awarded by them in a Budget. It is interesting to note that under the last Coalition Government the old age pensioner had 25/- per week. Prior to this year's Budget, the figure was 52/6, more than double. As a result of the recent Budget increase, it will stand at 57/6. This to me is real progress. Not that we are satisfied with that figure or complacent about it; we never accept any increase we can give as the optimum. We never regard any increase as bringing the less well-off sections of our community to the zenith of what they should get but, at all times, we are quite prepared to ensure that they will suffer no diminution of their incomes and, as far as we can, we will improve their lot by direct taxation or by any other method open to us.

Free electricity may seem to some not very significant, but to the ordinary old age pensioner, living alone, it should prove most beneficial. I am quite certain it will be welcomed by them. It will enable them to maintain warmth and provide them with cooking facilities in their homes without fear of a bill for 15/- or 18/- being presented to them at the end of two months, or perhaps £1. Perhaps £1 is not a great deal to those who have money, but it is certainly a great deal to those who have no money. It was in that light the Minister viewed the plight of the old age pensioner and took action to alleviate the hardships that would be theirs, were it not for the fact that he has taken steps in this Budget to improve their position.

Transport facilities are being made available for the first time to old age pensioners. That is welcomed. Possibly old age pensioners do not use public transport to any great extent but we would like to think that, whatever use they make of it, they will have it free, gratis and for nothing.

Many categories of public service pensioners were mentioned by Deputy Ryan. The only category he did not mention was the Old IRA. These veterans are in receipt of military service pensions and special allowances. Under this Budget they will receive a 12 per cent increase. While this is not a tremendous sum, the fact that they know they are appreciated by the Government will be a cause of satisfaction to them. Many of these are now in the winter of their lives and, as a nation, we would be less than national-minded if we did not keep them prominently in the forefront of our thoughts at all times, and particularly at Budget time, the time when we can do something positive to help them.

I am glad to note the farmers will now receive £60 million by way of direct Government contribution. Many people have been vociferous in decrying the Government for lack of action on behalf of the farming community but these same people have been as silent as the walls of Tara during this Budget on that very aspect, and with good reason. In 1956, assistance to agriculture stood at a figure of £17.19 million. This year it is £60.2 million, almost four times as much. There is assistance for small farmers. Those under £20 valuation will be completely derated and those up to £33 valuation will pay rates only on that portion of their valuation in excess of £20.

I am sure the figures for the provinces will be of interest to Deputies. The number of farms of under £20 valuation in Leinster is 62,000 out of 103,000, or 60 per cent; in Munster it is 76,000 out of 117,000, 65 per cent; in Connacht, it is 73,000 out of 91,000 or 80 per cent; and in the three Ulster counties, it is 36,000 out of 48,000 representing 75 per cent. These farmers are completely derated now as a result of Government action. It will undoubtedly help the small farmer to keep his costs down. It will give him an added incentive and, by direct Government action, has in fact increased his income by that amount of rates that he would normally have been paying. The national figure for this will be something in the breakdown of £16 million being paid by the Exchequer and £7 million by the farmers generally in rates.

The employment allowance will be operational on all scales. Therefore the £17 that farmers can claim for their sons working with them will be operational as well for those at every scale and will mean a further relief to those farmers under £33 valuation and indeed to all other farmers as well because we must not forget the fact that the State will continue to pay four-fifths of the first £20 valuation of all farms.

Another big development is the extension of pilot areas. There will be a pilot area in each of the 12 counties which are loosely grouped and classified as the West. The Minister has shown not merely concern, not merely sympathy, but positive sympathy in this respect because he has tackled the problem. A recent television interviewer said the Government would have either to put up or shut up. The Government do not intend to shut up and so they have put up. They intend to save the West, despite the tactics of some of those who would try to do otherwise.

As and from 1st April, there will be 2d a gallon on quality milk. This will be of benefit to the dairy farmers throughout the country. The small farmer has figured prominently in Government action in this field. A special fund is being set up to enable the small farmer to purchase milk coolers and, as far as is practically possible, to give him every opportunity to avail of the quality price in milk. The Minister has laid aside £100,000 for this specific purpose. This, again, is proof positive of our concern for the small farmer and our concern for agriculture in general.

The association of Erin Foods and Heinz Ltd. offers tremendous potential to those farmers whose type of land or acreage would not allow them, or indeed whose capital might not permit them, to participate in other types of farming. By participation in vegetable growing, the farmer can be assured of cash crops. We would hope for an expansion in this field. Full credit must go to the Minister for Finance on his strenuous and successful efforts in bringing about this association of Erin Foods and Heinz Ltd. It is the first time that Heinz have ever associated with any other company in the history of their foundation. Against that background, we can appreciate the difficulties that presented themselves to the Minister when participating in these proposals and in bringing them to a successful conclusion.

The abolition of employment period orders will be of benefit to smaller farmers particularly those in the West and will give basis for further hope of expansion in this area.

Pigs, which have been the subject of much comment in recent times, have significantly practically not been mentioned by the Opposition. The positive step taken by the Minister for Finance in announcing, and the implementation by the Minister for Agriculture, that from 1st May an increase of 6/- per cwt. dead weight will be given at a cost to the Exchequer of £200,000 this year towards the support and the encouragement of the pig industry. At the same time, the headage grants scheme for farrowed sows which was due to terminate in September is now being extended to June, 1968, at a further cost of £200,000, bringing a direct contribution of £400,000 as a result of this Budget to the pig industry and to the earning capacity of the nation in this particular field.

Mining, which is a relatively new development in this country, has received further incentives from the Government and from the Minister. These are very worthwhile. The recent experience in my own constituency where Gortdrum mines, although not yet fully operational, have commenced shows very clearly the economic injection and the employment content this type of development brings with it. Gortdrum is now a big employer of labour in the Tipperary area and, please God, with further encouragement and stimulus from the Fianna Fáil Government the confidence of outside mining interests will be won. The hidden assets of this country which have remained dormant and hidden for so many hundreds of years will be exploited to the full to the benefit of all.

During last night's debate Deputy Ryan at one stage either promised or threatened—I do not know which—to burn himself. I gave him a match on the way home last night. I hope he did not take me seriously.

Mr. M. O'Leary

You do not want a by-election.

Mr. Meaney

We have not seen him this morning.

Mr. Davern

I suppose you will hear from him in the near future if he has not carried out his promise or threat.

Tourism, which is playing an everincreasing role in our economy, has again benefited from this Budget. Bord Fáilte are now empowered to increase their grants, particularly to hoteliers in the West, in order to encourage an influx of tourists, to make more bed accommodation available and generally to improve the standard of accommodation already offered. Tourists who come here not merely spend their own money but act as very useful and very necessary commodity consumers in regard to agriculture. What they eat here helps the nation in so far as we do not have to subsidise the quantity of food they eat and which normally we might have to sell on markets abroad. This is a help. Those who try to harm the tourist industry are harming agriculture as well. They should not forget this and should not treat the matter too lightly. People are often carried away in moments of enthusiasm or in the heat of debate and say rash and illogical things but on a closer examination of the facts, they will agree that anything that would frustrate tourist development would not be in the interests of any section of the community and least of all the agricultural section.

Fianna Fáil have at all times acted in a responsible fashion and since the foundation of the Party—which is not merely a political Party but a national institution—we have found ourselves with responsibility to the nation. In this light the attacks made on housing last night would bear examination. We have never taken any pleasure in increasing house rents or housing costs but the realities are there. Where house building costs are increasing and when the demand for house building is ever present, we must build houses. We cannot take the attitude adopted by a former Government in the early days of the State, that while the cost of housing was at a certain figure, they would not build in the hope that costs would then come down as a result. This cannot be accepted by us as good social policy because, firstly, it is not, and secondly, it only increases and prolongs the hardship of people who have the right to be housed.

The differential rent system comes in for criticism both here and elsewhere on many occasions but when we look at it we see that in its essence it is socialism at its best. It means that those who can afford to pay are paying their full contribution and those who cannot afford to pay are receiving the proper accommodation at reduced prices. I can quote a small instance in the town in which I live in South Tipperary. An assessment was made in regard to the introduction of a graded rents system and it showed that approximately 47 per cent of the tenants would remain as they were and the remaining 53 per cent were divided into 25 per cent who would receive a reduction and 28 per cent would bear an increase. In the long term, what does it mean? It means that while people are employed and earning, they can pay their rent, let it be shillings per week, and if they come on times of sickness, unemployment, or reach old age, when the children have left the home, and they are living on the old age pension, be it contributory or noncontributory, they revert to rents as low as 1/- per week. In fact, there are even categories where the income is so low that the rents would be wiped out completely. However, this is a category that we would not like to see remaining with us too long because it means that the income of that home is somewhat less than £2 10s per week. We do not want to see this happen and all our efforts have been directed towards increasing the assistance paid to these people. There is a 5/- increase granted for such people as disabled persons in this Budget.

Again, Deputy Ryan last night spoke in terms of 60 per cent of the people living on the breadline. I appreciate that he can be rather extravagant in his statements but surely one must be a bit factual in regard to what one says here. He obviously knows that this is a blatant untruth.

An Ceann Comhairle

I do not think that expression—"he knows it is a blatant untruth"—should be used. That is characterising the Deputy as a liar.

Mr. Davern

Well, let us say that he tends to exaggerate the figures in the extreme.

Mr. Haughey

And not show the concern for accuracy that he might.

Mr. Davern

Quite so.

Mr. Haughey

Will that do, a Cheann Comhairle?

An Ceann Comhairle

It is all right now.

Mr. Davern

The Inland Fisheries Trust and its development has received an injection of £25,000. This is welcomed particularly because these people do an immense amount of good and do it by stealth. We seldom hear about them; they do their work efficiently and are helping to make our rivers the Mecca for anglers which they are now becoming, especially for angling tourists from Britain. It is only by the co-operation of all people and particularly by the co-operation of anglers with the Fisheries Section of the Department, that we can secure and make positive the wealth at our disposal in these rivers, both touristwise and otherwise.

The Leader of the Opposition says this is a politically dishonest Budget and dishonest in every other respect also, but it is remarkable that Fianna Fáil have been able to implement a positive policy backed by realistic Budgets down through the years and have not had to abscond from government, leaving a sorry tale of woe as legacy to the incoming Government, as was the case some ten years ago.

Deputy Ryan speaks of his mailbox as the barometer of the thinking of the nation. I do not know what type of mail he receives——

Mr. Clinton

I think he explained that it was from people looking for jobs.

Mr. Davern

I am glad to hear he receives letter from people looking for jobs because I remember helping out a Member of the House some years ago and most of his letters came from England and were in the strain: "Dear Mick: Is there any chance that there is an improvement in the situation at home so that I could come back?" The people are in this country now and they are not at all as badly fixed as Deputy Ryan suggests, but the state of employment in the nation is a concern of ours, and the factories that have been put into operation by direct encouragement from Fianna Fáil have increased our employment figures. They have always been decried by the Opposition who keep on telling the nation that we are not an industrial country, that we cannot have industries, that they would not pay, that we could not work them and that they are doomed to failure from the word "go".

I wonder why the Opposition adopt this policy when we realise that the majority of our people who emigrate find themselves going into industrial employment abroad and making their mark there significantly. The encouragement of industry here is a "must". The encouragement which industry received from the early 'thirties on from Deputy Lemass has proved very much worthwhile. In the past ten years there was a more than substantial increase in our industrial exports and this has come from industries set up as a direct result of Fianna Fáil policy for the expansion of industry.

This Budget, in my opinion, does the greatest good for the greatest number with the least imposition on anyone and if the film "A Man for All Seasons" has won an Oscar, I think the Minister could well win an Oscar for this Budget, which is a Budget for all people. Deputy Cosgrave says there is nothing in it for the urban dweller. I do not know—perhaps Deputy Cosgrave knows—that there are no children under 11 in urban Ireland, no children availing of free education in urban Ireland, no people in urban Ireland who will benefit through the medical expenses provision and no people in receipt of social welfare benefits, old age pensions, blind pensions or widows' pensions in urban Ireland. If there are not, I wonder where they are? These extravagant statements by responsible persons in the Opposition do them no good and only highlight the weakness of their arguments—if they can be so described —and their criticism of this Budget.

I am particularly pleased with the Minister's aids to agriculture, and more especially by his real concern for the small farmer as evidenced in the many forms of assistance given through this Budget. I can well appreciate that the small farmer will now be able to intensify his activity and specialisation and the savings he will be able to effect as a result of this Budget will assist him to have a better living standard. But the one great feature of the Budget is that it is not one—now that we have got over the crisis period of financial strain—to lull people into any false sense of security or to delude them in any way. It is not one that will bring about any unrealistic situation but one which spells out very clearly that the nation can only progress in every sphere at a steady rate, having full regard to all the circumstances, that we cannot just wish-think ourselves into any situation but that we must work and increase production to earn for ourselves the higher living standards we all deserve.

In conclusion, may I say that the Minister, by the many concessions given to the farming community in this Budget, has earned their thanks in a very real and positive fashion.

Mr. M. O'Leary

I propose to be brief because we have many speakers yet to come and the debate so far has probably been marked by speeches that had more in length than in observations on the Budget proposals. The last speaker said that the Minister was a man of character but, like myself, I do not think he would go very far in a competition for an Oscar. The previous speaker was, I think, offering the Minister an Oscar award but whatever about this Budget, I do not think the Minister would go very far in that particular race, and neither would I.

We have supported this Budget because some of its provisions include improvements in social welfare. At the same time, we do not go overboard in adulation of the measures brought forward in the Budget because our fundamental objection to it is that we see very little involved in the proposals in it for an upturn in the economy or as an accelerator of the economy. If a Budget is to achieve anything, it should be seen in the sense that the employment position will be dramatically improved by reason of the measures proposed in it. We pointed out that this is the most serious matter in the economy at the moment, the most serious failing for the past few years and the great threat looming over us this year and next year.

The latest Report on Full Employment by the NIEC puts forward the objective of improvements in employment to the year 1980. To achieve this modest target, it proposes a rate each year to which it will be practically impossible to keep up, about ½ per cent every year in that period. The targets set down in the Second Programme are quite impossible of achievement by 1970. It is against this background, the failure to reach the targets of the Second Programme by 1970, the postponement of objectives to 1980 that one must judge the lack of real achievement of this Government.

The conditions before us are so serious that a juggler's Budget, adding a bit here and substracting a bit there, will not solve our problems unless we tackle the main sickness, the main weakness, the lack of the creation of jobs. Unless this can be tackled and some result achieved, then the downward trend will continue. In 1961, we had a total employment force of 1,520,500 and in 1965, 1,050,000. This serious position exposed by this continued downward trend in employment figures must be arrested if the economy is to expand.

At the same time, we see in Northern Ireland that they have the highest recorded figures since pre-Famine days for increase in employment and population. It seems that our figures, in factual employment, are very different. Between 1961 and 1965 in the manufacturing industry, we had an increase of 15,600; in other types of nonagricultural employments an increase of 22,600; but in the agricultural sector a drop of 40,700. The slight increase shown in the census figures of population can be attributed to an increase in old people and children in the population and it can be considered that this drop of 40,000 in the agricultural sector is mainly composed of young people who can see no employment whatever in Irish industry.

Whatever about our plans for mobility and so on, the traditional pattern continues of movement to industrial Britain. Indeed, if this pattern continues, there will be little need for the Department of Labour to try to implement a manpower policy because Britain has solved our manpower problems up to now and is likely to solve our manpower problems in the future. Britain is likely to continue to absorb the people who cannot get employment in this country.

It is here we must point to the main failing of this Budget, that we find little in it regarding the tackling of this serious problem. This is all the more serious in that in the past few weeks the air has been black with accusations about the shortcomings of our work force, their greed, their inefficiency and the necessity for making sure that they toe the line when it came to being efficient and productive in their employment. I accept, with regard to the working people in this country at all times that it is a matter for the Government to exhort them to work hard and so on, but we recognise that there is a moral decision by an individual worker going into his workplace in the morning to work hard during the day and that this decision is of no value unless the management have made a decision in regard to the worker also. The major decision for the prosperity of our economy lies with management. It appears to me that in recent months most of the rhetoric has been reserved for the shortcomings of the working people in this country.

We certainly understand, if our objective by 1980 of full employment is related to the growth targets every year, and certainly our experience in the past does not give us much reason to be confident that this can be achieved in the years to 1980, that there can be little enthusiasm among young people interested in the welfare of the country for a country which sets such mediocre standards. As other countries are coining phrases for their achievements, I suggest a good word for our future would be mediocre because our failure and the achievements to our credit in the creation of jobs are very paltry indeed compared with other countries.

This is all the more regrettable in that there are ministerial pronouncements every week about our hopes of being involved in the Common Market in the near future. I do not know if the Common Market countries are aware of the facts of Irish life and the areas where we are not yet within striking distance of being able to go into the company of those countries. It beats my imagination, at any rate, that we could hope to compete with those countries. I suggest that the efforts we have been putting into this matter should be on our home front and not on the diplomatic front. The diplomatic front has been looked after by Britain because whatever happens about the British application will influence our own application.

Our concentration at home should be on the industrial field and on the social welfare code. It is here that the Budget has given some improvement. There has been some increase in the social welfare payments. These are the improvements which are the main reason for our voting for this Budget but we should not go away with the feeling that there has been a real improvement in the standard of living of social welfare recipients. We should bear in mind that the 5/- per week increase given to those recipients will have to take into account the price increases over the past two years. We should realise that the extra earning power of this 5/- increase is in the region of 3/- per week. This would be the real cash value of the improvement to those people.

The time has come—I have said this before—when the plight and the position of those less favoured people who are not protected by any trade union or any other interested group, who depend on the susceptibility of politicians at Budget time or election time, should be protected by having a minimum income guaranteed for them. We should adopt the same system as has been adopted in other countries and say that at a certain age, the State will guarantee a certain income to those people, that that income will be protected by reason of changes in the cost of living, by certain additions when necessary and that Budget time will not be said to be the time for dealing with old age pensioners when their incomes are looked at and they are given some increase.

We have always held that one of the major objectives of any modern Government should be that the State will redistribute the national income and set about ensuring an adequate income to those sections of our population who have less, making sure that their standard of living is protected, and will in some way re-distribute the money we collect in taxes to areas where purchasing power is low.

At the same time as we see old age pensioners' real increase in terms of earning power at 2/- per week, we see that the surtax payers are helped in this Budget. We see that the man with £80 per week now pays £2 13s 6d less per week. Some categories of management may say that they are being penalised to some extent and that management in other parts of the world are doing better. Certain management organisations in the country have made representations that this is a real disincentive towards helping people in management.

Remember the aims of the political Party is power. If that political Party see fit to see that funds are guaranteed to an organisation known as Taca, let them understand that it will be properly charged.

There are those of us who are sad to see the position of a take-over of Fianna Fáil by a secret organisation called Taca, and that the Fianna Fáil member who may be in Fianna Fáil out of conviction may now be superseded by those who can yield power through cash value. It is a regrettable thing that in the weeks ahead this charge will be made. I believe there may be truth in the rumour that certain management categories may say that they are being penalised. Our justice and our concern is reserved for those whose incomes have not been propped up by fringe benefits of different kinds. While we listen to representations by management in the £4,000 income range, we finecomb the incomes of the other people to make sure there is a careful check through taxation on money flowing into a particular family.

There is a manpower drain at present in Dublin city of key workers. I know of key workers in good employment who have had to leave the city because of the housing situation. In a comparable city in Britain, it is much easier for people to get suitable accommodation in a shorter time. There are many key workers leaving Dublin city because of housing prices. There has been a farmer crisis, but certainly as far as Dublin is concerned a housing crisis exists. I see little in this Budget to help those who are at the moment caught in this desperate struggle to obtain decent accommodation in Dublin. There is no way out for the young married couple who cannot provide the necessary deposits. There is no way we can help them to get accommodation. It is extremely difficult to get accommodation for those who have children. There is a conspiracy in Dublin against married couples with children. In fact, the moral of the situation at the moment is that a married couple must delay having children if they are to get accommodation. Dublin landladies will not have couples with young children.

There is no control over the size of the rents that can be wrested from those married couples. It is not unusual to see single rooms being let at £6 a week. This is at a time when we believe incomes are rising on a planned level and when we feel there should be control exercised over exorbitant profits. The Taoiseach said yesterday that there should be such control. I think some degree of rent control should be introduced in Dublin with regard to private landlords whose procedure is nothing short of extortion. There is no competition whatever in this matter of the selling of housing accommodation. Unfortunate people who need this accommodation cannot argue and they must take what is given to them. That, to my mind, constitutes a housing crisis. We see little in this Budget which will in the future allow the building of a sufficient number of houses, and there is not sufficient investment allowed to permit local authorities to get rid of the housing backlog or proceed with the erection of houses which would make a difference to the housing queue in the coming years.

This is a great problem and I cannot see a solution coming from this Budget. We all understand the predicament that may arise from acting rapidly but those who are penalised through taxation are also in a predicament. Let us understand that the rent increases suggested in Dublin will have their bad effect on the cost of living of people who are unprotected. The industrial officer of the Irish Transport and General Workers' Union said yesterday that there are thousands of workers existing on salaries of under £12 a week. It is these workers and their families who will be penalised under the new rent increases. The rents to be charged in the Ballymun and Coolock housing schemes will certainly not be under market price. If you add to the rents that will be charged in those areas the amount payable for central heating, and so on, and transport costs to workers you will see that the cost of the rents in these schemes will be high.

Whilst we may have one crisis on our hands at the moment, I would say that many people in Ballymun and Coolock will find the cost of paying out in these schemes high, should there occur any period of unemployment, which often occurs in Dublin. This is something which should be looked at closely. It is something that will present itself in the near future.

Whilst other countries are worried about where they will deploy their extra manpower, our problem remains the old one of trying to deal with a large unemployment pool. I see nothing in this Budget which would indicate any real plans for the provision of extra employment. If in Sweden, for instance, there seems to be any disturbance in employment, the situation is arrested and the Swedish Government can act to redress this trend. Yet, it is a matter of common experience in this country that we regard unemployment as one of the aspects of the Irish question. It is part of our climate and something that cannot be avoided.

This Fianna Fáil Government can congratulate themselves on their ratio of years in power and their political survival; but, in real achievement, their provision of extra jobs is not convincing to us in the Opposition, or that there has been any real change in the forward direction of the country. They can point to no achievement. The only achievement of this Government is in the public relations field. They have convinced the Irish public that something miraculous has happened in the past two or three years. They have no rivals in this matter of public relations. This is a PRO Government and certainly no other political Party can teach this Government anything about public relations work. More is required than press releases or public relations treatment of the problems before us. Work is called for to promote growth in industry and to see that extra employment is created.

One of the old standbys of this Government in attracting foreign investment was to give them incentives in particular areas. Even here, we must put a big question mark, because the kind of incentives now being offered by the British Labour Government in their underdeveloped areas are way ahead and an improvement on the kind of incentives we can offer in our areas. I was reading only last week that pound for pound the investment we have had to put into industry in the creation of new jobs is quite exorbitant. I do not know where the mistakes are made—whether the kind of investment is the correct kind; whether the location is correct or whether the type of capital investment is appropriate. But the fact is that in comparison with other countries, we have had to invest more public money in the creation of new jobs.

Mr. Haughey

We started farther back.

Mr. M. O'Leary

Whether we started farther back or not, the point now is whether we can keep up the race at this stage. If public money becomes scarcer, if we are faced with a problem such as the British Labour Government have had to face, with a longer purse, can we match them pound for pound in the kind of incentives offered to foreign industrialists? It seems to me that in the future, we cannot depend as much as in the past on a sort of unrestricted flow of investment from foreign sources. We will have to think again on the kind of investment that has come from this particular source.

We created last year 1,000 new jobs. I do not know how many we will create this year, or next year, but we are no way near creating the jobs needed for those leaving school, for those looking for jobs, for the natural increase in population. Unless this is corrected, this economy will certainly be on the real decline in the future and it will take more than public relations to suggest that it is opening up. We shall have to depend to a great extent also in the future on Irish industry being able to meet some of the problems likely to face it. Grants are already being paid to private industry to enable its plant to be modernised. Yet, we know Irish industry is not itself too convinced of the necessity for adapting its machinery and plant to, possibly, tougher conditions in the future.

France spends about £20 per £100 of its national income on this type of work, the actual improvement of machinery and so on; Germany spends £25 per £100; Japan something like £33 per £100; and Britain something like £16 per £100. All these countries are vast industrialists. They spend this great amount of cash each year in seeing that industrial plant is brought up to what modern requirements demand. Our own fears would suggest that Irish industry is not too convinced about the necessity for this type of adaptation at all, that in fact Irish industry is not preparing seriously for any change in trading conditions in the future. This means that the livelihoods of those people who presently work in private industry are dependent on the individual decisions of private industry and its managements as to whether their work and their jobs will be defended and protected in the future.

The time has come for this Government to take decisive action—not speeches but decisive action—in the case of those managements which refuse to take action now in this period. If they do not take action, there will be close-downs and shutdowns in the future. It seems to me the situation is too serious to think that exhortation is any longer sufficient, because there are more people involved in this than even the shareholders of these companies. There are the workers and their families who cannot defend themselves, unless the right decisions are made in the firms in which they work. I hope some of the action suggested in speeches we have heard lately on such matters as these will be implemented, that we will not be left with an illusion of socialism, that we will see at least some socialist action, some measures taken, to bring in reforms in these areas.

There is one part of the Budget Statement about which I am a little unsure, that is, in relation to profits from land and property development. The Minister proposes to include proposals in a Finance (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill in the autumn. He says:

I should like to make it clear that the relieving provisions I shall be bringing in will be retrospective to the 6th April, 1965.

I should like to ask a question here in relation to land speculation and the profits made from land speculation in the Dublin area. We are all aware that there is a great deal of public uneasiness about vast profits being made from property development, property which would not be valuable unless situated near a city or an urban area. It is certainly wrong that individuals, because they possess the necessary capital to purchase such land, can convert this into a far greater gain over a very short period, without any real effort whatever. It appears to us to be against the grain of an economy which gives reward for commensurate effort. I am merely asking a question here as to whether the intention is actually to strengthen the provisions of the Finance Act of 1965, in preventing the making of rapid profits through this kind of investment. Am I right in saying it is the intention to tighten it rather than to loosen it?

Mr. Haughey

The idea is to catch profits to which the Deputy is referring as tightly as possible, to make sure that anybody who carries on a business of developing, building or trading in land or property pays full tax on the profits he makes, but to exclude people, or organisations, who, as it were, make accidental profits on property transactions. A lot of transactions have been caught by the net which were never intended to be caught, profits made perhaps by organisations and concerns which were not trading, as such.

Mr. M. O'Leary

I am glad to hear that because I was wondering about the particular interpretation to be put on this provision. This would be a very good measure to bring in because definitely, if we are serious about the idea of making it known that efficiency and productivity should be the guidelines in any economic awards given, it would be impossible to suggest that this is the proper attitude, if certain drones in our community are seen to cash in on something that requires no real effort or initiative whatever. I think it essential—the Minister refers to this in his Budget Statement—to proceed rapidly towards getting some notion about what this Government intend doing about incomes in general. The Taoiseach last night referred to his ideas of this factor and referred to the Government's intention of having regard to all incomes, not merely wages and salaries. The trade unions would welcome this kind of approach by the Government.

We have all along—for quite some years now—pushed for a positive attitude to incomes in general. We have suggested many times that the labour movement is ready to sit down constructively, with other interests, in an attempt to get an overall plan for incomes. But our main charge up to recently has been that any talk on incomes, or proposals on incomes, has been confined purely to wage and salary workers. Whilst this onesided approach proceeds, there will be little co-operation from the trade union side and little idea that anything is being attempted in this direction. The fact is that there is little to the credit of the Government in attempting to understand the complexities of the problem. There is little to show that they have attempted to understand the ramifications of bringing about an incomes policy throughout our entire economy. In his Budget Statement, the Minister did say that some groups should now keep records of the amount of earnings they achieve in any one year as they may be needed for future legislation.

The immediate position is that the £1 we received last year has been very seriously eroded by consumer price increases. If an individual in a trade union finds prices rising, finds the rent of his accommodation rising, finds a hundred and one things rising on which he depends to preserve his standard of living, he has absolutely no alternative but to go to his union and seek some kind of improvement in that position. The union, in turn, must negotiate with the employer. The Government of the day can always answer that such and such a bargain depends on the overall state of the economy and productivity in the particular industry; but you can understand the dilemma of the ordinary man in the street who finds his standard of living seriously threatened and there is no appreciable difference in the amount of work he is doing between the time productivity in his industry fell and the point at which he is told he is getting an increase. If he is told that productivity in his industry is not expanding at a sufficient rate to give him an increase, he will fail to understand that answer. It is important that this idea of incomes should be fully understood and explained to all in our community.

We should examine again our whole taxation code. The Labour Party statement this year anticipated the Minister in some of his measures. We consider the present taxation code a quarry of anomalies and inequalities. It is time this code, which has been pieced together, should be sized up in its entirety and the questions asked: What are the main purposes of this code? Whom is it designed to help? It appears to have neither rhyme nor reason. It appears to me to be a set of irritations designed for their own aggravation. It appears to be motivated by very little idea of rationality or justice. It is important that it should be re-examined. If we consider that the Constitution is in line for reexamination, much more so should the taxation code be looked at.

Look at the position of married women in our code. We should consider something like the French split system. It is a bad thing that the working wife should have no separate identity.

Mr. Haughey

There is a wife's earned income allowance.

Mr. M. O'Leary

I know, but it could be improved upon. I have not gone into it in great detail. At the moment a couple living in sin would be better off under the taxation code than if they were married. The traditional trade union attitude has been that if we are short of jobs in the economy, we should not increase the tendency of working women to enter the labour force. But it has been a feature of most modern economies in Europe that married women tend to work, and I do not think we will avoid it here. The whole taxation code should be looked at to see what changes can be made.

The transport concession given to old age pensioners is one that could have been granted years ago. I am glad we do not have to listen to stonewall speeches from the Minister for Transport and Power proving how in fact it could not be implemented. There have been many motions down in the name of this Party asking for it, but it was considered Utopian and impossible. Now we see it is possible. Many things are possible at different times. We are glad to see this concession brought in, and also the one in respect of ESB bills.

Our main feeling about the Budget is that it does not give concrete proof of the Government's intention to take steps for the recovery of the economy. This Budget should have been the first step in our economic recovery. It should have been the Government's accelerator on the economy in making sure it will go ahead and improve the position in regard to jobs. The Budget can be seen as a juggler's Budget, with some items up and others down. The agricultural benefits have been hailed, but do they offer any real hope that the position in agriculture will be improved? Can they be seen as anything more than an extension of the dole to the agricultural community? Do they offer any real hope that there are plans for the expansion of the industry in the future?

When all the blather is over and the columnists have gone home, these are the questions to be asked of the Budget. The Minister is one of the foremost figures in the Government and we put these questions to him in all sincerity. Our Party have not taken any smallminded view of its provisions. We have spoken out fairly where we approved of steps taken, but we have also pointed out the deficiencies. The biggest deficiency is this credibility gap about the sincerity of the Government's intentions in the future to tackle seriously the long-term deficiencies of our economy, the things that this Government have not solved in their 11 years of office—unemployment and lack of growth in the economy.

We may have had a few short years of mini-boom in 1961-62 from the British economy. This has now faded away. The Government took credit for the achievements of those short, sweet years. Now that the position has changed, the Irish economy and its problems remain in much the same position. There is definitely in the minds of our Party this credibility gap about the seriousness of this Budget and what it attempts to do in solving the problems before us. We believe it is right to run on a deficit. We believe it is right to bring in some of the changes suggested. But where this Budget is weakest is in its intention to act in the future. In agriculture it merely doles out certain benefits to old age pensioners. It gives certain increases which, as we have said, have been very seriously eroded by price increases. On incomes generally there is the same appeal about the necessity for restraint.

Unless the Government can act on incomes and on the matter of job creation, unless they can act by improving the taxation code, unless in all these areas this Government can act—and this Budget, the main Government economic statement of the year shows very little inclination in that direction—very little will be done. It is very vague indeed about what this Government's plans are for the immediate future. In the absence of such notice from the Government, and when we see what the statisticians say about the future of this economy, then apparently we are to be fed on a diet of public relations for the next few years and there will be no real achievement.

Mr. Clinton

This Budget must come as a great disappointment to those who felt we had a young Minister, a Minister who should be courageous, progressive and expansive in his outlook. As I see it, the Budget lacks imagination and lacks incentives to increased production. At the same time, it is completely devoid of any plan to provide employment. This is a very serious situation at a time when it is evident that there are 100,000 of our people for whom we are unable to provide employment, at a time when people are leaving agriculture in thousands yearly, because agriculture, as it is at present, is failing to provide acceptable incomes for the people engaged in it.

Deputy Davern, the Parliamentary Secretary, expressed his disappointment that there had been so little comment on agriculture in the course of the Budget discussion. The Budget discussion has a long way to go and I hope that deficiency will be rectified in the course of the remaining speeches on the Budget. There is one matter to which he referred and which I think calls for comment. First of all, he said the derating of holdings of £20 valuation was a wonderful thing, and secondly, that these people could avail of the £17 employment allowance. As far as I know, the people in the west of Ireland on that valuation already have eight-tenths remission. If we take the case of a person in one of those areas who is on £20 valuation and who is paying 80/- in the £—that is normal enough in those areas—it would mean he would be liable for £80 in the first instance; there would be eight-tenths remission, which means that if he had one son of 17 employed on the land, he would be paying no rates. Therefore, he could not avail himself of this employment allowance. I just mention that to correct what the Parliamentary Secretary has said in relation to it.

I should like to remind the Parliamentary Secretary, too, that there was quite a big discussion here yesterday morning in relation to agriculture. It arose out of the reference by Deputy Tully to the deplorable disruption of the agricultural industry throughout most of the past year and to the fact that the Minister for Finance, the then Minister for Agriculture, was largely responsible for this disruption. I also feel that both he and the Government must accept responsibility for it. For the records of the House, it is no harm to state that these difficulties were initiated by the Minister for Finance when he was Minister for Agriculture. There was an appointment arranged for the National Farmers Association for a certain date and a short time before that date the President of the NFA made a critical speech——

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

I do not see how this is relevant to the Budget debate.

Mr. Clinton

It is relevant in so far as it relates to the unnecessary disruption which has taken place in the agricultural industry for which we are providing £5 million in this year's Estimate.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

We are not discussing the details of agricultural administration. The points raised by the Deputy would be relevant on the Agriculture Estimate but are certainly not relevant on the Budget. I am pointing out to Deputy Clinton that the debate is confined to discussing expenditure and financial policy, and matters of detail that would be relevant on Estimates are not relevant in the Budget debate.

Mr. Clinton

Some of the moneys which go to make up this £5 million could perhaps have been saved if we started to talk sense to the people in the agricultural industry last year. That is one of the reasons I wanted to clear that up. The Minister, in introducing his Budget, has spoken about farming organisations and has also spoken about the National Agricultural Council, and I hope I will not be debarred from speaking about them.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Minister spoke generally about the problem, but the Deputy is now going into details relating to an appointment of an organisation representing agriculture with the Minister on a certain date. That does not relevantly arise on the Budget debate.

Mr. Clinton

I shall leave it by simply deploring the state of the agricultural industry that has come about merely because this disruption was allowed to continue unnecessarily over a long period and because of the predictions, and I would say, foolish forecasts, of the Minister at the time, in telling the people what they were going to get as a result of the Trade Agreement. It is due also to the failure of the Minister to accept the proposals of some of these organisations for the setting up of a meat marketing board and a number of other things that would have helped to relieve the deplorable conditions which the farmers had to suffer last year.

Let me move on to the details of the Budget. There is 1d a gallon increase to dairy farmers and to liquid milk producers. I wish to go into the value of this penny. It is estimated that that gives the dairy farmer in the creamery areas an increase in income of four per cent and it gives the liquid milk producer an increase of three per cent. I wonder why this discrimination. The farming organisation, while they were looking for 2d a gallon increase for creamery milk, were looking for 4d for liquid milk, but this does not seem to have been met. The position of the liquid milk producer does not seem to have been fully appreciated. The enormous costs of production in which he is involved because of winter milk production—he must keep up milk production the whole year round—have not been appreciated. There is, too, the fact that he has a very poor outlet for surplus milk and there is quite a surplus in the Dublin area.

Let us examine this 1d and its value in relation to other things of importance. A penny a gallon on 600 gallons, which is perhaps 100 gallons more than the average yield per cow, means that the farmer's income is increased by £2 10s per cow. At the same time, there has been a reduction of at least £15 per calf in the past year. That means that the net loss in the farmer's income is, in fact, £12 10s.

Mr. Meaney

There is 1d since 1st April for quality milk.

Mr. Clinton

There is 1d since 1st April for quality milk, which gives the farmer another £2 10s, if he qualifies; we have evidence, I think, that only something like 50 per cent of the milk does qualify for this quality bonus. The Minister referred to the fact—somewhat vaguely because he had not the details—that he was considering the implementation of something on the lines recommended by the committee set up to consider and make recommendations on the two-tier price system. He has set aside some money to meet this. He did not say what exactly he intends to do. It is a sort of production incentive and, from that point of view, I am in complete agreement with it. Here, the Minister is doing something which will be of permanent value. This is long-term investment. It is something that will be paid only if production is increased. The one thing about which I am concerned is the ability of the small dairy farmers to take advantage of this—their ability to secure the necessary credit to buy the extra cows and provide the extra feed for them in the initial stages.

This is an indication that there is day-to-day planning in agriculture. It also indicates the great need there is for long-term planning. The provisions for agriculture in this Budget have been described as social assistance, to some degree; with that I personally agree. It is a form of social assistance, a form of social assistance to the poorest people in our society. It is a form of social assistance we all favour —we all appreciate it is necessary— but it should not be described as assistance to agriculture. It is, and should be described as, social assistance.

The Government are tackling the problem in the West in the way in which it should be tackled, but it is not being tackled vigorously enough. The scheme in relation to pilot areas is too slow. In this Budget an effort is being made to provide something in the shape of assistance to smallholders and farmers of low valuation. Something is being done also to improve the income from fishing and from tourism. There is a hope expressed—I do not think there is any actual provision— that it may be possible to bring more income to the people in the West by attracting industry there. This is certainly not a problem that can be tackled purely from the farming standpoint. All facets must be taken into consideration. The problem cannot be regarded as one that can be solved simply by improving farming. The holdings are much too small and a proper income can be provided on them only if there is greater intensification in pig-production, glasshouse production, or something of that sort. The type of investment required is unlikely to come for some considerable time.

As I said, the provision here is social assistance. It is not long-term investment in agriculture. I doubt if it is yet fully recognised that the entire prosperity and welfare of the industrial and commercial sectors depend on the state of agriculture. Until the Government appreciate the necessity for a long-term policy for and a large-scale investment programme in agriculture, there is little hope that they will achieve anything. They will certainly not achieve anything by their present method of providing stopgap assistance. That is all it can be described as.

The Minister has complained that he is disappointed that the moneys provided so far for agriculture have not given a fraction of the return expected from them. If that is so, it is a serious reflection on agricultural policy. The Minister should, I think, have explained why they have failed to give the return expected and what he intends to do to rectify the situation. I believe we have always looked "too small" at agriculture. We have always taken a short-term view of it. We have at the moment the Wright Report on the development of the Dublin region in which there is talk about spending £1,000 million in 20 years. We must talk big about agriculture as well. We must look at the problem over a period of years.

We should survey the whole position now and decide the type of investment necessary to bring our farmers up to the standard of efficiency and competitiveness with which they will be faced if we succeed in gaining admission to the EEC and to take advantage of the opportunities with which we will then be presented. The Minister should explain what he intends to do in relation to this disappointing return from the moneys already subscribed for agriculture. Large sums of money have been subscribed. Perhaps they are not giving the return they should. The Minister is disappointed. We must not forget, however, that the farmers provide two-thirds of our exports and we must not forget that the raw material for these exports is almost entirely native and the import content of the exports is extremely small.

The Minister referred to the National Agricultural Council and to the NIEC. It is very wrong that provision has not been made for proper farmer representation on the NIEC. Seeing that this has not been done and that the Minister has decided to set up a national agricultural council, it is deplorable that such a mess has been made of the setting up of this council. I certainly sincerely hope that a way will be found to ensure that a proper national agricultural council will be set up, a truly representative national agricultural council and an independent body. It has failed and has fallen through because of the Minister's insistence on hand-picking and appointing so many of the members himself and because of his failure to recognise the national status of the National Farmers Association.

I hope these difficulties may be resolved and that the Minister may see his way to appreciate that it is an extremely important thing to have such a body in existence, to have the farmers of this country fully involved in policymaking. No matter what policy is thought up by him or his Department, there can be no success and no hope of success unless we have the full co-operation and the full confidence of the farmers of the country behind us. They will not have that confidence and will not give that support unless they are fully involved in policymaking. That is self-evident to us and it should be self-evident to the Minister also. They have come through a disastrous year and there will be immense difficulty in restoring confidence to the farming community but every effort should be made because it is a worthwhile effort if it produces the necessary results.

I may be permitted to carry this a little further. It is very regrettable that the farmers themselves have not been able to come together and produce their own national agricultural council because I think this is a fine solution. At the moment the only thing that is in the way of that is that there is one organisation insisting on federation. I think, of course, that this is the wrong thing. I think it is the wrong thing because each commodity group would be anxious to ensure at all times that they produce the greatest result for their own particular section and the overall welfare of the agricultural industry would not, in fact, be considered or brought into the picture in the way it should be.

However, I will go this far and say if there is no other way of bringing the farmers of this country together in a unified body, I would accept federation as a stepping-stone to eventual unity when I would hope the distrust would be dispelled and the various groups would come to understand one another's point of view. I think this is the only final solution but in the last analysis, it is the Minister's responsibility and he should do everything possible to bring this about.

I want to refer to the 6/- per cwt increase in pig prices. The Parliamentary Secretary, Deputy Davern, referred to the fact that nobody said anything about this. Of course this 6/- increase is to be welcomed. However, I do not think it is the answer to the difficulty in the pig industry at the moment. We know that there was a drop last year of 250,000 in pig numbers. An increase of 6/- a cwt in the price of quality bacon will not give the stimulus to the pig industry that is required if we are to get the numbers we need. Everybody knows that what really matters more than anything else is the cost of feed in relation to the cost per cwt secured for pigs afterwards. The cost of feed has been increasing all the time.

I was extremely disappointed that there was nothing in this Budget to subsidise the stocks of barley at present on hands. I know that there are large stocks of barley at the moment in this country, in spite of the fact that we are importing about £20 million worth of feeding and grain into this country each year which, of course, has a very adverse effect on our balance of payments. Most of this could and should be produced at home. If we are to clear the stores in time for the harvest of the coming year, there must be a subsidy paid for the barley that is in stock in order to bring it down to the price of milo and in order to give our pig producers pig feeding at the price they would get it in the North of Ireland and in England. The Minister would do well to have a look at this situation and see what can be done about it.

Another thing that will be a source of disappointment for most people in the farming industry is that the heifer subsidy scheme has not been replaced by a calf subsidy scheme of some sort —if not a subsidy on all calves, even a subsidy on the first ten calves. That is the sort of thing farmers are looking for at the present time. Everybody knows the heifer subsidy scheme has increased cattle numbers but it is generally accepted by everybody in the industry and in the trade of selling cattle that the quality of some of our stores has deteriorated considerably as a result of the scheme. It is a matter of disappointment that a calf subsidy scheme has not been considered to replace it.

Last year there was an increase in output by agriculture of two per cent. No reference has been made to this. At the same time, there has been a loss of income in the region of £3 million to £4 million. When we talk about the £5 million provided, when we have regard to the social assistance element of a large portion of it and also to the fact that we are only repaying the £3 million to £4 million lost last year, then this contribution to agriculture diminishes and comes down to its right size. At the same time as this has been happening, the industrial sector has practically stagnated and the workers in industry have got an increase of six per cent. Those are not my figures; they are the figures of the Minister for Labour. I am sure that that six per cent increase was well justified by the ever-increasing cost of living. The cost of living has increased for the farming community just as it increased for the people in the other sectors. It does not seem to me to be equitable treatment.

There has been an enormous drop in tillage in the past year, a drop of 133,000 acres. The question of employment is all-important. It has been said and said again by a previous Taoiseach in Fianna Fáil that the acid test of Government success or failure was the number of people for whom it was possible to find employment. The numbers leaving agriculture every year are really staggering. Something must be done to slow down this exodus because we are obviously not able to provide employment opportunities for them outside of agriculture. There is nothing facing them except the emigrant ship.

The unfortunate situation is that we have in the past few years abandoned completely the intensive lines of agricultural production and gone over to the extensive system of cattle and livestock raising. There is an exception to this which I hope will grow and increase, that is, vegetable production. I should like to welcome the tie-up that has taken place between Erin Foods and Heinz Limited, especially if this will be responsible for requiring a much greater acreage of vegetables to be produced and as a consequence keep more people on the land. Certainly it will not find new employment but it may reduce the numbers of people who have to leave the land every year and look for employment elsewhere.

It is fair to say that this Budget has been designed in such a way as to get maximum support for the Government in the forthcoming local elections. I say that for a number of reasons. From every platform which they can find, the Government, the Ministers and the Taoiseach, are deploring the speculation in business sites in the Dublin region particularly. These speculators to whom they are referring are well known to most of us and indeed they are not very far removed from the Government. They are entitled to speculate as long as nothing is done at Government level to prevent them. In fact, everything has been done to assist them. The cost of housing sites has rocketed but it has rocketed, not for the reason given by the Minister but simply because services have not been extended and because there has been no long-term plan in regard to the whole matter. Nobody outside of the local authorities was able to foresee this demand for housing accommodation in the Dublin region, or that there would be this enormous increase in population in the region. It was obvious to everybody in the local authorities but the necessary money was not provided, and still is not being provided, for the rapid extension of sewerage and water services throughout the areas in which building sites could and should be made available, and not only sites for houses but for industries.

To my knowledge, we are daily and weekly losing industries because we are not in a position to accommodate them in the eastern region. This is deplorable. Many industrialist who come here will not establish their industries in the country. They experience such difficulty in getting serviced sites and building and planning permissions that they abandon the idea of setting up an industry and go. There is no point at this stage trying to deplore that all this is happening. Who does the Minister think is responsible for this situation? Who does the Taoiseach think is responsible and whom can he blame for the fact that it has happened during the past ten or 11 years while this Government were in office? The whole housing situation in the Dublin area is deplorable and there is nothing in this Budget to assist people to get more local authority or more private houses built. Costs have rocketed and it is now an impossibility for young people who wish to set themselves up in a home of their own to find the necessary deposits to cover the gap between what is provided by way of loan and grant and the actual cost of the house. In addition, rates are rising all the time.

Recently I was studying some statistics in this regard and I found that rates are increasing at the rate of about £3 million a year. A promise was made that the rate charge for health would be stabilised at the 1963 level. It was not a definite or final promise but it was reiterated by the Minister for Health in the early part of this year and then he had to come back and apologise and say that when he made this statement he felt it was right and proper, but that they found that there was such an enormous increase in the demand from the various health authorities that they could not bear this burden.

Now it has been deferred and, I am very much afraid, deliberately deferred, until next year, until the local elections are over. The announcement that the health charges would not be stabilised at the 1963 figure came too late to have them included in the rates and in the Dublin region, we are short of £432,000 to meet the deficit. That will be pushed on to next year and with the normal increase of five per cent it will require £1,650,000 extra in rates. That is why I say this Budget has been designed mainly with an eye on the local elections. There is nothing in the Budget either to provide the health services we have been promised, not by the present Minister for Health but by his predecessor. There is no provision in the Budget to implement any of those promises.

A point which I should like clarified is in regard to the income tax allowance for medical expenses incurred. We have been fighting for this for a long time and on a number of occasions we put down amendments to Finance Bills in an effort to have this introduced. I had in mind particularly families who are unfortunate enough to have a mentally retarded child who, with the normal life expectancy, imposes a very heavy burden on the family. I hope that this aspect will be covered under this allowance. I welcome, too, the provision of free electricity and free transport. It is not easy to understand why there was such opposition to the provision of these two things in the recent past and why it is now found possible to provide them. In Dublin County Council, we went so far as to undertake to bear the cost of free transport for old age pensioners and to put it on the rates but CIE refused to give an estimate of the cost. They said it was not possible but now it is possible when somebody else thinks it is the right thing to do.

When dealing with housing costs, I forgot to mention the unnecessary cost imposed on unfortunate people who are scraping the bottom of the barre and who are at their wit's end trying to provide themselves with a house people who are among our best citizens, in the form of stamp duties on the houses. The sooner this burden is removed the better it will be for all concerned. I should again like to express my general disappointment that the Budget does not indicate to me or, I am sure to anybody else, that it is likely to provide more employment opportunities for our people in the coming year. The Minister made a passing reference to the fact that a firm of consultants were studying the work of the Industrial Development Authority to see how it could be improved. I have always been critical not of the people in the Industrial Development Authority but of the general organisation we have for attracting new industries. In the general organisation we have, there are so many problems put in the way of would-be industrialists that it is a wonder we ever get industries at all. If we are to find employment for the people leaving agriculture and for those who will become redundant in small industries, we must wake up and get moving on this matter as quickly as possible.

The Parliamentary Secretary remarked that we had got over the crisis period. I hope he is right in that. I think he should reflect on where responsibility lies for the crisis and whose mismanagement brought it about.

Mr. Davern

Surely the Deputy is aware that credit restrictions were not peculiar to Ireland?

Mr. Clinton

That is only one facet of it. Reference should also be made to the fact that there is income tax relief for people with up to five children under 11. The question of the children over 11 has been more or less clarified since there is already relief for them. The point is made that there will be free education, in addition. I would say that free education in most cases does not start at 11 and if all the children were to leave the primary schools at 11, I do not know where the free education would be provided because there is a situation at Clondalkin where the present primary school accommodation is so short that no fewer than 250 boys are attending the secondary school and paying there because they cannot find accommodation in the primary school. A good deal of nonsense is talked about this.

I am thinking of families that are not catered for in this Budget and the workingclass farmers who are not paying income tax. What relief will they get? There is relief in the Budget for families of five children under 11. If there are five children, they get approximately £25 additional income but there is no additional income for the working man, the farm labourer who has a family, or the worker in industry who is not already liable for income tax. There is no relief for him but the cost of living is increasing every day. The reply to a Parliamentary Question last week indicates that almost every item required by every family has gone up in price considerably. I hope that when the Minister is replying he will tell us what will happen about this increase in the price of milk, the extra 1d per gallon. Will that be passed on to the consumer or will the Government provide the money for it? Again, will the price of butter be increased and if so, by how much to the consumer? These points should be clarified and I hope the Minister will do so when replying.

A final word in regard to the whole situation in relation to agriculture and the great song and dance being made about this £5 million that is provided. In 1953, there was a gap of £90 between the people in agriculture and those engaged in industry. This figure is now £276 per annum and the gap is continuing to widen. There does not seem to me to be much of the £5 million going to narrow the gap or bring income levels to anything like parity. Agricultural production has increased more rapidly than industrial production and I fear that the people responsible for the increased production are not getting credit for it in this Budget.

Mr. Meaney

I wish to congratulate the Minister for Finance on presenting his first Budget and on the manner in which he has presented it. It is a very straighforward, forthright docusens ment. It is very detailed and is, in the main, self-explanatory. It is a very well balanced Budget made possible by the foresight of the Government in the past 12 months. We had in the past 12 months two Budgets——

Mr. Dillon

Hear, hear.

Mrs. Hogan O'Higgins

And you will have two this year.

Mr. Meaney

The local elections are worrying the Deputies. The then Minister for Finance said that when the Budget of 1967 came around, we would not have a deficit. That is exactly what has happened. Last year we faced the financial crisis which applied not only here but in other countries also. The Government took the necessary measures, stood their ground and overcame the crisis, and so the Minister in his financial statement here is able to say that instead of a deficit, he has a surplus of some £800,000. This is a true sign that the Government have been fully aware of what is happening around them and throughout the country.

It is also well to mention the success of the National Loan at the end of last year. That loan was oversubscribed and was the first vote of confidence in the new Taoiseach, Deputy Lynch. The country in general has hailed this Budget as a good one and I cannot but reflect that the voters of South Kerry and Waterford must feel very happy that they made the right decision last December when they went to the polls.

Deputy Dockrell seemed to think that there was no money available from the banks for the private sector of the community but on page 3 of his Budget Statement, the Minister was able to report:

Foreign borrowing brought in £9.8 million, with the result that it was necessary to raise only a net £16.2 million from the banking system or about half the amount raised from this source in 1965-66. This meant that much the greater part of the Central Bank's recommended £43 million of new bank credit in 1966-67 was available for the private sector.

This explains the matter in detail and from my own experience in speaking to bank managers and people in the business, I find they look forward with confidence. We all know that in the farming community there was a large carry-over of cattle from last year and perhaps some people have not got their accounts up to the mark, but as one bank manager said to me: "It is no time to go after a man when prices are low." That is a good attitude for the banks to adopt in that they are willing to carry farmers who have not been able to meet their commitments, until prices have risen as has happened, and as is happening at the moment.

There are many matters in the Budget that I could discuss but I do not intend to spend very much time in doing so. There are a few items to which I want to allude, of which one is the provision of a very large sum for the Department of Education. A very serious effort is being made by the Minister for Education to ensure that all our children will have an equal chance of education. We have various free schemes for education. We have a free transport scheme, the provision of books and all that. This will be very welcome in the rural areas because previously people living six, seven and eight miles from a school found it very hard to give their children even a primary education. Now this seems to be a thing of the past. As the years roll on, when people are speaking about Ministers for Education, they will give the present Minister for Education credit for what is happening.

There is also an increase in the amount provided for the Department of Health which at the moment is bearing 55 per cent of the cost of all health services. No matter what way we look at the matter — politicians all have their different views about this— it is a great saving to the taxpayers to find that the Central Fund is contributing so much to the health services generally.

In social welfare we have had increases given to old age pensions, widows' pensions and various benefits in other fields. It is a good Budget for them. In 1963-64, the provision for social welfare was £31 million and we now find that in this coming year it will be £42½ million, an increase of 37 per cent. The Opposition, of course, made great capital out of the fact that last year when there was an increase of 5/- to old age pensioners, it was not given to everybody. There was a lot of clamouring at that time that we were not giving money to those people. When this increase was given, they grumbled that it was not given to everybody. They cannot grumble about it this year because there is a general increase of 5/- all round.

Provision has also been made for free electricity and transport for old age pensioners. The electricity allowance consists of 11/- minimum for each two month period and there is also provision for an allowance of 100 units free of charge in each period. This will be very much welcomed by people living alone. We all know it is very hard to live at the present time but it is particularly hard for old age pensioners when they are living alone and have no other income. It will be a great comfort to them to know that they have free light. I know that the Opposition will say: "Why not include gas?" That may be correct but the point is that this has been started and perhaps the Government at some future date may make an allowance for gas or something else.

Now we come to the agricultural field and we find that the total amount of State expenditure on agriculture in the coming year will be in the neighbourhood of £60 million. This indeed is a good increase. Again it takes in many fields. We have an increase of 1d a gallon on all milk supplied to creameries from 1st May next. We also have to make an allowance for the 1d a gallon for quality milk which was promised last year and which took effect from 1st April this year. This will represent an increase in the incomes of dairy farmers. The dairy farmer is one person who is well entitled to get this increase. He is the hardest working farmer in this country. He has a seven day week and it is often a 24 hour day, especially at spring time when his cows are calving.

There is a scheme for milk coolers. This is very welcome because I really think you cannot produce quality milk unless you have a proper system of milk cooling. As we all know, our aim in the future will be to produce quality milk. This allowance is very welcome in the areas which are not served by water schemes up to this. It took a great amount of water to cool milk but now with the particular type of milk coolers which are on sale, it really seems that 30 gallons of water will do for a month. It was often said when the 1d came in that the person merely wasted that in water trying to cool his milk. Now it is 2d and I have no doubt that there will be a great number of applicants for these milk coolers.

We now come to the question of the unemployment assistance for small farmers. Here we have changes again. Those changes mean that 10,000 smallholders for the first time will be eligible for unemployment assistance. I know a lot of people think that this benefit is being given for idleness but really it is not. Of course, we have different types of farmers. We have farmers who would benefit probably by being on the two-tier price discussed by the committee but we have the very small farmers who really cannot make a living unless they get more land. It is for them that the unemployment assistance will be of benefit.

It is good to know that this time money is provided for the derating of agricultural land of under £20 valuation. The derating of farms under £20 valuation means that 248,000 out of roughly 350,000 occupiers of land in the State will be free from any rates on their land this year. This, indeed, is very welcome. We all know that the greatest flight from the land, if I may call it such, has been amongst the smallholders and from the older generation. This has not been confined to this country alone. We must remember that in the United States last year 400,000 people left the land. We must remember that in England some 40,000 people left the land for jobs in the larger cities. Anything we can do, whether by way of derating, unemployment assistance or incentive bonus, one way or the other, to help out the small farmers, to my mind, is a step in the right direction.

We have also the 6/- increase per cwt in the price of pigs delivered to factories. This is very welcome. As we all know, the price of the rasher is fairly high. Of course we have two types of partners. There is the man who lives near the meat processing plant who can get it at a cheap rate. He can make a good profit, but the man who has to go out and buy the rasher cannot make a profit. He will welcome this increase, as also will the man who breeds pigs.

The headage grant for farrowed sows has been extended to June, 1968. This is provided at a cost of £100,000. This represents a four-year cycle and I have no doubt that the headage grant for farrowed sows will be a success. I hope it will result in increasing numbers of pigs and that these numbers will never again decrease.

Some time ago the Minister set up a milk price committee to look into the suitability of a two-tier price for milk. The committee have finished their work and I congratulate them on it. They did it in an efficient manner and in a short space of time. They decided that it is not good to have a two-tier price for milk. I suppose they found it could not work. Instead, they recommended that we should provide an incentive for the small farmers. It is good to know that the Minister has set money aside for that purpose and it is worthy of note that the Minister will introduce measures in relation to this before the end of the year.

I come now to the merger between Erin Foods and the Heinz company. It also is to be welcomed. It is good for Erin Foods to get linked up with this well-known branch of products. It is of course also a good deal for the Heinz company. They are coming to a country where there is an abundant supply of the raw material necessary for their products. The work of producing vegetables, and so on, has a high labour content, and it is work which will be availed of to a great extent by the smallholder. The production of vegetables yields a good income per acre. Heavy labour is involved and, in general, it seems a sound proposition.

There is also a lot of money being provided for tourism in the Budget. I am glad to see that a decision has been taken to spend £100,000 in capital grants to encourage small farmers in the west of Ireland to go into this business. I know a few people who have gone into that business already by providing farmhouse accommodation of one kind or another. There is one thing they must be very careful about. Holidays here might present a sort of sameness to the tourist. Tourists want to see something they have not in their own country. I know of people who leave the hob where it is, and so on. They have the gas in the back kitchen and they have no trouble in getting £5 a week from tourists. That is something which should be encouraged because there is room for expansion.

Mrs. Hogan O'Higgins

Did the Deputy say: "They have the ass in the back kitchen"?

Mr. Meaney

No; I said the gas. It is very amusing to sit here and listen to Opposition Deputies saying that this Budget was forced on the Government. The people forced the Government into office and the Government have no choice but to have a Budget and a proper one.

I should like to refer to statements made by two of my countrymen when they stood up and deplored everything this Government did. They spoke about extravagance in Cork and unemployment there. I would remind those Deputies that they are the very people who said we should never have an airport. They also mentioned the Verolme Dockyard. That is to say that the workers should never receive a pay packet. It is no harm to remind Deputies of these things now and again.

In this Budget the Minister has introduced new ideas and on that he is to be congratulated. It is to the credit of this Party that they are the first in the field in the derating of agricultural land and in providing free electricity and free transport for the old people. It will be said in the future that it was Deputy Haughey who first introduced these schemes.

I have listened to speeches from Deputies such as Deputy Ryan which were mudslinging, mudslinging in the hope that some of it will stick. Deputy Ryan proceeded to contradict everything he said earlier. I do not blame him for all his talk trying to make the people forget the past when the Opposition had a chance of introducing Budgets. He is trying to make the people forget that they never got anything from a Fine Gael Government by way of social welfare benefits, or anything else.

I cannot understand the Fine Gael Party voting against certain increases in taxation in the Budget. After all, the taxes put on do not affect the cost of living. It is all right asking: "Why not increase this; why not give more to the farmers and why not give more to social welfare?" These things cannot be given without taxation. The taxes imposed do not mean a rise in the cost of living.

I listened to Deputy Clinton and was surprised to hear him constantly criticise the Minister for Agriculture, which had nothing to do with the Budget debate. The Government's main objective at the moment is to direct the National Agricultural Council set up by the Minister. There is enough disunity among the farming community and we do not want this to grow.

Deputy Clinton also referred to the Professor Wright report. It is a daft idea, having this huge city which will contain about four-fifths of our people altogether. I have no doubt his Report will never be implemented.

At this juncture I should pass a comment on the matter of rates. As we all know, a country cannot carry on unless a rate is levied and collected. At the moment in this House we have speakers who come in and even raise on the Adjournment the matter of grants for people who have not paid their rates. We all know where rates go — water, sewerage, vocational and agricultural committees — but a great lot of the rates gathered in each country goes on the health services. If no rates were paid, I wonder how we could carry on? I wonder how the people of the middle and lower income groups would get proper hospital treatment if these people had their way? However, in the coming months, we will be discussing that further with Fine Gael outside the chapel gates.

It is amusing to sit here and hear one Opposition speaker after another discussing the Budget. They never mention one thing—the by-election in South Kerry or Waterford. I suppose they are sour words now. It is obvious to all concerned that this Government have the confidence of the people; they have the confidence of the people in this Budget, as being a good Budget, well balanced and, even though the Leader of the Opposition says he can see another Budget in the autumn — he tells us he has looked into the crystal ball — I would remind him that a few other Leaders of his Party looked into the crystal ball but did not see the future correctly.

In conclusion, I would once again compliment the Minister for Finance on the effort he has put into this Budget.

Mrs. Hogan O'Higgins

This Budget has been claimed by most people as a good Budget. On the law of averages, we were bound to get a good Budget some year, and what better year than this election year? I think it is not a bad Budget; there is some good in it. There are a large number of omissions from it, but it is good for the social welfare recipient.

This year I am glad to see that old age pensioners, widows, et cetera will get an extra 5/- without having to prove they are destitute. Every Deputy after the last increase in pensions, was approached daily by old age pensioners and so on who felt they should be entitled to the extra 5/- but who did not get it. It was impossible to explain to those people that they had to be absolutely destitute. I found it difficult to find out what way the Department assessed destitution because, in St. Brendan's Home in Loughrea, which is the county home for County Galway, four old age pensioners only became eligible for the last increase. It has always been accepted that a county home houses, among others, the destitute of the county. Yet, there were four old age pensioners only eligible for that increase in our county.

I am glad to see that State pensioners — gardaí and civil servants — are being granted a little to meet the everrising cost of living but there are many other pensioners, and many people on fixed incomes, facing rising rates and a rising cost of living for whom this Budget provides no relief.

Last year, when I spoke on the Budget, I mentioned a category of people who are never considered in any way in this country. There are not a large number of them, thanks be to goodness, but they are there. It is the problem of deserted wives. These people are faced with the mental strain and hardship of being deserted. God knows, it is bad enough to be deserted and left with four or five, or sometimes more, small children, but to have to bear extra financial worries because of this desertion is worse. The State could bring in some scheme whereby these people would be treated as widows. As to all intents and purposes they are widows. They have been deserted and are getting no maintenance and are neglected. As I said, there are not many of them but I have found in my own constituency a couple of cases where there is tremendous hardship. These people are eligible for social welfare assistance but it is very little, and I think if they were considered and treated as widows are, it would relieve a great deal of hardship for this limited number who still are there.

I am glad to see also free transport and electricity for old age pensioners. Free transport, of course, will benefit only those living in Dublin city and perhaps other cities in the country but the free electricity should be a big help and I hope the Department will not be too rigid in selecting who will and who will not get it.

There is in this Budget a considerable relief to farmers but it is not before its time because anyone who lives in rural Ireland will realise that the farmers are in a very bad state. When I think of my constituency, I divide my farmers into four. There are the very small farmers under £20 valuation, the men who have got relief in rates, but then for some reason in County Galway — I do not know whether it is particular to Galway — land is valued, not according to its quality but according to its area, so that you have very small farmers with quite high valuations. Indeed, I know farmers in the Shannon and Suck valleys who have a very high valuation and yet they see this land for a few months of the year only, when the floods recede. These people are very hard hit, because they are outside the scope of public assistance; they do not get medical cards and, under this relief, they will not receive any assistance.

Then, we have what I would call the strong farmers, the farmers of over £80 valuation. These people are very badly off because these are the farmers who, over the last number of years, have worked hard, maybe built new houses, have, on the advice of their agricultural instructor and on the advice of someone in the Department, got a loan from the Agricultural Credit Corporation, have got an overdraft from the bank, manured their land, bought good stock and now, because of the squeeze and the low price of livestock, find themselves in the position where they are really worse off than the small farmer because, when the small farmer's back is to the wall, he can get a job with the county council or someone else. But these farmers' farms are too large to allow them work parttime elsewhere. I have met some of these and they have told me: "I am afraid to go into town in case I meet the bank manager, in case I meet the man from whom I have obtained a loan." This man is in a very serious position and for him there is little or no relief. Possibly he is an extensive dairyman,

Then there is the large farmer. He never gets sympathy from anybody but, mind you, he deserves it because he has to face rising rates and rising employment costs. The small or mediumsized farmer has not these. It is not popular in this country to ever say a word in favour of the large farmer — it smacks of landlordism and that sort of thing — but I noticed last year in my constituency a number of fairly sizeable farms becoming available to the Land Commission, being offered by the owners to the Land Commission. This, to me, proves that the owners are finding it impossible to keep going and are offering their farms to the Land Commission. It may benefit the small farmer in the long run but it should not be the policy of any Government to try to eliminate any type of farmer in this country.

When I was first chosen as a candidate for a Dáil election, I met an elderly Fianna Fáil Deputy who gave me a little advice. He said: "If ever you get into Dáil Éireann, here are some `do's and don'ts'." The first two "don'ts" were: "Never get on the wrong side of the Press". I might say that if you are in Opposition, you are always on the wrong side of the Press. Then he said: "Never mention dole". He has gone to his reward now, but he had many long years of service in this House. Whether he is right or wrong, the time has come when we must talk about the dole. The Fianna Fáil Party introduced it. I believe, for what my opinion is worth, that while it was and is of great assistance to those who receive it, it was the worst thing ever introduced in this country. It gave people an incentive not to work. It destroyed their ambition to work and to provide for themselves. We have written it into our way of life and it can never be taken out.

I am not advocating that this money should be ever taken away, but I am advocating that the Minister, with the help of his civil servants — he has enough of them and they are very capable people — should come up with some scheme to ensure that the people receiving unemployment assistance or dole should work for it in some way. I know there are people who are genuinely unemployed, but there are a great number of people whose main occupation is thinking of ways and means of dodging employment in order to qualify for this assistance.

I do not often have time to look at television, but a fortnight or three weeks ago I saw the programme "Person in Question". The person in question on that evening was a man who has done a lot to try to save the West. He has put a number of schemes into operation and has done a lot for the area he is in. He was asked what was the greatest obstacle in the way of his schemes going into operation. He replied "the dole", and went on to say why.

I think the dole has demoralised the people who have got it. It will demoralise their children also because they will grow up with the idea that you will be paid to do nothing if you continue doing nothing. I know it is not popular to advocate that people should be made work for what they get. Indeed, some of them do work for what they get, but I do not know how you would differentiate between the people who are genuinely unemployed and those who dodge work, as many of them do.

The small farmers have got a certain amount of relief. The farming community on the whole are badly off and the farmer wanted the relief he got. The 1d on the price of milk is, of course, a great help to the dairy farmer, but I would like the Minister to tell us how much it will mean on the pound of butter and the cost of a bottle of milk. It seems to me that for the past year or so, it has been deliberate Government policy to try to set the rural population against urban population. By means of newspaper advertisements and ministerial speeches, a slant has been put over that these wretched farmers are getting something at the expense of the townspeople. Every Deputy knows — none of them is that far removed from rural Ireland — that if the farmer is getting any relief, it is because he needs it worse than the urban person. Life in rural Ireland is difficult enough without being very badly off. The attraction is to the town and the bright lights. It is hard enough for farmers to keep their sons on the land without having this impression created that those who live in the country are getting something at the expense of the townspeople, something they are not entitled to. Anything the farmers got they are jolly well entitled to. They work seven days a week. The dairyman has the hardest life of all. He has to milk the cows twice a day for 365 days of the year.

Even though I say that, I am sorry that, with the exception of social welfare, there have been no benefits in this Budget for the urban dwellers. I have noted over the past ten years, since I came into this House, with concern and alarm, the state of the small towns in my constituency. There are two good towns in my constituency; the others are slowly dying out. This Budget offers no hope for them. They face rising rates and a rising cost of living. For the publican it will make things a little more difficult than last year.

Now that I mention rates, it is high time the Government made up their mind that the system of rates as we know it has got out of hand. For many people, both in town and country, the payment of rates has become a nightmare. I have often thought that the system of rates is rather unfair. You have one householder in every house responsible for the entire burden of rates. Yet there might be three or four earning in that house. The time has come when the Government will have to freeze the rates and find the money somewhere else.

I am sorry to see there is little or nothing — there is some, but very little — for health services. What has become of all the promises we had from Deputy O'Malley when he was Minister for Health? I remember particularly two White Papers, one on mental handicap and one on mental illness, which recommended an elaborate programme for these people. I thought there would be something in this Budget to enable some of this to be put into operation. I am sorry there is not. There are some reliefs in respect of income tax and they are very welcome. I particularly welcome the relief in respect of medical expenses. This has been advocated by the Opposition for a long number of years. I would like the Minister to clarify something for me. Relief is allowed to a person who incurs more than £50 expenses arising out of disability or illness which is serious and likely to be permanent. How permanent? Take a person who has two or three years——

Mr. Haughey

From what is the Deputy reading?

Mrs. Hogan O'Higgins

The Minister's statement.

Mr. Haughey

That is what the Commission recommended. We have abandoned that.

Mrs. Hogan O'Higgins

It is for any given expenses in one year over £50?

Mr. Haughey

Yes.

Mrs. Hogan O'Higgins

That is a big help. Medical expenses can be a tremendous blow. Although the Voluntary Health Scheme is a great help to many people, considerable expense can be incurred without ever going into hospital.

Mr. Haughey

The Deputy will recognise that the first part of the paragraph in my speech refers to what the Commission recommended. We decided that this was not a workable definition, so we are just giving it for any serious illness which involves over £50.

Mrs. Hogan O'Higgins

That is good. I suppose everybody hopes every year there will be an increase in the personal tax-free allowance. This did not come. There is one thing that has always puzzled me, but I have learned to live with it. The female sex is treated as less equal than others. A single girl doing the same job as a man will get much less pay, but a married woman gets the princely sum of £45 tax-free allowance every year.

It is no good saying her husband gets a tax-free allowance. He does, but he puts that into his pocket for the privilege of providing a roof over their heads. We have reached the position in this country where more and more married women are working. I do not know whether it is a good or a bad thing and it is not for me to decide. However, it is the pattern all over the world, and these women are entitled to more than £45 a year. This attitude towards women is right through this country in every walk of life. While we are sophisticated enough to say: "Let women work, by all means", the male population believe they should be treated as less equal than they. I see it even in this House. Deputies will say: "Yes, we want women Deputies" but they are barely tolerated.

We are hoping to get into a European community which is highly competitive. While we treat any section of our population the way we treat our working married women, we shall not get anywhere. I should like to remind the male members of the House that when God made women he gave them brains, and in a great many cases——

Mr. Haughey

Beauty.

Mrs. Hogan O'Higgins

That is what is wrong with the men; in a great many cases he gave them brains as good as, if not better than, those of the men of the world. That is the whole problem. The men want to keep the women down and not let them compete as equals or even prove their superiority. It is high time the Minister looked at this question of taxing hardworking women — because a great number of them work very hard — and gave a greater tax free allowance than £45 — an allowance of £45 is an insult.

While some sections of our community will benefit considerably as a result of this Budget — and we welcome that — for a vast number of people it will be "As you were". They must face rising costs and rising rates. The Taoiseach and the Minister for Finance and the Government will have to look into this rates question. The big worry used to be income tax. Now the biggest burden seems to be rates. Everybody talks about the rates and how he is going to meet them. The rates in County Galway are ridiculous. The rates of Dublin city are shocking. It is time the Government got down to this question.

Mr. Wyse

This Budget is a clear indication of the careful planning of Government policy over recent years, a period when Government policy was directed mainly to correcting the balance of payments and ensuring that whatever action was taken would not be detrimental to the economy. It is only right that we, the members of the Government Party, and the people of Ireland should applaud the Government introducing this Budget, applaud them in their efforts to surmount the difficulties they met in spite of very bitter opposition over the past two or three years.

Last year's Budget was severely criticised when the then Minister for Finance was endeavouring to remedy the ills which were affecting our economy. We were then told by the Opposition speakers that the Government had struck a death blow to the economy. It is little wonder in this discussion on the Budget of 1967 that the Opposition speakers are making a very miserable stand against Government policy.

Listening to the various speakers from the Opposition, one will readily see why the people have lost confidence in their policy. Even their own members and their own supporters will readily agree with this. It is obvious, too, to the people of Ireland that you in the Opposition benches spend most of your time——

Mr. Dillon

I wonder when the Leas-Cheann Comhairle joined us, but he is very welcome.

Mr. Wyse

——planning ways and means of attacking and criticising the Government while, on the other hand, the Government are trying to perfect their policy. Unlike the people over there, we in the Government Party will never be satisfied until there is full employment, free education, better social services, better health services and a better standard of living for the people of Ireland.

In every word of the Minister's speech on the Budget, we could see confidence, and we are bringing to the people that confidence that has been trodden upon by Opposition Members over the past 12 months or so. I want to pay a special tribute to the Minister for Finance for his comprehensive statement on our national affairs, his full appreciation of the needs of the poorer sections of the people and, for the many incentives given to those who are prepared to work for the betterment of their country.

We welcome the tax relief for medical expenses. This will certainly ease many hardships in the homes of our people. I am glad to see this concession introduced for the first time to Government policy. Many a man with a big family will welcome the income tax allowance for children. This is long overdue. We have been advocating here that further increases should be given to dependent relatives, and I am also glad that the Minister was very much alive to this aspect of policy.

I feel sure the Minister will avail of every opportunity of providing as many facilities and incentives as possible to encourage saving. Much has been done by the Fianna Fáil Government in this field so that people will realise the importance of investing their money in the nation's future.

I do not think any Member will deny the Minister's generosity in giving free electricity and free transport to old age pensioners. We should never forget that these old people have rendered a service to the community in their time. Whatever else is contained in this Budget, I can assure the Minister he will be remembered for many years for this generous act.

Industrialists should avail of the many incentives of the Budget. They should set about planning to gear up industry to meet the challenges of free trade. If we are to achieve full employment, industrialists must plan properly for the future. Full employment will depend on Irish industrialists. In this year of 1967 we cannot say we are really satisfied with the initiative taken by Irish industrialists. They must plan; they must equip themselves to meet the vicious competition of free trade. I appeal to those who have not yet modernised their industries to do so without further delay in order to ensure continued secure employment for our workers.

Emphasis must be laid on tourism. One speaker to-day referred to farmhouse holidays. I have had experience of this kind of venture because I helped a voluntary organisation to establish this type of holiday in different parts of Cork and Kerry. I would appeal to those who have sufficient accommodation to think seriously about this aspect of tourism. More than two years ago a number of houses in Cork and Kerry went into this business. They were rather cautious at the beginning, but they were prepared to put their homes in proper order and to invite guests to stay in them. Last year, this year and next year these houses were, are and will be completely booked out. I was astonished to discover that people from Germany and as far away as Japan are most anxious to spend holidays in Irish farmhouses. I appeal in particular to those in the Gaeltacht areas to give serious consideration to this aspect of tourism. It provides an income during the summer months and it also provides employment.

This Budget is an injection into the economy of the country. It clearly proves that, whatever the difficulties may be, we are capable of surmounting them. That should be an incentive to the people generally and to the workers in particular. Here, I should like to pay a special tribute to the workers for the way in which they have worked and for the way in which they have realised the importance of increasing production and, above all, of falling into line with Government policy over the past 12 months or two years. I appeal to those on the Opposition benches not to misrepresent progress but, rather, to encourage further progress. We must work together if we are to achieve anything in the years ahead.

Anybody who reads the Minister's statement intelligently must have confidence in the country and must feel that there is something worthwhile for him here. That is the kind of spirit we, in Fianna Fáil, will continue to engender. I am sure that the general reaction to this Budget will be an appreciation of the teamwork that exists because of the efforts the Government have made to offset the difficulties. We were told by some that only misery lay ahead. To my mind, we have now one of the greatest Cabinets Fianna Fáil have ever had. The work of that Cabinet is now coming to fruition. Once again, I compliment the Minister. While he is in office, we, in the Fianna Fáil Party, will give him 100 per cent support.

Mr. Dillon

I have listened with great admiration to Deputy Wyse. He does not often trouble us and his interventions are all the more welcome when he does. He reminded me of a pyromaniac who congratulates himself on summoning the fire brigade, because Deputy Wyse described the state of the country before the present Minister for Finance flexed his muscles to rush to its rescue; and overlooked entirely the obligation of asking himself who had reduced the country to the state of catastrophic disaster from which, Deputy Wyse says, the Minister for Finance is rescuing us all.

Someone has already said in the course of this debate that it is foolish to look at only one Budget; we ought to look at a series of Budgets in order to discover the trend. The Minister for Finance will agree, I think, that last year, after we had had two Budgets, we reached so near the bottom that there was nowhere to go except up. One could not go any lower without shutting up shop altogether. Incidentally, it is an interesting thing to me to see the satisfaction that Deputy Wyse, a city Deputy, takes in the picture of everybody in the country supplementing his income by taking in paying guests. I grew up in the country and spent most of my life in the country, as did the Leas-Cheann Comhairle, and I think he will agree with me that, as we grew up, when we heard our neighbours were taking in paying guests, we said: "Musha, God help them. Maybe they have the rheumatics and they cannot work as well as they did in the past. They are going down and they have to supplement their incomes one way or another." To be obliged to take in PGs into one's own home is not the hallmark of economic well being.

Mr. Molloy

Is the Deputy opposed to the tourist industry?

Mr. Dillon

I am not, but does the Deputy take the view that everyone in the country should feel it necessary to open his house to PGs in order to survive?

Mr. Molloy

To extend his house.

Mr. Dillon

Does the Deputy intend to do it? Does he live in the country?

Mr. Molloy

Does the Deputy live in a cottage?

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Deputy Molloy should cease interrupting.

Mr. Dillon

No, Sir. The fault is mine: I drew Deputy Molloy. No, I do not take in paying guests and, if I did, the neighbours would say: "My God, there is something wrong there."

Mr. Haughey

They have been saying that for a long time.

Mr. Dillon

I do not think so. If anybody likes to take in paying guests, that is fine; but to describe it as a marvellous social revolution in rural Ireland is something to which I do not subscribe. I like a house to be a family home. I like people who like hotels to keep hotels and people who like guesthouses to go into the guesthouse business; it is a most admirable occupation. But I do not think there is any evidence of growing, real prosperity, if large sections of our community, in order to survive, are compelled to share the family home with miscellaneous tourists, whether they be from Japan or anywhere else. If you want to go into the guesthouse busicellaneou ness, go into the guesthouse business. It is a very excellent business to go into. Tourism is an admirable thing but there are certain features of it which I would be sorry to see develop.

Mr. Haughey

I was brought up in the suburbs and half the people in my area had guests in the summer and made a good thing out of it.

Mr. Dillon

That is all right: they are quite entitled to do that. If the Minister wants to extend this guesthouse business he should take all the collaboration he can get from the Inland Fisheries Trust in developing coarse fishing because that will draw in the people.

Mr. Haughey

We are giving them £25,000 extra this year.

Mr. Dillon

I have reason to accept that that is true and I think the Minister is very prudent to have taken that course. I do not think people fully realise the magnitude of the work the Inland Fisheries Trust have done, particularly in the sphere of the development of coarse fishing which most people in this country do not fully appreciate but which is something that is appreciated in Great Britain and elsewhere.

This Budget has a lesson in it especially for the farmers of this country. The lesson that I ask the farmers to draw from it is the power of the vote. Deputy Wyse has described the squalor and the catastrophe the Government have brought upon our people and his immense sense of relief at being delivered from it in some degree by this Budget. The reason for this delivery is the imminence of the local elections, of the people's power to vote. Would that the farmers had learned that lesson in Kerry and in Waterford. Deputy Meaney was triumphing here today: "They voted for us in Kerry and in Waterford; therefore we are quite entitled to kick them in the teeth". There would have been no need to block roads, no need to picket Dáil Éireann or Government Buildings, no need to take any other action at all, if the farmers understood the power of the vote. Remember that is the one thing that will dethrone the kind of political set-up represented by this Government and nothing else will.

I am glad and every Deputy is glad that our proposal for the derating of the first £20 valuation on agricultural land is being given in this Budget. We felt it would have been safe and prudent to go to £25. However, £20 is better than nothing.

We are glad that there has been 5/added to the old age pension. I suppose Deputies on all sides of the House are glad to see the social service elements increased within the limits of our resources.

We are glad to see 1d added on to the price of a gallon of milk but I would ask Deputies to remember this fundamental fact. It is one too often forgotten. A penny a gallon on milk represents approximately £3 per annum per average cow. A yield of 720 gallons is the average for a cow. However, the cow produces more than the milk. The cow produces a calf. The plain fact is that in the past 18 months the value of the calf has dropped by £15. I do not think anybody will challenge that figure, least of all the Minister for Finance who was himself so recently Minister for Agriculture. Deputies carried away by a euphoria created by the 5/- for the old age pensioners and social welfare recipients, 1d on a gallon of milk, the derating of the first £20 of valuation on agricultural land, which, remember, was already very largely derated, the 6/- a cwt on the pigs, should not forget that after you have given the penny a gallon on milk the average dairy cow has produced approximately £12 less for the average dairy farmer than it did last year and the year before. That is the plain fact.

When you read of the Minister's raising the minimum price of pigs by 6/- a cwt, we ought to realise that at the present time the factories are paying more than 6/- a cwt above the fixed price in order to get their share of the reduced supply of pigs and that two of the biggest bacon factories in the country have just closed down largely because they cannot get pigs.

Mr. Molloy

Why was there a shortage? Maybe the price was too low.

Mr. Dillon

They were paying 6/to 8/- more than the fixed price.

Mr. Molloy

After the shortage occurred.

Mr. Dillon

All we have done is to raise the fixed price of what is at present being paid. Even at this price which the factories have been paying already, there is a scarcity of pigs. The Minister for Finance and I know well how this problem has presented itself down through the years. The pig cycle is one of these mysteries which is hard to resolve. It has manifested itself ever since the first World War, a rise and fall in the pig cycle. I am not at all sure it has not become worse and the reason it has become worse is that it is so hard to get help. Farrowing sows require attendance and it is extremely hard to get help on the farm certainly on the basis that it is required to attend to a farrowing sow in the middle of the night.

Mr. Haughey

They always farrow at night.

Mr. Dillon

Oddly enough, if the Minister makes inquiries, I think he will find that in 70 per cent of cases that is so. The farrowing will carry on into the early hours of the morning, even if it starts in the evening. Perhaps the solution is to face the fact as we have had to do in regard to fowl production, that the nature of the business is changing. I suspect that is at the root of the problem. The whole structure of pig production is going to move on to an entirely new basis. Mass production in large units and sweathouses for the finishing of pigs and relatively narrow margins of profit per pig, will dominate the pig industry in the future and the small farmers are not going to return to their traditional practice in regard to pig production. I had hoped that the fattening centre might have remedied that but the Minister tells me that in his experience that was not so and that it did not seem to work. I do not understand why. He may be facing a new situation in which it is well to remember when we are increasing the basic price of pigs and the export subsidy for bacon that it may be that we are doing this for the benefit of persons who will be operating 1,000 sow units within the next five years.

When we come to discuss Budgets in this House, I always fear the dreadful danger that we have become utterly divorced from the circumstances of our own neighbours. We talk in general principles and forget the impact as we see it ourselves on those who live beside us. Whatever the reason people are leaving the west of Ireland, they are leaving Monaghan, Cavan and Donegal. Whatever the reason is, the population of these areas is coming to be old people and children. All the productive elements of society, boys and girls, are going. That is an inescapable fact. I ask myself why are they going and the answer is that they will not accept the standard of living available on a small holding as compared with the standard of living readily accessible in an industrial centre in Great Britain. Some of us may think that sociologically the standard of living in the west of Ireland is superior to the standard of living in an industrial city in England but young people do not agree with us. Wisdom is not the quality of the young; it is the quality of the aged and experienced; and no amount of precept or advice or encouragement will persuade them that living in security, dignity and independence on a relatively small holding is superior to becoming the factory fodder of the industrial exploiter in the great cities of England.

That is creating a very great problem. It is all nonsense for us to close our eyes and imagine we are correcting it. We are not. The number of children on the national school rolls is dwindling, the population is falling, with all that involves for the small towns and the whole social structure of the congested areas. That is a revolution the end of which I will not live to see but it is a revolution for which this House must prepare itself, and prepare itself intelligently, because one of the tragedies of it is that with the dissolution of the west of Ireland, the language is going to die. The story I am telling you now is nowhere more operative than in the Fíor-Ghaeltacht; it extends far beyond that, but it is striking at the very roots of the whole structure of the Fíor-Ghaeltacht itself.

When we talk about an increase of 5/- in the old age pension and in the social services benefits, I do implore Deputies to bear in mind the steady, relentless erosion of such benefits by the deadly, consistent rise in the cost of living. We have just put 2d on the loaf of bread; the price of milk is going up in the cities and towns. The cost of living generally is steadily rising. Now, the cost of living is a difficult thing to define. We put 1d on the pint and 2d on the cigarettes and a corresponding tax on other forms of tobacco. We do not tax bread in this House any more; that is just done by agreement between the Minister for Industry and Commerce and the flourmillers and bakers. We do not increase the price of clothes. We do not put up the price of boots by legislation. That remorseless process proceeds silently. Of course the tragic thing is that a great many of those confronted with it do not fully understand; all they know is that the money does not go as far as it used to go. Therefore those who represent the trade union movement are urged to remedy that situation and to deliver the trade union worker from the perennial complaint of his wife when he comes home that she needs more money to pay for the same standard of living they enjoyed heretofore.

That is the spiral of inflation and if that continues, the danger becomes greater and the difficulty of those who live on pensions and on fixed incomes become more grievous. When we talk about a 5/- increase for old age pensioners and social welfare recipients, I often wonder if we ask ourselves how far does that impinge on the cruellest suffering that some of our neighbours endure. I come back again with pride and satisfaction to the recollection that when we in the interParty Government left office, we had spent ourselves into trouble providing houses for the people. We had too many houses.

Mr. Moore

And too few people.

Mr. Dillon

That is a silly thing to say.

Mr. Moore

It is very true.

Mr. Dillon

That is a silly thing to say and nobody knows it better than the Deputy. But there was something glorious, was there not, in the fact that Deputy Lemass, who became Minister for Industry and Commerce at the time we left office in 1957, stated in this House that the plain truth was that he had sent for the builders, sent for Dublin Corporation, and they said to him: "Do not press us to build any more houses: We have too many houses; we cannot get tenants."

Mr. Haughey

The people had all gone to England.

Mr. Dillon

That is silly talk, and the Minister knows it, but let us not argue about it. What I am saying is that that was the situation. We had got ourselves into considerable economic difficulties by building too many houses. Let us not argue about that. In any case, there were too many houses.

I saw — the Minister and many other Deputies may have seen — a programme on BBC television, "Cathy, Come Home". It caused an immense sensation throughout Britain to whose people it was primarily addressed. It was the story of a young married couple who had little or no way to help themselves because they did not know how. They made every mistake possible: they did not go to the right authorities for help in time but it all came back to the fact that they had got married and found themselves without a home. From that there flowed a whole story of individual misery and wretchedness and despair that nobody in England suspected was possible in a welfare state promoted by a socialist Government who passionately believed that its first duty was to prevent the conceivable possibility of such things occurring, until this picture was displayed on British television.

Have we forgotten that in Dublin city, unless you have three dependent children, your name will not be even put on the list for a house? Have we forgotten that we have managed to put families with four children on to the waiting list only by the device of forbidding the inspector of unfit dwellings to condemn a single house or apartment in the city since 1963 as unfit for human habitation? Have we forgotten that there are boys and girls in Dublin at present who are engaged to be married and who cannot marry because they have no house or flat in which to found a family? When we are talking about spending more public money than ever before, do not let us forget the real things that matter, the people who are suffering and whose sufferings are not being relieved. Do not let us forget when we go out glorying in the fact that more public money is being spent than ever before, that a father and mother with three children living in a condemned house or, perhaps, with their parents where they are not welcome, who apply to Dublin housing authority will be told: "You will not even be considered; there are too many families with four children waiting to be housed". Now what are the conditions in the city of Cork——

Mr. Moore

I do not want to interrupt, but we are housing families of three children at the end of this month.

Mr. L. Belton

You hope to do so.

Mr. Cluskey

Let us wait until it happens.

Mr. Moore

Families with three children at the end of the month.

(Interruptions.)

Mr. Dillon

The play, "Cathy, Come Home", was based on a young married couple with two children trailing around looking for a home and the tragedy of their story was that they ended up by being separated as the families in Griffith Barracks were, when there was nowhere else for them to go. I am not happy that Dublin Corporation can now invite families of three to put their names on the list. I rejoice — if Deputy Moore is right — that they are now able to put them on the list because it gives them hope and hope enables people to struggle on, but it is not a great boast that at last we have reached the stage when we can say to people with three children: "There is hope: at least we will put your name on the list."

I want to ask the Minister a question the answer to which I do not know. How is it that there are 8,000 more unemployed, on 31st March, 1967, than there were on 1st April, 1966? What has happened? Remember we took 11,000 off the unemployment register simply by the device of announcing that they no longer be included but the figures, as I read them, are that on 31st March, 1967, there were 61,764 persons in receipt of unemployment benefit and on 1st April, 1966, there were 53,492. When Deputy Wyse is waxing lyrical — I shall not say hysterical — about the achievement of the Government in repairing the havoc they wrought in years gone by, has he adverted to the fact that there are 80,000 more unemployed than there were a year ago and that during that year there has been a steady, maintained flow of emigration to Britain? Certain Deputies will say: "It is not as big as it used to be". The people are not there to go any more. We cannot go on with the flood which carried 300,000 of our young people out of the country in the past seven years, 300,000 between 18 and 27 years of age.

If spending money was the simple solution to the problem, perhaps I might not have so much fault to find with the Government. A number of people are only too happy to forget that this is as relentless and inescapable as any economic law that ever operated: it is lots of fun to provide millions for this and that and borrow for expenditure when it comes in course of payment but there is a figure every year in the Central Fund Services for the service of debt. That figure was £31 million six years ago, in 1961. It is £64.1 million in 1967 and it is rising.

People talk lightly about borrowing money here. My friend, Deputy Meaney, said the greatest vote of confidence that ever was passed on a human creature was the success of the Government loan. He forgot the picture of the unfortunate Minister for Finance shaking his tin cup in Threadneedle Street about six months ago, asking for £5 million and he could not even get a sixpence. I know the reason for that and the Minister knows the reason for it. God knows, he ought to take some of the decent lads like Deputy Meaney aside and explain this to them. He ought to tell them not to be talking about this in this House and making cods of themselves and the country. He should tell them that the Irish Government will fail to get a loan if they do not give sufficient interest for it. If the Minister looks for money at a particular time, he will get it if he pays the going rate. He will not get it if he tries to get it at a lower rate of interest. It does not matter a fiddlede-dee from what country you are seeking the loan: you must give the current rate.

Mr. Haughey

It was in fact taken up by the underwriters.

Mr. Dillon

We will not argue about that now. It simply happens that when a Minister seeks a loan on a particular day, whether the rate is 6¾ per cent or 7 per cent, he must offer the going rate. If the Government of Mexico, the Government of Holland or any other is looking for a loan below the actual current price, they will not get it. The whole thing is blah and we all know it is. If the current rate is 6½ per cent and the Minister agrees to pay it he will get his loan without any trouble. If he offered 7½ per cent six months ago, the loan would have been secured. The Minister should give a seminar to some of those young Deputies and tell them the whole position and not let them make fools of themselves here by saying the kind of thing which I thought Deputy Meaney said very well.

The real truth of the matter is that the rate offered at the time of the issue of a loan affects its failure or success. Whatever the rate is, it ultimately has to be paid. It is now costing £64 million a year to meet those debts. That money has to be raised out of taxation. The taxation used to meet the servicing of that debt cannot be used to give improved old age pensions, social welfare payments or anything else. I would not mind that if I had it to say that that expenditure of money meant that we had more houses and that we had more families to put into them.

I remember all this argument in 1954, 1955 and 1956 when we were in government. We had our eyes wide open and said: "We are going into financial trouble and we know it but we can come through it. In the meantime, there will be nobody we can help who will be faced with the dilemma of not receiving help." I want to suggest to the Minister when he sees company speculators coming here from England doing a perfectly lawful thing in setting up finance companies here — that is the modern euphemism for the raping of the country which is going on — he should say to those fellows: "Before you will be let come here and tear down residential accommodation for the purpose of erecting speculative office buildings or luxury flats, you will have to make a contribution towards the provision of housing units for the community as a whole."

Mr. Molloy

Deputy Sweetman brought a lot of them here and brought them to Galway but they got their answer.

Mr. Dillon

That is not very intelligent.

Mr. Lindsay

Did you expect it to be?

Mr. Dillon

I have great regard for those fellows. In ten or 20 years' time, they will be running the country and we have got to educate them. That is the kind of tripe that those young lads are fed in the Fianna Fáil Party rooms. If we do not teach them here, where are they to learn?

Mr. Molloy

The Deputy has not denied my statement?

Mr. Dillon

I do not deny it. There is nothing wrong with people coming here with foreign capital to invest in industries.

Mr. Haughey

It is a very good thing.

Mr. Dillon

The Minister says it is a good thing. We know it is a good thing. Deputies ought to get the idea out of their heads that it is not a good thing for foreign people to come and invest their money in Irish industry here.

Mr. Molloy

I am not the one who is against it: it is you.

Mr. Dillon

You are running round in circles. Perhaps the Deputy wants to withdraw his intervention. I understand it. All I am trying to do is to clarify his mind. I do not want to discourage people bringing money from abroad to invest in Ireland but I want to say to the property speculators: "What brings you here? Why do you not build your buildings in England?" The speculator will say: "Because they will not let me". You then ask him why they will not let him and he will tell you: "I must not build those kind of buildings until the people are all housed and until factories are erected to employ the people. They will not let me build big office or flat buildings." We know they will not let him build those big buildings in Piccadilly because it would create traffic hazards which would put a heavy burden on London County Council to which that person has not made any contribution. That is why he cannot put up those big buildings over there.

You will then ask him why he is coming here and he will tell you: "Because you are goms. You are foolish enough to let me do it here." I am saying to the Minister for Finance that he should say to those people: "There is no harm in your trying that on here but we will not let you. If you want to invest money in buildings here, you are very welcome. Go and buy a tract of land and build 500 houses on it. That is the kind of building we want to see here. We are glad to see you doing that type of building but if you want to come in here and erect a big gazebo of office buildings or flats to be set at £2,500 a year and create traffic problems and other problems for the Dublin, Cork, Limerick or Galway municipalities which the ratepayers' money will have to remedy — not bloody likely. Go and build your buildings in Beirut or somewhere else." The trouble is that we are selling the whole country. That is the kind of thing the Deputy does not understand. It is good to have him here because we can explain those things to him.

Mr. Cluskey

Would you not hold a seminar?

Mr. Dillon

Let us not laugh at him.

Mr. Cluskey

They never learn.

Mr. Dillon

I live in hope. Hope is one of the virtues. The virtues are faith, hope and charity. I like to show him charity. I have ultimate faith in the quality of the young people of this country and I have great hope that some day I will open his mind. There is such a thing as political retardation.

Mr. Haughey

The Labour Party have been suffering from that for a long time.

Progress reported; Committee to sit again.