Before Questions, we were remarking that it was extremely important that as regards the official policy towards Europe we should see what, realistically, were the limitations of that policy and tailor our future conduct towards negotiations in the light of existing limitations. I suggested that the major limitation at the moment appears to be that Britain will not be accepted into full membership in the foreseeable future, and in the light of this undoubted fact we must consider our entire European policy. If, as I remarked, the direction of our policy results in our sinking our national identity into that of Britain and if the international posture which this Government takes up leads these European countries to believe that everything we do has British interests in mind, then if Britain does not get into the EEC in the foreseeable future, then neither shall we. I also pointed out that what suits the British economy might not suit our own. Most certainly the devaluation which occurred in Britain recently did not suit us. We must adopt a policy to suit our interests. If our policy in recent years has been, as it has been, to lump our interests with those of Britain, we cannot weep if we are hurt as a result.
We cannot fob ourselves off with the idea that the complete opposition to our entry to the EEC is in the person of the President of France, and that if something happened to the President of France all would be made smooth, that Britain would gain membership and so would we. There is strong pressure in France and among the Six against the admission of Britain. The reason they do not want Britain in at this time is that Britain is seen by such people as the stalking horse for American interests. With the British economy becoming more and more dependent on the Americans, these European countries do not wish to admit Britain in this state of dependency of the US. Such opinion exists in certain European countries. It most certainly exists in France. We must give up this practice of seeing the possibility of membership of the EEC through British spectacles. If the British fail to understand the objection in European quarters to their entry, then we, with our tradition and history, should attempt to understand it. If our policy goes step by step with that of Britain, then we should not be surprised if European countries fail to understand that this is a separate country with separate problems.
This, as I was remarking, has been a year of visits which up to the moment do not appear to have produced any direct results. They have been well publicised. The Taoiseach and his Ministers have gone to various countries, but the sum total of all these wanderings to different European capitals has not brought us any nearer to Common Market membership. Even at this stage we do not appear, as far as the Taoiseach's Estimate speech informs us anyway, to have any intention of rethinking this whole policy.
The most recent visit has been that to Captain O'Neill. They discussed, and certainly this was a good thing, the foot and mouth epidemic and so on. It is three years since the last visit. There should be nothing remarkable in two people from different parts of this country meeting together and chatting about the weather, foot and mouth disease, snowballs and so forth, but the time has come to ask ourselves what do we expect from these visits.
It is no longer fashionable to refer to it, but it is no harm sometimes to be awkwardly old-fashioned and to say it should remain part of our policy, whatever about a united country and an all-Ireland Republic, to see that discrimination is ended in the Six Counties. That should be the price of these cross-Border talks. We are not there to discuss the weather or to savour Captain O'Neill's daughter's cooking. We are there to gain political results. Political results are not to be summed up in a political settlement of the whole country in the immediate future, but we should certainly seek the achievement of a real democracy in the Six Counties. That is what we are after and that is what we should say we are after. Let us be quite honest about it. There is nothing sinister in such a motive in 1967, that real democracy should operate at local authority level in the Six Counties. We shall gain no respect from anybody in the Six Counties if we ignore this problem, and hope for some kind of improvement in our relations. I would say this Government stands condemned in that they have not brought sufficient pressure on the Six Counties through the British Government, which is responsible for that part of the country and which, after all, is the most sympathetic Government ever towards Irish aspirations. We have not brought sufficient pressure on the Government to bring in changes there. As long as the United Kingdom controls the Six Counties they have the responsibility to see that the same rights which other citizens of the United Kingdom enjoy are also enjoyed by the people of the Six Counties.
It is not sufficient excuse to say that Captain O'Neill has his extremists as we have extremists around the country. There is nothing extreme in our request that ordinary democratic rights should be the equal possession of every citizen in the North. It is not easy to get these results from discussions with the Unionist administration in the Six Counties. It would be very difficult for that administration to agree to such changes because the Unionist Party administration enjoy power through the exercise of a great degree of discrimination at local authority level against the religious minority.
If we do not get results through this so-called liberal wave that is supposed to be swamping the Unionist Party, then we have our remedy in going to the British Government and looking for changes. No doubt the discussions with Captain O'Neill will cover gerrymandering, because if we are to believe some of the rumours that are going around this House, we shall be taking some leaves out of Captain O'Neill's book in the New Year in the matter of gerrymandering.
These problems must be discussed openly with Captain O'Neill. If we are to believe everything about his sincerity, his liberalism, and his desire to eradicate the abuses which exist in the area under his control, he should be agreeable to discuss these matters and see that any misgivings people might have about democracy in his area are removed. This is leaving aside the possibility of an ultimate political settlement and merely asking that ordinary human rights be respected in the area under his jurisdiction.
The Taoiseach and other people have commented since devaluation on the necessity of wages remaining static in the foreseeable future. Even on the narrowest front, I do not think you can get any number of our fellow citizens to accept restraint at this time when such does not seem to be the case when applied to other sectors. While devaluation might spell disaster for a majority of our people, it has been a bonanza for a certain minority who had money invested abroad, who switched their securities and who had a lot of shareholdings. For them devaluation has been a pretty good windfall this Christmas season. Quite a number of people made large increases on their cash incomes as a result of devaluation. I have commented before what a crazy system it is that allows such to happen by a signature at the end of a switch in securities, while devaluation, at the same time, penalises a majority of people by causing a cut in their living standards.
The trade union movement is not there to act as policemen for people who make money out of such ventures as devaluation. We have repeatedly stressed that the trade union movement can only exist so long as it answers the demands of the members who make it up. If the demand of the majority in the movement at present is for an increase in wages to make up for the increased cost of living in recent months, then nobody can stay that demand from arising. The position is that, even if there had been no devaluation, the people in the trade unions would be moving now at the end of the two-year period for a compensatory increase to offset the cut in the standard of living suffered in recent months.
If the Government take the attitude that this is anti-social behaviour on the part of these people, we must point to the lack of activity by the Government in this matter of wages, prices and the national income in general. I recall the famous policy announcement by the Government of their desire to bring in an incomes policy. The last time we heard about it was around the time of the last wage round. Presumably it will be resurrected in the months ahead again. I remember the last time we discussed this when there was some agitation on the wages front. The NIEC had suggested that it was the primary responsibility of the Government, in consultation with all the interests involved, to produce an incomes policy as soon as possible. We called on the Government to accept that suggestion of the NIEC. But there has been no action on it over the past one and a half years. Presumably, we will have a few hasty statements now in the next few months. But there has been no action in the period of relative peace during the last two years. But the idea of an incomes policy will be resurrected as soon as we have difficulties on the wages front, which undoubtedly we will have in a short time. It is a great pity that the time we had to consult with the interests involved was not availed of. Today, on the eve of another movement for wages, we are no nearer an incomes policy than we were two years ago, or even five years ago at the time of the "Closing the Gap" statement of the Government. Presumably we will now have to go through all the same old motions of strikes and disputes which gave us an unenviable record abroad about two years ago. We had so many strikes that we had international recognition for this rather doubtful distinction.
If we had a proper national incomes policy, which would show incomes advancing year by year without recourse to industrial action, nobody in the trade union movement would withhold support from such a plan. But no initiative has been taken in this area. So long as this situation continues the unions will have to use the old-fashioned, weary weapons of strike and dispute. No one is in a position to say they are anti-social when the Government have done nothing to further industrial relations in this vital area. I cannot hope that there will be any delay on the part of the majority of trade unionists moving for an improvement in their standard of living in the months ahead. The Government have done little to improve the situation facing us in the years ahead by way of improving the organisational position so as to render unnecessary strikes and disputes. They have not accepted the advice of the NIEC to produce and implement a national incomes policy.
I do not know if the prices machinery we supported some time ago is adequate to guard against the increases already occurring over a wide range of goods. I remember in that period we asked the Minister if, as part of the machinery, he would require any retailer or wholesaler increasing a price to notify the Department before in fact he put the new price on the goods. We were defeated on an amendment which would give the Minister authority to be notified of such price increases. Now we see startling increases, especially in regard to meat prices in Dublin over the last few weeks. I do not know if we can take any action on them. Such increases have taken place and have certainly added to the increased cost of living. There will be quite a number of other increases as a result of devaluation. It is a golden excuse for the many people in our community ever ready to increase prices. It is not wildcat strikes we should be worried about so much as wildcat prices, which in turn lead to the movement on the wages front to which I have been referring.
Despite the lack of activity by the Government in bringing in anything approaching an incomes policy which would make the determination of personal incomes — salaries, wages and dividends — a matter for rational decision, the trade unions themselves have secured several notable successes over the last year or so by way of productivity agreements. Despite the fact that little has been done to ensure a more orderly arrangement for arriving at incomes, union members, ordinary men and women, in their branches, have negotiated agreements with employers which allow for an increase in salary or wage over a particular period to be related to real improvements in productivity. On their own initiative they have done this, despite lack of encouragement from the Government officially or centrally. Several notable agreements have been notched up here.
We must understand that the real heroes of our economic situation and the people who have really attempted to do something constructive are such men and women who have participated in these agreements. Despite the provocation which exists all around them in our community to act selfishly, to go out on their own, to bargain for as much as they can, these people have conducted negotiations which display a high degree of responsibility. They live in a community which rewards those who are the most selfish, in which the Government do nothing to see that reward is equitably distributed over the entire community. Usually, their relations or themselves are short of housing accommodation. In many cases there are no ways by which their children when they wish to marry can build houses, purchase houses or get decent accommodation. Yet, despite such provocation, the flaunting of unnecessary wealth in this community, the way it is flaunted and the way success appears always to go to the man who makes least contribution to the economy, these people have conducted productivity agreements up and down the country which allow an increase in wage or salary over an agreed period to be related to real improvements in productivity. This, on their part, is the arrangement of order in the midst of economic anarchy. This is in a situation where the Government have not attempted to bring order into disorder. These people on their own initiative have attempted to do so and they are the heroes of the economic situation, not the Government and not the official policymakers. They have done this and conducted such agreements against a background of intense insecurity when it comes down to the matter of jobs because the most haunting fear in the minds of many wage and salary earners in Irish industry is, "Will I have my job next year? Can I see myself being in this job in the foreseeable future?"
Again, the Government here give very cold comfort to people who look to the future for any security because, as a result of the Anglo-Irish Free Trade Area Agreement, each year from now on our products must compete more and more on level terms with Britain. The bitter fruit of that Agreement will be seen by Irish people over the next two or three years in the situation that there will be fewer jobs and nothing in return.
Despite the insecurity in many Irish factories and places of work which, for the first time, has disturbed workers in the matter of the fundamental loyalties many of these people had to political Parties, these people have given notable evidence of their constructive attitude by participating in productivity agreements. They have had little encouragement either in their own environment or from the Government to embark on such schemes. The most dominant feeling that working people have is one of utter insecurity as to how they will earn their living next year. I question whether any of the people who supported the Anglo-Irish Free Trade Agreement and who went into the Lobbies here in acceptance of that agreement anticipated the situation that Britain would not be a member of the EEC before 1970, which now looks likely. The excuse being made on all sides now is that the Agreement must not be considered in isolation but as part of our European membership. Events have caught up on the people who supported that Agreement, supposedly in anticipation of European membership. That Agreement was a bad bargain and the fruits of that Agreement will mean fewer jobs for our people in the years ahead. That hastily concluded Agreement is the origin of many people's fears about their job security in the years ahead. We must remember that large-scale suspicion exists throughout our community about the Government's intentions especially in respect of industrial employment. There is a large-scale feeling in the country at the moment that the Government have no longer any interest in safeguarding the employment of many industrial concerns and that, in fact, the decision has been taken at official level that many such industries will be forced to close without alternative jobs being available.