I think we would even go into other parts. However, that is neither here nor there. Notwithstanding the inception of the season that we have seen, we must face a situation in which there will be a reduction in and a restriction on the dollar impetus this year. Bearing all that in mind and the prognostications to which I have referred, which are held not merely on this side of the Chamber but are held by the NIEC and by virtually everyone else, it must be taken that one of the really serious criticisms that can be made of this Budget is that there is no real inducement of any sort to stimulate exports. It is common knowledge that the pattern of governmental inducement and assistance and the whole aim of governmental policy up to the middle 50s had been to concentrate all our attention and all the attention of Irish industrialists and of Irish would-be industrialists on the home market. We now realise, all of us, including the people on the far side of the Chamber, that the island's self-sufficiency, preached to the greatest extreme and to the greatest nonsensical extreme by Deputy Aiken, the present Minister for External Affairs, was all wrong and that we cannot possibly in any circumstances hope to improve our living standards unless we are able properly to expand our exports. It is unfortunate that one can find in present circumstances in the publications that are made not merely suggestions but categorical statements that it seems that we are not taking advantage of the opportunities that devaluation gives in this respect in the way that we should.
One of the things, therefore, that the Budget must be severely criticised for is that there is no effort whatever to increase exports or to provide any incentives for exports. The incentives for exports that are there now are solely those that were introduced by the Government of which I had the honour to be a member in 1956. There has been no change in the pattern of the inducements provided in 1956, though of course where it was started off and deliberately started off at 50 per cent, it has since correctly been increased to 100 per cent relief. However, the effect of that as an inducement has begun to taper and the Minister for Finance in his Budget should have done something further to offset, for example, what the Federation of Irish Industries have stated in their survey —that devaluation has not provided much of a stimulus to our export expectations. If we are not able substantially to increase our exports and to increase them in the difficulties that will be created by free trade, then we cannot hope to meet any of the targets for increased employment which both sides of the House are anxious to see materialise.
I shall not dwell on the details of this but I do not think there was very much use made of the Export Guarantee Insurance Scheme that is operated by the Department of Industry and Commerce and I feel that, because of the fact that there was very little use made of that scheme, there was a great opportunity for the Minister for Finance in his Budget to provide a proper export stimulus on the lines perhaps of a national export bank. The provision of the funds necessary to cover exports is a big strain for many firms. It is a strain on their financial resources, and if there were a more clear arrangement by virtue of which those who were exporting would be able to rely on finance for a large part of their products, then I think this would be a further inducement and incentive for outward looking industrial concerns to export. In addition to that, there would perhaps be an opportunity by, for example, providing that the cost of market research and other investigation of export markets could be taken into account in the assessment of home profits for taxation. In either of those ways, we could have got something more that would concentrate interest on exports and constitute an incentive to export rather than the Minister being happy and content to let things more or less jog along. I feel that in that respect he deserves to be criticised seriously.
We are all of course in the position of wondering where we are going to get a growth rate with its employment content in the years ahead. The growth rate during the period of the hapless Second Programme was something that stopped largely as a result of the Government-inspired inflation of 1965 that inevitably had to bring with it its counterpart in restrictions. The effect of that was that we went down in growth in 1965 to 2½ per cent and down again in 1966 to 1 per cent. We would want to be at least careful, if no more, that the bouncing up of the public capital programme this year for which the Minister for Finance has taken great praise is something that does not bring in its train the same type of restriction as was brought by his predecessor's ill-judged and ill-advised tactics in 1964.
When I was in Limerick last weekend, one of the members of the Fianna Fáil Party stated in my hearing that the income from agriculture had increased threefold during the past couple of years or so. I know the particular person concerned is not at all interested in agriculture. The only interest he would have in agriculture— and I do not say this at all as a personal attack—would be in the collection of rates from the farming community. It is unfortunate that there should be so little understanding of the problems of agriculture in the Fianna Fáil Party because of course it is in agriculture that the greatest failure of this Government has been in their attempt to consider at all where the economy could be improved. The only success by the Government was that achieved first by the present Minister for Finance, then Minister for Agriculture, when he deliberately created chaos among agricultural organisations for Party political advantage. There is in this Budget which will improve the situation a small sum included for pigs which is, of course, welcome to those on the pig front. The floor price arises, I suspect, largely because of the problem in Donegal— and the Minister for Agriculture represents Donegal—but it does not deal with the fundamental problem.
We are told that the calved heifer scheme will end on 30th June. Yet, as I say, in the early months of this year there were 119,000 fewer cattle than last year. At the same time, there is a slight decrease in the total of milch cows and in-calf heifers. That arises because the Government have not taken proper steps to diversify the sale of milk products.
A scheme was introduced to boost cattle production at a time when the Government had made no proper arrangements to sell those cattle. Now, because of lack of planning for years on the part of the Government, we are facing a position in which there will be substantial difficulty in the disposal of milk products. Indeed, I understand that difficulty and the effect of the lack of governmental planning in this respect will mean that in the period ahead there will be a loss of approximately 2d per gallon. I do not know where the Government are going in this respect. We have not yet formulated a coherent policy to increase our livestock population and at the same time ensure that we do not create other problems on the agricultural production front.
Not only are we faced with a reduction this year in our cattle population but also with a reduction of 137,000 in breeding ewes. These are matters which the Minister for Finance should have taken into account in his Budget. He should have done so when framing his Budget proposals. Taking into account that the increased growth in agriculture in 1967 was only .8 of one per cent, it should be obvious that the Budget was not framed as it should have been.
If one examines the statistics that have been circulated in "Review of 1967 and Outlook for 1968", in Table I in relation to national income, we find that between 1958 and 1967, in monetary terms alone, the income from self-employment in agriculture, forestry and fisheries increased from £100 million to only £150 million while wages and salaries have gone up more than twice that amount, from almost £241 million to £520 million. It is quite clear that those in agriculture are being left behind in any consideration of what is being done or what is being achieved in relation to our money incomes. That is borne out by the statistics.
The net national production figures from Table II of the statistics show exactly the same result, that is, that the trend in regard to agriculture is not one which holds out any hope of building a happy, prosperous rural Ireland. All of us will agree that it is of fundamental importance to ensure that rural Ireland is happy and prosperous but the Budget makes no efforts to pinpoint the road or even point to the road towards that aim.
Even though the objections I have stated to the Budget are weighty, at the same time all of us will agree that the real failure of the Government and of the Minister for Finance to provide any amelioration is in relation to employment. After all the talk about the Second Programme, after all the talk by the Government year after year, we find that in 1967 fewer people were at work in Ireland than in the years before. This is not something of which any of us can be proud and it is certainly something for which the Government of the day should hang their heads in shame.
It is worse when the Minister for Finance makes no suggestion for improvement in his Budget proposals. The fact that one has to go back to 1962 to find a year in which there were fewer people at work in Ireland is a sad commentary on the past five years of Fianna Fáil Government.
I cannot understand why the Minister has taken no steps in this regard, particularly when the joint quarterly industrial survey published by the Federation of Irish Industries and the Economic and Social Research Institute is taken into account. Here I find in regard to some groupings of manufacturing industry the comment that not merely is there insufficient raw material to supply it but also that there is insufficient skilled and even unskilled labour available. In the metal engineering group, for example, one of the comments made is that the apparent trend is one of insufficient unskilled labour. If that is so, it is surely a matter for the Minister for Finance to provide proper arrangements for mobility and to introduce mobility in labour to meet that situation and thereby take the pressure off areas where it is not sufficient.
It seems also that in the wooden furniture group the comment made is that there is insufficient cash or credit. Surely that is a field which the Minister for Finance could have properly designed his Budget to cover? In the clothing and footwear grouping, again we find there is insufficient skilled labour. Surely there should be a scheme of incentives provided by the Budget to ensure that adequate instruction arrangements will be available to provide the stock of skilled labour necessary? It is not a question of our people being unable to attain the skills; it is purely that they have not the opportunity. They have not had the opportunity before and accordingly they have not got the opportunity now.
I know, in mining for example, some of the skills that have been attained have been attained by people who were never in mines before. This is something of which all of us are entitled justly to be proud but the fact remains, that the joint survey of two such important bodies as the Federation of Employers and the Economic and Social Research Institute, both saying that employment is not likely to increase substantially as things are, meant that any Minister for Finance should have taken heed of it and provided in his Budget something that would have meant that there was a chance of stimulating employment and with that stimulation a restricting force on emigration.
Deputy O'Higgins, speaking immediately after the Budget, referred to the emigration figures to Britain that were announced in the British House of Commons as 33,000. Those 33,000 people emigrated in 1967 when employment in England was not bouncing ahead and where, therefore, they found considerable difficulty in getting employment and when there was not the pull of openings and vacancies working as might have worked in other years.
I suppose it was to be expected that the Minister, when making his Budget speech, would have had little to say in relation to prices. It is quite obvious to everyone that the bounding increase in prices which has been so apparent under Fianna Fáil will proceed again this year as a result of the devaluation of the £ policy and that, as the year rolls on, we shall find that the £ in our pocket is worth less than previously not merely by creeping inflation but by a type of galloping inflation to which we have become accustomed, galloping inflation which has meant a 24 per cent increase in the cost of living since 1963 and a situation in which what could be bought for between 15/- and 16/- in 1963 now costs £1. I picked the year 1963 deliberately because it is the last year in which the rate of children's allowances paid was determined. Everybody knows—I am sure the Parliamentary Secretary will agree—that the one person who finds it difficult to manage is the father of the large family. He is the one person who is really badly hit and whose wife finds it more and more difficult to meet the rising household expenses out of the wages he brings home to her every week.
There was an easy way of dealing with that, a way deliberately devised for the large family, the children's allowances. One of the tragedies of this Budget is that it has not in any way improved the lot of the person with the large family by any improvement in children's allowances. I do not accept for a minute the half-implication in the Minister's speech that this is because he could not see a way to do it. It was his job to see a way and I think most people concerned would have been able to see the way without much difficulty. Indeed, I think he knew the way himself but he was not prepared to face it. It could have been faced in a variety of ways and I hope that when, for example, the added value tax comes in, it will be used not by way of being swallowed up as is the custom of Ministers for Finance, but that it will be used both as a substitute for some existing taxation and as a method of increasing and improving social welfare benefits so that any effect of it cannot be in any way regressive.
It is of interest also in relation to the added value tax that the countries of the European Community have all decided that they must each adopt a system of turnover tax on the added value basis not later than 1st January, 1970 as a step towards complete harmonisation of their expenditure and taxation. The added value tax is already effective in France. I think the Netherlands are promising to follow suit on 1st January next. Germany has already introduced the new system and as a result has been able to make quite a number of price reductions. Denmark, though not a member of the Community, has operated this type of taxation since 1967. It is undoubted that the effect of such a tax here, which would abolish the wholesale tax, and abolish the existing turnover tax, would be to assist us towards harmonisation with the rest of Europe. It is something that would have helped towards meeting the claims of that hard-pressed section of the community, to which I have referred, fathers of large families.
I want to make that clear because one is inclined to say at times that one should oppose all taxation. I do not agree. I bitterly opposed the turnover tax when it was imposed a few years ago because it was not imposed in substitution for existing taxation but as an additional impost on the people, and if a value added tax is imposed in the same way, as an additional impost, without being used for the purpose for which it should be used, in order to lighten taxation, it will push us beyond the point at which we can hope for proper economic growth and hope that our industries and those engaged in them can prosper and expand in employment. It is not merely the imposition of a tax that is a matter for consideration but also the effect it will have and whether it is in addition to or in substitution for other things.
For instance, the petrol tax imposed by the Minister in relation to this Budget is a bad tax. I say that quite deliberately, having myself been forced in certain circumstances to impose it. I think it was a mistake and a much greater mistake at the present time when there were other means easily available to the Minister for Finance. It seeps down through the whole fabric of industry and distribution. It is felt at every level. It is bound to affect the cost of living, and is something which does not hit only at what one might term luxury spending. The person in a car driving some distance to his work will be hit by it; and if he is dissuaded from going that distance, then it will affect, as I said earlier, that mobility of labour we must have if we are to ensure that employment all over the country is improved and increased.
Deputy Mullen or Deputy Governey —I forget which—expressed disappointment that the Minister had not increased the personal allowance. To the extent that I qualify this, I am very disappointed that he did not increase the married allowance, because the increase that there is in the first year of marriage is something which, while welcome, is of trifling importance and does not at all meet the difficulties which are met by the people in the middle income group, and of which we all here are aware.
We have, too, been hurt for years by the absence of a proper science or technology policy by the Government. On many occasions, in Budget debates in recent years, I have protested that the Minister for Finance of the day made a great mistake in not doing a great deal more for scientific research, not doing a great deal more to ensure that we have a better technological service. There was an article I read the other day in a magazine, Business and Finance, by a Mr. Joseph O'Malley, whom I have not the pleasure of knowing but who dealt with the gap in Ireland's technology. In passing, I may say that I think the article is more accurate than the article on politics appearing in the same issue on page 2, which was comprised of nothing but flights of fancy, and indeed I noticed that, being short of material, the author introduced my name. That article on politics to which I refer had not the remotest resemblance to the truth in any line of it. However, I have very great sympathy for journalists when they have to try to write a good spicy article on politics, and if they do have a clatter at us now and again, well, if we do not want to be clattered, we have no right to be in politics.
What does upset me is the suggestion on page 10 of this magazine of 3rd May, 1968, which says:
International comparisons show that Ireland is among the nations with the lowest rate of research and development expenditure in Europe. Our technological balance of payments indicates that receipts for technological data are practically nil while payments are considerable.
Yet I see little evidence in this Budget that the Minister for Finance has realised at all that that exists and the difficulty it will create for us in the future. All of us can remember a promise made by a previous Minister for Health when he said categorically, and said particularly in my county to the members of Kildare County Council, that they could rest assured that there would not be, in any circumstances, any increase over the 1965 figure for health services. The increase the ratepayers of Kildare have had to meet since that time is one which, during this year, will make them sadder and wiser people; at that time, some of them believed the then Minister, and thought that he meant his promise and that he would carry it into effect. It is not for me to comment on whether he meant it or not, but it is quite clear to me that there was no possibility whatever of his carrying it into effect. The Minister for Finance has, in this Budget, made it quite clear that that promise is another one of the many promises that have been strewn by Fianna Fáil down through the years.
This is a Budget which is out of pace with the times. It is a Budget that does not take account of the need for stimulating exports and of economic growth. It is a Budget that does not take account of the most hard-pressed sector in the community, the people with large families, and as such it is not one of which any Minister for Finance could possibly be proud.
