Confidence in Government: Motion (Resumed).

Debate resumed on the following motion:

That Dáil Éireann reaffirms its confidence in the Government and approves the Government's financial proposals.—The Taoiseach.

Mr. Coughlan

I am glad the Minister for Local Government is present because not long ago at Question Time we had questions regarding the training that should be given to our athletes competing in the Olympic Games. Surely we have here the long distance, all-time record-holder in the person of the Minister for Local Government who spoke for between five and six hours trying to gull the unfortunate people of the country and waste the time of the House and the taxpayers' money in the futile exercise of the referendum. I think the Minister has qualified for a Nobel Prize. If the Taoiseach introduced such a thing I would be the first to put my hand in my pocket and subscribe generously for a proper decoration for the Minister for Local Government, not only on account of his long distance performance but also for the arrogance and ruthlessness with which he behaved here last week when only the hand of God saved him from a paralytic stroke as a result of the anger and bitterness which exuded from every pore of his body.

Thank God the people of Ireland, and the plain, honest rank and file of Fianna Fáil gave their decision in no uncertain fashion. I suppose it would be tantamount to a miracle but I hope the Minister will learn the lesson if that is possible and realise that his arrogance and ruthlessness and the off-handed manner in which he thinks he can treat the people of Ireland have been defeated forever. Let us not be diverted in any way from the lesson that must be learned along the road we travelled for seven or eight months up to 16th October. Along the way and right up to the polling booths on the 16th October the Minister—God help us that Ireland should be inflicted with such a plague—took upon himself to dictate to the hierarchy and clergy of Ireland and accuse them of wrong-doing, of falsification and misrepresentation as if he were a prophet come among us. This is the Minister who will descend to sewer level and make personal attacks on any Member of the House but there would be no God in heaven if this did not boomerang as it did when 250,000 people, the majority of them being members of his own Party, said: "No, definitely, no. To hell with you and your take-over bid by the Tacateers."

Let me remind the Minister that in the early days of this century a brave and noble Irishman said: "They have bought one half of us and they have coerced the other—the fools, the fools!" What has happened in 1968? The buying has gone on. Who were the purchasers? Who paid for this take-over? The Minister's gang and his pal, the Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries who is patron, have sold themselves or thought they were selling themselves out. They tried to sell themselves out, but the honest rank and file of Fianna Fáil, spearheaded from these benches of the Labour Party and the workers throughout the country came out to give the Minister and his colleagues the answer they surely deserved.

We are proud of that and why should we not be? We have our chests out and why should we not be trumpeting? We did not make the mistake the Minister made. We did not underestimate the intelligence of the ordinary workers. We knew what they were thinking because we mix with them and know all about them and how they live. I hope the Minister will take this lesson of the 16th October, 1968, to the grave with him and that it will harass him and terrify him and haunt him for the rest of his life. That is my prayer for him this morning. He deserves no more because no man in his position as Minister would descend to sewer level in personal attacks such as he has been making in the past 12 months in this House on anybody who disagrees with his views.

I suppose it is hard to blame him—it is dú cha. It is handed down and I suppose we must make excuses. Like the wooden leg in the family it is handed down.

This Budget, which has been composed by the civil servants, is nothing short of a vicious attack on the ordinary worker who came out, organised by the trade unions and different bodies associated with the workers and the trade union movement, and rejected the Government's proposals. This Budget is the chastisement of such a worker. The only comfort and relaxation he has after his hard day's work is the pint of stout, together with a cigarette. What has happened? This is the whip and the scourge that Fianna Fáil have given to the worker because of his action on 16th October.

Together with that they have imposed a severe penalty on the unfortunate mother who tries to make the chores of the house as easy as possible, by practically stopping for all time the introduction of a washing machine into the home. Will any man or woman, father or mother of a family, tell me that a washing machine is not a necessity in any home today? Restrictions have also been imposed, of course, on the purchasing of radios and televisions; but the unfortunate woman who tries to pay for a washing machine, whether it be on hire purchase terms, through the ESB or in any other way, is now being victimised. What has the Minister done? He has put the ability to purchase commodities out of the reach of the working man. He has not put any impediment in the way of his own gang—the people who can have, not one motor car, but maybe two or three in every family. There is no impediment in their way. They came out and voted "yes". They must be compensated. They must be thanked in some way, the attitude being that, if one group must be thanked, another must be victimised. The worker has been hit hard. However, I have news for the Minister. The sooner he goes to the polls the better. I know he will not go. I suppose it is hard to blame him. I will go into the reasons for that when I come to it.

Three or four years ago we went to the Minister for Transport and Power representing that there should be one estuarial authority for the whole Shannon. That would be a combination of the three smaller ports down the Lower Shannon. If the Minister had been in any way co-operative he could have done that by a stroke of the pen. No. He said that we should go back and settle our differences in Limerick with the ports and harbours concerned and return to him with some solution. That matter has been hanging fire for almost four years. No progress has been made. Let it be clearly understood that Limerick is the most accessible deepwater port in the whole of the Western Continent of Europe. The people on the Fianna Fáil benches are not bothering their head about development so far as Limerick is concerned.

It is about time that the persons responsible take action. Instead of sticking their heads in the sands, they should face realities. If they applied themselves to industrial development and the creation of employment, rather than to attacking the trade unions and the clergy, they would be better compensated and better appreciated by the people whom they are supposed to serve.

Arrogance has taken over. The cheque-book gang have taken over. The unfortunate Taoiseach is, as I said last night, like a cork in a high tide, being buffeted and pilloried on all sides. A split exists in Fianna Fáil. We all know it. We know the gangs that are there, both at top level and at local level. There was an example of it last week in a case of co-option to Limerick Corporation. They were divided down the centre. Their own nominee was thrown to the wolves and discarded by some of their own honest members on Limerick City Council. There is the division. There is the split. We have it in the Cabinet and everybody knows it. Is this not one of the reasons why the Taoiseach will not go to the country? I suppose it is hard to blame him. One does not race a lame horse. It is only a fool who would do that. You get your horse ready before you produce him on a racecourse.

I suppose the Taoiseach is playing a similar game. He is waiting, hoping that some day there will be unification of the different gangs that exist in Fianna Fáil, that he will gather them around him some fine day and they will go as one regiment before the people. Until that happens he cannot face the people. That is the reason for accepting the long stall approach. It would not surprise me if this Taoiseach were to go down in history as one who went the full distance. I cannot see any chance of the split forces in Fianna Fáil being united. It would be like trying to make a Protestant out of the Pope or a seagull out of a crow. It cannot be done.

The Fianna Fáil gang now in office are living on borrowed time, they are in the condemned cell and they know it. They have been condemned out of hand by the people. It is about time the tide turned. It had to turn. But we know they will hang on like a drowning man hangs to a straw, thinking that time will erase from the memories of the people the debacle of 16th October; 1968. While there is blood in our veins we will see that no such thing happens. We will see that honesty comes before fraud. We will expose them and we will tell the people how public money was wasted on the referendum. I want to repeat what I said last night that, if right was right, the Minister for Local Government should be put on trial for the illegal conversion of the taxpayers' money for the holding of the referendum.

While that money was being spent and while all the curbs were being put on the trade unionists, nothing at all has been said about the unfortunate old age pensioner or the widow and her meagre couple of bob a week. No provision has been made for them because they went out and voted "No". The big industrialist did not come under the whip; he is well fortified and he can carry on and perhaps improve his subscription to the Taca brigade in the coming year, having listened, I am sure, so attentively to the talk given by the Taoiseach recently at a symposium in Cork. Where are we going? However, there is one hope on the horizon.

While the Minister for Local Government and the Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries have trod their primrose path to the everlasting political bonfire, we can look to the people and say that there are still honest people left. One quarter of a million of them diverted from you and told you where you were going. I am looking forward to your next Ard Fheis, whenever that may be, to hear the voices of the ordinary rank and file of Fianna Fáil repeat the charges I am making against you. There are men in Fianna Fáil who are prepared to do it.

Mr. Geoghegan

Has the Deputy made an application?

Mr. Coughlan

The only thing I ever got from Fianna Fáil was coercion and imprisonment, being hauled into the barracks and questioned about my movements. That has been my experience. I am lucky to be here at all and that I did not die of hunger. No matter how long the Government last, no matter what means they devise to deceive the people, there is one governing factor and that is that no longer can they ask "Where were you in the Civil War?" That is over, thanks be to God.

With respect, Sir, I am being provoked.

Mr. Coughlan

I cannot help it if the Deputy is not prepared to hear the truth.

Mr. Andrews

Poor Michael Lipper.

Mr. Crowley

Poor Deputy Coughlan.

Mr. Coughlan

We are all poor over here but we are honest. We cannot say that about you people.

Mr. Andrews

You cycled up from Limerick?

Mr. Coughlan

Thank God I was able to and thank God I was not in a Mercedes.

It obviously made no impact and I hope that, by repeating it, the Government will one day wake up to the fact that something must be done. The housing problem has been handed over to the Taca consortium, the National Building Agency, and its adherents, who are all members of the gang. These are the people who, when they saw the writing on the wall or, as the Taoiseach said, the clouds on the horizon, wanted the takeover bid and the gamble the Minister for Local Government took on 16th October. That was one of the reasons.

We also have a situation in which we are presented with a White Paper on the Health Services telling us what we are to prepare ourselves for as members of a local authority.

An Ceann Comhairle

The Deputy's 45 minutes have now concluded.

Minister for Local Government (Mr. Boland)

I am sorry I have not had the privilege of hearing a great deal of this debate.

(Interruptions.)

Mr. Boland

The Minister is having trouble trying to gerrymander the constituencies to suit his backbenchers.

Mr. Boland

Which coalition is the Minister talking about? Is it the Sherwin-Lenehan coalition?

Mr. Boland

The most they could do was to win two out of seven. So, as far as the people of the country are concerned, there is a clear indication available to the Government that they retain their confidence. In only three out of the six by-elections which we won was it a Fianna Fáil seat that was in question? In those three by-elections the people decided to replace the Fianna Fáil Deputy who had died by another Fianna Fáil Deputy, thereby maintaining the status quo which was established in the general election of 1965.

In the other three cases of the by-elections which we won, the people decided to increase the Fianna Fáil representation. In one case, in Cork city, the people made the very remarkable decision of giving Fianna Fáil four out of five seats. In a situation in which we already had three out of the four surviving seats, the people decided to fill the fifth seat by giving us a fourth representative. It is hard to imagine a more definite vote of confidence in the Government than that.

In another of these by-elections, in Waterford, the result was a reversal of the position that existed after the general election of 1965. There, despite the tendency of by-elections to go against the Government, the result was to change the situation in which we got only one seat out of three in the general election to a victory in the by-election. This Fianna Fáil victory in a by-election in a three-seat constituency is equivalent to a two out of three result in a general election. Even in the solitary case where the Opposition candidate was "deemed to be elected" there was a clear indication of a "no change" attitude on the part of the electorate. These seven elections took place at four different times: 7th December, 1966, 9th November, 1967, 14th March of this year and 26th May of this year, so that we have quite recent expression of opinion in regard to the question of whether or not this Government retains the confidence of the people from some of these constituencies.

The first two by-elections took place at a time when we were in the throes of an adverse economic situation and when the man who as Minister for Finance had the responsibility of introducing the measures which were deemed necessary by the Government had just taken over as Taoiseach. They were held in two mainly agricultural constituencies at a time when the major farmers' organisation was in direct dispute with the Government and when circumstances were particularly favourable to the Opposition's attempt to exploit sectional differences for their own advantage. Only one of the two seats to be filled at that time was a Fianna Fáil seat. In one of the constituencies we had only obtained a minority of the seats at the general election. Despite all these factors and the fact that this was a period in which the economy was going through adverse and difficult times the people of Waterford and South Kerry clearly indicated confidence in the Government and their desire that the affairs of the country should continue to remain in responsible hands.

The next two by-elections were held when the measures taken were just beginning to have their effect and the next two when the economy was once more moving satisfactorily. Although the last by-election was held at a time when Coalition solidarity had been restored by the decision of the two Parties opposite to oppose the Constitutional amendment proposals and although this was made the principal point in the campaign by the Opposition, the people left no doubt as to their decision to retain the present Government.

With regard to the Presidential election, while this was not in any way a political matter it was contested on a very intensive scale by the Opposition. Whereas the outgoing President, because of his position was, in effect, a non-participant in the campaign, and even despite this the Fianna Fáil organisation succeeded in getting an overall majority which is something only achieved once in the history of this country in a political election. If there is any political indication in that particular result it is clearly of continued and increased support for Fianna Fáil.

With regard to the local elections, these are concerned with different matters to Dáil elections—the issues are local ones and the location of a candidate is often more important than anything else. The constituencies are smaller and quotas go down as low as 400. There is room for every type of fringe candidate. Despite this Fianna Fáil increased its representation on local authorities, obtaining 589 seats out of a total of 1,538.

The difference between the local elections and the Dáil elections is indicated by the fact that candidates outside the main political Parties who are described under the collective title of "others" obtained almost one-half as much as the major political Party and considerably in excess of 50 per cent of the number obtained by the second political Party. While this election was not either a political matter in the same sense as Dáil elections any indication that can be drawn from it is surely of continued support for the Government.

The two recent referenda, the results of which have inspired the Opposition Parties to put down these motions of no confidence, were concerned with two specific proposals for Constitutional amendments. The people have decided not to make these two changes and they have decided nothing else. They decided not to change the present system of multi-seat constituencies and the transferable vote and they decided constituencies must be revised on the basis of equality of population within very narrow limits, as assessed in the census, per deputy. We accept that. This is what the people want. They want more than one Deputy to represent them. They do not accept that the dangers which we see in the present system are there.

Mr. Harte

They did not trust you.

Mr. Boland

The result will be that Deputies will continue to fulfil the functions they must perform at present as exemplified by this letter which somebody was kind enough to send to me. It is a letter in an envelope which is stamped "Oireachtas" and is further stamped "Íoctha go hOifigiúil". It is sent to a lady in Rathmines and reads:

Dear Mrs. (Lady's name),

I understand my constituents find it very inconvenient travelling to Inchicore to consult me as the Labour TD for the area. Accordingly from now on if you or your neighbours wish to see me about any problem would you simply drop me a note and I will be glad to call on you.

Yours sincerely,

J.F. O'Connell

Underneath that we have typed "Dr. John O'Connell, T.D.". It is on Dáil notepaper and it is headed 64 Inchicore Road, Dublin 8.

Mr. L'Estrange

Is there something wrong with that?

Mr. Boland

This is the function of the Deputy.

Mr. Harte

Is that bad form?

Mr. Boland

That is a matter of opinion.

Mr. James Tully

The Minister would never do that. He has no experience of it.

Mr. Harte

I have had to tolerate that for seven years past by the Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries in Donegal.

An Ceann Comhairle

Would the Minister be allowed to continue his speech?

Mr. Andrews

The social mind——

An Ceann Comhairle

Would Deputy Harte allow the Minister to continue? If Deputy Harte refuses to obey I will ask him to leave the House and that also goes for Deputy Andrews.

Mr. Boland

The result of the other decision is that constituencies must be revised on a very strict basis of near-equality of population per Deputy irrespective of other considerations. Although the constituencies were last revised in 1961, I and my Department have now to engage in the complicated task of squeezing four more Deputies into Dublin and re-arranging the other areas on the basis of four fewer seats. It is not permissible to take into consideration even such known facts as the fact that the Ballymun housing scheme, which was only in its initial stages in April, 1966, will soon be complete and that large scale housing developments will have taken place soon in Tallaght and other places in my own constituency and that these will significantly affect the census in 1971.

Since these things cannot be taken into account it seems inevitable that another revision must take place in a few years' time. However, that is the position. We are not complaining, but there has not been any other decision made by the people and we have every reason to believe that the people, at the next general election, will decide to renew their mandate to the present Government.

When the Taoiseach concluded his statement announcing the Government's proposals for the proper management of the country's finances, to go as close as possible to matching increased expenditure with increased income and to counteract a somewhat unfavourable trend, Opposition Deputies remarked on the fact that there was no applause from the Government benches. That was true. There was no welcome here, either in the Government or among the members of the Party, for increased taxation in itself. But there is a realisation that the surest and most reliable test of good government is the manner in which it deals with the country's finances and the promptness with which it recognises and deals with ominous trends.

We have always believed that the public can appreciate the necessity for this type of action. We have always believed that they appreciate that the increased expenditure on the pay of State employees, on social services and on agricultural subsidies must, if the economy is to survive, be met from increased tax revenue and, if the revenue itself is not sufficiently buoyant to match increased expenditure, that extra taxes are then required. We have always believed that the people can appreciate this. Our experience has been that we were right and we have never hesitated to do this, when circumstances called for it—and the public have continued to express their confidence in us as a Government.

Nevertheless, as politicians, we appreciate that life would be a lot easier for everyone if taxes never had to be increased. We know that increased taxation in itself can never be popular. The Opposition are quite correct. It was on their side of the House that these proposals for taxation were greeted jubilantly and with smiles. The welcome for the proposals was on the side of the House that voted against them—but it was the other side, the Government side, that did their duty and this will be recognised by the people, as it has been before.

Deputy O.J. Flanagan's remark that he thinks we are "stone mad" is typical of the Opposition attitude. It is a clear indication of what the country can expect in the unlikely event of a change of government after the next general election. The Opposition cannot understand the mentality of a government that does an unpopular thing because it is the right thing to do. With them, that is described as "stone madness". We feel confident that we can demonstrate to the people that, so far from this being "stone madness", it is an example of the wise and courageous government which has resulted in a period of practically continuous economic growth such as this country has never experienced before. It is because of the responsible and meticulous handling of the nation's finances that we have been able to make continuous progress in every aspect of social welfare. There is no need for me to go into detail about that. I know how painful it is for Opposition Deputies to hear even the most general cataloguing of the achievements in every aspect of social welfare of this Government, particularly because of the contrast that it provides with their own almost completely barren record in this regard.

Take the question of the income maintenance services themselves. In every year since this Government came to office in 1957—and despite the disastrous state of the economy which we took over in 1957—this Government has been able to increase the social welfare services and, not alone that, but, in almost every one of those years, each of the income maintenance services was increased. This contrasts very sharply with the record—or lack of record—of the Opposition Parties when they had the opportunity to do something about these services in respect of which they are so vocal when they are on the Opposition benches.

Most of the social welfare services have never been touched by any hands other than those of Fianna Fáil. Certainly, there is no social welfare service that has been introduced by any government in this country other than Fianna Fáil. Every single one of them —with the exception of the non-contributory old age pension scheme which was introduced during the British time and a rudimentary form of unemployment benefit—was introduced by Fianna Fáil and practically all the increases in rates have been introduced by Fianna Fáil. I do not say that this is because the Opposition would not like to improve these social welfare services. It is because they were not able to do so. This was because they have not the courage nor the sense of responsibility to handle the country's finances in a responsible way and so they have not been able to do it. Each one of our Budgets since 1957 has been an exercise in the redistribution of the increased national income resulting from our economic policy— and the people have continued to demonstrate their confidence in the Government because they know that our policy can be expressed simply as "To generate increased national prosperity so as to enable the Government to make real progress in all aspects of social welfare." They can see from experience and from the demonstration they get every year that we have never confused the means with the end; that economic policy, so far as Fianna Fáil are concerned, is the means and improved social welfare, in all its aspects, is the end and that our object in fostering economic growth is to have available an increasing source from which to draw resources for the improvement of living conditions for the people as a whole. My own Department of Local Government is an outstanding example of the methods by which the success of the economic Departments is utilised for the common good.

So far as I myself am concerned, and I think so far as the majority of us are concerned, the most important aspect of my Department is probably the provision of adequate housing for our people. The number of houses built each year has been rising now, with the exception of one year, when there was a slight deterioration, for a longer period than ever before in the history of this State. Between 1963-64 and 1967-68 it has, in fact, risen by about 50 per cent. This rise is continuing. In the first six months of the present financial year, about 8,300 houses were started or had grants allocated for them compared with 7,606 houses in the first six months of last year. In the current financial year, it is expected that about 13,000 houses will be completed compared with 12,017 houses last year. This rise is reflected in total spending on the construction of private and local authority housing and on substantial reconstruction work. In the current financial year, the total amount spent in this way is expected to reach £54 million compared with about £46 million in the last financial year and, of course, this also was a record.

In fact, in the last six years, including the estimated figures for the present financial year, capital expenditure on housing construction, at about £233 million, is almost equal to the total capital expenditure in the 15 years preceding 31st March, 1963, when the total was £240 million. The rise in capital expenditure on housing is continuing. The figures for loan advances or for loan applications on hand by the principal building societies, local authorities and assurance companies for house purchase showed that in the first six months of 1968-69 they had paid out £10.2 million compared with the figure of £8.5 million in the first six months of 1967-68. The value of loans for which applications were in the hands of the principal lending agencies has risen from £5.6 million at 30th September, 1967 to £7.7 million at 30th September, 1968.

Of course, this massive increase in the numbers of houses built and in expenditure on housing construction has naturally been accompanied by an increase in subsidy payments. Since 1963-64 these have risen from £8.2 million to an estimated £11.8 million in the current financial year, and this figure excludes £7.8 million in subsidies for local authority housing.

The Government have taken a number of steps to encourage greater efficiency in building which will in turn result in reduced housing costs. These include a scheme of technical assistance grants for builders to encourage them to engage consultants and to streamline their procedures and to attend courses and seminars where the latest building and control techniques are described; work on dimensional co-ordination, with the object of achieving economies through greater efficiency in the production and use of components in building; and standardisation, throughout the country, of requirements for structural standards etc. in building regulations, which are at present being drafted by An Foras Forbartha.

In regard to the local authority housing programme specifically, 4,045 dwellings, including 1,255 at Ballymun, were completed in 1967-1968.

Work in progress has increased very rapidly and at 30th September a total of not less than 7,277 dwellings were in progress including 1,749 in special projects of the National Building Agency in Dublin, at Ballymun and in Cork and Limerick. Houses in progress, excluding the National Building Agency projects, have increased from 3,031 at 31st March, 1967, to 5,528 at 30th September, 1968. 4,251 men were employed on ordinary local authority housing and 1,016 on National Building Agency projects. A total of 4,684 new dwellings, excluding the National Building Agency projects, were started in 1967-1968 as compared with 2,411 dwellings in 1966-1967, and 2,611 in 1965-1966. Nearly £11 million worth of tenders were approved by the local authority housing, leaving out the National Building Agency projects, in 1967-1968. This compares with £6.06 million in 1966-1967, £5.86 million in 1965-1966, and £7.4 million in 1964-1965.

As I said, I heard many Fianna Fáil Deputies stating openly they accepted fully the verdict of the people. This is obviously not so with the Minister for Local Government. He is still whining and complaining that the people are wrong. The only person who is wrong in this country now is the Minister for Local Government. Even his own Taoiseach is wrong. The Taoiseach accepts the verdict of the people; the Minister for Local Government refuses to do so.

The Minister for Local Government proceeds from there to defend the Irish Independent against the attacks of Deputy Dunne. Surely this is novel and particularly good coming from the Minister for Local Government who has himself, in the course of the campaign, been attacking the Irish Independent and doing everything possible to intimidate them. Of course, he would see to it that those advertisements were withdrawn from the Irish Independent if he were not afraid to do it as was done in the case of the Farmers' Journal. It is certainly novel to see the Minister defending the Irish Independent against Deputy Seán Dunne. Deputy Dunne is well known for his appreciation of the high standards observed by the press in this country and of the service they render to the people. The Minister's attitude is typical of his arrogance.

He goes on then to make a personal attack on me and when he is challenged he runs out of the House. He makes a scandalous personal attack on my character but cannot produce a shred of evidence to support what he says. He talks about what I said in regard to some development or other in the Green Isle Hotel in Clondalkin and what I said he did or did not do about this development. He refused to give particulars. I could not possibly follow it up but I challenge him here and now to meet me, with the directors of this hotel, and to tell them and me what he has in mind; because anything I have in mind about the Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries or the Minister for Local Government or any other Minister, I will say it to him both here and outside the House. I will not be afraid to say it because I am not a person who takes pride in annihilating people's characters as some of those opposite do. I want that challenge to be on record and I want to see the Minister outside the House because I insist I will defend my character no matter who attacks it. I want him to produce the evidence. He is completely free to do so.

He made an attack on Deputy O'Connell about the letters the Deputy writes to his constituents. I had a question on the Order Paper today to ask the Minister if it was the practice in his Department, when he accepted tenders, first to notify certain Deputies in his own constituency before notifying the county council concerned, and I was told the answer was in the negative. I was told the answer was in the negative while I hold in my possession a letter to Deputy Foley: "Dear Des, I am very pleased to be able to tell you I have today accepted the tender for such a house." This was given to Deputy Foley on the 14th and was given to the county council on the 16th.

This is his method of keeping himself in office and for keeping a Deputy in office who is well known to have done no work since he came into the House, either in the constituency or in the House. This is the way for getting a pretext for deceiving the people into believing that they have been in some way responsible for getting a house built for an unfortunate woman. This is the type of practice the Minister for Local Government indulges in when he should be doing his own work. This is the job he has his civil servants engaged in with public money. It is a disgrace and it should be exposed. Of course, there is another Fianna Fáil Deputy in the county but he is not in such favour as Deputy Foley. He may get a letter a few days after the county council have got it and "Dear Paddy" will then be late with the story. This is the form, this is what I want to expose. The Irish Independent, to which the Minister for Local Government referred, had this to say in a leading article on 5th November:

Distasteful, even humiliating, steps are required of the Government to expunge the undemocratic arrogance of which, until last month, it could be rightly accused.

If the Irish Independent wants further evidence of arrogance, it certainly got it today from the Minister for Local Government. The leading article continued:

An easier policy is required of the Opposition: to expose and relentlessly hunt down that arrogance should it show itself again.

I say that, in fact, it has shown itself on a number of occasions inside the last week and I have been thinking about this problem just as the Irish Independent has been. The arrogant people, the people who refuse to talk to people in the country, who refuse to consult the various vocational groups and who ignore the express wishes of the people, are well known in Fianna Fáil. The Minister for Local Government is well known, the Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries, sitting opposite, is well known. He refuses to get down to talk to the people for whose welfare primarily he is responsible. The Minister for Education refuses to talk to the people concerned with education in this country.

I do not know what the Taoiseach will do about them but he has a responsibility to do something. Frankly, I think the only solution is that he should introduce them to Deputy MacEntee, because Deputy MacEntee has friends in Greece, and I think they would be suitably employed there imposing martial law. Either that or, perhaps, Backbencher's NGKA might come out from its anonymity like Taca and make Deputy Boland Taoiseach of that organisation, the Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries, Tánaiste, and, perhaps, even find a job for Deputy Lenihan also. That deals with our friend Deputy Boland particularly. When the Taoiseach spoke here earlier he tried to make the point that there was an element of political opportunism in Fine Gael tabling this motion of no confidence at the present time, and that this, of course, applied also to the motion in the name of Labour.

However, the Taoiseach saw no such element in his, on the same day, bringing in a staggering Budget that will leave the people of this country incapable of thinking of anything except the backbreaking load of added taxation that has been piled on their backs and which they are being asked to accept. The Taoiseach so far has got away successfully with his pose on the pious altar of rectitude, but the people are now finding him out and they have realised fully that he is well able to play Party politics with the best.

Since we put down this motion, and following this crushing defeat at the referendum, many people have come to me and said: "You had not to wait for the defeat to put this motion down. This motion is long overdue. There is overwhelming evidence available already to prove that they have failed completely to solve the many pressing problems from which the country is suffering and they appear to have no worthwhile ideas or plans for the future". After 30 years of Fianna Fáil in office we have a situation where unemployment is increasing rather than decreasing. We have emigration proceeding apace. We have health and social welfare services lagging behind the rest of Europe and we have a deplorable backlog of housing needs.

At the same time, we have scandalous speculation in building land. In the course of the past week, I have come across sites for sale, individual sites for houses, for £5,000 each, plus 5 per cent. I know another case where the speculator bought a nine-acre field for £47,000. He got planning permission for 75 housing sites on it. These housing sites are now being sold at £1,675 each, plus 5 per cent, plus—this is an important plus—£22 ground rent, so that when these houses are built on this site, this speculator will have an annual income of not less than £1,600 from the ground rents alone. This is the type of speculation that the Government have facilitated and encouraged. It is what brought Taca into being. They are the people who want to see Fianna Fáil continue in office. They are the people who have grown fat during Fianna Fáil's reign in office. Fianna Fáil have refused absolutely to accept our proposals for the setting up of an impartial body to deal with planning appeals. They know that these favours can be handed out, that they can make or break any such person and that money has been put into the pockets of people of this kind.

It is all right for the Minister for Local Government to come in here and tell us all the present Government have done in relation to the housing problem. What I want to know is what is the present position. It is deplorable. There is a backlog of housing needs and I do not know when it will be caught up with and I do not think that any evidence is needed to prove that many thousands of our people have been living in deplorable housing conditions for many years. This city is ringed with caravans. Every approach road to the city is locked up with caravans on the side of the road and every open space has caravans. These caravans are occupied by decent people who cannot find the wherewithal to buy a housing site and build houses. Those people cannot get a local authority house and do not qualify in many cases for a local authority house.

In many of these caravans you have children of nine, ten and 11 years of age who do not know what it is to run from one room to another and who possibly will never know the joy of running from one room to another. How children can be expected to grow up with a healthy mind and wholesome aspirations from these surroundings beats me, and how any Minister for Local Government can come in here, with his own Government in office for so long, and flap his wings about what has been done about the housing situation in this country beats me.

I think the people have sized up the situation. They have realised that this Government is more concerned about the wealthy people in this country and about making the rich people richer than they are about unfortunate people who are confronted with circumstances such as I describe. We do not find the Minister for Local Government going to Ballyfermot on a Sunday morning to see the position there and listen to the plight of many people: but he can come in and attack people in this House who are trying to do what they can to assist people of that kind.

I said earlier that, instead of improving, the unemployment situation is worsening. Unfortunately the facts are there and this fact does not require any proof from me or from anybody else. The main reason why we have this situation is that many people are fleeing from conditions in rural Ireland. We are not able to find jobs for them outside rural Ireland and we have no plans to hold them in rural Ireland or to try and find worthwhile occupation for them there. So, therefore, we have no plans in rural Ireland and we have no plans when they leave it. Were it not for the safety valve of emigration this Government would be out of office long ago.

The people of rural Ireland are the most important sector in this country. On their production depends our ability to buy the raw materials for all other industries. We know that, if they do not produce agricultural goods at a price at which we can sell them in the export market, the whole of the economy is doomed. It has long since been well established that the welfare of the economy as a whole in the last analysis depends on how agriculture is doing and how much it is producing for export. The more we succeed in producing in rural Ireland the more dependent we become on export markets.

What is the situation in agriculture to-day? I said earlier on that we have a situation where the Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries is not talking to the people in the industry. This war is in existence now for over two years. I personally have pleaded with the Minister and with the farmers concerned to try and build a bridge between them but the Minister is not prepared to come and meet them. He is not prepared to accept that he is there to serve the people and not to bully them and not to drive them. The day is gone and should be buried forever when farmers can be kicked around and dictated to by their own Minister.

An essential starting point in any agricultural policy programme is the full involvement and participation of the farmers on whom the future of the industry depends. If we have not this type of democracy in agriculture, we have no hope. We talk about industrial democracy but I think it is far more essential to have democracy in agriculture.

This week what have we been given? What has agriculture been given? It has been blamed for the heavy taxation that has been imposed on the people's back in the second enormous Budget we have had this year. But, what are they likely to get out of it? The subsidy on calves will give them nothing this year. That is accepted. It does not operate until the 1st April next and the one penny a gallon for those who produce milk up to 7,000 gallons cannot bring in more, cannot cost the Government more than £250,000 in what is left of this year. The Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries knows, and nobody has to tell him, that the end of the lactation period has arrived and that cows will be dry over the winter in the dairying areas and the amount of milk involved in this will certainly not call for expenditure up to the amount described in this second Budget. It is ridiculous to say it will. It is ridiculous to suggest that this taxation has been found necessary because of the fact that there are £6 million for the farmers. This is the type of deplorable attitude that exists towards the Irish farmers and Irish agriculture. That has been in evidence here for a long time.

If farmers get anything in a budget it should operate from April or May, that is the summer. The other sectors of the people who have to pay for this enormous load of taxation are said to carry the farmers on their back, when in fact the reverse is the case. Today we hear that this limited number of small farmers are getting this one penny when their cows are dry. On the same day as we are told that there will be £8 for a calf on a farm where no milk will be supplied to a creamery or no milk will be supplied to a city or a town, we hear the news that the B and I are charging 25s more per beast for bringing cattle from Dublin to Liverpool and that they are going to confine their operations in future to one route. This means that cattle being exported from Cork and from all over the country will first have to be conveyed to Dublin. I would like the Minister to calculate the cost of bringing those cattle to Dublin and then 25s more to convey them to England from Dublin and only on the one route. I hold that the loss involved in this to the producers of cattle is in fact going to be much greater than what the Minister is providing so that the sooner the sing-song about what the farmers of this country are getting is given up the better. They are getting a pittance.

What the Minister is doing is encouraging people to stay below 7,000 gallons. He knows as well as I know that this is not an economic unit of production. We have had programmes on television indicating that if you want an economic unit, a viable unit, you must have 30 cows on a 40-45 acre farm of good land. Here we have the situation where the Minister comes in offering a penny a gallon to those who produce under 7,000 gallons. This does not make sense to me and it does not make sense to anybody. We have the Second Programme for Economic Expansion laying down certain targets. We have not nearly reached those targets in cow numbers, in cattle numbers or in milk production but the farmers are told: "You are producing too much milk. We must stop you producing milk." They are told at the same time: "You are producing too much wheat. We must stop this. Look at what this is involving the country in." We have a situation where we are not able to supply our quota of bacon to the British market. This arises purely and solely because Fianna Fáil have no agricultural policy and never had an agricultural policy and because their policy is being decided from day to day and from month to month.

I said earlier on that it was the job of the Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries to serve the people and to serve the farmers of this country. I want to say more about that. It is also the job of the Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries to take some of the uncertainty out of farming in the future. He must look a reasonable distance ahead and he must plan a reasonable distance ahead. He should be able to say to the farmers: "I want you to produce so much of this, that and the other and, if you do, I will guarantee that you will get a rock bottom price of so much." Put a floor on it and say: "You will get this price when you produce so much and I will guarantee an outlet." No such statement has been made and consequently there is no confidence in the future of Irish farming. No farmer is in the position today that he can plan ahead and that he can make worthwhile investment knowing in advance that, if he does this, he will have an outlet and a reasonable price for his produce. This should be engaging the attention of the Minister and it certainly has not been engaging the attention of the Minister. We have had slumps and booms and every time that we produce more pigs, more grain, more milk, more cattle, we have a slump simply and solely because forecasting and marketing as it should be done in a modern society is just not being done. It is being neglected.

We have a situation at the present time where the Minister says that there must be a shift away from milk and, at one and the same time, his advisers are going around the country, especially in the intensive development areas, telling the farmers: "Your only hope is to get into milk. This is the best way to increase your income. This is the best advice we can give you!" Surely that is a contradiction in terms and surely a stop must be put to this once and for all. The farmers must be told where they are going.

We have a chaotic position in the pig industry. Smuggling has been referred to earlier on today. We have a situation whereby we are not able to supply our quota on the British market. We have failed to do that and we are only supplying it because of the enormous amount of pigs being smuggled in across the Border from the Six Counties. My view is that no serious attempt has been made to stop this smuggling and that this is because of our embarrassment at not being able to supply our quota. This smuggling is costing the taxpayers of the country on average £12,000 per week. These smugglers are well known and the number of pigs they are smuggling is well known but, as Deputy Coughlan has said, were it not for these smugglers the bacon industry in this country would be sitting down. This is a deplorable situation. We have skim milk to the point where we cannot dispose of it and there has been no organised effort to get the pig industry into a situation where it could absorb an immense amount of this skim. We have failed because we refused to accept that you will not get pigs produced in this country unless you get a balance between the price of pigs and the price of feeding stuffs and unless you keep this relationship always the same or reasonably the same. Farmers will get into pigs and get out of pigs.

We have had the chairman of the Pigs and Bacon Commission—where I think a good job is being done having regard to the circumstances—coming into the open and saying that the situation that took place here in 1965 would justify a public inquiry in any other country in the world except here and that obviously the advice he had given and the recommendations he had made to the Department were ignored. It is a deplorable situation that this can be said and not contradicted and that farmers were put into the situation, long before they had reached the target of pig production set by Fianna Fáil in the Second Programme, where they practically had to give pigs away. It is no wonder the situation is as it is but I think it is something to be thoroughly ashamed of.

It is obvious that the market is there. It is obvious that the Irish farmer is in a position to supply that market. It is obvious, too, that there are difficulties in the disposal of milk products and that the Minister has a duty to attract people into other lines of production. We cannot afford to say in the case of milk production, the economy as a whole cannot afford to say: "You cannot produce any more milk," when we have regard to the fact that two-thirds of our beef cattle are supplied from the dairy herds of this country. We are treading on very dangerous ground now and we offer £8 for calves in this very limited category. At one and the same time, as I understand it, we are taking away the calved heifer subsidy scheme. If that is so, the result will be a minus benefit to the farmers of this country. There will be no benefit in it and I think the Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries knows this well and it is time he did something about it.

I spoke about increased charges for transport and so on. I believe the Minister has been forewarned on many occasions that this situation would arise. He had been warned about the situation in England with which the people in the cattle trade were confronted when the B and I allowed their waggon stock to run down and when farmers and traders were required to convey their cattle by road at very much increased costs. Obviously nothing was done about this or, if so, nobody knows that any effort was made; but we do know that no success was achieved in regard to overcoming these difficulties. Now there is a war between B and I and British Railways, a war that the Irish farmers and those in the cattle trade must endure. The Minister should do whatever he can, with his colleague the Minister for Transport and Power, to resolve these difficulties and ensure that our farmers get the service they deserve. He should try to reduce the costs involved.

I am dealing with agricultural matters and we shall probably be dealing with them in a week or so again because we have now reached the situation when one Estimate is catching up with the next simply because we have had so much unwanted and undesirable legislation introduced, eating into the time of the House and causing unnecessary expense to the country. We had the referendum thrown in for good measure. We scarcely know what Estimate we are discussing. The country is alarmed at the situation in regard to sheep. Sheep numbers are down by about 500,000 or something approaching that. The reply to a question I had down the other day indicates that the subsidy on sheep is only about half what it is on other products. Here we have an imbalance that apparently had not been looked at or no great effort was made to level it up. It is a serious situation when we want to attract farmers into lines of production that are easy to sell to find that we are making little or no effort to bring that about.

What is our grain policy? Since last January we imported about £1.5 million of low-class and low-quality pollard. Why? Why did we refuse last year to give our farmers a few extra shillings per barrel or per ton for barley? Why did we not encourage the growing of greater quantities of barley by increasing the price? We all made a case for an increased price for barley or for an acreage subsidy for barley as they do in Northern Ireland. We are boasting about the £8 for a very small number of calves but I was in Northern Ireland last week buying cows and I inquired from a farmer what they were getting by way of subsidy in Northern Ireland and he informed me that they were getting 10 guineas for bull calves and 9 guineas for heifer calves of all breeds and sorts. We are now boasting about taking away the heifer subsidy scheme and giving a small subsidy for a limited number of calves.

I am glad horticulture is making some progress, even though last year we imported £2 million worth of apples. I believe strawberries are paying, but no effort is being made to find a market on a contractual basis for a reasonable period ahead such as would induce people to make an investment knowing they would not be throwing away their money.

I have not much time left but I want to say a word to the Minister about the Cook-Sprague Report. Why is this Report left lying about? We first had the Knapp Report. We still have this chaos in the milk industry. Recommendations were made in the Knapp Report but we were not wholly satisfied with that and we brought in two more experts to check on the previous ones and they reported a considerable time ago. The Cook-Sprague Report, when it comes out, is not the Cook-Sprague Report but an edited version of it. I want the Minister to say why was he afraid to print what was in the Cook-Sprague Report and why it has been altered and what right he has to alter a Report produced by two experts and paid for out of public money?

There is also the store cattle report. That is lying in the Minister's Department since last April and not yet printed. I am sure it contains some very important material that would benefit the country, but it is kept in the background like whatever the Minister has to say about all his visits to the British Minister for Agriculture. That has also been kept secret. The House has been told nothing about what happened in the course of the Minister's visits to his British counterpart. What matters were discussed? There are many matters of urgent importance to this country. The Minister promised the House before we went into Recess that he would come back and tell us what it was all about and asked us not to embarrass him about it in advance. We refrained but, after all this time, it cannot be a cause of embarrassment for the Minister now to stand up and tell the House what he has been discussing with the British Minister because there have been no obvious results. No great beneficial results have followed these visits.

I do not want to continue to speak but I believe the time has come when the people will speak. A general election is obviously in the offing and I think the people are looking forward to that day when, I believe, their verdict will be for a change of government. That is the relief the country is looking for. The present Government stand discredited before the people for their failure in so many departments. I think it was Deputy Coughlan who said earlier that there was no fear of the Government going to the country. I agree with him because I think if they went to the country they would be slaughtered.

Mr. Coughlan

Annihilated is the word.

Mr. Clinton

They are hoping that the memory of the people will be short and that if they can drag out the present Government sufficiently long the people will have forgotten the Government's ignominious defeat in the referendum. The people know where they stand now. They know the arrogance they have to put up with. They know the dishonesty and they are craving at the present time for honest Government and for fairplay for the Irish people. Because of the arrogance of the Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries and of his refusal to meet deputations from Macra na Feirme——

(Interruptions.)

That is how the present Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries treats the farming organisations. The Minister thinks he can dictate policy from Merrion street but I am warning him that the farmers of this country will not accept this.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries.

Mr. James Tully

On a point of order, Sir, we had this last night when the Ceann Comhairle called on a Minister to speak instead of a Labour speaker. The Minister said he would check with his Whip. He did check and found that one speaker at a time, in rotation, would speak from each Party. I do not expect that the agreement has been changed since last night and I suggest that Deputy Tierney is entitled to his place.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Chair has found that the Chair was not informed and in these circumstances the Chair could not depart from the usual practice of not calling two speakers from the same Party in rotation.

Mr. James Tully

Would the Chair not agree, despite what occurred last night, when the Minister stated that he was checking with his Whip that the Chair should have been informed. The Fianna Fáil Whip is in the House and could be brought here for confirmation of what I am saying.

Mr. L'Estrange

This was a vote of no confidence in the Government. The Labour Party also put down a vote of no confidence. We looked for time and we came to certain agreements. The speakers were to rotate up to 2.45 p.m. this evening. If the Labour speaker is coming in afterwards that is no reason why this ruling should be given.

Mr. G. Collins

Are you afraid to give the Minister a chance to answer what has been said?

Mr. Coughlan

Is the Deputy seeking a vacancy?

Mr. L'Estrange

Furthermore, despite the fact that we were allowed three clear days, the Taoiseach came in here yesterday with a mini-Budget which took 2½ hours out of that time. There is no use in making agreements in this House if they are not to be kept. If this agreement is broken we shall make no further agreements with the Fianna Fáil Party.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

In these circumstances, the Chair can only proceed on the basis on what has been officially communicated to the Chair. I must, therefore, call on the Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries.

Mr. L'Estrange

Did not the Ceann Comhairle get information from the Fianna Fáil Parliamentary Secretary, the Chief Whip, last evening and is this information not in your notes?

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Chair has no such information.

Mr. Tierney

On a point of order surely it cannot be ruled that a rural Deputy from the South of Ireland will not be allowed to speak in this House.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Chair is not denying the right of any Deputy to speak but the practice of not calling two Deputies from the same Party in rotation must be adhered to.

Are you afraid of me?

Mr. Reynolds

Not of the Minister.

An Ceann Comhairle

If the Deputy would sit down I would reply. The Deputy has referred to the agreement of one, one, one and if he wants that carried out, the Leas-Cheann Comhairle was correct in calling a Member of the Fianna Fáil Party to speak in view of the fact that Labour will follow.

Mr. Tully

It is a supposition.

Mr. Blaney

The Leas-Cheann Comhairle has already called me, Sir.

An Ceann Comhairle

The Leas-Cheann Comhairle has called the Minister.

Mr. Tierney

I want to make my point quite clear. I understood that I would be getting in at approximately 2.20 p.m. I object strongly to the Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries who has shot down the plain people of this country during the last three years——

(Interruptions.)

Mr. Tierney

I wish to point out that the Minister for Local Government has had 15 minutes——

Mr. Allen

The Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries.

Mr. Blaney

Obviously, they are under the impression that I am in charge of that as well.

Mr. Reynolds

The farmers know what the Minister is in charge of.

Mr. Blaney

Obviously, they do not want to know what I am in charge of. That is why they have spent the past ten or 15 minutes in this way. In so far as this motion is concerned, that this House has confidence in the Government, as distinct from the negative sort of motion put down by Fine Gael, that there is no confidence in the Government, I want to give with regard to agriculture, to which I will confine myself now because of the time-wasting tactics indulged in, a few figures which, perhaps, the Opposition Deputies will take home and add up. Agriculture is our most important industry and always has been in the mind of Fianna Fáil. In the years since Fianna Fáil last came into office, that is 1956, gross agricultural output has risen from £175 million in that last glorious year, as they would like to believe, of coalition, to £293 million estimated for 1968. These are two good figures— £175 million in 1956; £293 million in 1968—for gross agricultural output as between those two years over that period.

Get Fianna Fáil out of office.

Mr. Blaney

One way in which we can do that is to ensure that Fine Gael stays in Opposition and does not get over here. This is the best security, the best assurance, for the future that the farmers can get, and well Fine Gael knows it and well the farmers know it and well the people know it. When you go to the country, as you will have to do in the not too distant future, the people will tell you that they want their future secured, that they want to see agriculture progress in future as it has been doing under Fianna Fáil and the only way to ensure it will be to keep you people where you are, in the Opposition, forever and always. This is the only rôle that you can fill, and very badly, if I may say so, do you fill it and have been filling it over these recent months.

Let us look at just another aspect, lest the increased production that the farmers have been giving us and the increased out-turn they have been earning for this country is attributed to them and them alone and lest it should be said that the Government had no hand or part in it, that it was in spite of the Government that it was done. Here is your record: in 1956-57, in terms of money, your government's total contribution to the agricultural community and the advancement of agriculture was a scanty £17 million. What will it be this year?

Mr. L'Estrange

We will have a really good day on this next week. I will really tell you something next week. I want now to turn to the referendum and the Leader of the Fine Gael Party, that is, if you can recognise him. We recognised Deputy Cosgrave as the Leader of your Party and he came in here on this debate and talked about the referendum and about how many hundreds of thousands of people said "No" to the proposals and he said this was a reflection on the Government who made the proposals. Has it occurred to him, as it must have occurred to everybody in this House, that if it is a reflection on us by a couple of hundred of thousands of votes then it is a reflection on Deputy Cosgrave who agreed with the proposals but with which his Party would not agree?

(Interruptions.)

Mr. Harte

Do not be claiming companionship with Deputy Cosgrave; you are not in the same class.

What about 1939? Who executed the people in 1936 and in 1939?

Mr. Blaney

You use these troubles for your own advantage. You came trotting down here and said "Look at Derry. We will have to send Deputy Harte and Deputy O'Donnell to see at first hand what is going on there." The only thing I would say from a political standpoint is that it is a pity they did not stay there.

Mr. Harte

On a point of order, does the Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries disagree with Deputy O'Donnell and myself——

An Ceann Comhairle

That is not a point of order. The Minister to conclude. The Minister has one minute left.

(Interruptions.)

Mr. Blaney

What I disagree with is the hypocrisy, the sheer hypocrisy of sending this pair of "boyos" to Derry to see what was going on and which was brought about by Partition which was caused by this Party. Go back now and tell them in Derry who you really belong to, that today you are the descendants of the Old Cumann na nGaedheal Party which sold the Six Counties.

(Interruptions.)

Mr. L'Estrange

Was the Minister in Hyde Park?

Mr. Blaney

Hypocrisy of the highest order or of the lowest order, whichever way you like to take it. That is the position of Fine Gael. They said the straight vote caused the difficulty in Derry and they knew it was Partition that caused it and that they were responsible for Partition.

Deputies

Sit down.

An Ceann Comhairle

Deputy Tully to conclude on behalf of the Labour Party.

Mr. Blaney

To be continued next week.

Mr. James Tully

Since there is a Fianna Fáil and a Fine Gael speaker to follow me, perhaps the Deputies would let me say what I have to say? I do not want to get involved in the Derry question but when the Labour Party voted against the constituency commission the people now shouting over there did not come in to vote.

Mr. Blaney

At least you are not along with that gang.

(Interruptions.)

Mr. James Tully

They were outside the House and did not come in.

Mr. Blaney

The Labour Party did not belong to that outfit then.

An Ceann Comhairle

Order.

Mr. James Tully

The only thing I cannot understand — I am not quite sure where Fianna Fáil were at that time——

Mr. Blaney

(Interruptions.)

Mr. James Tully

Do not start talking now. The Deputy will have enough to say during the by-election. I was born and reared on a farm and I was not born with a silver spoon in my mouth like the Deputy. The Deputy has to earn his first bob yet but I had to earn my living from the start. Do not tell me anything about——

An Ceann Comhairle

(Cavan): That is not a point of order.

(Interruptions.)

Mr. L'Estrange

It is not a point of order.

Mr. Blaney

The understanding and agreement, as I know it, was 45 minutes per speaker and there was no question of one/one/one or one/two/ three.

Mr. Harte

The Minister for Aggravation has spoken.

(Interruptions.)

An Ceann Comhairle

Order. Will Deputy Molloy cease interrupting?

Mr. James Tully

All trade union members have the right to opt out and if they sign an option out their money is not used. During the recent referendum campaign the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, following a discussion at their annual conference, decided they would campaign against the change and the money they used for that campaign was money subscribed by unions which had political funds and which subscribed some of those funds to help finance the campaign. Those who were not subscribing to the funds had no right to say how the money should be used.

What is the Deputy's social philosophy? Am I embarrassing the Deputy?

Mr. L'Estrange

A golden handshake of £8,000.

Mr. James Tully

No one belonging to me ever got a handful of money for nothing.

(Interruptions.)

An Ceann Comhairle

Will Deputy Andrews please cease interrupting?

Mr. James Tully

We heard a lot from the Minister for Local Government about the improvements which he said had been made in housing and in health. He and the Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries who followed him talked about the improvements in conditions from 1956 to the present. That seems fair enough except that both of them seemed to have a blind spot. They seemed to forget the year 1932. If things were bad in 1956 after the Coalition went out of office, surely the Fianna Fáil Government who held office continuously except for one break of three years in the late 1940s, must carry the major share of the responsibility. We could go back to the time after they took over when no houses were built. No houses were built in 1957 when Fianna Fáil were in power, and when pressed they said that the housing problem had been solved.

Mr. Crowley

They had all left.

Mr. James Tully

I would not blame them for leaving in 1957 and 1958.

Mr. T.J. Fitzpatrick

(Cavan): The Deputy will have to do a lot of interrupting before he is made a Parliamentary Secretary.

Mr. Allen

The Deputy will be a long time over there.

Mr. James Tully

My time is running out and I want to go back to the question of newspaper publicity. Statements were made by various Members of the House as to what was said in the newspapers. This morning the Editor of the Irish Independent seems to think that Deputy Seán Dunne has a thin skin. I can only say that I think the Editor of the Irish Independent is a little thin-skinned himself. If it is fair game, and I believe it is, for any political correspondent to attack and criticise any Member of this House, no matter to which Party he belongs, and if his editor feels he is entitled to write a leading article on whether or not the political Parties are behaving in the right way, surely the Deputy is also entitled to give his version of what he thinks is right or wrong in that newspaper.

The Taoiseach

Hear, hear.

Mr. James Tully

The Taoiseach said: "Hear, hear" but I am sure the heart of the Editor of the Irish Independent would jump if he were here today and heard Deputy Boland, the Minister for Local Government, defending him. He certainly made a spirited defence. There may be some people who are members of the Press Gallery who have got the idea that they know everything there is to know about politics. I remember an old man who did not belong to my Party saying that when you go into politics you are in a trade union and you are an apprentice until you leave. You are learning all the time. If someone who looks down on us from an exalted height presumes to be an expert without going through the mill he had better think again.

We all had the reasons trotted out as to why Fianna Fáil lost the referendum. I gave as the first reason the presentation of the referendum to this House by Deputy Boland. The second and main reason was that the proposals were outrageous and no one could hope to get away with them. I am amazed that the Government did, in fact, agree to adopt Deputy Boland's suggestion. When the matter went before the people of Ireland the people decided. The voters of Ireland decided.

Again, I should like to cross swords with the newspaper correspondents who said politicians had nothing to do with it and that the politicians of Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil and the Labour Party all got their knuckles rapped. That line of reasoning is a bit hard to follow. There was a decision to be made. Fianna Fáil were in favour of it and Fine Gael and Labour were against it. We campaigned against a change and we won. How someone can blame us for that is a bit devious to follow. I am unable to untangle it. In the fight against the proposed change not only were the two Opposition Parties and various bodies outside the House against it, but quite strong support came from prominent Fianna Fáil supporters. If some Deputies who are members of the Fianna Fáil Party did not get up on a platform and say they did not want a change, they certainly did not get up and say they did want a change. When the election was over it was extraordinary—or, perhaps, it was not so extraordinary—to see the number of people who formerly supported Fianna Fáil who were prepared to say: "We won." Having considered the matter over the past few weeks, I am quite satisfied that a substantial number of those people will never again put a stroke in front of the name of a Fianna Fáil candidate. If Fianna Fáil want proof of that they can easily get it. All they have to do is ask the Taoiseach to dissolve the Dáil, and if he does we will have a decision pretty quickly.

It was suggested that originally this whole thing started at the committee on the Constitution. I want to repeat something which many people would like to deny but cannot deny. During the discussions by the committee when we came to the section dealing with election to Dáil Éireann which said that Members of Dáil Éireann would be elected by the system of proportional representation for multi-member constituencies Deputy Seán Lemass who had set up that committee when he was Taoiseach said: "There is no point in wasting our time discussing this, boys. It was decided by the people of Ireland less than nine years ago and no Government would be fool enough to put it before the people again." Yet here we had Fianna Fáil, his own Party, being fool enough to put it before the people again. I was very suspicious about the fact that this decision was taken to put it before the people again nine years after it had been rejected. There was a difference of 200,000 in the number of voters who rejected it this time. Deputy Boland today was not too happy about the position.

An Ceann Comhairle

Mr. James Tully

There was absolutely no reason at all why it should be produced except that, in his warped mind, Deputy Boland felt he was "getting at" Deputy O'Connell. My time, today, is nearly up but, before I conclude, I want to put two questions to the Taoiseach to which I hope he will reply when he is closing the debate. When the Anglo-Irish Free Trade Area Agreement was made some years ago, this Party objected to it for a number of reasons. I do not propose to go into them now. The then Taoiseach, the then Minister for Finance and the then Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries guaranteed to this House, as did the Government, that, in its first year of operation, the Anglo-Irish Free Trade Area Agreement would give an extra £10 million to our agricultural industry. Now, when the Taoiseach is concluding this debate, would he say if that £10 million has been made or, if it has not been made, how far short of it have we fallen? Finally, would the Taoiseach, when he is concluding this debate, tell the House and the country when he proposes to move the writ for the Wexford by-election so that we can test whether the people of Wexford —a cross-section of the people of this country—have as much confidence in himself and his Party as he would seem to have in asking this House to give him this evening a vote of confidence.

Mr. T.F. O'Higgins

At the outset of the recent referendum campaign we indicated that, at the conclusion of the vote, if the people rejected what we regarded as the audacious proposal of the Government, we would table a motion of no confidence in the Government here in this House. Accordingly, on 17th October the Fine Gael motion of no confidence was tabled; on 30th October the Labour Party tabled their motion; and on 1st November the Government motion was tabled. In other words, for a fortnight this Government, in disarray, was trying to puzzle out how best to face up to the Dáil in the aftermath of one of the most crushing defeats that any Government has ever received in a Parliamentary democracy.

This debate takes place at the end of the fourth year of this Dáil. It takes place at a time when an election is almost on the cards. It is worth recalling to Deputies how this House was elected in the last general election. Deputies will remember that election held in March, 1965, an election which the present Fianna Fáil Party fought on certain specific lines of propaganda.

First of all, they said to the people that they were the only political Party capable of forming a government in this country, and their propaganda was along these lines: "Well, you might not like us. You might have things against us, but we are indispensable." That line of propaganda, no doubt, carried some weight with people who were led to believe that the attainment of an overall majority in this House gave added wisdom to Government Ministers and sense to a policy that otherwise might lack it.

Their second line of propaganda was that they could guarantee that their re-election to office would mean for the ordinary people a continuance of success and prosperity. If Deputies have forgotten, I should like to remind them of the Fianna Fáil posters in the general election of four years ago: "Stay with success": "Back prosperity". These posters were designed to get people to believe that success and material advancement for the worker, for the farmer, for the businessman, was in some way associated with the re-election to office of a Fianna Fáil Government.

Their third line of propaganda—let us not forget it; Fianna Fáil Deputies may wish to forget it—was that their Leader, Deputy Seán Lemass, was essential to the future prosperity of the country, to its better Government, and to its survival as a nation. And need I remind Deputies of the poster: "Let Lemass lead on?"

This was the way in which the last general election was fought: a political party, a lot of puny little men gathering themselves around a man whom they had described in heroic terms, a man who, they suggested, had gifts of leadership, a wealth of imagination and a dynamic approach which was going to guarantee a flow of prosperity and money and the welfare of the ordinary people. The result was that they got into office. They did not get an overall majority but they got enough to get them back into Government, and so this Dáil came into being. What happened? Lest it be forgotten, let it be stated now in the dying weeks of this Dáil that the people who voted for Fianna Fáil in the last election, who sent them back over there, and who waited patiently for a continuance of the success and of the prosperity they were promised, found very quickly that there was no prosperity, that there was no success, that, in fact, the election had been held in circumstances of heady, frothy inflation, that the prosperity was phoney, that the success was synthetic.

They found very quickly that a confidence trick had been played upon them and that this heroic leader, this man who asserted to himself an indispensability to the welfare of this country, had called that election when he saw the black clouds of the economic difficulties beginning to gather. He got the people to vote while the sun was shining, knowing well that very shortly the black clouds were going to wipe out the sun, and that the position was that he had been leading this country on a drunken binge and sooner or later, not he, but the ordinary poor people of the country would have to pay the bill.

The prosperity disappeared. The success was not there, and the bills of the inflation had to be paid. The Taoiseach was then Minister for Finance and he had to come in here, as was his duty as Minister for Finance, with a large bill, the costs of this dissipation of the previous two years, a bill which had to be paid by the ordinary working people. It was paid for in growing unemployment. It was paid for in long queues at the labour exchanges. It was paid for by every young boy and girl who had to swell the groups getting on the boats and the ships to emigrate and to work elsewhere. It was paid for by every shopkeeper and businessman who found his little shop or his little business dampened down by the new financial strictures introduced by the Government. It was paid for by thousands and thousands of small people, by pensioners and people of limited incomes who were told they must bear the burden of a new period of deflation.

Following that, this Government, that had scrambled into office by this huge confidence trick, was trying to clear up the economic mess they had created. They turned their backs on the great social problems of our time, on the need in our community for a reform in our social services, for a new approach to our health problems. They turned their backs on these and on the great need for housing and on many of the endemic social problems affecting our people. These had to be abandoned and at the end of it all, the heroic figure, the man who asserted he was indispensable to the future of the country, the man whose dynamism was to solve all the problems of our time, the man who had the effrontery to ask the Irish people to let him lead on, left and instead of a hero there was a mouse. In his place what happened?

The present Leader of Fianna Fáil came into office and he said himself, when he was elected, that he was a via media, that is, the chairman of a meeting where your only duty is to keep the house. That is the via media, and during the past two years the country has been led by Deputy Lynch, as Taoiseach, in place of Deputy Seán Lemass. Where are we two years later?

He is controlling a team that have the bits in their teeth and he is desperately trying to hold the reins of runaway horses. He has a number of men on that team who should shame any decent leader of any decent government. What is he doing about them? The people told him quite definitely and clearly to get rid of Deputy Blaney and Deputy Boland. Is he doing it, or are we to have a continuance of this kind of Government with little pocket dictators running around as if in some way they were masters of the Irish people? In this vote by the Irish people on the 16th October, a clear demand was made that if this Government are to seek to continue in office they should be altered drastically from top to bottom—that new men should be introduced if Fianna Fáil are to remain in office for the expiration of their term.

Is the Taoiseach strong enough to do it? Certainly if he is not the people will get another Taoiseach and another Government as quickly as possible. During two wasted, miserable years the people have had to worry through 1966 and the best part of 1967 paying for the bills of the incompetence of Deputy Lemass's regime, paying for the profligate spending, the dissipation of the resources of this country, in 1964 and the early part of 1965. They had to pay for it in unemployment, in want and in hardship, and it was only this year that people felt we were at last beginning to get back to some kind of reasonable circumstances in which employment, one might hope, might expand, in which housing, one might hope, would get attention, in which emigration might begin to curtail itself and in which the country might advance again.

But what happened? In April of this year the Minister for Finance on behalf of the Government introduced his Budget—a Budget which it now transpires was a phoney exercise in political playacting.

Deputies

Hear, hear.

Mr. T.F. O'Higgins

The Government that permitted that to be done, that paraded under false pretences in April merely because they were having a test on the referendum and merely because they were hoping to gain an election victory from that vote confronted the country with a Budget containing no provisions for an increase in the remuneration of the public service that was already taking place at the time. It contained no provision for payment in respect of the wheat harvest though everyone knew more and more wheat was being sown in this particular year and everyone knew we were likely to have a considerable harvest of wheat.

It contained no provision in relation to the considerable expansion in milk production that was taking place and which everybody knew was taking place. The result was that the Budget this year—the Minister for Finance must have known it and every Member of the Government must have known it—was a Budget that was deliberately designed to raise at least £15 million less than the required amount.

So we now have had this autumn Budget. One can understand that at any stage in the best regulated governments a completely unexpected contingency may arise which could not have been foreseen but there was not one Member of this Government who could not have foreseen the extra cost in the public service, the need for a wheat subsidy and the added subsidy requirements in relation to milk.

This autumn Budget is not some slight modification or some slight adjustment in the country's finances. It is a Budget that imposes taxation— Deputies should remember this—which is between three and four times the amount of the taxation imposed in the Budget of April. Did anyone ever see such a bizarre situation?

Mr. Donegan

Common fraud.

Mr. T.F. O'Higgins

This mini-Budget, this autumn Budget, imposes taxation three or four times that exacted in the Budget of April. It is not unreasonable to suggest that one can suspect the April Budget was designed to achieve a political advantage for the Government. It was introduced by a government that are supposed to be responsible, with their tongues in their cheeks. It was introduced in the knowledge that it was telling a false story, introduced in the hope that it would snatch a false victory. I do not believe that kind of exercise in political expediency will achieve any advantage in the long run. I want to go further and here and now give voice to another suspicion. I want to assert that this Budget is designed to raise in taxation more money than is required in relation to known and contemplated commitments in the next 12 months.

Mr. Coogan

A general election in April.

Mr. T.F. O'Higgins

The Taoiseach said that existing commitments in the Budget are likely to be about £27 million. He is raising now in these taxes, carried over 12 months, an extra £15½ million. Buoyancy in existing taxation is certainly running at the rate of £20 million and a simple addition of £20 million and £15½ gives £35½ million to pay debts that do not exceed £27 million. If it transpires that this is another bit of political action, another exercise in political expediency, merely to provide circumstances for an apparently good Budget next year— which, in fact, would be another phoney Budget—then I have no doubt the people will react in a very significant way.

The fact is that by reason of what has been done after two years of Lynch leadership, we are back where we were in 1965. We are back at the beginning of another cycle of stop-go economics.

After the deflation of 1965 and the consequences of it, when the economy is beginning to move forward again, there is the sign "stop". This time it is "stop" with an imposition of taxation which is very severe indeed, taxation which can only have the effect of substantially increasing living costs and industrial costs, which can only have the effect of damping down economic and business activity, leading to a very grave and widespread recession in trade. Why has it been done? I do not believe the fiscal situation should have required it. If it did, it could have been met some months ago without the consequences now entailed. I do not believe the balance of payments situation requires the doing of what has been done.

The Taoiseach said on Tuesday that there was a need to absorb excess purchasing power. That may be so. You do not do it by regressive taxation because regressive taxation leads inevitably to a damping down of industrial, business and economic activity. It leads to a spiral of living costs and it leads inevitably to a costing of our exports out of markets.

Why did the Taoiseach, if that is the problem, not endeavour to use a monetary policy? Why did he not exercise some restraint in credit? It could be done temporarily. It could be done easily and it could be done without harming the lives and the fortunes of small people. He has not done that. He has decided not to do it. Instead, he has decided to proceed with a volume of taxation which, in my view, will turn out to be excessive and wrong.

What is the cause of the economic difficulties I have mentioned? Number one, because we have an incompetent government in office, a government that has failed to control even their own expenditure. Are Deputies aware that current government expenditure in the first six months of this financial year is 18 per cent higher than the year before and that the Government themselves are spending now three-and-a-half times the growth in real national output. That is one cause for the present economic difficulties.

The second one is that this Government have failed consistently to do anything whatsoever about the achievement of an incomes policy. An incomes policy is part of the Fine Gael Policy Towards a Just Society. It was raised and has been the subject of debate in this House 12 or 18 months ago. There is not one who does not recognise the difficulties towards its attainment. It can be a very difficult and uphill task and one that calls for a great measure of understanding among all sections in our community, not merely those who work and are employed and earning wages but among management and everybody associated with every facet of industry and economic activity.

Though an incomes policy is the only means by which a small country like ours can continue to be a viable unit in a highly competitive world, if we do not keep our costings real and significant, if we cannot plan our industrial activity and our drive in the export markets without getting into a situation that planning when it reaches its production stage is destroyed by rising costs, then we cannot survive. An incomes policy is essential towards that end. It is difficult and it is a formidable undertaking. This Government have done nothing whatsoever in the last few years to achieve such a policy, nothing at all. They have allowed a situation to develop in which bodies which are, or should be, under their control in fact are the very first to rock the boat and cause economic difficulties.

I think the third reason for our present difficulties has been again the dereliction by Government Ministers of their responsibilities in the last 12 months in relation to the use of credit. I would have thought that anyone who had to live through the inflationary outburst of 1964 and early 1965, when people were able to go into their bank manager and, wishing to speculate on the stock exchange, were able to get an advance for the purpose of speculation, a situation in which the available national credit of this country was dissipated widespread on purposes and on objectives which certainly were not going to help the country, should have understood.

Everyone should have been aware of that and the Taoiseach in particular should have been so aware because he was a member of the Government, and certainly as Minister for Finance he should have tried to rectify the situation which developed. Here we are now 12 months or two years later and precisely the same situation has been allowed to recur. Domestic credit in the past 12 months has expanded by 21 per cent, and again this credit is being used and devoted to purposes which are speculative in nature and which are not productive in their objectives. That means that we have now a Government in office that apparently lacks, collectively or individually, ability. That is a human failing but a government which has failed to learn by experience and a government which as a result has allowed a similar situation to repeat itself is incompetent.

This is not only incompetence but it is highly dangerous to the future welfare of this country. I have little doubt that there would be a sigh of relief from Cork to Donegal, from the east across to the western coast of this country, if the Taoiseach stood up and said: "I am going to resign." The people would be delighted, not in a vengeful way, because our people are not vengeful or spiteful, but because they see today that we have a government that are just not fit for the job, and the time has come to change that government and to get into office a team that can measure up to what is required.

May I repeat—not fit for the job.

During the referendum campaign—and I want Fianna Fáil Deputies to listen to this—the Minister for Finance in advocating a Fianna Fáil proposal said that there would have to be a change, that this Dáil was no more than a debating society, that the Deputies in it were not fit for the purpose of legislating and that the time had come to get better Deputies. Well, I know the Deputies he knew best, and they certainly are not on this side of the House. He went on to say that in this Dáil it was impossible under our system of proportional representation to introduce the great schemes of social reform which are so urgently necessary. I would like to ask the Taoiseach: is that the explanation we are going to be offered for the failure of this Government to do anything worthwhile in relation to the solution of the social problems of our people. If they cannot do it in this Dáil, elected as it is, if that is their feeling, let them make way for those who will do it and do it very quickly.

Stone, stark, raving mad. Everybody knew that those proposals would not be accepted, except Fianna Fáil and the Fianna Fáil Ministers. They were so smug, so far removed from the people, so much above even their own backroom Deputies, so possessed of instant knowledge and immediate wisdom on everything, they knew all the answers. People now know the score. A government that could be so utterly irresponsible in relation to their own political affairs, how can we long continue to trust them as being responsible for the affairs of all of us?

I appreciate that that has been the result of a breakdown in communications between Ministers and those who put them there, but it is symptomatic of what is happening in this country today. There is a breakdown of communications between authority and the people. It happens in every walk of life, in every facet of activity. The Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries is not in communication with the farmers, with the agricultural industry. That can be repeated in relation to every Minister's office. It is the result of Ministers being in office too long. Deputy Dillon would perhaps sympathise with this point of view.

I have served as a Minister and I know what takes place from half-past nine or ten o'clock in the morning until five o'clock in the evening. I know how many sycophants come in and say: "Oh, Minister you are so right; Oh, Minister, what you say is so wise; Oh, Minister, you put this in such an original way." You might not believe it for the first week or the first month but, after six months or 12 months, you begin to think that perhaps you are something special and significant and unique; and if you are there, not for 12 months or two years or three years or five years or seven years but for 11 years well, of course, is it any wonder that they are all stark, raving mad, thinking that they know everything and not bothering about listening to anybody else?

We, a Leas-Cheann Comhairle, on this side of the House, the Deputies sitting on your right, now have to face up to our responsibilities. I want to say with humility and sincerity that I believe much more is now required of us than ever before. We have a responsibility clearly thrust upon us now to develop our policies, to seek for solutions, to project attention towards public service, to give to this country as quickly as possible the kind of alternative Government that it demands and wishes—a government that will be a government of integrity; a government that will apply consistently high standards in high places.

Deputies

Hear, hear.

Mr. T.F. O'Higgins

A government that will never have its honour be-smirched by rumours, by suggestions, by implications; a government that will be steadfast in its aims, that will apply, irrespective of whether it has an overall majority in this House or not, a policy which it regards as proper and right; a government that will proceed ahead in the discharge of the great responsibility we all have of providing decent Government for the ordinary people in this country.

The Taoiseach

The debate inevitably ranged over a fairly wide number of topics, including the recent Budget. In fact, I was hoping that it would be possible to have both debates together but, in deference to the request of the Opposition, they have been separated. Nevertheless, both the confidence motion and the Budget debate seem to have been part and parcel of this debate since last Tuesday afternoon.

The case put forward by Deputy Cosgrave, Deputy Corish and their colleagues who have spoken in this debate rests entirely on the proposition that the results of the referendum show that the Government have lost the confidence of the people. They have not attempted in any way to challenge the policies of the Government on any serious ground because they know they cannot, because they know that they have not been able themselves to put a single line of policy in any field as an alternative to the policy of the Government. Much of Deputy Cosgrave's contribution in the opening part of his speech was most uncharacteristic of him and of the reasonably serious kind of approach he normally brings to bear on the debates in this national Parliament. I think the people of the country generally and the Dáil are entitled to expect more from the Leader of the Opposition than the kind of ridicule to which he resorted here last Tuesday. The technique that Deputy Cosgrave employed was mainly an attempt to ridicule the Minister for External Affairs. The Minister for External Affairs needs no defence from me or from anybody else. His record as a soldier and as a statesman can proudly stand on its own. Nobody in Fine Gael or anywhere else can take the credit from him which is rightly his and which he has won for his outstanding work in the field of foreign affairs and particularly for his work in the United Nations. Even though that has been scorned by Fine Gael and the Labour Party it has been publically acclaimed and recognised all over the world. If it is Deputy Cosgrave's opinion that the signing of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, in the formulation of which Deputy Frank Aiken played a very outstanding part, was a trivial and wasteful exercise he will find, I think, that this opinion is not shared by any statesman of any standing in any part of the world.

Before I leave this field I want to refer to statements which were made here and outside about my visit to London last week. I want to ask, some Members of the Labour Party particularly—they are not here now; Deputy O'Leary and Deputy Corish— if they believe or advocate that in the context of what I had to say in London last week I should not have mentioned Partition? If I had not mentioned Partition and had come back here answering Parliamentary questions and said I had not done so, I should like to know what would be the attitude of those who now criticise me for having done so.

Mr. James Tully

Nobody from the Labour Party criticised the Taoiseach on that ground.

The Taoiseach

Deputy Michael O'Leary did.

Mr. James Tully

Not for mentioning Partition.

Mr. Mullen

In the line of not doing something about it. That would be more appropriate.

The Taoiseach

I shall not dwell on it but I want to say that in the contacts that my predecessor and I had with Captain O'Neill in the last three or four years there was never any suggestion or understanding that we, on our part, would abandon in any way our aim of a united Ireland. It has been the aim of this Government, and of its predecessors, to promote the re-unification of our country by promoting and fostering a spirit of brotherhood, mutal understanding and goodwill among all sections of the Irish people. I have not discussed, nor should I have done so, the details of the conversations I had with Mr. Wilson but I do not think he would regard it as any breach of confidence if I say that I expressed to him my conviction that Captain O'Neill was a reasonable and fairminded man. I know Mr. Wilson will not object because I know Mr. Wilson agrees with me. In fact, I said many months ago and again at the press interview in London last Monday, after meeting Mr. Wilson, that I thought Captain O'Neill was a fair and reasonable man. That being so, I am convinced that he is anxious to ensure that all people within his jurisdiction will get a fair deal. Therefore, I believe the spirit of brotherhood to which I have referred can eventually prevail not only in the northern part of the country but throughout the whole country and that this could lead to a new approach to the solution of the main political problem.

Mr. McAteer in the course of his speech yesterday—and I believe in a radio interview today he expanded on it even though I did not hear him— referred to the possibility of this new approach and particularly to the possibility of separate Parliaments, North and South, in a united Ireland. This is an aim to which I think we would very gladly subscribe but, nevertheless, it is not a completely new proposition. As most Deputies know, it was mentioned in the course of the Treaty negotiations or rather, it was put forward on behalf of Dáil-Éireann prior to the Treaty negotiations of 1921 and repeated on many occasions since. It was in these terms: that, subject to safeguards, the confirmation of the position of the Northern Ireland Legislature with its existing powers in an All-Ireland constitution for as long as the people of the north eastern counties might desire it, was something that we, in this part of the country, would accept.

I introduce this only because I want to indicate that much loose talk and loose expressions have been used about what I said or did in London last week. Before I go to the main part of the debate I should like to refer to some aspects of the debate that, I suggest, were more appropriate to the debate we shall have next week on the Budget but, lest the absence of reference by me might be taken as acquiescence in the points of view put forward, it is only right that I should refer to them.

Deputy Cosgrave said here last Tuesday that the Government while attempting to control prices was itself raising prices through new taxes and post office charges and that there was no control of the Government's costs. Deputy O'Higgins repeated that charge here today. I am sure both Deputies must know why the cost of Government is rising. They must know that it is due to improvements in social welfare and education, improvements in the subsidies required to raise farmers' incomes and to the effect on the Government as an employer and because of the pay increases that have been generally secured this year. The Deputies opposite did not consider it politic to say that these improvements in social welfare or education should not have taken place or that farmers' incomes should not have been supported, as has been done, or that wage and salary increases generally should be controlled and limited to a lower percentage increase. Perhaps that is sufficient to say about this line of argument.

Deputy Corish went on to refer to our external reserves. I referred to the matter briefly in my reply to the first part of the Budget debate. The Deputy referred to these external reserves and generally he appeared to think that all these reserves were invested in Britain. That is not the case.

Mr. Corish

I said in Britain and other places.

The Taoiseach

The fact is that about 50 per cent are invested in non-sterling reserves. The Deputy said that these reserves should be invested so as to employ Irish workers at home. Let us examine that proposition and what its ultimate effects might be. He asked the Government to decide whether it wants to maintain employment or not. As between maintaining employment and maintaining these reserves the difference is not as sharp as he seems to suggest. There is no intention on the Government's part deliberately to create unemployment. On the contrary, the aims of the present policy are to preserve a national growth rate of over four per cent per annum, as is happening now, and, in this way, to continue and insure and safeguard the rise in industrial employment. Any serious loss of external reserves would react drastically on investment, on production and on employment.

I cannot continue this reply on the basis of question and answer. However, because of the lack of confidence that such a policy would create, not only would our capital inflow dry up, and that is important, but I think it has been indicated in past years that there would be a steady decline in the kind of money that we would require to maintain employment and production in the future. During the years we have had reductions in our external reserves and I need only mention the years and the amounts to give an indication of the trend: 1951, £61.6 million; 1955, £35.5 million; 1964, £31.4 million; 1965, £41.8 million.

I am sure the Deputy will remember the trouble in his own time as a Minister when these reserves began to be run down and when the balance of payments were going awry and the consequences that followed. As I said, our situation would become all the worse because the capital inflow which now protects these reserves would dry up and what I am saying, in effect, is that the reserves would not only have an important financial impact on our economy but a psychological impact as well.

By maintaining these at a reasonably high level we are encouraging confidence in our country and this, in itself, encourages the flow of funds from home and abroad and investment in Ireland will, therefore, create higher employment, a higher standard of living and an improvement in the economy generally. These reserves also provide us with a fund to be drawn on when unforeseen crisis arise in our external trade.

Deputy Corish's arguments have appeared in one form or another in newspaper comments and in leading articles, some by economists. We are being accused of putting the brake on too severely when we should have accelerated. I think, that spending one's way out of a depression is certainly an acceptable type of remedy but no one can regard the kind of advice to spend one's way out of inflation as being a responsible type of advice. It is easy for those who are not in positions of responsibility to adopt courageous attitudes and to suggest that we should throw caution to the wind but the very same economists or, at least, the vocal groups who adopt such attitudes, would be happy in their criticism of the Government if a continuation of the present trend resulted in a crisis in 1969. They would lacerate the Government for not recognising the signs when they first appeared and for not taking moderate action to prevent a calamity. The Government would be accused of doing too much too late. We have heard all these arguments before.

As to whether we are doing too much now it is our belief that we are not. We do not anticipate that the measures will cause any economic setback or depression. We expect growth in the economy to be at least four per cent in 1969. I think that is a reasonably good average and I believe we are far from the kind of disastrous stagnation to which Deputy T.F. O'Higgins has referred when one compares it, in particular, with the kind of stagnation that his government permitted in this country ten or 11 years ago.

Deputies

Hear, hear.

Mr. Corish

Can the Taoiseach say whether the same will apply to employment?

The Taoiseach

I expect it will. A few minutes ago Deputy T.F. O'Higgins said that we were trying to create a surplus Budget situation. I am surprised that he should make the unwise comment that we provided for certain increases in expenditure by way of this new taxation so as to avoid taxation in any coming Budget and he used figures, which I only used by way of illustration, to bolster up his case. He said that the amount I foresaw in extra expenditure in 1969 was about £27 million and that this would be covered by the increases we are getting with the new taxation. The fact is, that the £27 million I referred to was only used by way of illustration. In fact, the increased expenditure which we are likely to face this year is much greater than the £27 million he referred to.

He also said—and I think this is again something that he had heard other people saying—that we should have anticipated these increases and, therefore, should have provided for them in the Budget of last Spring. I might say in reference to that that the principal internal development which has necessitated corrective action is, in fact, the size of the 11th round wage increase. The suggestion is that we should have anticipated this. The 11th round wage increase had not started, or, at least, had not started to give an indication of what size it would be, when the Budget was introduced.

Mr. James Tully

That is not correct.

The Taoiseach

I said it had not started to the extent as to give an indication of the size and I want to say that it is usually the case that outside employment leads. While the Government make their own arrangements with their employees, whether the Civil Service, the Post Office or the Garda, they do not usually precede the rates won in free negotiation in outside employment, and if we had provided for a particular round sum in anticipation of its becoming due and of agreements having been reached, it would have been regarded as quite irresponsible to make budgetary provisions for increases on the scale eventually conceded.

Mr. Donegan

The Louth County Council did it for their road workers and you could not do it for the Budget. We included the amount of the increases.

Mr. Corry

You are a bigger dope than you look.

Mr. Donegan

The Minister for Finance and the Taoiseach could not do it.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Taoiseach, without interruption.

The Taoiseach

Of course, since Deputy Donegan became Chairman of Louth County Council the sky has lifted up there, things are moving so fast.

Mr. Donegan

Yes.

The Taoiseach

We have been blamed for not providing money in April to cover the cost of the milk subsidy and the cost of disposing of our surplus wheat production. Almost every Deputy in the Front Bench of Fine Gael who spoke suggested that we should have been virtual weathercocks, that as far back as April we should have known exactly what kind of summer and autumn we were going to have this year. If the Minister for Finance had come in here last Spring and had said on Budget day that he had imposed additional taxation that would be required because we were going to have a wonderful Summer and a wonderful Autumn that would boost milk production and wheat yields, I can imagine the kind of comment and criticism that would have come from the Deputies opposite. They would have asked how the Minister could know in April what kind of Summer and what kind of Autumn we were going to have; how would he know in what way this would boost milk and wheat production. This, in itself, is dishonest criticism and the Deputies who have made it know it is dishonest. Having said that—I will be dealing more and perhaps at greater length with these economic considerations next week—perhaps, now, I will come to the motion of confidence and the kind of arguments that we have heard, arguments that were bolstered up in order to try to establish that the referendum result meant that the Government should leave office.

In the first place, Deputy Tully has threatened that the kind of legislation that is necessary before a general election can take place will not be given readily to the Minister for Local Government. It is the bounden duty of the Minister for Local Government now, under the Constitution as it stands, after the rejection of the referendum proposal for a commission in amendment No. 4, to bring into the House these proposals for a change in the constituencies.

(Interruptions.)

The Taoiseach

We will deal with that in due time. Give us the legislation and then the way will be clear for a general election.

Mr. Ryan

It is not necessary under the law. You do not need to do it until 1973 and you know that.

The Taoiseach

Mr. P. Belton

One of your own Ministers said it.

Mr. Colley

Excuse me, Taoiseach. I substantiated my charges against the Coalition. I substantiated them. You did not.

Mr. Cosgrave

That is rubbish.

(Interruptions.)

I want to repudiate emphatically that the referendum results——

(Interruptions.)

The Taoiseach

I take it that this is the kind of injury time to which I referred earlier. I would like somebody to time Deputy L'Estrange's interruptions.

Mr. James Tully

And time Deputy Allen's too.

The Taoiseach

I challenged the Deputy, let him take it up if he wants to. I want to repudiate emphatically this charge that the Government have lost the confidence of the people. I am quite confident about this. The referendum proposals were put forward in the most democratic way possible. The referendum is the most democratic of democratic processes and we asked the people to consider our proposals in relation to Constitutional reforms affecting the method of election. Being a Constitutional matter, we said it was a national issue and the Parties opposite——

Mr. L'Estrange

Nonsense.

The Taoiseach

——regarded it as such. Indeed, leading members of the Labour Party inside and outside the House said that this was not a plebiscite for or against Fianna Fáil. We asked the people in this democratic way whether they wanted to say "yes" or "no".

Whatever conclusions the Parties opposite may draw from the result of the referendum, whatever morsel of consolation it gives either or both of them, they are welcome to it but there is one conclusion that both of them cannot draw from this referendum and that is that either of them or both of them together can have an easy ride into office as a result. If they think that, they can think again. Before the referendum I expressed the view, and I still hold it, that in the future it will be increasingly difficult for any single Party to get an overall majority under the present system of voting. People either did not share that view with me or, if they did, they decided to take a chance on the continuation of the present system in the hope that it would, taking one election with another, produce a viable and effective Government.

I have no doubt that the people will approach the next general election with that same kind of maturity and the same objectivity with which they approached the referendum and they will be asking themselves certain questions. They will be examining very closely the merits or the demerits of the policies put forward by the respective Parties. They will examine the Fine Gael policy "Towards a Just Society" which I said before and which I say again is nothing but a conglomeration of economic and social desiderata. Any young boy in the sixth class could write out that kind of programme saying what is desirable and what we would like to obtain in the social, education and employment fields—less taxation and more housing, without any regard to where the capital would come from and, as we saw and had evidence of in one of the by-elections, increased expenditure on education amounting to about £7 million without an resort to taxation. These are the kind of things the people will be asking about and on which they will judge the respective policies. They will ask the Labour Party their policy. They have not declared it fully. Some members have: the vice-chairman has rolled out this rip-roaring socialist policy——

Mr. Corish

Who is the vice-chairman?

The Taoiseach

A former Member of the House.

Mr. James Tully

No, he is not.

The Taoiseach

These are the things the people opposite will have to tell the electorate before, I suggest, and not after the election. They will either have to tell the electorate what kind of conglomerate policy they are going to ask the people to support or impose on the people after the election.

Mr. Corish

What is the Taoiseach worrying about?

The Taoiseach

There is a little election exercise that I would ask the Parties opposite to consider.

(Interruptions.)

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

In the interests of decorum in the House, I must indicate that Deputies on both sides of the House should allow the Taoiseach to make his statement without interruption.

The Taoiseach

I want to put this question. It is, I think, worth considering. As Deputy Corish said, we are confident we will get a majority the next time, but we can never be prophets. If we do not get a majority we know that we will be by far the largest single Party and, if by any chance, a combination of both Parties opposite could outvote us in the election for Taoiseach, then what would the pattern be? We would put up a candidate and he would be beaten. Fine Gael would put up their candidate: at that stage would Labour vote for the Fine Gael candidate?

Mr. Corish

I told the Taoiseach on television that we will neither vote for Fine Gael nor Fianna Fáil. Will Fianna Fáil vote for Labour?

The Taoiseach

The Fianna Fáil candidate will be beaten. The Fine Gael candidate will be beaten. The Labour candidate will be beaten. What will Labour do then?

Mr. Corish

What is the Taoiseach going to do? It is over to you now.

(Interruptions.)

The Taoiseach

Sir, I want to finish as quickly as I can. I have not much time.

Mr. Corish

The Taoiseach has a few minutes at least.

The Taoiseach

I have six minutes. The usual charges are being made, apart from charges of corruption, that we are arrogant, and arrogant in particular towards the farming community. I want to repudiate these charges. What possible advantage could it be to any government in a democracy to set out deliberately on a collision course with any sizeable section of the community, unless there was a principle involved, and the principle involved here is that, so long as we have authority from the people, we are entitled to, and are expected by the people, to exercise that authority and no group can wrest that authority from us? Certainly, so long as I am Taoiseach, no group will. I will endeavour to ensure that that authority will not be usurped in any way. On the other hand, this Government has been and still is anxious to go a long way towards promoting harmony in all spheres of relationships between government and organisations within the community. We are prepared to go a long way in order to establish permanently harmonious and fruitful relations with all organised farming groups. As everybody knows, it takes two sides to make a quarrel. It also takes two sides to make peace. I say here and now, on behalf of the Government, that I am prepared to wipe the slate clean, if that will bring about a return to harmonious and fruitful relationships between Government and farmers, the relationships which should, I think, exist between Government and interests of this kind and which, in the interests of both sides, it is desirable to have.

(Interruptions.)

The Taoiseach

We regard ourselves in Government as the servants and not the masters of the people. The power which the Government has is the power which the people, and only the people, give it. It is for the people to decide in their wisdom at the appropriate time whether or not they will continue to give that power to Fianna Fáil and whether or not they will renew the mandate they gave Fianna Fáil to govern. We confidently expect they will do so when the opportunity offers.

(Interruptions.)

The Taoiseach

I can never understand the Deputy. If he writes it down I will try to reply. Deputy O'Higgins referred to these last two wasted years. I wonder what does he regard as wasted years when the rate of progress in each of those years was eight and nine times as high as in the years when he himself was a member of a Government?

Incidentally, I want to say in relation to references which have been made about my responsibilities as Head of the Government that it would have been an easy thing for me to lay about me after the referendum, and try to deny my responsibility for the referendum results by rolling a few heads around the Cabinet table. If and when there are to be changes in the Government they will be of my own choosing. I will not be stampeded into this either by Opposition jibes here or by writers outside.

So also will be the timing of the next election. The timing of the next election will also be of my choosing and I will, as any worthwhile politician would, choose the best time for it. When I do I am confident that the people will continue to maintain their confidence in the Fianna Fáil Party.

Mr. James Tully

I asked the Taoiseach if he would say when he proposes to move the writ for the Wexford by-election.

The Taoiseach

Not before Christmas.

Question put.

The Dáil divided. Tá: 68; Níl: 60.

Tá

Aiken, Frank.
Allen, Lorcan.
Andrews, David.
Barrett, Sylvester.
Blaney, Neil T.
Boland, Kevin.
Booth, Lionel.
Boylan, Terence.
Brady, Philip.
Brennan, Joseph.
Brennan, Paudge.
Briscoe, Ben.
Browne, Patrick.
Burke, Patrick J.
Calleary, Phelim A.
Carter, Frank.
Carty, Michael.
Childers, Erskine.
Colley, George.
Collins, Gerard.
Corry, Martin J.
Cotter, Edward.
Crinion, Brendan.
Cronin, Jerry.
Crowley, Flor.
Cunningham, Liam.
de Valera, Vivion.
Dowling, Joe.
Egan, Nicholas.
Fahey, John.
Fanning, John.
Faulkner, Pádraig.
Fitzpatrick, Thomas J.
(Dublin South-Central).
Flanagan, Seán.
Foley, Desmond.
French, Seán.
Gallgaher, James.
Geoghegan, John.
Gibbons, Hugh.
Gibbons, James M.
Gilbride, Eugene.
Gogan, Richard P.
Healy, Augustine A.
Hillery, Patrick J.
Hilliard, Michael.
Kenneally, William.
Kitt, Michael F.
Lalor, Patrick J.
Lemass, Noel T.
Lenihan, Brian.
Lynch, Celia.
Lynch, John.
McEllistrim, Thomas.
MacEntee, Seán.
Meaney, Tom.
Millar, Anthony, G.
Molloy, Robert.
Mooney, Patrick.
Moore, Seán.
Moran, Michael.
Nolan, Thomas.
Ó Briain, Donnchadh.
Ó Ceallaigh, Seán.
O'Connor, Timothy.
O'Leary, John.
O'Malley, Desmond.
Smith, Patrick.
Wyse, Pearse.

Níl

Barrett, Stephen D.
Barry, Richard.
Belton, Luke.
Belton, Paddy.
Burke, Joan T.
Burton, Philip.
Byrne, Patrick.
Clinton, Mark A.
Cluskey, Frank.
Collins, Seán.
Dockrell, Henry P.
Dockrell, Maurice E.
Donegan, Patrick S.
Donnellan, John.
Dunne, Seán.
Dunne, Thomas.
Esmonde, Sir Anthony C.
Farrelly, Denis.
Fitzpatrick, Thomas J.
(Cavan).
Flanagan, Oliver J.
Gilhawley, Eugene.
Governey, Desmond.
Harte, Patrick D.
Hogan, Patrick
(South Tipperary).
Jones, Denis F.
Kenny, Henry.
Kyne, Thomas A.
Larkin, Denis.
L'Estrange, Gerald.
Connor, Patrick.
Coogan, Fintan.
Corish, Brendan.
Cosgrave, Liam.
Costello, Declan.
Costello, John A.
Coughlan, Stephen.
Creed, Donal.
Crotty, Patrick J.
Dillon, James M.
Lindsay, Patrick J.
Lyons, Michael D.
McAuliffe, Patrick.
McLaughlin, Joseph.
Mullen, Michael.
Murphy, Michael P.
O'Donnell, Patrick.
O'Donnell, Tom.
O'Hara, Thomas.
O'Higgins, Michael J.
O'Higgins, Thomas F.K.
O'Leary, Michael.
Pattison, Séamus.
Reynolds, Patrick J.
Ryan, Richie.
Spring, Dan.
Sweetman, Gerard.
Tierney, Patrick.
Timmins, Godfrey.
Treacy, Seán.
Tully, James.

Tellers: Tá: Deputies Carty and Geoghegan; Níl: Deputies L'Estrange and James Tully.

Question declared carried.

An Ceann Comhairle

The motion is carried. The other two motions fall.

The Dáil adjourned at 5.20 p.m. until 3 p.m. on Tuesday, 12th November, 1968.

Dáil Éireann díospóireacht - Thursday, 7 Nov 1968

Confidence in Government: Motion (Resumed).

Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Thursday, 7 Nov 1968