Sir, the workers of this city suffered another savage blow on their way home from work this evening when they saw this headline: "Huge Bus Fare Increases" in what at any rate used to be the official organ of the Government Party and, while this does not fall strictly within the terms of the Financial Resolution we are discussing, nonetheless it does represent a further savage increase in the cost of the living for hundreds of thousands of men and indeed women who are already struggling to live at subsistence level on inadequate wages which have been rendered still more inadequate by the provisions set out in the Financial Resolution which it is our business to consider.
The proposals for increased taxes have been touched upon in the course of this debate, and I say touched upon advisedly because I have studied the Official Report of the Debates and it seems to me that so far as the Government side is concerned at any rate their spokesmen have been permitted to deal in depth and indeed in falsehood with every subject under the sun except matters strictly relevant to the Financial Resolution, but where they have been touched upon it has been made perfectly clear that this supplementary Budget has come about as a result of gross inefficiency on the part of the Government and gross mismanagement of the affairs of the nation during the comparatively few months that have gone by since the annual Budget was introduced earlier this year.
While the referendum has been referred to ad nauseam and the cost of the referendum and the time wasted by the House and through the country and by the public officials in preparation for the referendum and in the carrying out of the multifarious duties that were contingent upon the referendum, while these things have been referred to almost to the point where people may very well have become sick of the mention of the referendum, it nonetheless remains true that most of the Government time which should have been devoted, had it been properly applied, to the affairs of the country, to seeing that the finances and the budgetary situation of the country were in proper shape, was in fact misapplied in a political direction in trying to create a situation for themselves by means of the referendum whereby they could be in office for the rest of all time or as near as possible to that. So that this supplementary Budget which we are dealing with is the result of the Government's folly, nothing more and nothing less.
Like many others I am no expert in the analysis of figures and like perhaps not quite so many others I do not pretend to be an expert in the analysis of figures, yet I am puzzled to know what exactly is meant by the detail in the statement with which we were supplied in connection with this Budget which sets out as an allowance for errors of estimation an amount of £4 million: £4 million for errors of estimation and we are told that these moneys which are being raised by this Budget are needed to carry the country through, presumably to next Budget time. Is it therefore to be taken that the Government are so inept and uncertain of themselves that they cannot calculate with any degree of accuracy nearer than £4 million how much it is going to take to run the affairs of the nation for the few remaining months that are left until the time of the next annual Budget? It would appear so, but it is obvious also, of course, from the figures with which we have been supplied that the Government, by means of these penal taxes which impose such great hardship as invariably they do upon those least able to bear them, are trying to make a profit from the situation and to arrive at the time for the presentation of the next Budget with money in hand so that they will be able to make some effort at the traditional trick of bribing the electorate on a short-term basis to bestow once more its favour upon them.
Such a pursuit by this Government is in my view a complete and utter fatuity because, whatever else may be said of them, I think the bulk of the members of the Fianna Fáil Party do accept in their hearts that the country has come to a conclusion about them as a Party and the conclusion is that the Fianna Fáil Party has had it and that the time has come for a change. This has been brought about by the arrival on the electoral scene of huge numbers of young people, uninfluenced and uninhibited by things past. We have had here in the course of the past fortnight the spectacle of efforts being made to revive animosities and enmities which had their beginnings in events of 50 years ago. It is a grotesque performance to hear young men, who could not have reached the use of such little reason as they eventually achieved and who must have been of tender infant years at the time of these events, talking about them as if they were matters of current concern among the people. The people are sick to the back teeth of that kind of performance. I suppose it was good enough during the Thirties to inflame passions and work up emotions when there was not the great development of enlightenment such as is a phenomenon of the present day and which has come about as a result of the spread, to some extent, of education but more, I think, as a result of the development of news media, particularly television.
Young people — when I say young people I mean those of 40 years or less — are too harried and worried by the pursuit of the means of livelihood to be impressed by, let us say, the performance of the Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries, who developed a middle-aged republicanism recently something to all intents and purposes that had been lying dormant in him over a long period. Nobody will be persuaded that that effort and the extravagant claims he made for the Fianna Fáil Party in relation to republicanism were anything more than a gimmick to deflect people's minds from the essentials of Government administration and the very important questions of the standard of living of the people and the future, the housing situation, social services, the education and needs of children and the many other things which make up the realities rather than the illusions of life in Ireland today.
Going through the somewhat dispiriting debates of last week and the week before in search of some enlightenment as to what the Government propose to do for the people I was struck by one of the most unnecessary exercises that has ever been carried out in this House and, also, I would think, one of the meanest. The Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries followed by another Fianna Fáil Deputy, sought to rush to the defence, unnecessarily, of the ushers and the staff of the House who, as far as I can discover, were not in any sense under attack from any quarter. Statements were made here in the context of the discussion on these resolutions to the effect that it would appear that entry to Leinster House seemed to be freely available to certain gentry who could parade the corridors at will in search of whatever peculiar business they have, or had, without let or hindrance; but at no time was it suggested, as far as I can discover in the debates, that the staff of the House had any responsibility in this matter.
Do we not all know very well what happens — that a Minister or a Deputy, but particularly a Minister, may leave instructions, which must be accepted by the staff, for the admissions of any person or persons and that these people can make their way about Leinster House? The staff are in no way responsible and it was not suggested by anybody that they were. Nonetheless, in an effort to deflect the political attack made upon the Government, the Minister did not spare even the staff. He dragged them into it as much as to say that the Opposition were striking at the staff of the House whereas, in fact, nothing of the kind occurred. That sort of thing is to be deplored. People should stand up and take their medicine and make their own defence without having to reach out for such ridiculously transparent defences as the Minister and the other Deputy I have mentioned made use of on that occasion. It was time wasting and unnecessary but I suppose it did, in a sort of way, light up the paucity of ideas which has come upon the Government Party and particularly it has demonstrated the completely numbing effect which the result of the referendum has had on that Party.
It seems to me that posing as they do, as the Iron Chancellors who are unafraid of unpopularity and who will proceed to impose on the nation the most rigorous economic regulations in regard to taxation in the interests of the nation, the Government are to some extent motivated by the knowledge that, no matter what they do, they are on their way out. While, I suppose it would be reasonable to deduce that they will put the longest possible time between the referendum results and the date of the next election, it would also seem that they are anxious to launch whatever little lifeboats they can find to save as many survivors as possible from the political seas which are about to engulf them.
Of course, the Fianna Fáil Party must expect to be engulfed because for many years they have been getting farther and farther still away from contact with the very people upon whom they could once lean with such assurance for support. Last night I had the privilege and honour of being present at a function where there was inaugurated the National Productivity Year and we heard a very intelligent and inspiring address from His Eminence, the Cardinal. We also had an address by the Taoiseach, at the end of which he used a quotation which he said was from an old song, but which seemed to me to be more in the nature of a Freudian slip than anything else. The old song he quoted was: "It is time we were moving; it is time we passed on."— most apt words I should imagine for a gentleman in his peculiar situation at the present time. The Taoiseach is very much a hazard man. Indeed, looking around at some of his own supporters, the Taoiseach might very well repeat the words of Wellington when he looked at his regiment and remarked: "I do not know what they will do to the enemy, but they terrify me".
