Léim ar aghaidh chuig an bpríomhábhar
Gnáthamharc

Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Thursday, 2 Jul 1970

Vol. 248 No. 3

Membership of EEC: Motion (Resumed).

The following motion was moved by the Taoiseach on Tuesday, 23rd June, 1970:
That Dáil Éireann takes note of the White Paper entitledMembership of the European Communities: Implications for Ireland.
Debate resumed on the following amendment:
To add at the end of the motion:
"and urges the Government to ensure that the terms of membership to be negotiated adequately safeguard the interests of the people of Ireland."
—(Deputy Cosgrave.)

It is very difficult in the circumstances to get back to a discussion on the EEC. I want to say that I believe that a discussion on the EEC is totally unreal. I cannot for the life of me see what the sense of priorities on the Taoiseach's side is.

The House has ordered this discussion. The Deputy is not in order in discussing it in that way.

I am allowed to refer to it by way of reference and to say that it is deplorable that the situation in the North of Ireland should not be allowed to be discussed by the national Parliament. I think it is a national disgrace.

When I reported progress last night I was dealing with various aspects of our possible EEC membership. I had dealt with the implications of EEC membership with regard to the Irish transport industry. This morning, I want to have a look at the implications of EEC membership for another very important sector of our economy, the tourist industry. I believe our application for membership of the EEC and our possible ultimate membership of that Community will open up very exciting possibilities for the Irish tourist industry. We must remember that our becoming members of a wider European Community is going to give rise to a freer movement of people. There will be greater mobility of labour. There will be better communications and closer contacts between Ireland and the Continent of Europe. The results of this must inevitably be that Ireland will become known on the Continent.

I believe that our membership of the EEC will add a new dimension to the whole problem of marketing Irish tourism. Up to the present a considerable amount of promotional work has been done in various continental countries. There has been a reasonable flow of tourist traffic from a number of continental countries to Ireland and particularly from a number of EEC countries. Bord Fáilte have concentrated on two countries in the EEC— Germany and France. Work has been done to a lesser extent in Holland. If we are to avail ourselves of the opportunities presented by our closer contacts with Europe, the whole approach to tourism development here and to tourism promotion abroad will have to be reviewed. An entirely new approach is called for with more dynamic marketing. Much more aggressive marketing techniques will have to be employed.

I have tried to get as much information as possible about potential tourist markets in some of the EEC countries. With reference to Germany, travel from that country to Ireland has increased steadily in recent years. In 1968 some 28,000 Germans came here and in 1969 the figure was about 30,000. Most of these visitors have been mobile tourists and have come here in the peak holiday season. However, further inquiries reveal that many Germans know very little about Ireland and this would indicate that the promotional work that has been done by Bord Fáilte in that country does not appear to have been very successful. In fairness to the board it must be stated that the amount of money that has been allocated to them for the purpose of marketing Irish tourism in Germany has been very small.

There is tremendous interest among Germans in angling. From a report recently issued it is noted that there are 500,000 anglers in that country and half of that number are interested in coarse fishing. This means that there is a vast potential market to be tapped because we have the amenities and facilities for anglers. It is also interesting to note that the vast majority of those anglers are in the higher income group and, therefore, their spending power is considerable. Another fact we should remember is that there is a large number of United States Forces based in Germany and many of these servicemen are of Irish descent and have an interest in this country. Very few attempts have been made to encourage members of the United States Forces to come here on weekend trips and so on.

Traffic from France to this country has been increasing steadily in recent years and we now have about 40,000 French visitors per year. Bord Fáilte have done much research into this market and a number of interesting facts have come to light that are of considerable significance to the Irish tourist industry. For example, the vast majority of French people take their cars with them when they go on holiday. Up to the present, the question of motor transportation to Ireland from the Continent was a problem but the direct car ferry service has eased the situation and the fact that further ferry services will be available means there will be a significant increase in the number of mobile tourists.

Another country which appears to have immense tourist potential for us is Italy, which country has been totally neglected by us in this regard. A report in a recent issue of Business and Finance indicates that if the market in Italy were properly explored it would result in a substantial increase in the tourist traffic. It is interesting to note that angling and shooting are the principal sporting interests of Italians and there is a considerable flow of tourists from Italy to other continental countries where these facilities are available.

In relation to Holland, the number of Dutch tourists here is not very large. An examination of the tourism potential of EEC countries would indicate that there is a vast market waiting to be tapped. This is of considerable significance to us in the light of the serious difficulties our tourist industry has been encountering in recent months. Tourist traffic from America and Britain appears to have slowed down considerably but there is a vast continental market which we should investigate without delay.

One of the effects of our membership of the EEC will be a considerable increase in the movement of people from this country to the Continent. There will be more mobility of labour and an increasing number of visits to the Continent by businessmen and all this means a vast expansion in travel. However, I am concerned that our official policy at the moment in relation to the whole tourist industry is in need of revision. The time has come when we must ensure that Bord Fáilte will be equipped with the finance they so badly need to enable them to explore new markets on the Continent and to ensure that our resorts and angling centres are developed.

I have no confidence whatever in the policy being pursued by the Government in relation to the tourist industry. I admit that many of the factors that have affected the tourist industry this year have been factors outside the control of the Government—particularly the problems arising in the American market due to the recession in that country and the fact that the travel allowance in Britain has been increased from £50 to £150. There have been other factors also, mainly the difficulties in the North of Ireland and the political situation here.

I have publicly condemned the failure of the Government to take appropriate and corrective action in time because many of the factors adversely affecting the tourist industry now were known months ago and surely the Government could then have given a special emergency subvention to Bord Fáilte? The Government and, in particular, the Minister for Transport and Power who was so vocal here this morning and who is always acting the smart alec, should have put into operation a special promotional drive in Britain, in America and on the Continent. There is no reason why they could not have done so. I am not saying that if this had been done it would have counteracted all the various factors involved but I am saying that the Government have left the Irish tourist industry in a state of chaos this year.

How is this related to the EEC?

At least, such a promotional drive would have counteracted some of the factors involved.

The Deputy's remarks do not seem to be related to EEC membership.

I was pointing out, a Cheann Comhairle, that there was a vast potential market in the EEC countries and on the Continent generally, and that the surface has only been scratched in so far as the promotion of tourism is concerned. If the Government had a realistic policy on tourism and if they provided adequate funds to enable Bord Fáilte to get on with the job, the market on the Continent could be explored and would generate considerable tourist traffic. Why has this market not been tackled more vigorously in view of the problems that have arisen in Britain and in the USA?

I have the greatest confidence in the ability of Bord Fáilte to exploit the advantages which membership of the EEC will have for the tourist industry but I have no confidence at all in Government policy because the Government are not providing the board with the finances to which they are entitled.

I should like to say a word about another matter that comes within the scope of the Department of Transport and Power and that is in regard to the implications of EEC membership in relation to the power and energy requirements of this nation. From inquiries I have made, I understand that membership of the EEC will have very little direct effect on the cost of electricity production except in so far as it might have an effect on wages and salaries. However, one point I should like to make here is in relation to the developments that are taking place and the research that is going on in efforts to discover new sources of power and energy. I refer in particular to the development and the harnessing of nuclear power and energy.

I understand that the Minister for Transport and Power contemplates the establishment of a special board here to examine the feasibility of this particular source of power. I understand, also, that engineers from the ESB are on the Continent at the moment studying this problem. However, the point I wish to make is in relation to the suggestion that has been made concerning the setting up of a nuclear power station in this country. I want to point out that this would be a very costly business but it is an area in which there could be close cross-border co-operation. I have been surprised to read in the newspapers within the past couple of weeks that the Northern Ireland Government are working on this business and that certain steps have been taken towards the establishment of a nuclear power plant in the North of Ireland. In view of the high cost of the provision of this type of energy, it is my opinion that there should be close co-operation between our Government and the Government of Northern Ireland with a view to establishing one nuclear power station to serve the country both north and south of the border on the lines of the Erne hydro-electric scheme.

I do not intend delaying the House any longer but I would sum up by saying that membership of the EEC would have important implications for every sphere of our national life and for every sector of our economy which comes within the administration of the Department of Transport and Power. There is an urgent need to rationalise the internal transport system. As a matter of great urgency, the Minister for Transport and Power should formulate a national transport policy. There is great need for a special White Paper on transport on the lines of the White Paper on agriculture, so as to enable proper discussion to take place and so that a formula could be devised and a plan implemented that would ensure the optimum use of the various transport resources of the country and result in a transport policy that would ensure the avoidance of any clash of interests as between rail and road transport—a transport policy under which there would be no unnecessary duplication of services.

Transport is a complicated matter and the onus is on the Minister for Transport and Power to take the initiative in producing a White Paper based on an examination of the whole question. The Government and, in particular, the Minister for Transport and Power, should keep a close watch on developments in external transport between Ireland and the Continent.

I dealt in detail with the various problems and improvements that have taken place in cross-Channel and continental transport facilities. Transport services between Ireland and the Continent will have a vital bearing on our future survival and progress in the EEC. It is vitally important that our exporters of agricultural and industrial products should have a fast, frequent, efficient, low cost transport service and despite the improvements that have taken place, there is still scope for greater improvement; the Government should keep in close contact with developments.

In the field of tourism, membership of the EEC will open up exciting new possibilities. Membership of the EEC will offer a tremendous new challenge to the Irish tourist industry. I have the greatest confidence in the Irish Tourist Board, in our hoteliers and in all the people who are involved in Irish tourism. I have the greatest confidence in their ability to exploit the advantages which membership of the EEC will offer. I appeal to the Government, to the Minister for Transport and Power in particular, to take immediate steps to formulate and implement a realistic tourist policy, a policy which will provide the Irish tourist industry, and particularly Bord Fáilte, with the funds and facilities needed to exploit the continental tourist potential.

When one intervenes in a debate of this kind one is tempted to take some of the points made by the immediately preceding speaker. I find this rather difficult because Deputy O'Donnell, as front bench spokesman for Fine Gael in regard to transport and power, concentrated to a great extent on transport and tourism. I anticipate that my colleague, the Minister for Transport and Power, will speak later in this debate and it will be for him to deal in extenso with the points raised by Deputy O'Donnell.

As Minister for Industry and Commerce, it is more proper for me to deal specifically with the industrial implications of membership of the EEC. However, I was interested last night to hear Deputy O'Donnell refer to what he described as the neglect of development in the Shannon estuary. One of the things of which I was pretty well aware while acting as Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Transport and Power was the great difficulty in that area because of the non-alignment of the estuarial authorities and I was pleased to learn earlier this year that the three or four authorities concerned there were coming together to form a joint authority. The negotiations which led to this were the work of the chairman of the Shannon Free Airport Development Company. As far as I know, progress has been made. This is the first step towards the proper development of the estuary. As to the other points raised by Deputy O'Donnell, I have no doubt the Minister for Transport and Power will be able to refute, without any great difficulty, many of the allegations made by Deputy O'Donnell.

One of the things that struck me last night was Deputy O'Donnell's insistence on the development of Limerick harbour or the Foynes estuary.

The Shannon estuary.

The Shannon estuary. Deputy O'Donnell made repeated references to the international airport there. I was not a Member of the House at the time, but I was exercised in my mind as to the comments which would probably come from the same benches in the course of the castigation by a far more brilliant spokesman than either of us of the idea of developing this international airport. It struck me that here was Deputy O'Donnell suggesting that the development of the Shannon estuary would go hand-in-hand with the development of the airport.

With the Shannon Scheme as well.

The white elephant!

I am not going back as far as that.

The Minister is running into trouble now.

Mr. MacEntee's white elephant.

All these developments, which were criticised, are now being used as the foundation for further development. That is very proper.

Quite rightly so.

Deputy O'Donnell excused himself for being parochial and craved the indulgence of the Chair. We do not deal with the Shannon estuary from a parochial point of view. It is a national development and, with my colleague, the Minister for Transport and Power, I hope I will be in a position to assist in the further development of that area.

I shall deal now with the industrial implications of membership of the EEC. The House is familiar with the sections of the White Paper dealing with these industrial implications. The overall conclusion is that, while there will be problems in the shorter term, gains from membership in the longer term will outweigh any losses that may occur. As was indicated in the White Paper, the implications could not in many instances be set out in precise terms for a number of reasons, including the very important one of not disclosing the positions to be adopted by the Government in the accession negotiations.

Deputies will appreciate that in dealing with the industrial aspects of membership there is the same obligation on me to avoid comment or reach conclusions that would inhibit or circumscribe the Government's freedom of manoeuvre in the accession negotiations. In fact, since this debate started the initial meeting has taken place and the Minister for External Affairs has opened those negotiations on our behalf. He was in the happy position of being able to say that the volume of industrial production had increased by about 100 per cent between 1960 and 1969, that over the same period the volume of our industrial exports increased threefold and that, in fact, in 1969 for the first time they accounted for over half of our total merchandise exports. The Minister for External Affairs said there were certain sensitive industries for which the overall transitional arrangements would not be adequate and that certain provisions would have to be discussed in the course of the negotiations.

I propose to outline what seem to me the main benefits as well as the main problems of accession from the point of view of Irish industry and to indicate what has been and is being done to gear our industries to meet the challenges and to grasp what I feel are the opportunities which membership of the Community entails. As I see it, the outstanding benefit accruing from our membership of the Community will, I suggest, be the freedom of access on the part of Irish industry to a vast and buoyant market of over 250 million consumers in which the variety of the demand will be virtually without limit. An obvious benefit will be that the size of the enlarged Community market will serve to make our exports less subject to the effect of fluctuations in individual national markets.

I believe Irish Industry is in a strong position to exploit the manifold opportunities that will be presented to it. My confidence in this respect is based in part on the readiness shown by many of our industrialists to tackle the difficult problems inherent in adapting to the freer trade environment created by the operation of the Anglo-Irish Free Trade Area Agreement and in part on industry's response to the wide ranging measures in the financial, technical, advisory and training fields introduced and maintained by the Government with a view to ensuring a state of preparedness for the eventual reality of free trade on a continental scale.

The second major benefit to be derived from membership will be the enhanced attraction of this country as a base for new foreign industrial development. This is a rather important benefit. The attractiveness that will result from our accession to the larger market will be quite sizeable in this regard. The House needs no reminder from me of the crucial importance of industrial development from the point of view of creating and maintaining job opportunities to absorb the agricultural disemployment which will continue to be a feature of our economy as well as of the economies of other developed and developing countries.

Membership will also create and maintain job opportunities, will help to check emigration, develop exports and achieve and maintain an orderly economic growth. The main responsibility for creating new exports will rest with the recently reorganised Industrial Development Authority. I believe that membership of the EEC will result in duty free access for Irish manufactured goods to a vast and expanding market. This will enhance the attractions of Ireland as a location for such enterprise.

I believe that the promotional work of the IDA will accordingly be considerably accelerated. Obviously it will need to be. Deputies will recall that one of the conclusions of the Third Programme was that our industrial promotion effort had been at a disadvantage in that we were not a member of either of the major European trading blocs. The removal of this disadvantage through membership of the EEC must inevitably have beneficial results.

The economic scale of much of modern export industry, including many of the technologically advanced and high growth industries which we are particularly anxious to attract, is such that they require the widest possible access to export markets. The widening of the industrial base in recent times, despite the isolation disability to which I have just referred, may be expected to progress at an accelerating rate with the removal of this disability. This, in turn, may reasonably be expected to offer scope by way of linkages for the development and for the expansion of existing industry, large and small. The overall effect should be to stimulate industrial growth at a rate not likely to be achieved were we to remain outside the EEC.

It is relevant at this stage to refer to a point raised in the course of the debate that the only incentive for UK or continental firms to establish industries in Ireland after Ireland and the UK had joined the Community would be the availability of labour and that this incentive would lose much of its attractiveness by reason of the consideration that our labour force is largely unskilled. As I see it, this particular argument seems to be defective in two respects. Firstly, the labour availability, while important to our campaign to attract industrial development, is but one of a package of attractions which we offer at present.

Our experience to date has confirmed that, ultimately, the decisive factor influencing selection of a location by promoters seeking an extranational establishment is the availability of the optimum mix of a number of facilities. Secondly, the substantial progress we have made in industrial development to date has been due in a large part to the adaptability of the workers which has offset, to a highly creditable degree, the lack of widespread industrial tradition and industrial skills. The industrial training facilities now available from AnCO, taken in conjunction with the availability of skilled technical and technological personnel, who will be in growing demand as a result of the increasing importance of science and technology-based industries, should suffice to ensure that we will be in a position to respond quickly and flexibly to the labour requirements of any new export-oriented industry.

A further consideration to be taken into account in assessing the industrial benefits of membership, as such, is the advantage to be derived by members from certain of the Community's institutions. I have in mind particularly the European Investment Bank, recourse to which would provide access to a new source of capital for Irish industrial and regional development, and the European Social Fund which, of course, subject to final EEC decisions as to the scope of the fund's operation, would be available to assist in relation to re-settlement and retraining expenditure arising under our man-power policies.

Having said all that, there is the obverse of the coin. Only a naive or unrealistic person would suggest otherwise. I see the main problems arising from accession as being the increased competition for our own Irish firms that will naturally arise on the home market. There is also the question of extra materials costs for certain of our Irish firms and there is the possibility of increased subsceptibility to dumping. I regard as a first problem in this regard the increased competition on the home market which would follow the progressive dismantling of protection against imports originating in the other member states of an enlarged Community and the application of the common customs tariffs to imports originating in non-member countries.

In order to see this matter in its proper perspective, however, it is necessary to bear in mind that, under the Anglo-Irish Free Trade Area Agreement, we are already committed to free trade in most industrial goods by mid-1975. As indicated in the White Paper which we are discussing, the Confederation of Irish Industries recognise that the full implementation of the Anglo-Irish Free Trade Area Agreement, without membership of the EEC, would, in certain respects, be more severe on Irish industry than if combined with membership of the Community. Nevertheless, it must be accepted that, for some industries at least, accession to the EEC will result in a significant increase in the competition they have to meet.

Deputy Corish referred to increased imports of British manufactured goods. Whilst imports of manufactured goods from Britain have certainly increased substantially since the Free Trade Area Agreement was signed, not all of this increased importation was due to the reduction in protection as such. For example, in 1969 the imports of machinery from Britain were up £66 million. Most of this importation is not dutiable and is needed for our investment programme.

There were also heavy imports of materials for further processing and especially for re-export. This is particularly true in the textile sector where a high proportion of yarns and fabrics imported are required for the export trade. The increased imports of these goods generate an even greater increase in exports. This must be borne in mind and has to be taken into consideration in all calculations dealing with any question of an increase in the importations from the United Kingdom.

Deputy Corish also mentioned food imports. Most food products are listed in annex A of the Free Trade Area Agreement and are thus excluded, from free trade. The increased imports, therefore, cannot, to say the least, be altogether due to the operation of the agreement. The real answer however is that if imports have gone up so also have exports. From 1965 to 1969 our total exports—including exports from Shannon Airport—rose from about £244 million to £408 million. Exports of industrial goods in that period rose from £107 million to £216 million which, as I have said already and as the Minister for External Affairs referred to in his application, means an increase of over 100 per cent.

How much imports are involved in these exports directly in the form of a meccano-set kind of production?

I have been speaking about this particular subject, this question of importation. I was referring to it a moment ago in relation to Deputy Corish's comments earlier. I was trying to work it out in reverse. I agree that a number of our exports include re-exports. This is the point the Deputy is making. On the other hand, when one talks about increased imports, a certain amount of the increased imports consists of items and commodities used in the preparation of material for re-export.

What about the widening trade gap in the past two years? It has doubled in the past two years.

This is what we are tackling all the way along the line. I do not accept that figure.

It has risen from £100 million in 1967 to £200 million in 1969.

Quote me a reference for that.

Perhaps Deputies might ask questions when the Minister has concluded.

Figures for exports to Britain alone are not really relevant since it is the overall position which matters, and we are of course making a considerable effort to diversify the export market so as to reduce our dependence on the British market and prepare for entry to the EEC. The amount of exports to other countries, even countries outside the proposed enlarged Community, has been increasing quite apace.

The second disadvantage to which I referred—the extra materials cost for certain Irish firms—arises out of the obligation we will assume to apply the common customs tariff to imports from non-EEC countries. Broadly, the common customs tariff is payable where the raw materials in question are not obtained from a Community source. The extent to which Irish firms producing goods for sale inside the enlarged Community will continue to obtain materials from third countries will depend on the extent to which they can obtain suitable substitute materials inside the Community. A further consideration is that the EEC tariffs on raw materials are generally low. It must be faced, however, that where firms find it necessary to import from third countries materials which are dutiable under the EEC tariff, these duties must enter into firms' costs. To that extent those firms may lose some advantage.

The other worry I have is the question of susceptibility to dumping. This is a matter of particular concern to the Government in view of the small scale of the home market and of Irish production units as such. The Community's anti-dumping procedures may not be adequate to provide safeguards which would be effective in Irish circumstances and it is intended, accordingly, that our special position in this regard will receive particular attention in the course of the negotiations for accession. As a matter of fact the Minister for External Affairs in his opening remarks did draw particular attention to this and to the fact that the size of the Irish market and our units as such leave the Irish economy particularly vulnerable to dumping. He said he hoped that a satisfactory solution to this difficulty would be found in the negotiations. This is one of the factors which is, and will be, engaging my attention over the negotiating period.

I should also like to refer to other matters which are of considerable importance to our industrial development, namely our State aids, in particular our system of industrial grants, and the position of the Shannon customs free industrial zone, both of which have been mentioned in the course of this debate. As the White Paper indicated, on joining the EEC our State aids would come under review by the Commission with a view to determining their compatibility with the Common Market and we would maintain that, having regard to the purpose of these incentives for industrial development and the circumstances of the Irish economy as such, they are in keeping with the objectives of the Treaty of Rome. Industrial activities at Shannon are based, to a substantial degree, on the processing for re-export of materials imported free of duty from countries other than those which constitute the enlarged Community. Certainly, the position of the Shannon customs free industrial zone will have to be the subject of discussions with the Community.

These, in my judgment, are the major industrial advantages and the major problems resulting from the Irish effort at entry. The balance of advantage seems to me to be unquestionably on the side of accession. I consider the problems arising for particular firms as a result of our changed trading environment capable of mitigation if they are recognised and assidously tackled in good time by the firms in consultation with the State agencies concerned, which have been established to give assistance of this nature. I should like to take this opportunity of assuring firms whose interests may be jeopardised by the advent of Common Market trading conditions that the responsible State agencies will be only too glad and are most anxious to extend the most sympathetic assistance possible with a view to working out joint solutions, which, of course, will be aimed at the preservation and the advancement of the particular industrialist who seeks this assistance.

During the debate, too, reference was made to increasing foreign domination of distribution in Ireland. In the only authoritative estimates we have, made by the NIEC in 1967, the share of the retail market possessed by foreign-owned firms was put at only 6 per cent and such evidence as there is suggests that, far from increasing, this percentage is decreasing.

Is the Minister talking about the retail markets in this country at the moment?

Yes, the distributive trade in Ireland.

All I can say is the position has changed greatly since 1967 for the worse.

That is not my information, even from the point of view of doing whatever research one can do. There are no positive figures but I do not accept myself from my own personal observations, apart from the benefit of inquiries made in my Department, that the situation has deteriorated.

May I ask the Minister a question? Is the Five Star supermarket an Irish institution? Is Ben Dunne's store an Irish institution? Does the Minister swallow this kind of nonsense?

The Deputy is aware that names should not be mentioned in the House.

It is no harm when we are talking about enormous institutions. Is Powers supermarket an Irish institution?

I have no reason to believe that the first two named establishments are not Irish owned.

It all depends on what one means by Irish owned. The names on them are Irish but they are, in fact, subsidiaries of foreign companies.

I do not accept that.

The Minister does not have to accept what I say.

Thanks be to God, I suppose, for that.

My source of information may be different from the Minister's.

Yes, we will differ on the degree of reliability of the sources of information.

It is a question of credibility. I am not involved in any way, whereas the Minister is.

I am not involved in the firms mentioned but I am involved in the responsibility.

That is what I mean.

I know, but credibility being what it is——

It is a scarce commodity at the moment.

——people could find themselves saying that Deputy O'Donovan said I was involved in some of these businesses.

I did not mean that at all.

From my point of view such evidence as there is suggests that, far from increasing, the actual percentage of foreign involvement in distribution is decreasing. Certainly I intend to endeavour to keep an eye on developments.

I will deal with that matter when I am speaking.

Fair enough. I will be interested to hear the Deputy's actual practical observations on this. In relation to the foreign ownership of manufacturing industry, the repeal of the Control of Manufactures Acts which came into effect on 1st January, 1968, removed the remaining restrictions in this sector and the position in the EEC will, therefore, be no different from that now obtaining. The purpose of removing the restrictions was to help our campaign to attract foreign manufacturers to set up new export industries here.

One of the most important aspects of our preparations for entry into the EEC is the adaptation of our older established industries to meet the more competitive conditions of a large open market. This process of adaptation has been receiving a good deal of attention since the early sixties. At that time we had the surveys of industries by the Committee on Industrial Organisation. Arising from the reports of the CIO, various measures, including schemes of special adaptation grants, were introduced by the Government to encourage adaptation as such. The main responsibility for adaptation was seen as being that of industry itself but, as a further spur to industry, a new branch, the industrial reorganisation branch, was set up in my Department and has since been working continuously to promote adaptation in individual sectors of industry and by individual firms.

Similarly the Federation of Irish Industries, now known as the Confederation of Irish Industries, reorganised to meet the new situation and the Confederation has been giving special attention to the overall need to prepare for free trade. What in fact does adaptation mean? For individual firms and industries it means internal reorganisation and self-help supplemented by the use of various forms of aid available from State sources. The State aids available in relation to re-adaptation include re-equipment grants—and before that adaptation grants—and technical assistance grants to improve productive efficiency. There is the wide range of grants for market research and consultancy provided by Córas Tráchtála. There is the extended range of services by the Institute for Industrial Research and Standards. There is the extension of the operations and forms of assistance of the Industrial Credit Company Limited. There are the special advisory services for small and medium-sized firms and the growing activities of AnCO in relation to industrial training.

Some of these State aids and services have as their aim fairly fundamental and long-term improvements in the management and technology of Irish industry. This would apply to many of the operations of the Institute for Industrial Research and Standards, AnCO and the advisory services of the Irish National Productivity Committee. It would apply, too, to the activities of the National Science Council and the critically important work of the Irish Management Institute. The expanding operations of the Irish Management Institute have done much to raise the standards of management and of management training in industry over the past decade. As the Irish Management Institute demonstrated, a considerable amount still remains to be done in this area.

The long-term development plan for management training recently published by the IMI is therefore very much to be welcomed. This is aimed at ensuring that by 1971 all practising managers will have basic training in modern management methods. The expanded and specialised services available from the subsidiaries of the two Irish banking groups and from other recently established merchant banks also helped to create a climate favourable to adaptation and innovation. While the progress of adaptation is a continuing one, its pace is sensitive to various factors such as trade, technology and finance. It is not a matter of achieving a certain degree of fitness to meet one big occasion like a team preparing specially for one big game. Rather is it a matter through continuous endeavour of striving to reach at least the same degree of fitness our competitors are likely to have and from there on trying to match every improvement our competitors may achieve. For that reason it is rather difficult to make a specific assessment of the results so far of our adaptation efforts.

There is one aspect that is measurable, of course, and that is the straightforward modernisation of plant and equipment. Certainly what has been done in this area is impressive by any standard. It shows that a considerable effort has been made over most of Irish industry to modernise equipment. Nevertheless the pace of technological and other change requires that there should be no slackening off in the tempo of modernisation. At the same time, it is very important that the task of re-equipping and modernising our factories should not be looked on as the be-all and the end-all of adaptation. In particular it is necessary to ensure that our increased efficiency in the production of goods is matched by a corresponding ability to sell these goods to the best advantage. In turn, this in its own way highlights the importance of improved standards of marketing and an increasingly sophisticated approach to overall product policy.

These specific considerations prompted my predecessor to establish about a year-and-a-half ago a body called the Committee on Industrial Progress whose task is to assess the progress made by industry in its preparations for free trade, with special reference to product policy and marketing. Already the committee has initiated surveys of ten sectors of Irish industry. The reports on women's outer wear clothing and the fruit and vegetable processing industry have already been published and I have made copies of those reports available to all Deputies and Senators. Other reports will be published in the months ahead. The work of this Committee on Industrial Progress is intended as a further form of what one might call State guidance. In actual fact it is a form of booster to firms to think in terms of the products and markets that are likely to be most advantageous in the changing conditions of the 1970s.

The question of industrial adaptation was referred to in this debate by a number of Deputies. It was claimed that not enough had been done on this score, that vulnerable industries had not been identified, and that there had not been a selective approach to the provision of State aids for adaptation. Let me say at this point that the standard of efficiency in most industries is uneven. The question of vulnerability relates in the main to individual firms rather than total industries. It would be unwise to attempt to indicate those firms which may not survive in free trade conditions. Very often internal changes in a firm's management can within a short time radically alter for better or worse that firm's efficiency and ability to withstand competition. The future prospects of a firm can be altered by changes in consumer demand or by technical developments in the industry itself.

The administration of the industrial grants scheme is of course subject to regular review. As was mentioned in the White Paper, 1,438 applications from 1,114 firms were approved for adaptation grants up to 30th June, 1968. These accounted for not less than 75 per cent of output and employment in manufacturing industry. Since then over 1,000 applications for re-equipment grants have been received and 600 have been approved to date. It is evident that the bulk of Irish manufacturing industry has availed itself of the opportunity of using State facilities to re-equip and modernise and continues to do so.

It may be assumed that certain undertakings are not in need of modernisation either because they are comparatively new industries and new firms and do not therefore need modernisation or because they have themselves been keeping their plant and equipment up to date without any recourse to grants. It is difficult to be specific about the adequacy of our adaptation effort.

The modernisation of plant and equipment is only one aspect of the whole field and others, such as improved management and change in mental attitudes, are not as easily measured. What has been done in the field of physical adapation is by any standard impressive. I have already stated that the importance of improved standards of marketing and an increasingly sophisticated approach to product policy prompted my predecessor to establish the Committee on Industrial Progress. The two reports which this Committee has already published indicate that product policy and marketing are in need of increasing attention. An indication of the progress of Irish industry is the impressive growth in industrial exports in recent years. As I have stated already, exports of manufactured goods were almost doubled between 1965 and 1969. The facts and figures which I have given about adaptation and re-equipment schemes are sufficient to answer the contention that we have failed to make use of the time available since 1963 and that the adaptation effort has ground to a halt.

Reference was also made during the debate to the motor vehicle assembly industry and, as usual, no hope was held out for its retention in the EEC. In 1967 a scheme was agreed with the industry which provides for the maintenance of the local assembly industry on a long-term basis. It is hoped to preserve the fundamentals of the scheme on entry to the Community. I do not therefore share the pessimism expressed about this industry.

I have tried to show the House that there are a number of sides to adaptation: namely, re-equipment and modernisation, better management, improved technology and training and greater attention and sophistication in product policy and marketing. All these are areas where the State can by various aids, services and incentives do a certain amount to spur industry on. In the last analysis however, adaptation or the progress of adaptation can only be as effective as the people in industry are prepared themselves to make it. Eight years ago when the CIO was in operation it saw the need for what is called a revolution in existing attitudes if adaptation was to be fully effective. Nobody will deny that considerable changes for the better have been made in industry since that time. Protectionist inward looking attitudes have to a considerable extent been replaced by a more progressive outward looking approach. There has been considerable progress on various fronts but, taking it all round, it can be said there is scope for still further and greater improvement. This is due, in my view, primarily to our being insufficiently attuned mentally to presson with the necessary changes. I recognise that this is attributable to some extent to the natural fear of the unknown which very many people have. It cannot be denied that at first sight there is an element of the unknown about moving into this larger trading area, the EEC.

The apprehensions which other countries, especially smaller countries, had about membership of the EEC have proved to be unfounded. Many of the economic arguments against joining the EEC were put forward years ago to show that one or other of the present members of the Community would be ruined by the Treaty of Rome. It was said that Belgium, with its antiquated industrial structure and its tendency to lose out to Holland in the Benelux union, was sure to be crushed in the EEC. As things have turned out Belgium's annual average economic growth rate between 1960 and 1967 has increased from 2.9 per cent to 4.6 per cent.

Why? Because there was cheaper labour there than anywhere else in Europe and American firms dumped their subsidiary factories there.

The Deputy does not want factories here?

They did not do it for the benefit of Belgium.

What is the Deputy's approach to the question of trying to get industries in here?

The one good point made by Deputy FitzGerald during his long speech here was that these huge organisations are becoming super governments, they are becoming more powerful than the biggest governments.

That has been recognised.

The Deputy can make his point in that regard. At the time of the commencement of the EEC it was also claimed that Italy's costly infant industries would be crushed in the Common Market under the remorseless weight of Germany.

Infant industries. The Lombardy Plains are one of the most developed areas in Europe.

The Deputy is speaking from hindsight.

I am not. It was developed 20, 30 or 40 years ago.

The Minister should be allowed to make his contribution without interruption. Other Deputies will have an opportunity of speaking themselves.

It is no harm to put some life into the debate.

The Deputy and I always seem to have an arrangement. Similar fears and apprehensions existed in the smaller EFTA states in regard to membership of that organisation and in their own way these fears proved equally groundless. Accordingly, we should regard the prospect of entry to the EEC with neither apprehension nor complacency. Membership will provide us with new and exciting opportunities for industry and trade which we certainly would not have if we remained outside. The use we make of these opportunities depends entirely on ourselves. Looked on in that way the prospect of entry should provide the impetus to boost our preparations into their final stage at this time. With that, I am quite willing to hand over to Deputy O'Donovan.

In deference to the Minister and to enable him to get back to his other duties I shall deal first with some points he made, even though that was not my intention. I intended to make a different speech. I can then go back and start my speech as I intended to make it.

I want to deal with these points which the Minister made so that he may hear what I have to say about them. Taking them in the order in which he made them I shall refer first to the Anglo-Irish Free Trade Agreement. I said at the time—and if we do not go into the EEC what I said will be vindicated—that the Government had sold the long-term interests of this country across the Irish Sea for short-term advantages. The British were shrewd enough in that agreement to give us that short-term advantage and we did get that advantage for three or four years. In my opinion these are the watershed years of that agreement. The reduction in tariffs made on 1st July, 1970, was the watershed. From now on we shall feel the pinch more and more. We feel it already.

When I go around the shops in Dublin I can see things for myself. For some years I have been less often in the middle of Dublin than in continental cities. I used be taken there by the ear by my wife. I never really went to learn something about the Common Market: it was entirely accidental. I was never out of this country between 1935 and 1961, a period of 26 years. Between 1961 and the present time I have been frequently out of this island —not nearly as often as Deputy FitzGerald who goes to Brussels about every week—but often enough and in a sufficient number of countries to see what is happening. I was in every country of the EEC at least once, and in some two, three or four times, and I watched this Common Market developing. What I have noticed in this city in the last year or two is a development of a certain kind. The Chair does not like mentioning specific items, perhaps, but let me give an example. There is a well-known brand of shoe made in England known as Hush Puppies. At one stage they could never be seen in this country. Then they were smuggled in by people. A woman might buy a pair in England or go to Belfast and bring back a pair. That was the situation, but now they can be got all over the place.

I do not say they are not good value; they are exceptionally good value. Everybody talks about the biscuits that are to be seen around. Our relative trade with Britain has deteriorated. That is beyond question. I am not saying it will not recover; it may well do so because—and I return to this them again—I do not believe Britain is going into the Common Market. I shall develop the reasons why I believe that in the course of my speech. I am glad the Minister was straight enough to deal with what I regard as an important matter. I do not mind saying that I liked the Minister's speech. It is no harm to throw a little commonsense into this nonsensical debate as it has gone on so far. This debate is a non-event. It was forecast. The reality will come when the referendum occurs, if it has to come.

Did not the Deputy's colleagues ask for this debate—to get back to practical terms?

Let us get back to reality. When Deputy Dr. Cruise-O'Brien finished his speech the Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries followed and said we did not know where we were going. Immediately, I said that Deputy Cruise-O'Brien's last sentence was quite specific, that we were looking forward with the greatest interest. We are not the only people doing so. I do not say the Minister pretended but there has been pretence on both sides of the House in the big parties that this matter is not serious, that the people are not concerned about it. I know from discussions with young Deputies in the big parties that they have become aware that the people are very concerned about it. That is an indication of the success of this small party in getting across the case that Deputy FitzGerald said nobody could ever put across.

I am getting off the track. I want to stick to the few points made by the Minister so as not to delay him. On dumping, the Minister said that a satisfactory solution to this problem would be found during the negotiations. That is as I took it down. I take it the Minister has high hopes that there will be a satisfactory solution. How? I do not know any method of negotiating a whole section out of the treaty. In the Treaty of Rome a country which is accused of dumping gets six months to reply. This was stated categorically in the pamphlet which I helped Mr. David Hamilton to prepare. It does not matter a damn what Deputy FitzGerald says about the case not being stated. The case was stated but nobody was willing to listen to it in 1961-62.

My forecast was vindicated that Britain would not go in. I know the kind of talk there was by the cheap English papers about a long-nosed Frenchman keeping them out. The long-nosed Frenchman had no more to do with keeping them out than any other negotiator. The fact was that Britain wanted terms in relation to agriculture that France would not concede and France wanted terms in relation to agriculture that Britain would not concede. That is still the position. I misjudge the British if I think they will see their common preferences go down the drain. You cannot have it both ways: you cannot plead that we are in a near colonial position and at the same time plead that the British will throw us overboard. If we are in a near colonial position, as New Zealand is and the other countries which supply Britain with food, we are too valuable to Britain to be thrown overboard. Again, I am getting off the track.

The serious point is: how can you write out of the Treaty of Rome this particular dumping clause? The best example was the case of Italy and the steel industry. Germany, France and Italy made agreements about how they would divide the steel market between them and after a few years it was discovered that the Italians had scooped the pool. Then the usual wrangle began and after a long period they agreed to wipe it off the slate. They felt it was overdone. I admit that the Common Market is such a loose organisation that they could proceed to forget about this in the case of a small country like ourselves out on the periphery. The essence of the matter is that the dumping would occur first. What interests me always in regard to matters of this sort is that it is only the strong who will speak out; the weak will not open their mouths.

Let me give the House an example. A meeting of Irish industrialists was held in Galway some years ago. They were discussing the Common Market at a time when the question was relatively dormant, and the usual things were said that do not matter tuppence. However, the representative at that meeting of Sunbeam Wolsey, who the previous year had scooped the pool in the Common Market with their exports of textiles, said: "There is a textile firm in Northern Italy that could supply all our textile requirements for one year with three weeks' production." The inference from that is quite clear. Some year they would have three weeks' production they could not sell anywhere else but in this small country and they would dump the product in here at the cost of the raw materials and it would still pay them.

The other main point to which I want to draw the Minister's attention is the question of the retail trade. There has been created in this city in the past couple of years a body called the Alliance of Independent Retailers. Fundamentally this body was created because the older body with which I had the honour of working at one time as advisor—and I learned a great deal about the retail trade—was not operating effectively. This body now has thousands of members, all of whom own individual shops. They told me the other night in public that over 50 per cent of the ordinary retail trade in this country is being done through supermarkets. Perhaps that is an exaggeration, but it is obvious that this supermarket business is taking over in a big way. I gave them the consolation that the wheel goes a certain distance around and then it tends to go into reverse. There is something in humanity that objects to the mechanics of a supermarket, taking a basket or a cart and going around and saying nothing to anybody. After a while you begin to say it is worthwhile going around to Tom O'Donnell's store and saying good morning and having a chat.

How is this related to our entry to the Common Market?

I am replying to what the Minister said. However, I shall relate it quite specifically. If we go into the Common Market we shall not merely have English companies like the ones I mentioned, Unilever, Marks and Spencer, Liptons and so on, coming in here and taking over our retail trade and pushing the small man out of business, but we shall have whatever the corresponding companies are in Europe, ones that correspond perhaps with the Atlantic and Pacific and Piggly-Wiggly stores in America. Less and less of our retail trade will be in the hands of small retailers. In other words, everybody in this country will become employees and there will be less indepedence of view among our people.

The Minister spoke about the number of reports we have had and Deputy Garrett FitzGerald spoke at some length about the fact that nobody made the case against going into the Common Market. Let me be quite candid and honest about this. I had no intention of setting myself up, with my limited resources, to fight the resources of the State in this matter. There was such euphoria in 1961/62 about going into the Comon Market that I would have been regarded as a head case. I have so far been replying to the Minister for Industry and Commerce, but perhaps I had better get some order into my speech. Let me deal with the history of this matter, and I shall not go back to medieval Europe, as one speaker did, or talk about the divine right of kings, as another speaker did. I shall talk about the non-reference to 1961/62 during the course of this debate. The debate has been going on now for several days and you would imagine there had been some sort of revolution in Western Europe since 1961/62. Personally, I see no change whatever. It is up to the people who say there has been a complete change to prove it. Do not forget that the Treaty of Rome was signed in 1953 and was pretty well in operation in 1961. You would imagine the year 1961 was at least a century away for all the reference that has been made to it.

Britain did not go into the Common Market in 1961-62. Mr. Heath was in Brussels continuously for the best part of a year, and in fact he was honoured for the manner in which he worked at that time. Eventually in February, 1962, General de Gaulle sent M. Couve de Murville out there with instructions to put an end to this chatter. They had not agreed to the terms for agriculture and so there were six months of chatter, and this was more or less the word that M. Couve de Murville used. The British papers blamed the long-nosed Frenchman. We all remember the cartoons of him with his nose out a foot and being blamed for keeping them out of the Common Market.

Britain could have gone into the Common Market in 1953. They would have been welcomed by the other European countries. The fact is that when the big European countries, Italy, France and Germany, were turned down flat by Britain in 1953, they were not going to make things easy for the British in 1961. Since these countries did not make things easy for the British in 1961 the British will not make it easy for them now. I have always forecast that Britain will not go into Europe until she is defeated in war. There is a great deal of claptrap talked about the weakness of Britain. She is, of course, weak compared to the super states, America and Russia, but she is still a proud and powerful nation, and she is not going into Europe crawling on her belly. The Minister referred to what was a common belief at that time. In 1961-62 all the euphoria here about going into Europe had one good effect but it is not going to have that effect this time. It had the effect that many of our firms started to improve their methods, to instal new machinery and so on. At that time no other case was being made and indeed no other case would be listened to. Although I did not believe that we were going in, I said at the time that this was one good effect which the whole campaign had. It was an excellent effect for it succeeded in getting many of our firms to improve their methods. The Minister for Industry and Commerce said he had heard the arguments that it had evaporated a bit, but I think it evaporated very decidely. He went on to prove by figures, by saying that there had been 1,453 grants, that this was not so at all.

The proof is that gradually our industry is becoming better and better equipped and despite what was said that movement began in the early fifties. The difficulty industry had was that it put too much money into real capital in the fifties and so many of them were left without adequate working capital. Deputy FitzGerald referred to the CIO report which referred to the redundancy of 11,000 workers and went on to say that of course half of these would retire anyway. Since we are talking about jobs and job security, it does not matter whether people retire or not, there are that many fewer in employment. If 5,500 out of the 11,000 were going to retire anyway, obviously they were not going to be replaced. That of course is an extremely serious matter.

I now come to what has been a main subject for discussion. Deputy Corish mentioned the Word "fear" and he was jeered at for doing so. Have Deputies never heard of that pearl: "Fear is the beginning of wisdom"? I do not know why there has been so much chatter about Deputy Corish's use of the word "fear". It is a much more suitable word to use in this connection than the word "challenge". I heard a new phrase from the Minister for Industry and Commerce this morning, although I do not mind admitting that I had probably seen it already in some magazine. I still do not think that the phrase was worth much. The phrase was "product policy". I suppose a different coloured package or something like that is a piece of product policy. This is the kind of thing we are discussing when we talk about these items. They have little or nothing to do with the realities of the problem.

Nobody in this House has a more unalterable opposition to our going into Europe than I have and I will given the most serious reasons for that. Bi-lateral trade agreements are usually agreements made for a year or two, and it should not be forgotten that the day of reckoning comes at the end of that time, but in spite of that, look at the way these countries have behaved. I will give some examples. Of course, the Department should keep their mouths shut about these examples. They must have them in hundreds by now. At least the former Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries, Deputy Blaney, was honest when he said that the Germans had ratted on a piece of the last bi-lateral trade agreement. When I asked him here if this was the first time the Germans had ratted he replied straight out that it was not. I can say what the first occasion was. The first time the Germans ratted on a bi-lateral trade agreement was when the Fianna Fáil Party were stuck in the British over a stupid dispute. We had a bi-lateral trade agreement with Germany on a three-to-one basis, that we would buy three times as much from Germany as they would buy from us.

It was one of the finest ideas Mr. Lemass ever had. He wanted to set up the oil refinery on the north side of the Liffey and for that oil refinery four tankers were built in Germany. They cost £3 million in the late thirties, the equivalent to £15 million today. What did the Germans say when we claimed that that should be taken into account? "They were ordered from London." The so-and-sos would not allow it to be taken into account in the agreement although it was a bi-lateral trade agreement that was going to end in a year or two. Despite the possibility of a sanction that they would not forget they still would not agree and they turned down the claim of the Government. Why? Because we were stuck; we were at war—the economic war it was called, although it was much more a political war than an economic war except that certain people were put in as soldiers who were not soldiers at all.

Although I know nothing about what has happened in the last 15 years in this context I could still give numerous examples and I could also give examples of the way in which to deal with this matter. I can give an example in relation to the French. On the whole, when the French are not in balance of payments difficulties they behave quite reasonably, but some years ago they had an agreement with us to take some Easter lamb from us. They had a similar agreement with the Dutch. The week before Easter they pulled down the iron shutter on lamb going into France. We, advised by these gentlemen in the Department of External Affairs, who were so gentlemanly that they had not got the guts of a rabbit, did nothing about it. The Dutch, on the other hand said: "Right boys, no French wines into Holland" and the Dutch sold their lambs to the French and we did not.

That is what happens unless you are prepared to fight. Let me give one other example of the kind of nonsensical rubbish believed by the people in this country who are in favour of going into the Common Market. The fact is that France could feed the whole of western Europe. Some years ago France had 10,000 old cows which they wanted to sell to the Germans. It took six months' argument to get West Germany, with a population of 80 million people, to take 10,000 cows. We produce 10,000 old cows a fortnight. Can anybody deny that? For what would represent one fortnights' production in this country the French had to argue with the Germans for six months before they would take them.

The bilateral trade agreements are a much better base than a general treaty on which to argue with these countries. The case was made at great length about the work done by the first Government here to change the nature of the British Empire. I was a student at that time and I certainly admired the work done. I remember praising the Statute of Westminster and the equality of status without necessarily equality of function. I felt the British would continue, as the biggest country with their Commonwealth, to do most of the work. Any sensible person would admire the work of the late Deputy O'Higgins and, in particular, the work done by Deputy McGilligan, who was the main architect of the Statute of Westminster. Despite that, it was not that that made this country a nation. Our neutrality in the Second World War was what made this country a nation. We arrived at the Second World War as nothing. We had been destroyed by the economic dispute with England. Our economy was destroyed. We came out of that war, although conditions were very tough and far tougher than we pretended to ourselves, with the respect of the whole western world for having remained out of it and for the way we behaved when out. That was when we became a nation.

The suggestion has been made that we will cut ourselves off from Europe if we do not go into the Common Market. I would suggest that the system which has grown up of many continental children and students coming here to learn English and of our children going to these western European countries will make us Europeans to the extent that we are not already Europeans. Our whole tradition, especially in education, is the European tradition. There is no use in pretending that whether we go into the EEC or remain out of it we are not in the mainstream of European tradition. Although we are a small country we are steeped in that tradition.

It is nonsense to say that we can do certain things by going into the Common Market which cannot be done by remaining outside it. At one stage I used to get irritated with this and I concocted a phrase of which I am proud. I said that whenever I think of the Common Market I think of the common mind, and in the second part of that phrase I am using the word "common" as it is used in Munster.

I must refer to the hope expressed by the Minister for Finance, Deputy Colley, that the Irish language would do better if we went into Europe than if we remained outside. There is some point in that. We suffer from the impact of the English language on one side of us and the impact of it on the Atlantic side also. I know enough Irish to be able to ask the Minister whether he was going to put this Ireland physically into the middle of Europe. Otherwise, we must remain between two vast English-speaking populations. This is where we are going to remain.

Reference was made to a recent pamphlet published by Mr. Coughlan. I notice a most deplorable remark was made about it in the course of Deputy Dr. FitzGerald's speech. At column 1955, Volume 247, of the Official Report, the Deputy said:

So much for the Coughlan pamphlet producing the arguments for staying out. They are as thin as the pamphlet itself.

I will make a comment on that. That remark was as thick as Deputy Dr. FitzGerald himself. That is a fair comment, referring to the "thick" and "thin". Mr. Coughlan and his associates have the resources of the Government behind them. I would like to put down a Parliamentary Question to find out the cost of producing these documents. I would probably be told they were produced as part of the duties of their writers by numbers of civil servants and that their cost could not easily be calculated. Each of these pamphlets, "Membership of the European Communities and its Implications for Irish Industry" and "Irish Agriculture and Fisheries in the EEC" cost thousands of pounds to prepare.

I wrote some articles about the matter in 1961-62. One was written because a kindly journalist was at a meeting where I was asked to present the Irish Times trophy for debate. The journalist went back to the editor of the Irish Independent and the editor in a phone call said he believed that I had said that there was a conspiracy of silence about our going into the Common Market. I had said that and I meant it and I was asked to write an article which would be printed. The Irish Independent printed the article. It was written in the strongest way. I commend the paper for having printed it. They even announced in the front page that the article was to be found in the paper. I would not change one comma of that article although it was written nine years ago. Everything stands, including the fact that England will not go in. Would the Parliamentary Secretary, Deputy David Andrews, like to make a bet on it?

I am not a betting man but I would like to lay a wager with the learned doctor.

I would not like to wager on a serious matter like this. Not alone did the Irish Independent print that article but they placed a man permanently in Brussels and their coverage of these negotiations at that time was better than the coverage in any other Irish newspaper. I do not hold with the Irish Independent policy often but credit should be given where it is due. The case was made that nobody had put the argument against going into the EEC. Deputy Dr. FitzGerald said that he had even thought of doing it anonymously himself, because it was done so badly. Deputy Dr. FitzGerald should go down the country to see whether this party have served the country well in the last fortnight. If he gets the same information as I am getting he will learn something from it and he might be better employed than being in Brussels. There is no doubt that the Labour Party have scored heavily in this debate.

Our approach in this matter horrifies me. I see the British representative, Mr. Barber, being really tough and our Minister for External Affairs at the same time saying that we will accept everything. For all I know, of course, this may be done in agreement with the British and we may be playing a game of "here we go round the mulberry bush" with the Common Market countries. It is quite possible that we may have an agreement with the British that they will be tough and we will adopt an easy approach.

It was also suggested that there is no evidence that the weak will go to the wall in the Common Market. Let us not forget the many strikes engaged in by the farmers in Brittany and the occasions when the farmers in south west France lined the roads and caused much trouble—for similar action farmers in this country were sent to prison.

It might be asked why I am so certain that Britain will not go into Europe? Apart from my belief that Britain is not so down and out yet, I am mindful of an editorial in the Economist in February of this year in which it was stated categorically that there was a majority in the three parties against going into Europe. This was more or less admitted by one of the speakers in this debate but the suggestion was that the British Government will take us into Europe, especially since Mr. Heath has become Prime Minister. It might well be that, as a result of his traumatic experience in Brussels in 1961 and 1962, Mr. Heath would be the last man to take his country into Europe.

In any event, there has not developed in Britain the kind of controversy about going into Europe that occurred in 1961 and 1962. As opposed to the "thin pamphlet", to quote Deputy FitzGerald, that has been produced by Mr. David Hamilton at this time setting out the whole case fairly and succinctly, in the early 'sixties much documentation was produced in England in connection with entry into Europe. In 1962, there was the Anti-Commonwealth Association, the Empire Loyalists' Association and many other voluntary bodies and I believe if there were any possibility of Britain entering Europe at this stage there would be an outcry, especially in the Conservative Party. One may take it as an understatement that more than 40 per cent of any Conservative group in Britain are against going into the Common Market. If the present British Government try to take Britain into Europe they will find themselves in great trouble with their own party.

There was a reference to the "delusions" of the people who are against going into Europe. For the purpose of comparison, I can speak of the illusions of the people who want to enter the EEC. Was it a delusion that after 120 years in a common market this country in 1920 had the following industries: the bacon factories, the creameries, the firm of Guinness, the firm of Jacobs and a few others? I might mention that among those others was the firm of Varians Brushes—and this firm had a small premises in Harcourt Street. There were a few other small concerns and that was all we had. One had only to travel throughout the country to see the many roofless buildings.

What was interesting about this period of 120 years we spent in that common market was that nothing much happened for quite a while. Things appeared to go along pretty nicely: the Irish cotton industry employed many thousands of workers, the silk industry and the flour milling industry appeared to go along quite successfully for a while but suddenly they were wiped out. I do not know if the situation has changed and if the process will not be repeated. Our geographical location does not help us and we are far from the mainstream of events. It was suggested that we will have a voice in any decisions made. May I say I have a voice in this House but two minor amendments the Minister for Transport and Power was kind enough to take on the ESB Bill were the only piece of effective work I succeeded in doing in 12 months in this House. I am grateful to the Minister for Transport and Power for accepting my amendments because they improved the pensions of 5,000 workers but it is a small result for much effort.

Deputy Gibbons and Deputy FitzGerald have made some statements about the contribution of Deputy Cruise-O'Brien. At column 1959, Volume 247 of the Official Report of 25th June, 1970, Deputy FitzGerald remarked in relation to the speech of Deputy Cruise-O'Brien:

Deputy Cruise-O'Brien when speaking on the subject, as reported in the papers this morning—I was not here for the latter part of his speech—said that the Labour Party opposed a referendum to modify the Constitution to enable us to join but he proceeded to argue that the Labour Party, by taking the lines they had, were helping our negotiations because by acting as a responsible Opposition they were helping the Government in their negotiations by toughening the Government's bargaining position.

In fact, what Deputy Cruise-O'Brien said was that we were in favour of a referendum because that would be the great opportunity for this party, with the two big parties at long last consummating the marriage that has been in existence for so long and our party opposing it, hook, line and sinker.

(Dublin Central): For what reason?

I have been giving the reasons for the last hour but I am only half-way through.

Will the Deputy tell us about the political marriage in which he was involved at one stage?

Perhaps the Minister is referring to the second inter-Party Government. I will say this for that Government—if what happened in their time should, by any accident, happen to the present Government, there would be very little of them left. At that time, our import prices went up by 14 per cent while exports went down by 12 per cent in the three years. If this were to happen now, it would be the end for Fianna Fáil.

Tell us about the terms of trade?

The terms of trade, once they readjusted themselves a few years later, have remained even ever since. Perhaps it was an error of judgment on the part of that inter-Party Government to have taken that matter too seriously. Perhaps we should have dipped more deeply into our bank roll at the time but despite what people have said and, in particular, Deputy Paddy Burke who said that there was not the price of a bag of cement when Fianna Fáil took over, I can say that this is not true because there was £5 million on the first issue of premium bonds. If the advice of Deputy McGilligan and me had been taken, that £5 million would have been spent because we wanted this system of premium bonds to be adopted before the British adopted it. However, we did not have that much influence in the second inter-Party Government. I throw no veil over my views on that matter. Perhaps if I had been a different kind of person, I might have resigned with a clatter of trumpets but I do not think that would have done any good.

Deputy Cruise-O'Brien analysed the situation from a viewpoint from which I am not going to analyse it. He is interested in a different line of country, in sovereignty and in external affairs but I shall talk simply about the Common Market. To be fair to Deputy Dr. Cruise-O'Brien he made an excellent statement and when he was finishing his speech he made it as plain as a pikestaff that, thanks be to God, there must be a referendum in this country about this matter.

Under our bilateral trade agreements we have the freedom, if we so wish, to pull down the iron shutter on any individual country and in spite of what the Minister for Finance said yesterday, there is an escape clause under the OECD and under the GATT in the case of balance of payments difficulties. However, we seem to have a capacity for inflicting damage on ourselves in a way that no other country would. I need only cite the example of what has happened under the Free Trade Area Agreement with Britain. First of all, there was a levy of 20 per cent but now it is 10 per cent. That was a clear breach of the agreement but for reasons of our own we did not denounce the agreement. I wanted to take the figures for Germany and France as examples but I seem to have mislaid them for the moment. However, the day is long and since other people have spoken for hours during this debate, let me for once detain the House for a long time.

No matter how powerful a country might be, we should pull down the iron shutter on them if they treat us badly. That was what I recommended during the term of the second inter-Party Government. I think the Irish people would have backed my method at the time. If we had pulled down the iron shutter on one big country which was treating us badly, the fellows from other countries would have been over on the next plane crawling on their bellies, as it were.

I remember well that at that time the Swedish ambassador here was greatly concerned about the position because Sweden which had been buying considerable quantities of beef from us threw us overboard and started to buy their beef from the Argentine at the time that the Peron government was thrown out and the incoming government was backed by the farmers. Cattle were kept back so as to destroy the financial basis of the Peron régime. That régime was destroyed and the Argentinians poured beef into Europe. Of course, the Swedes said: "We can get beef at half the price at which we are getting it from Ireland" but their ambassador here was convinced that no sensible people would put up with that situation for very long. Why should we? At the time, Sweden was selling us £5 million worth of goods each year while they were taking from us less than £1 million worth. We can get telephones from Sweden but we can also get them from Britain. Timber can be got from Sweden but it can also be got from Finland or from Norway. The same goes for newsprint. Under pressure, yesterday, the Minister for Finance admitted that we could pull down the iron shutter on any country but if we are in the Common Market that will not be so easy to do.

Deputy FitzGerald referred at considerable length to Italy. All his remarks show is that he knows nothing whatever about that country. I will say this for the Italians: when they got themselves into balance of payment difficulties a few years ago, they showed how quickly the situation could be cleared up. It is well known that their economists are among the best in Europe and have been for the past 70 or 80 years. It is one thing to talk about the Milan-Turin area and the Lombardy Plain but it is another thing to look at conditions in the south of Italy, even in Rome itself, which has two Governments, the Vatican and the Italian governments. The poverty of the people in Rome is worse than the poverty of the lowest-paid workers in the city of Dublin. My flesh positively creeps when I think of the conditions in Southern Italy, beyond Naples and down around Sicily. There is all this talk that this, that and the other has been done in the Common Market. It is a pity those who talk in this fashion do not go down there and look around them.

At column 1920 he referred to the way in which the Italians disposed of the refrigerator industry. Indeed, they did. I remember the furore about it at the time. I wonder did Deputy FitzGerald ever hear of Potez? He had an interest in the refrigerator industry. It was one of his many interests. I will let it go at that. I think we all know about Potez.

At column 1921 he talked about the small farmers in West Germany. Again, nine-tenths of our farms in Mayo are under 30 acres and more than half the farms in the entire country are under 100 acres. One thing that has helped the Common Market is the fact that, when Germany was divided, the part of Germany which was the great source of food was cut away; and that part has been organised on the basis of large private holdings, thousands of acres in extent, with specialists in charge of the different branches of agriculture. That gave Western Germany a reason for being friendly with France which, as I have said already, could feed the whole of Western Europe. That is not original: it was Dr. Henry Kennedy who coined that expression. He made many contributions to Irish agriculture. Unfortunately, a prophet is never listened to in his own country. Dr. Henry Kennedy was well ahead of his time. He wanted proper financing for agriculture. He wanted fertilisers applied to the land. He wanted a system of saving hay which has since been adopted very widely. But nobody listened to him.

The House may wonder why I am dealing at such length with Deputy FitzGerald. The reason is that anybody who talks as he does deserves to have the hide taken off him. It is the insolence of the way he talks that affronts me. In column 1922 he talked about the manner in which small countries had done so well in the EEC:

Why is the EEC supported most strongly by the small countries... I challenge the opponents of the EEC to answer that question. It is an established fact...

I will answer it now. I am always prepared to accept a challenge. There are quite simple reasons for this evolution. Holland had lost its eastern empire. It had a population of 11,000,000 in a very small area. Belgium has 12,000,000 living in an area the size of Munster. How could they not but do well in the Common Market? They had no option. Do not forget that Holland's eastern empire consisted of 100,000,000 people —Java and Sumatra—and Holland would have remained on much longer in these areas were it not that the Americans pushed them out. The war was over and Holland must get out of Java and Sumatra just as the Americans pushed the Belgians out of the Congo—one of the many examples of the inexperience of Americans when it comes to international affairs. I am sure they are learning very rapidly.

The population of these two countries represents a density of 800 people per square mile. In this country we have about 100 people per square mile. It does not follow that, because these countries did well in the Common Market, we will likewise do well. I have already pointed out that American firms anxious to get inside the Common Market decided, after investigation, that the cheapest labour was to be got in the Walloon area of Belgium and so they proceeded to set their enormous factories in Belgium. Is Deputy FitzGerald then to make the argument that, because an outside agency comes into the Common Market with enormous factories and plants them in the agricultural part of Belgium, where there are no trade unions and cheap labour, that is an argument that small countries will do well in the Common Market? I would like to believe it is.

The one good point in Deputy FitzGerald's speech, which lasted four hours, was when he said that one of the most powerful arguments for moving eventually towards world government is that the organisation of industry throughout the world is of such a character that, without eventually some kind of world government, private corporations will be more powerful than individual countries. They will be totally out of control. That is an excellent point. There is no doubt about that. Again, to give the devil his due, it is a point of sorts in favour of our going into the Common Market. A point of sorts—it has only a limited bearing on it.

We are not about to go into the Common Market. Neither is Britain. The British will not sell their Commonwealth preferences down the drain. It will be to their advantage not to. Look at the figures for the increase in the cost of living that will take place if we go into Europe. From where does the corresponding good come? In the main document distributed to us there is an estimate. Mark you, it is interesting to compare the nature of the promises made in the White Paper and the Taoiseach's speech. This document is full of "ifs" and "buts" and "whatevers"; the Taoiseach's speech, on the other hand, was quite optimistic. Listen to what the document says: first of all, it says we will get a voice. The second point is that gains from EEC membership would be progressive and in the longer term would significantly outweigh any losses that might occur. Who knows that? On what is that based?

A Deputy

Experts!

Experts! That great politician, Éamon de Valera, said on once occasion: "I never got any help from experts". I think I could turn up the reference. He said it: there is no question about that.

Membership would provide improved outlets at remunerative prices for most of our agricultural production.

I would accept this if the French did not find boll weevils in our better. I say "boll weevils" because there never have been boll weevils in this country. It is rather like the occasion when Mitchelstown cheese was not allowed in through the customs in America because, it was said, there were termites in it. Of course, what happened was that the cheese was so long in the customs clearance in New York that the termites got into it. Can anybody doubt the quality of Mitchelstown cheese? Look at the price of our cheese on the British market today? Does anybody believe that this kind of thing does not go on? Of course, it does. It is said that various producers would get higher prices. They certainly would if the stuff was allowed in.

It is tentatively estimated that the volume of our gross agriculture output by the latter years of the decade could be of the order of 30-40 per cent over the present level.

There are two words in that sentence I want to draw attention to, "tentatively" and "could". We could have a fleet of 1,000 war planes by the end of the present decade. You could imagine it but it is not likely to happen.

Higher prices for agricultural products could result in an increase of 11 to 16 per cent in food prices which, allowing for some change in the present pattern of consumption, would result in an increase of 3-4½ per cent in the consumer price index...

God knows we have had enough increases in food prices over the last few months to do us for quite some time to come. A 16 per cent increase in food prices is not a joke on top of all the other increases which we will have through inflation.

It is not considered likely that the Treaty requirements for free movement of workers would have any significant effect on the Irish labour market.

I am inclined to think the exact opposite. I am inclined to think that we will have our workers working from Rotterdam to Rome and from Birmingham to Berlin if we go into the Community? I think in particular that the area west of the Shannon will become even more depopulated than it is at present.

The added value tax is then dealt with. I would agree with the Minister for Finance that it is tweedledum and tweedledee as to whether you have an added value tax or a wholesale plus a turnover tax because it is all the same. It then goes on to say:

So far as economic and monetary policies are concerned, membership of the Communities would involve the co-ordination of Irish policies with those of the other member States but in general our economic policies are consistent with those of the member States.

I am going through this because to the best of my knowledge no other speaker has done so. Even though we are asked to approve the White Paper nobody went through it in this way. The portion from which I am quoting covers only one and a half pages of the document and does not take long to go through. I accept what is said in this document about our economic and monetary policies. I have not forgotten when there was a development towards freeing of trade that we were one of the countries which had 95 per cent free trade and we were the first country in Western Europe to do this. This kind of thing would not create any real difficulty for us. I agreed with the Minister for Industry and Commerce this morning that this is so. The White Paper continues:

The cost of implementing the principle of equal pay in the private sector cannot be readily estimated.

This is a favourite topic of mine. I want to phrase it the way I would like to phrase it: "Equal pay for men and women doing the same work". I do not like "equal pay for equal work" because that might mean other things. It could quite easily mean the kind of argument used against the cement workers, that if the cement workers for their dirty job had got what they were looking for they would have been pace setting in wages. The annual cost of implementing equal pay for men and women doing the same work would be approximately £1¼ million in the public sector. There is then something which I find difficult to understand:

If, in consequence, marriage-differentiated scales were to be abolished and related adjustments made in the pay of grades consisting entirely of women, the total cost would exceed £9 million a year.

It would cost that amount because the married scale would have to be abolished. It would not stop children's allowances being paid to married men but you could not have two scales under this system and, therefore, the cost would be almost £10 million but it would be worth it.

Now, here is what I want to talk most emphatically about:

It is estimated that Ireland's contribution to the cost of running the Communities could be of the order of £19 million a year as from the end of her transitional period but might well be less.

I could easily say that it might well be more. In fact, the chances are about a million to one that it would be more even if we forget about inflation altogether. The White Paper continues:

Membership would give rise to a saving of at least £36 million a year in Exchequer support to agriculture.

Talk about delusions, illusions and imagination. In other words, those countries in Europe, because they like the look of our blue eyes or something like that, are going to pay up so well that we will be able to dismantle our whole system of subsidising agriculture. I should like to believe this but I cannot.

It will be apparent from what I have been saying that what I object to— other members of this party have dealt with other aspects—is the sacrifice of our economic independence which would result. This economic independence was started on the whole by the civil servants rather than by Fianna Fáil though why the Fianna Fáil Party allowed the civil servants to lead them by the nose in this matter is beyond me. The whole world is moving that way. We must have freedom of trade.

Deputy FitzGerald spoke about how protection could not be here forever and then he went on to say that he never read a textbook on this matter. That is not my experience. I read various textbooks which I will not name particularly when Mr. de Valera came to power in 1932 and subsequently about tariff protection and examination of tariffs. There is no reason why protection should not exist for quite a long time. This is where Deputy FitzGerald got mixed up. He employed the infant industry argument in favour of protection but that is only one of the arguments in favour of protection. The United States started it under Alexander Hamilton and the Germans started it under Lizst during the middle of the last century. England did not have to do it because she was in first but she has done a fair bit of it since.

What will be the position of our farmers in the Community under the Mansholt Plan? He said quite plainly that we are in politics not in business. His proposals are that the numbers of people engaged in agriculture should continuously be reduced. The suggestion is made, and again the problem was phrased by Deputy FitzGerald, that the prospects of staying out were so deplorable that nobody could even face up to them. Here are the facts as given in the documents presented to us. The EEC countries at present get 44 per cent of their imports from other EEC countries and get 56 per cent of their imports from countries that are not in the EEC. Consider the range of climate, the range of ability and the range of industries in France, Germany, Italy, Holland and Belgium and yet they import—if they exchange goods between one another and import from other countries—about three-fifths from the rest of the world and about two-fifths from among themselves. Similarly, their exports to other EEC countries are about 47 per cent and their exports to countries other than EEC countries are the balance, 53 per cent. So that, either way, you get the EEC countries having greater trade with the rest of the world than they have inter se.

A number of figures were given to us about the proportion of savings in this country as compared with EEC countries and comparisons of GNP. This kind of thing is the ultimate in bunk. Colin Clark, who started this matter to a greater extent than did the late Lord Keynes, wrote "The Conditions of Economic Progress" before the War. He pointed out that once you start to compare one country with another you run into trouble straight away; that comparisons, international units, and so on, are all nonsense.

The Macro economists have made claims for their figures that are unsustainable to any reasonable person. One of the best of them, Gardner Atlee, in his big textbook is unable to defend in a way that would convince any person that the defects are not much worse than he makes out. For example, if a woman cooks a meal for her family, the value of that in GNP is the cost of the meat, vegetables, and so on, which she bought. But, if she is lazy and does not do the job, and the family are taken out to a restaurant, the value of it in GNP is what is paid in the restaurant. Therefore, the more you have people eating out, the more the GNP goes up.

Similarly, in a country like this, particularly, where there are small independent farmers, where the farmer builds an outhouse for his cattle, with the help, say, of a mason and carpenter, the only value that comes into GNP for that outhouse is the cost of the raw materials and the wages he pays to the carpenter and mason. He looks after the drawing of the materials and he assists them in every way himself. That is not in it at all. It is not that difficult: many a man has done the whole job himself. It does not come into this system at all. What is Gardner Atlee's answer in his textbook? It is that a woman would not like you to say that she spent one-tenth of her time washing dishes; one-fifth of her time shopping and so on, and try to put a value on these activities. I do not think women are interested at all in that aspect but it is no answer to the grave defect in this GNP stunt.

When you have the kind of set-up in the EEC, and indeed it applies to this country also, the more people spend through the central organisations the more the GNP goes up, but the real standard of living of the people does not go up at all. You have bigger figures but they do not represent anything. It is like saying that we have more motor cars here. The Minister pointed out last night that 5,000 motor cars were registered in March this year. I wonder how much those 5,000 motor cars contribute to the wellbeing of this country. It may well be that, far from contributing to the welfare of the country, it would be much better if they had not been bought at all and if the money had been put to some other purpose and would not increase the fumes in our towns and cities.

There is constant double thinking in this matter. The Minister for Finance has shown himself to be an extremely simple man in his approach. He thinks the Irish language will survive better if we are in the EEC. I do not believe the chances of the survival of the Irish language will be affected whether we go into the EEC or stay out or, in fact, if a kind of North Atlantic group was created, as suggested by the former Deputy Dillon many times.

I should like to give one more example of the appalling attitude towards this matter. David Hamilton— I shall not mention the second name because he is a friend of my own— was asked to go on television in 1962 to discuss the Common Market with a protagonist, a well-known Irishman, a most able man. That is why I shall not mention his name. They were to have two discussions. Mr. Hamilton so demolished his opponent in the first discussion that the second one never took place. Would anyone like to check on that? That is a nice reflection on the people who gave the word to Telefís Éireann, in effect: "Stop this. This is too bad. We are being exposed." The fact was that this extremely able man, who has been most successful in more walks of life than one, was demolished completely and absolutely. I take it that, like a sensible man, he said, in effect: "This fellow knows too much about it. I have had enough. I shall not go in any more."

Although it was suggested here that people had not done their work on this, there is one group of people who have been the conscience of the country in this matter. They are not people I am associated with. I have no connection with them. I am talking about Sinn Féin. Sinn Féin have put up the proper attitude on this matter. I would ask why the warnings that I have been issued to us are not receiving more heed. The Italian Ambassador recently drew our attention to conditions in southern Italy. I want to make it quite clear that Italy as a country has done extraordinarily well in the Common Market but the part of Italy that has done so extraordinarily well is the Milan-Turin axis, the industrialised part of Italy. Take the suggestion put to us by General de Gaulle to become an associate member. We are now told that the big countries in the EEC do not like associate members and we would not have a voice. As far as I am concerned, you can have the voice.

Does associate membership cover agriculture?

Yes, it does, as I understand it. Turkey and Greece have associate membership. They sell a lot of currants to the Common Market countries and compete with areas in France and there have been complaints about this. It has been suggested many times that, even when we were with Britain in the British Commonwealth preference system, we could have become associate members of the Common Market. I think that is possible, although I am not condemning the Government for saying that we would not mess around with our position vis-à-vis Britain for some unknown quantity.

Associate membership in this instance is a contradiction in terms really, is it not? We have none of the responsibilities or rights of membership, so it can hardly be called membership. It is an association agreement.

I have already been on to the subject of the meaning of words today. What does associate membership mean?

Oh, the Deputy has been on to this subject already. Well, I do not think there is any such thing in this context anyway.

People can define words as they like. "Words mean what I intend them to mean." This is a well-known piece of writing.

They sometimes mean what others hear them to mean too.

They sometimes mean what is in the hearer's mind.

That is perfectly true.

A well-known politician in this country demonstrated time and again that people heard what they thought they were hearing not what he, in fact, said.

I am sure the Deputy is anxious to get on quickly with this debate. I am sorry I intervened.

I have not yet spoken for four hours. Normally I like to speak for about three-quarters of an hour.

Does the Deputy hope to?

No, I would be afraid I might collapse at the end of it. However, I have every intention of showing how much in earnest I am about this matter by speaking at great length. I do not want to have any doubt about this. I am not speaking on this matter because I am a member of the Labour Party. I am glad to be in a party where on the most important matter which has confronted this country for a long time in the economic sphere I am 100 per cent with them.

If length alone is to be the criterion of earnestness henceforth in this House, I am afraid we will be here forever doing nothing.

I shall have to be tough with the Parliamentary Secretary for a moment. A month ago I said in this House, though not publicity: "This House is slowly grinding to a halt." Why was it grinding to a halt? Because we were engaged with the internal matters of the Fianna Fáil Party.

Some of them are resolved today, temporarily.

To the detriment of the party.

We will not shed any crocodile tears for the party. I do not often make long speeches in this House but I want to bring home once and for all that I am deadly in earnest in my attitude about this. If I spoke for only half an hour it would not count, but if I delay the Government Party I will not be doing any great harm because they have been doing nothing for so long.

At least there is one point on which we are in agreement with the Labour Party.

The Deputy has made one valid point.

I have made some pretty good points.

The case against association is ruled out with a single sentence of doubtful validity. I know the method of thinking that goes on in the Civil Service. One cannot be the sore thumb in the Civil Service. No man in the Civil Service ever wants to be regarded as the sore thumb. It is tolerated a great deal more in political parties than it is in the Civil Service. One is regarded as a nuisance there.

The Deputy has the benefit of both.

I have seen how both operate. I want to make another valid point, and Deputy Hogan will not like this one. Fine Gael sold out on Arthur Griffith's policy when they did not vote against the Anglo-Irish Free Trade Area Agreement. Mind you, that error of theirs is not irrevocable. That agreement could be denounced, though the Government party would pretend that it could not.

The fears our leader talked about are based on realities. The talk that has been going on here that we will be free to do this and that in Europe is absurd in the extreme. Once we go in we are caught. The case is made that those who are against going in, who fear the consequences of going in, are anxious to maintain our dependence on Britain. I never came across a greater piece of absurdity. The Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries said he was not prepared to listen to a Labour Party "claque". He repeated the word so often, I thought it was an insulting kind of word. I must admit my education in that respect seems to have been neglected anyway. Perhaps the Parliamentary Secretary would try to define it. I looked it up in the dictionary and I found a "claque" meant "an institution for securing the success of a public performance by bestowing upon it preconcerted applause". I did not know we were engaged in that kind of activity. What we were trying to do at that stage was to get the Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries to see the reality in Deputy Cruise-O'Brien's speech, not the kind of thing that he was trying to plank on it, the pretence that Deputy Cruise-O'Brien was talking one way one moment and another way the next. Anybody who is interested in Deputy Cruise-O'Brien's view can get it in the final sentence of his speech. It is there plain to be read.

I could not agree more. One would not have to read all the pages, one could get it all in the final sentence. He treated the House to a dissertation of lengthy nonsense.

He did not make such a long speech.

He did not make nearly as long a speech as I am making here today.

He is not capable of it. I grant the Deputy that.

Though he has spoken frequently in this House, he is not known as one of the long speakers.

I do not want to discuss Deputy Cruise-O'Brien's record in the House. I am talking about his contribution, as the Deputy mentioned it, to this particular debate.

In this debate—I agree wholeheartedly. I am making a debating point but it is a serious point: the pretence that he was shuffling backwards and forwards. He was doing nothing of the sort. I am afraid I still have some more notes, but not too many. They are evaporting gradually.

Deputy Boland called the Taoiseach a coward because the Taoiseach would not send the Army into the six north-eastern counties. For what purpose? Presumably to shoot the poor Protestants.

That is not all he called him.

I call the two——

What relevance has this——

Wait a moment. The parliamentary Secretary will have to wait until I finish the sentence. I call the two big parties cowards because they mean to scuttle the country.

That is not a very effective way of introducing that kind of offensive reference. The Deputy has not been very smart in introducing that.

What is offensive?

Referring to the EEC on that basis.

I wanted to introduce a literary reference. Am I not allowed to make a literary reference?

It is not a literary reference. The record will be the judge.

It is a literary reference.

It is a gratuitous offence.

To anyone concerned. The Deputy wants to do anything but discuss the issues of the EEC. This is a debate on the EEC.

It is intended to be an insulting reference to the two big parties. Let us be precise about it. I call the two big parties in this House cowards because they mean to scuttle our country. They are really shivering at the thought that, in certain circumstances, they might have to get down to realities and that they might have to preserve our country. Our country is not so bad that it deserves to be sold out in this fashion. The two big parties have been clinging to Mother England's skirts and the Fianna Fáil Party have been wasting our substance subsidising foreign combines. This is relevant now and it is near enough to the six north-eastern counties. Is it not a fact that we guarantee the boundaries of the other countries in the EEC when we join, under the Treaty of Rome? Yes, it is a fact, so we are permanently binding ourselves to be a 26-county unit. I have said this more than once in private but I have not said it in public before. This debate is a non-event. Its purpose is to divert attention from the serious state of our economy, with galloping inflation, with a 4.5 per cent increase in the cost of living in three months—the highest ever.

I want to ask a serious question. Will Fine Gael vote with the Government when this debate is over? They have not disclosed to us as yet what their intention is. Or will they sit on those benches as they did in relation to the Anglo-Irish Free Trade Area Agreement? Fine Gael should make up their minds this time.

We will not answer prematurely as Deputy Corish did.

They will have lots of time. I am not the only person who will be making a long address to the House on this subject. This debate will go on for a very long time, if you like playing the Government's game and diverting attention from the realities.

Is the Deputy's reference to a long speech a promise or a threat?

The Deputy has just come into the House. I will barely be able to last until Question Time and then I will refresh myself for a further effort after Questions. I got in a bit too soon.

The Deputy should not refresh himself too much.

A man with a pin should not talk like that. He flaunts it occasionally. I do not mind how he refreshes himself. I hope he got rid of that pin for all time. It is absurd.

Is the Deputy agreeing that Deputy Corish answered prematurely on a few occasions?

I am not agreeing that Deputy Corish answered prematurely.

Tullamore?

I agreed with him absolutely. He did not put it nearly strongly enough.

Tullamore in 1965?

The Deputy is now talking about a different problem. I thought the Deputy meant that he answered prematurely in this debate.

Nevertheless a premature answer.

If the Fine Gael Party vote with Fianna Fáil on this motion it will merely end the old split which destroyed, and will destroy, Griffith's great policy for this country and continued by de Valera, and that policy will be in ruins. Why cannot Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael be honest and join openly? This debate proves conclusively the junction that already exists——

The former Deputy Paddy Tierney was very honest.

The former Deputy Paddy Tierney has nothing to do with the EEC.

Just with Deasy.

His initials are PT and not EEC. The Deputy from East Donegal should not draw me on him because he is not very good at this form of repartee.

I am learning.

This debate proves conclusively that a junction between Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael already exists. In fact, it is high time the marriage was consummated by their turning into one Party.

There is the precedent of Fianna Fáil and Labour.

The two parties are mutually selling out our independence.

It is marriage he is talking about.

There is a precedent for that marriage.

Marriage Donegal style.

I think he is trying to perform the ceremony himself without the full faculties.

Badly as the province of Connaught has been doing in recent years—and it has been doing badly indeed—it will do much worse if we enter the Common Market. In County Mayo, according to the Statistical Abstract there are 26,000 holdings and only 600 of them are over 100 acres in size. Of course they could be 100 acres or 200 acres of bog or mountain land so that, in fact, probably out of 26,000 the number of genuine holdings with over 100 acres of good land is about 100. As my colleague remarks to me, you would want to get the PLV. You would want to know what the land was worth.

Lest it be thought that I am extreme in my views and that I think everything in Western Europe is bad, I want to say that this is not so at all. There is one thing I hope we will have to adopt if, by chance, we go into the Common Market and that is a large part of the social policy of the Common Market. Children's allowances in this country are half what they are in England and in England they are half what they are in France and Italy.

That is not correct.

It is correct. The Deputy should get the document on the common man in the Common Market which was circulated to us and read it.

I am talking about British and Irish.

They are given double in Britain. We give them per month what they are given per week in Britain.

The first child does not get anything in Britain.

What has the first child to do with family allowances? —nothing whatever. As I have said before, people who do not have a child have a cat or a dog.

May we get back to the debate on the EEC?

Surely the social policy of the EEC is relevant, a Leas-Cheann Comhairle? Our children's allowances are half what they are in Britain and in Britain they are half what they are in France and Italy. That fact was stated in the document which the Government were good enough to circulate entitled "The Common Market and the Common Man".

When a person is out of work in Germany he is paid unemployment benefit at the rate of 70 per cent of what he normally earns. Their employment numbers are so small, because they manage their affairs properly that they can do this. The unemployed worker here gets about a third of his normal earnings in benefit.

Thirty-five per cent.

That is half what he would get in Germany.

Both Opposition parties crib about further taxation. How are we to give this money without taxation?

As I have said before, use the printing press or get the banks to write it up on their books.

That is what the Deputy did.

It is not what we did but it is what you are doing. The Government got £25 million last year and they have said they are going to get £50 million from the commercial banks this year, yet the economy is only to get £25 million. That has been stated publicly by the Central Bank and by the Government on their behalf. In other words, the Government are to have twice as much money as the country. That is a nice way to run a country.

Banking developments here are favourable to going into the EEC. These developments did not start yesterday or the day before. The whole euphoria about going into the EEC originally arose here in the year 1960. I saw it happen. There was a junction of forces between the two big parties, the directors of the commercial banks, the higher civil servants and, indeed, a few innocent bishops.

Was "Bishop" Burke in on that?

I understood he was "Father" Burke. Dr. Philbin, a man for whom I have the highest regard, allowed himself to be induced into writing an article and study about the Common Market.

The Deputy should see some of the books he has written.

As I have said before in this House, I talk for John O'Donovan.

The Deputy is independent Labour.

I get the greatest amusement out of the Deputy; there is no doubt about that. He is helping me considerably at the moment.

We have independent Fianna Fáil and we have independent Labour.

Would Deputies allow Deputy O'Donovan to make his contribution?

The Minister for Industry and Commerce spoke this morning about the reports he has had. We have had reports by the dozen, almost by the tens of dozens. I should like to know how many people read these reports? They are circulated to us, but how many are sold by the Government Publications Sales Office? I believe very, very few are sold except the occasional one which strikes a chord in people. I do not believe the dull, pedestrian reports produced by the various committees sell at all. As I have said before, I do not believe any Deputy except Deputy FitzGerald reads them.

So much for his speeches.

I am convinced that he reads them by skimming over them. If a person were to read these reports seriously he could not possibly deal with them in depth because of the amount of junk that comes to us through our letter-boxes every morning. Can any Deputy deny that?

The Deputy does not fully appreciate Deputy FitzGerald.

I do not fully appreciate how much employment it gives.

No, the Deputy does appreciate fully Deputy FitzGerald's ability.

I do appreciate Deputy FitzGerald's ability.

This may put the Deputy out of office in an inter-party government.

Is the Deputy talking to Deputy Belton or to me?

I did not find it so happy the last time. I am not unduly concerned. Unlike the Minister for External Affairs, Dr. Hillery, who said he has done every job well, I never felt I was particularly successful in government.

The Deputy is honest anyway.

I agree with the Minister for Industry and Commerce that we should not mention in this debate firms unlikely to survive. The Minister gave us one reason for not mentioning them but I have another one. The Minister said that a firm which seems to be on its last legs is sold, a new group of people take it over and make a great success of it. We have all seen this happen. My reason for not mentioning firms is that I do not think it is fair that the names of firms who are surviving or barely surviving should be blazoned around as firms unlikely to survive in the Common Market. Of course, the names were known privately in 1961 and 1962.

I want to speak now about the way our newspapers have handled the subject. One day last week or the week before a newspaper critic wrote about the indecent haste with which we were all so keen to go into the Common Market. The very next day, proving that newspaper comment is only for 24 hours—I do not know how long political comment is supposed to be for— the critic wrote about the wonderful speech made the previous day in the House. Mr. Lemass when he was leader of the Fianna Fáil Party said the public memory was six months— he was speaking about political matters—but I doubt that. I think public memory is longer than 24 hours, but I do not think it is six months. I think it is less and I expect the Fianna Fáil Party are hoping it is less.

After the Labour Party's last outing I hope for their sake it is less.

The Deputy is the greatest help. I was very friendly with his father when he was in the House. I am glad the Deputy is here. I do not understand why we should constantly try to destroy this independence for which so many generations of Irishmen fought, when we have just got it. Although I criticise the management of the present Government—all Governments are criticised here—it was said correctly that all Governments in this country did good things. The present Government do good things although not so often as I should like to see them done. On the whole all Governments here have done good things but I am horrified when I see this kind of document with all the doubts and "its" and "buts" included in it.

Then we had the Taoiseach's introductory speech. I admire the Taoiseach very much but his speech was rather like the kind of essay that would be written by a schoolboy who had been well taught and well briefed and who had reached intermediate certificate standard. That is what the Taoiseach's introduction of this whole matter sounded like to me across the House. I am quite sure the Taoiseach did not write it himself. Therefore, essentially I am reflecting on the ghost writer and he will have to bear with that because that is how it sounded, the kind of essay an able young schoolboy of 15 would write.

I want to end on a light note; I have nearly exhausted all my notes. I have not made the kind of effort Deputy MacEntee used to make when he read long chunks out of documents. I should like to refer to the occasion in the Common Market when they stopped the clock. Do Deputies not remember? They were trying to agree on something relating to agriculture and they agreed to finish the discussion by 12 o'clock on December 31st of some year or other. They were not able to finish and so they stopped the clock. I do not think that even the Fianna Fáil Party have ever been guilty of such a piece of extreme nonsense.

But they did agree. Agreement was reached and that is the important thing.

By stopping the clock. The Parliamentary Secretary is turning my light point into something serious. He is a very serious Deputy, too serious. He should not engage in this banter at all. I intended it as a light point in a long speech and the Parliamentary Secretary turns it into a serious matter.

I have only one more sentence to say. We shall await the referendum on this issue with the greatest pleasure and I shall say this—putting it with moderation—for both big parties, when the chips are down many of them will have no part in betraying their country.

The step being contemplated, entry to the Common Market, apart from being one of the most important decisions taken in a long time, is also a fundamental departure from much of the thinking we had in the past, not alone political thinking but also economic thinking. I think Deputy O'Donovan is correct when he says that we have departed from the ideas of Arthur Griffith. We have, and I do not see that there is anything fundamentally wrong in that. It is an illogical person who does not change his mind in changed circumstances. Whatever arguments, political and economic, may have been correct in the days of Arthur Griffith it is not necessarily the case that they would be correct now. We have come a long way from his times.

When he introduced the doctrine of Sinn Féin, so far as I understand it, back in 1907 or 1908, his idea was to emphasise political—and as a corollary —economic independence. Things have not shaped out that way. It seems that the reverse has occurred, that with an increasing degree of political independence we have had an increasing degree of economic dependency. It seems to have worked inversely. Everybody thought in those days, when people's concepts were less sophisticated than now, that it was a simple matter of getting political independence and from there on you would have economic salvation and that economic benefits would flow.

In those days I am sure that did hold for larger communities. The old philosophy in Britain was that trade follows the flag. They planted the flag and trade did follow. That was the thinking that obtained in a large empire. In our case, although we did achieve a limited degree of independdence for a limited part of our island, we did not secure corresponding economic advantages. All down the years we have paid an economic price for the political independence, relative though it may be, which we secured and which operates here.

It is true that the Irish people as such have been prepared to pay that price. We have paid it every year. It has not been paid on a very fair basis. Since the State was established I would say that the one section of the community that has paid the price for the amount of political freedom we have is largely the agricultural community. If we examine our society I think we shall have to admit that, by and large, professional classes, traders, industrialists and most sections of the community including employed persons, have kept pace with or kept fairly close to, corresponding remuneration and incomes in Britain, but the section of the community which had continually to send goods into a world dump, a country pursuing a policy of cheap food for the people, year in, year out, whether they know it or not—and most of them do not know it—paid an annuity for the amount of political freedom we obtained here and which we enjoy.

They have never been given sufficient credit for that, but it is a fact. Not alone did they pay that price in an accentuated way during the economic war but they paid it before that and since then, and even since the Anglo-Irish Free Trade Area Agreement came into operation. During all that time, to a greater or lesser extent our agricultural community have paid the price of the degree of political freedom we enjoy much more than any other section of the community. Other sections of the community have had their incomes raised but when you compare our farming community with the farming community in Britain or Northern Ireland there is a disparity and that is the price which has been extracted from us since the State was founded for the degree of freedom we have.

Debate adjourned.
Barr
Roinn