Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Thursday, 23 Mar 1972

Vol. 259 No. 15

Membership of EEC: Motion (Resumed).

The following motion was moved by the Taoiseach on 21st March, 1972:

That the Dáil takes note of the White Paper—The Accession of Ireland to the European Communities—and the Supplement thereto.

Debate resumed on the following amendment:

To add to the motion the following:—

"and deplores the inadequacy of the negotiations described therein and rejects the terms set out".

—(Deputy Keating.)

Dr. FitzGerald

Before we adjourned for Question Time I was mentioning some of the features of the EEC which, from our point of view, are important. I mentioned the customs union, which is significant, because if we are outside the Community we will face that customs barrier unless we sign a trade agreement giving free trade on our side. I mentioned the common agricultural policy and its implications. I mentioned the principle of non-discrimination, but there is also the decision-making system of the Community which carries with it considerable interest for us.

There is the fact that all decisions affecting the vital interests of member states are taken by unanimity. This has been the practice and there is no indication that this practice will be departed from. There is moreover the fact that, if at any stage the French position on this matter changes and this practice is departed from, the voting system by which decisions will then be taken is, I think, uniquely favourable to us and to small countries generally, one under which our voting power would be five times that justified by our population and under which we and other small countries would have blocking power against actions of the larger powers should there be any attempt by the large to exploit the small, so much so, indeed, that even if five of the six small countries in the enlarged Community got together on some issue to protect themselves against the larger countries they, with 13 per cent of the population, would have an absolute blocking power on any decision, even if the qualified majority system is implemented. From our point of view, to join a Community in which the rights of small countries are so remarkably protected is naturally something of particular interest and attraction to us. The fact that this was the price that the larger powers had to pay in the 1950s to secure the agreement of Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg to join in this Community is significant and something which the people of this country should be told fully about.

These are some of the features of the Community which are important to us and they carry with them certain conclusions. First of all, there is the basic factor that the principle of non-discrimination makes it impossible for Britain to exploit this country any longer by paying our farmers lower prices than those paid to her own farmers. That alone is worth twice as much to us as any possible losses attributable to the withdrawal of protection. Those who insist on the right of sovereignty in all respects, regardless of the consequences for us, must take the consequences of that. If we insist that we retain sovereignty in all economic matters to the fullest degree, by remaining outside the EEC, then we cannot object to other people maintaining their sovereignty and using it against us. If we wish to obtain the benefits of the restraint on the exercise of British sovereignty to our disadvantage, which is one of the inherent features of the EEC, we can only secure that advantage if we join it. If we remain outside, we remain open to exploitation not only by Britain but by the Community as a whole. If we join it we get the protection of the Community in that respect. Those who are opposed to membership must have regard to this if they are serious in concerning themselves with Irish interests.

There is also the fact, to which inadequate attention has been paid, that this Community, from the point of view of an agricultural producer, is one uniquely attractive. It consists of some of the greatest industrial powers in Europe whose wealth enables them to protect their farming community through a system of relatively high prices, and within which the farming community is numerous enough to be able to acquire that protection through their influence in the democratic system.

Another feature is that within that Community the range of climate is very different from anything we are used to in this country or in Britain. In Britain and in Ireland the climate is broadly favourable to the production of livestock products and grass. Consequently, even the prices the British farmers secure from the British consumer for their products, even the prices paid in Britain for farm products, are by European standards very low in relation to livestock products. We have been accustomed to selling the great bulk of our products to a country where not alone do we suffer from price discrimination but where even if we did get the full price, that price would be by the standards of the Continent of Europe low, because although, as Deputy Keating has pointed out, there are parts of the Continent, the north-western corner, where grass grows fairly easily, taking the Community as a whole it is not a grass-growing area, and, in order to induce a sufficient, or approximately sufficient, output of meat in this Community as a whole, it is necessary for them to pay prices not alone higher than the prices we are used to, and very much higher, but also higher than the prices paid in Britain. We have been used to selling our products in the British market where the price of meat and the price of milk are usually low and where we do not even get these prices. In future, we can be selling in a market where the prices of these products are high for basic climatic reasons which man is not capable of changing, which are unchangeable of their very nature, and we shall be assured of being paid the identical prices the farmers in this Community are paid. The prices that are actually paid to a German farmer to induce him in the conditions of farming in Germany to produce milk and enough beef for that country's requirements are the prices our farmers will get.

This represents not only a change of a kind which has no parallel in our relationship with Britain but also a change in our fundamental relationship with other countries to which we sell our goods. At no time in our past history have we ever been placed in the kind of situation we will be in in the EEC. I know that in asserting that I will draw on me the usual accusation of being an enthusiast for Europe but, never mind; whether or not I am an enthusiast for Europe, I am stating a fact. If anybody has a different fact to put forward, if anybody feels that my statements about the climate are incorrect, that I am incorrect in saying that the great bulk of this area is not well adapted to the low-cost production of beef and milk, let them say that. But it is no answer to say that, when I make an assertion, it must not be believed because I am in favour of membership, no more than it would be valid for me to say that something Deputy Justin Keating said should not be believed because he is against membership. Facts should be judged on their merits rather than by the intrusion of personalities into the debate, the kind of personalities we have had, for example, from Deputy O'Donovan, who told this House, with all signs of apparent seriousness, that my enthusiasm for membership derived from the fact that I thought that, within an enlarged EEC, I would have more opportunity of speaking French. If we are to discuss the EEC at that level, this debate is just a waste of time and the contributions of Deputy Flanagan and Deputy O'Donovan are, in fact, a waste of time, a rather considerable waste of time.

Mr. Tully

Which Deputy Flanagan was that?

Dr. FitzGerald

Deputy Flanagan sitting up in that corner behind me.

Mr. Desmond

Surely the Deputy would not accuse a fellow-economist of not presenting a serious contribution.

Dr. FitzGerald

I would only do so when he did not, but suggestions that my motivations in this matter relate to my proficiency to speak French are not, I think Deputy Desmond will agree, a very serious contribution to the debate.

Mr. Desmond

I fear greatly for the future of UCD economic students.

Dr. FitzGerald

Diversity of economic thought is desirable in a university. I want now to apply myself seriously to the serious arguments put forward by a serious representative of the Labour Party, Deputy Justin Keating. He asserted that the two great issues here, the two threats to us, came from free trade and the outflow of capital. His arguments were, I think, sufficiently seriously put to merit a reply and I am by no means confident that on the Government side of the House there will be such a reply, that there is either the capacity or the will to give such a reply, and it is up to us then on this side of the House on this occasion as on other occasions to answer these points.

On the first point of freedom of trade, Deputy Keating is right that freedom of trade poses problems for this country, but he himself made it clear that, if we did not join the Community, the threat that would be posed to our export industries and the 35,000 jobs in those industries, producing products sold to Britain, the threat that would be involved in our remaining outside in facing tariffs on the British market of up to 24 per cent is such that——

Mr. Tully

What industries is the Deputy talking about?

Dr. FitzGerald

The whole range of our industrial products, all of which would face tariffs in the British market if we do not join the Community and Britain does.

Mr. Tully

Those are the goods Deputy FitzGerald said would be dearer than the imported ones.

Dr. FitzGerald

We are talking about exports at the moment and 35,000 workers are engaged in producing goods which are sold competitively, usually in the British market.

Mr. Tully

The Deputy said the cost of living would not be raised too high because the price of food would be counterbalanced by cheaper industrial goods.

Dr. FitzGerald

These products are sold competitively as exports from this country to the British market.

The question of protection and the costs involved I shall come to later. I have constructed my speech in such a way that I am dealing with these two points separately, if Deputy Tully will allow me to do so. Deputy Keating himself told this House that we face free trade in any event and it would be disastrous for us, if we remained outside the Community, not to sign a trade agreement with the Community maintaining our free entry to the UK markets. For him, therefore, to say that membership of the Community poses two threats, free trade and the outflow of capital, is less than entirely fair because when he, at the same time, says that, in fact, that threat of free trade is there whether we join or not.

It is true that Deputy Keating has attempted to draw a distinction. He has said: "Yes, we would have to remove tariffs and quotas if we join the EEC; if we stay outside we would have to remove them, too, but we would be free to do other things, to protect our industries in a way that we would not be free to do in the EEC." But, each time he said this, I tried to extract from him some indication as to what exactly are the things we could do. He has given us some indication of the kind of things he is thinking of; he has spoken of taxation provisions which we could undertake to assist industry by tax reductions. But Deputy Keating did not advert to the fact that these negotiations have assured us the right to maintain the tax reliefs we have at the moment for industry, with the single qualification that, after 1977, the Commission may raise with us the question as to whether these tax reliefs should not be modified. But we have the right, if that question is raised, to seek their replacement by some other tax relief equally effective — for example, tax reliefs based on the expansion of total output rather than on an increase in export trade alone.

That is something which we should in any event be considering on its own merits and it would, I think, have been considered on its own merits even if the EEC issue had not arisen because, when trade is free, there is no point in discriminating in favour of exports since, in free trade conditions, there is exactly equal economic value in increased sales competitively in the home market, keeping out imports, or increased sales in export markets. One is as good as the other and there is no point in having a tax system discriminating, therefore, between export and home sales. We would, in any event, be thinking of such a change. Inside the EEC we have, therefore, the same rights to maintain the tax reliefs, in their present or in a modified form, equally effective for the full term that we ourselves consider these tax reliefs necessary — that is, until 1990 — and for Deputy Keating to suggest that, if we stay outside the EEC, we will be able to do something more or something different from what we do inside the EEC in terms of tax reliefs is not entirely accurate.

Secondly, he spoke of financial aid to industry. Inside the EEC we will be entitled to give grants for industrial development. There is no restriction on that and our present grants at their present level are compatible with EEC regional policy. There is no change in that respect. The only kind of assistance to industry which we could give outside the EEC, but could not give inside it, is direct subsidies to running costs. Why Deputy Keating as a socialist should wish to finance capitalism by giving subsidies to running costs I am not entirely clear, but I wonder whether outside the EEC we would, in fact, be capable of providing the kind of subsidies he speaks of because we would have to give massive subsidies for the export of farm produce. It was £36 million last year and it would rise very rapidly if prices and output rise, as he suggested would be the case outside the EEC. If we are to subsidise agriculture to the tune of many tens of millions of pounds and, indeed, achieve EEC prices and output outside the Community, that would cost us £200 million by 1978. If we were to do that and, at the same time, provide home subsidies to keep our private industry sector going, a somewhat unsocialist policy, but one advocated by Deputy Keating, where is the money to come from? Who is to subsidise who? Who is to pay all the taxes?

If industry is to be subsidised on its current production and if agriculture is to be subsidised on a massive scale, who will pay the taxes? Did Deputy Keating apply his mind at all to that question? He is right in thinking that outside the EEC we could provide current subsidies for industry and that inside it we could not, but he is wrong in thinking that, outside the EEC, we would be able financially, or would wish, to subsidise industries with current subsidies and to that extent his point, a good theoretical one, is not of any practical consequence.

I think, therefore, when you come down to it, Deputy Keating has failed here, as on previous occasions, to give any indication as to precisely what methods of assistance to industry we could employ outside the EEC, if we would wish, and be able to employ financially which we could not employ within it. There is no distinction there. It is a false distinction, a fudged distinction. In fact, inside or outside, we face free trade on much the same terms and the attempt to distinguish in this way—quite understandable because Deputy Keating has to make his case—in unconvincing.

His second point then concerns the outflow of capital and this has been asserted so often and has become so much the theme — I almost said the swan song — of the anti-EEC lobby that it needs to be dealt with a little more fully than it has, perhaps, been dealt with hitherto.

I have in the last couple of weeks written several articles on this subject in The Irish Times and I see a reply on this morning's paper, or what purports to be a reply, to one of these articles. Let us face the facts on this matter. Deputy Keating tells us that outside the EEC we could ensure an inflow of capital, inside it this would not happen because the capital would flow to the centre, to this golden triangle of which he, Deputy O'Donovan and others, are so fond of speaking. Precisely what changes in our economic conditions could induce this change in the flow of capital? Let us remember that at this time the inflow of capital to this country is on an enormous scale. Deputy Keating referred to the fact that we have very large investments outside Ireland. He referred to a flow of capital from Ireland. I listened to the words carefully, but he was, of course, incorrect. There is not a net flow of capital from Ireland. There was a net outflow of capital from Ireland in a sense during the first world war and to a lesser degree during the second world war, when we sold goods abroad and were not able to use the money to buy imports and accumulated assets abroad. If you call that an outflow of capital, that did happen, but the only flow of capital that has occurred in the last 20 years or more in this country has been an inflow of capital.

Only in one year, in the 1950s, was there ever a net outflow of capital of a very small kind, £7 million. The inflow of capital in the past three years has averaged £115 million and, indeed, our problem at the moment, and anybody who reads the Central Bank Bulletin will be aware of it, is that we are trying desperately and vainly to prevent the excessive inflow of capital to this country. The Central Bank set out in its credit advice a year ago that there should be no net inflow of capital to the non-associated banks in the year starting April last and our problem is that that advice has been disregarded and that a total of £46 million of capital has flowed in up to 18th January through these non-associated banks. We cannot stop the inflow of capital. Our attempts to do so have proved in vain. For Deputy Keating to talk as if this is a country from which capital flows out is nonsense. There has never been such an outflow of capital for decades past. There is an inflow of capital.

Why? Why is it this peripheral area is drawing capital from the golden triangle? The question must be asked. It is not good enough to talk theoretically and say that in an area with free movement of capital the capital moves outwards. This country is part of an area, with free movement of capital, with the United Kingdom. Within this area where capital moves freely we have a large chunk of the golden triangle from Birmingham to Dover. Why is it the capital is not now flowing out to that area from here? Why is the capital flowing in from London to Dublin? That question must be answered by anybody who is seriously asserting that within any area where there is a free flow of capital it must move to the area of highest living standards and highest output.

The fact is that under modern conditions capital seeks outlets where capital gets a return. Capitalists find that where there is an underdeveloped economy, where there are resources not fully tapped and not fully used, where there are workers unemployed, there they can get a return from their capital by lending their money out. They get a better return there because use can be made of it. Nobody is forcing this capital to come into this country. Of course, we attract some of it by industrial grants, by tax reliefs. But when you analyse the actual capital flow, you find that of the £115 million per annum which, on average, has come into this country in the past two years only £11 million last year and a similar sum the previous year can be identified as a direct investment flow for new industry. Ninety per cent of it is not related to new industry or to these grants or tax reliefs. Ninety per cent of it seems to be coming in to help finance the ordinary development of the Irish economy. It comes in freely.

Nobody forces it in. Some of it is borrowed by the Government. The Government can continue to borrow under EEC conditions and may be better placed to do so. Some of it is borrowed by State companies. They can still borrow in EEC conditions and will be better placed to do so. The rest flows in autonomously. We cannot even prevent it though we try to do so. It comes in here because it can get a better return here. On what basis is it suggested that if we join the EEC this return will become less good? What are the changes that will take place? I do not think much of this capital is coming in to protected industries. Much of it consists of an investment in the expansion of protected industries which are about to lose their protection. Capitalists may be odd but they are not lunatic. The last thing they would be doing would be pouring money at present into industries about to disappear under free trade. Therefore, the capital coming in at present cannot be for that purpose. Therefore, the removal of protection cannot have any net effect on the flow of capital.

Deputy Keating and the Labour Party are required to tell us precisely what changes in EEC conditions will lead to this extraordinary phenomenon, the reversal of the massive inflow of capital into Ireland turning it into an outflow. They must tell us why within the capital free flowing area of Ireland and Britain capital at present flows into this country to the tune of £115 million and not outwards. Until they answer those questions and face the fact that this is what is happening nobody can be expected to take seriously this argument or economic theory of an Adam Smith outdated character coming very oddly from the Labour Party that, of course, capital always flows to the centre. It does not for the reasons I have mentioned. These are the facts and I hope that in reply they will be adverted to because nobody will take seriously this argument when it runs completely contrary to the facts as we know them.

The truth is that Deputy Keating is living in the world of Adam Smith. He is somehow such a pure capitalist in his outlook that he thinks the rest of the world is purely capitalist. I mean that obviously humorously.

Mr. Tully

Obviously.

Dr. FitzGerald

There is a difficulty. You can be misled by a particular ideology into assuming that the world takes the shape that you think it ought to take according to your ideology. I do not defend capitalism. I do not like capitalism and the present capitalist system I find in many ways offensive. That does not mean that I turn it on its head and assert that under capitalism money flows outwards when, in fact, it flows in. We have to look at the facts and then find a theory that fits the facts, not invent a theory and ignore the facts, which is what is being done in this argument.

We are being asked by Deputy Keating why should multi-national companies come here under EEC conditions. Why do they come here now? What is it about this country at the moment that attracts them? Is it industrial protection? How many multi-national companies have come here in the last two years and set up firms behind tariff walls for the home market? Any? The multi-national firms that have come here have come here because of resources of labour here, because they believe they can manufacture here profitably despite the fact that they have only access to this and the British market and that they have not absolutely guaranteed access to the British market. The only significant change in EEC conditions will be the removal of the barriers which at present prevent goods from this country flowing freely to the whole of the EEC. The multi-national companies which come here now will come here much more freely under EEC conditions when there can be no question of any fresh barrier being imposed on trade to Britain which can now arise despite the free trade area agreement and will arise on 1st January next if we do not join. Under EEC conditions they would have access to a market of 160 million people. If they are coming here now, they will come in larger numbers then.

On the question of regional policy generally, I want to say a little more. We have these assertions that within the EEC the peripheral regions are losing out badly, that they are falling behind and declining but none of this bears any relation to the facts. Occasionally, some phrase is picked up from a newspaper publication which is latched onto as proving the point but the recent newspaper publication which dealt with this matter referred to a publication which I commend to the House. It is The Regional Evolution of the Community, a recent publication of the EEC which contains many tables at the back, perhaps, the most interesting of which is the very last table which gives us for each region within each country of the Community the relationship between domestic products per head in that region in 1960 and 1969 and the value in current money terms of domestic products per head in these two years.

From this it can be found that with a remarkably high degree of consistency the poorest regions had the fastest growth rates. There is no question about this. In Italy, above all, the country which is nearest to us, because in 1958, when the Community was founded, the GNP per head, the living standards, were identical with ours — under EEC conditions, of course, it forged far ahead in the meantime — in that country we find an extraordinary position in which in parts of the south the increase in living standards has been doubled in 9 years, where on average in the south, living standards increased by three-quarters, and where in the rich north-west the increase has been about one-third. The difference in the increase in living standards has been three-fold between the poor areas of the south and the rich areas of the north. It is true that as between some of these areas in the south and some in the north this three-fold faster growth rate in the south is still inadequate to achieve the catching-up process required because if you have one area where living standards are a quarter of the other and if you double the living standards of a quarter and increase by one-third the living standards on the higher level, there is still a slight widening of the gap but in any of these instances you like to take, if the growth rates of the last 9 years shown here are maintained for the next 9 years in all these areas, the catching-up process in absolute terms will begin to operate as it does already in many of them, as it does today in the very poorest of all, the province of Basilicata in the south of Italy. Anybody who asserts that within the EEC the national regional policies have failed to achieve faster growth in the poorer areas is flying in the face of the facts. You can look at Germany, Italy, Belgium. In each of these areas the poorest parts of the country have the fastest growth rates and the richest parts have by far the lowest growth rates. There is an absolutely consistent pattern from which, in fact, there are no exceptions.

I have a map here. Maps are not useful in the House. They cannot go on the record. I wish we could illustrate the record with little drawings and maps. They might enliven it at times. The map I have shows the provinces of Italy in 1960 in terms of standard of living. It shows those that are poorest in the south and along the east coast. The second map beside it shows increases in living standards and it shows these as by far the greatest in the areas of the south and along the east coast, almost identically the same areas. One by one, you can go over them and find that the poorest areas have grown fastest. The same is true in Germany and in Belgium. We do not know what has happened in France because there are no similar figures available for France. We only know that in France the areas from which emigration was greatest in the 1960s, before the Community was formed, are areas from which emigration has fallen sharply. In the whole north-west of the country, including Brittany, from which emigration was at a very high level between 1954 and 1962, in the following six years emigration has been about between one-third and 40 per cent only of emigration in the earlier period. We have not got the figures for regional income, regional output. We have the emigration figures, however, which are the best indication.

So, throughout the Community this phenomenon operates. Where does it not operate? —in this country. In this country we have totally failed. The only figures we have for Ireland are between 1960 and 1965 and they show that in that period the growth of output and income in Connacht has been less than in the rest of the country, that that area has, in fact, fallen further behind. How anybody can seriously suggest that in joining a Community in every member state of which the poorer areas have achieved a much faster growth rate than the richer we would lose something and that we should stay in the condition we are in, where our poorer areas are falling further behind, is something I cannot fathom. That kind of argument, unrelated to the facts, is not worthy of those who put it forward. Argument is only worth while if it is based on facts. To produce economic theories about flows of capital and poorer areas having lower growth rates means nothing when the facts are to the contrary. The quality of argument in this House suffers even from somebody of Deputy Keating's intellectual eminence when he does not have regard to the facts and produces theories and ignores the facts. So much for regional policy.

In the limited time at my disposal there are many other things I would like to deal with but I should like just to deal with two other points in what Deputy Keating said because his speech does merit a reply, which is not true of all the other contributions. There are two other points I should like to make because I was struck by the difficulty he had in making his case. He was forced into contradictions at certain points even within a few minutes of each other and that is something which I found in his case surprising. He told us, for example, at one point, that real farm income in the Community fell in the 1960s by 2 per cent per annum. This is possibly true, in fact. I do not dispute the fact. I will come to that in a moment. The figure sounds right to me. Then he tells me, within five minutes, that, of course, if we had joined the Community in 1961 we would have done very well in agriculture but we should not join it now. This is perverse. It is, of course, true that the Community in the late 1960s, having established a common agricultural policy with a common price level at the higher German/Belgium level, kept its price static for a few years because during that period the average price in the Community as a whole was rising rapidly as the lower prices had to catch up, French prices in particular. France is a low-price country and an increase in prices of about 20 per cent in five years and an increase in output of about 10 per cent, increases farm incomes by about one-third. The other countries had to mark time at that stage but, in fact, now, since 1969, farm prices have begun to rise rapidly because that period of adjustment to common policy is coming to an end and last year and the year before we had, for the first time since 1965, significant price increases in the Community and this year the price increases which are proposed by the Commission, trying to keep down, are 8 per cent in the case of milk, 9 per cent in the case of beef. We are told in the new press reports from Brussels that these increases are unlikely to be accepted, that they are too low, that the farmers are looking for more and the Ministers for Agriculture and Finance will probably have to concede more to them.

Mr. Tully

This morning's news said 7 per cent.

Dr. FitzGerald

For what?

Mr. Tully

Average price in the Common Market.

Dr. FitzGerald

I am talking of the products we are interested in. Of course, the prices are lower for other products, for grain, I think, 4 per cent, but we are not a grain producing country. We are interested in the price increases of 8 per cent at least for milk and 9 per cent at least for beef. They may be more. I do not stress the point as to whether they will be more or not. The fact is that it is since 1969 that the Community prices have begun to rise sharply because, having had their period of adjustment, the farmers are now demanding that the prices generally will rise. For Deputy Keating to say that we should have joined the Community in 1961, for the decade in which, on average, real income fell, although in France, a country in a similar position to us, the low prices there rose and rose sharply —and that we should not join in 1969 when prices are starting to rise is, I think, perverse.

Secondly, Deputy Keating put forward the remarkable argument that if we join the Community and are a member of it there will be no question of our being allowed to produce more milk year after year, that, of course, quotas will be imposed to restrict our output. There is no evidence whatever for this. No suggestion has been made by anybody in the Community that output should be restricted of either milk or other products by quotas.

Mr. Tully

"Agriculture in the Seventies" says so.

Dr. FitzGerald

No suggestion is made of a restriction of milk or beef by quotas. The only area where they apply is in relation to sugar. No proposal of that kind exists for restriction by quotas. Deputy Keating said that, if we join, our milk output will be restricted by quotas. If we do not join, then he tells us, of course, it will be quite different. If we remain outside the Community, having no right whatever to participate in the agricultural policy, then he said that our 3½ per cent of the total of milk was a very small problem, such a small problem that they would fix us up; there would be no difficulty about it. Anybody who suggests that if you join the Community you are ruined and will not be allowed to produce any more but if you stay out there is no problem, that people will facilitate you, is not being terribly serious in the argument he puts forward.

For these reasons, although the intellectual level of Deputy Keating's speech was high, although, as always, he made a serious contribution to the debate, I am afraid that the absence of a factual foundation for his speech, his ignoring of the actual facts of capital flows, his unwillingness to face the implications of his own view that we must face free trade one way or the other and the contradictions in regard to agricultural policy into which he was forced by the intellectual position he has had to take up, leave me unconvinced that what he had to say need be taken terribly seriously in these circumstances.

From that I want to turn to one or two other points in the brief time available. I want to deal briefly with prices. It is important that we are clear what the position is about prices. Here, as elsewhere, we had from Deputy Flanagan various assertions, none of them quantified, none of them to be taken very seriously. In this case, in regard to prices, I think we should be clear on the facts. The facts are that there are certain farm products whose prices will rise sharply in the EEC. These are milk, beef and, though the Minister for Labour did not mention it and should have, mutton and lamb. These prices will rise sharply. The farm price in the EEC in 1970 was about 50 to 55 per cent higher than here. The gap is now smaller because, of course, farm prices have risen sharply in response to the expectation of EEC membership. Increases of that order in farm prices had we been a member of the EEC in 1970 would have pushed up retail prices by something like 40 per cent, allowing for the fact that retail margins are not affected, but I am sure that the Minister for Industry and Commerce would have ensured that we would not have been exploited by an expansion of retail margins in those circumstances. A 40 per cent increase should, therefore, have been expected had we been a member of the EEC at that time. The retail prices of beef, mutton and lamb and milk products such as cheese and butter, on average, would have been about 40 per cent higher at retail level. However, other products would have been affected less severely, pigmeat, liquid milk and bread. The price of liquid milk has already been high here in relation to the EEC. Distribution costs are a very high proportion; the mute cost is a low proportion and consequently the impact on the cost of living of an increase to the farmer is proportionately much less.

Taking account of these two sets of increases, the very substantial ones of 40 per cent on certain products and the smaller ones of 7 to 12 per cent for others, the most that you can squeeze out of this in terms of overall effect on the cost of living is something like 3½ per cent. Three and a half to 4 per cent has been suggested. I think that is too high and I have gone into these figures most carefully.

Deputy Tully had a point to make and I would refer him to an economist called Deputy Nevin — sorry, Doctor Nevin — of Wales who spent some time among us and who is one of the most eminent economists in the ranks of my colleagues. He spent some time here and he told us about the extraordinary problem to be tackled in regard to Irish price levels. You will find that approximately 20 per cent of one-fifth of the goods and services we provide fall into the protective category. To my simple-minded calculation, in respect of one-fifth of the goods we buy the removal of protection will reduce prices by 10 per cent, and that knocks 2 per cent from the cost of living. If anybody can do the calculation any other way, he is entitled to do so and if Deputy Tully could do so, I should be delighted to hear him.

Mr. Tully

Except for the fact that Deputy FitzGerald also said this would have the result of keeping down the cost of living because industrial goods imported would be sold at lower prices.

Dr. FitzGerald

Deputy Keating made the point so well that Deputy Tully need not make it again. Whether we join the EEC or not, we face the removal of subsidies and tariffs——

Mr. Tully

The Deputy has only two minutes left.

Dr. FitzGerald

Yes, and I would be glad if the Deputy would allow me to make the point. Foods and tariffs according to Doctor Nevin involve a 10 per cent increase in prices here. If they are removed that, to my mind — I may be simple-minded—involves a 10 per cent reduction in prices. Of course, there is the implication in regard to employment in these industries. Nobody doubts it. However, as Deputy Keating pointed out, we face that anyhow because inside the EEC tariffs and quotas have to go. Inside or outside the EEC the cost of living will fall by 2 per cent. Therefore, if we join the EEC we will save from a 3½ per cent increase in the cost of living over the early years through food prices and a 2 per cent fall as a result of food price protection, which means a net increase of something like 1½ per cent more than would otherwise happen. The effect of that on living standards will, however, be more than cushioned by the £30 million available to us when the Community takes over the burden of agricultural subsidies.

This £30 million will be available to us for use to help social welfare beneficiaries and others in need. Consumer spending here at the moment is at the rate of £1,500 million a year, and £30 million extra for the consumers improves their living standards by 2 per cent. The net effect of membership of the EEC is, therefore, that during the period of years there will be a ½ per cent improvement in living standards, completely ignoring any beneficial effects from increased demands generated throughout the economy from greater prosperity in agriculture and from higher productivity in factories. The overall result will be an improvement in the order of 3 to 4 to 5 per cent—I would not put it higher—that would not have happened otherwise, in the standard of living of our people. As far as one can calculate it, that will be accompanied by an increase in jobs running into some tens of thousands. Again, it is difficult to be precise——

Mr. Tully

It sure is.

Dr. FitzGerald

The Government's figure is not adequately justified in the White Paper. They are the conclusions I have reached. I have said that the Government are to be criticised for inadequacies in the White Paper but there will be other occasions and other platforms after 10th May when I will be glad to develop on this.

Mr. Corish

One must give credit to Deputy FitzGerald on any occasion for the vigour with which he defends full membership of the EEC, as, indeed, the intensive work he has been doing for a long time. Needless to remark, we do not go along with his point of view. Speaking on the two important sectors of our economy — our agriculture and our industry — I think it is a great pity that in arranging their speakers and the timing of their participation in this debate, Fianna Fáil did not allow the Minister for Industry and Commerce, in particular, and the Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries, an opportunity of participating. I do not deny the right of the Ministers for Labour and Lands to participate, as they did, but I think the two most important Ministers after the Taoiseach and the Minister for Foreign Affairs, who negotiated on behalf of Ireland——

Mr. Lalor

It could hardly be anticipated that——

Mr. Corish

I am not saying this was deliberate, but the Government left the Ministers for Industry and Commerce and Labour at the tailend and there are many questions that they should have answered in this debate. I hope that in a short time there will be an opportunity for them to answer these questions.

I do not think I need elaborate on the position of the Labour Party in regard to the EEC. Our position is essentially a political one and not just as an economic union. We agree, and we have said, that we cannot ignore the existence of the EEC, and certainly we cannot ignore its existence when, as it seems likely, the British will enter it because such a proportion of our exports, ranging between 65 per cent and 70 per cent, go to Great Britain. We realise that the full tariff wall between Britain and us, with Great Britain in the EEC, would be an insurmountable problem as far as all sections of our economy are concerned. We never disputed our relationship with the EEC if Britain enters.

What we are concerned about and what we are trying to make clear here, as the third party, is the kind of relationship that we hope to have with the EEC in view of our trading position with Britain and in view of the fact that we are a part of Western Europe. Is it to be a relationship that will not guarantee employment or growth? Is it to be a relationship that will undermine our weak industrial sector or is it to be a relationship that will pressurise our small and medium-sized farmers to leave the land?

In a situation where it is abundantly clear, and will be clear in the future, that there are alternative jobs for these farmers who will be induced to leave the land, as far as we are concerned our relationship with the Community must assist the development of this country's economy and social life and not hinder or destroy it.

Briefly, therefore, as far as we are concerned, they are the terms of our relationship. We have many objections in principle to the whole concept of the EEC. We have expressed these objections during the past 12 years, since the first application was made for full membership by a Fianna Fáil Government. We are not in agreement with the philosophy enunciated in the Treaty of Rome and its implementation since 1957, that of free trade and competition. We disagree with the basic reliance on free competition as the principal means of economic development and industrial organisation. We have grave reservations, as a socialist party, about the relegation of State aid for the development of the economy.

It is true, as has been said by the Taoiseach in his opening remarks and as has been stated in the White Paper, that tax concessions to exporting industry will continue but I quote the words of the White Paper "in some form or other". In some form as yet undefined; in some form that has not been adequately described by various Ministers, the Minister for Foreign Affairs in particular and the Minister for Finance, when questioned in this house over a long period.

We are told that the whole matter of tax concessions and tax incentives for export will be up for review after entry. It appears from the comments of the two major parties that once we get in as full members of the EEC it will be very difficult to get out. I cannot conceive of a situation wherein our negotiators, our Minister or our Commissioner, will be able to preserve that form of protection that we have for the exporting section of industry. So, to say vaguely that the whole matter will be up for review after entry is, of course, similar to the statement to the effect that the fisheries policy as far as this country is concerned will also be up for review after the transition period.

We have been accused of being vague in our comment and in our objections and vague in the alternative we propose. Surely the White Paper, not alone in this particular matter, is a mass of vagueness, the same vagueness we have as far as what is being negotiated for fisheries is concerned. The political implications, of course, tend to be ignored but they must be considered. May I say at this stage that this has been a most inadequate debate, apart from the hour that we lost this morning. It has been inadequate in view of the fact that it has been jammed, so to speak, into the last week of this particular session. There are very many Deputies who would have liked to contribute and many whose contributions we would like to have heard, particularly those from the backbenchers of the two sides of the House, who must be concerned, if not necessarily about the whole national economy, about their own constituencies and with the various cities, towns and villages in their own constituencies.

The political implications must also be considered. I think it is freely admitted that the aim of European integration is political union. This involves us in very serious political implications which have not been fully explained by the Taoiseach or any member of the Government. The EEC has now been established. It has established a customs union. It is presently creating an economic union in which we propose to participate.

The next stage, I would say in the next five to ten years, is a political union. This will involve, as we pointed out in the debate on the Bill for the amendment of the Constitution, a loss of sovereignty and must be examined honestly by this House. We will be involved in an economic and a monetary union if the people of this country so decide in the referendum. After that comes the political union. Will it then entail military commitments? I know the Taoiseach said that these obligations, when he referred to the changes in the Constitution et cetera, do not entail any military or defence commitments. That may be so but if we are to have political union it must necessarily follow, if not in the next year, the next five or ten years, certainly in the near future, that it will also involve a political commitment. Whilst he did not say it in express terms, the Minister for Foreign Affairs spoke about the likelihood of military commitements and as I think he put it himself, defence commitments on our being full members of the European Economic Community.

Mr. Tully

A Europe worth joining is a Europe worth defending.

Mr. Corish

I think those were his actual words. I must confess that it is a long term probability. Remember, we are not just legislating and making decisions here for the people of this generation in such a serious decision as this. We must also think in terms of the generations to come. The Taoiseach referred to military and defence commitments and suggested that those who talk about military and defence commitments were merely scaremongers. He must know that there will be a new Treaty, that there will be many more Treaties, that there will be new discussions on defence commitments or on the protection of the Community. I think Deputy Tully said that the Minister for Foreign Affairs said that on two or three occasions.

Therefore, if we are to be involved in Europe, economically and politically, we will not be able to pull out and we will have no option but to subscribe to these commitments to which the Taoiseach referred and to which the Minister for Foreign Affairs referred. We have more than serious reservations about the nature of the decision making process in the Community. Article 138 of the Treaty of Rome provides for a European Parliament but very little has been heard of a European Parliament in the last ten or 11 years. It is totally unrepresentative of the people. If we become full members I trust we will not behave in the same way as many of the European Parliaments have behaved. They throw the safe men into the European Parliament or they throw those who are at the end of their years in Parliament or those who have no real concern about their own countries into this Parliament merely to give the impression that there are elected representatives and that this is a democratic assembly.

Mr. O'Higgins

I hope we will have direct election by the people.

Mr. Corish

I hope we will have direct election by the people but there is no suggestion as yet that this will be done. There is provision for it. This is my objection.

Mr. O'Higgins

We can decide it here.

Minister for Foreign Affairs (Dr. Hillery)

This House decides it.

Mr. Tully

We are not in yet.

Mr. Corish

I hope it will be decided here.

Mr. M. O'Leary

There has been no decision yet.

Mr. Corish

We have so many elections now and referenda, et cetera, that we will become like the French, having them every second Sunday.

Mr. M. O'Leary

No decision has yet been made about the whole political structure of that Europe.

Mr. Corish

That is so and we will not be able to provide for such representation from our country until the changes are made in Europe. Unless the European Parliament is given teeth, unless it is seen to be and is in fact a democratic assembly the situation will be, as it is now, and has been with the power lying directly with the Council of Ministers or to a lesser extent with the Commission. I believe the Brussels Commission has developed into a bureaucracy with power and position never intended by the Treaty. It is not invalid or unfair criticism to say that the European Parliament has not been in any way affected in influencing the decisions of the Ministers or influencing the directives or the regulations framed by the Commission because there is no real democratic control by the people through their representatives.

As I said at the outset, we realise we must have a relationship with the Community. We cannot ignore the existence of the Community nor can we afford to ignore our position with regard to our nearest neighbour, Great Britain. Our task should have been to secure a relationship with the Community suited to the underdeveloped state of our economy. I know that Fianna Fáil are reluctant to admit that we are underdeveloped but I do not think that members of Fine Gael would subscribe to that view of Fianna Fáil.

Dr. O'Donovan

At one stage they were prepared to say we were undeveloped until the late Deputy Seán Lemass took over.

Mr. Corish

In his short introductory speech the Taoiseach stated:

Although I could not go along with his view—

he was referring to more favourable circumstances—

—I accept that there is always scope for such argument after conclusion of negotiations, however successful. What I cannot accept is the claim made by some that we could have obtained a much more favourable deal and even that we could have negotiated changes in the Community rules and policies to suit us. These people choose to ignore the fact that these policies and rules were worked out by the present member states after years of arduous and prolonged bargaining. The negotiations were conducted on the basis that the applicant countries accepted the provisions of the Treaty establishing the Communities and the action taken for the implementation of these treaties.

So far as Ireland is concerned, the position is that we are to join the Community as a full member. We are to join with a Community who made the rules and regulations after years of arduous and prolonged bargaining, as the Taoiseach has pointed out. These rules and regulations were framed to suit their own economies. I should like to repeat this fact: they spent long and arduous years, according to the Taoiseach, arriving at certain decisions. When the Community framed these rules and regulations they had their own economies in mind and they had no concern for the problems of this country.

I should like to ask the Minister for Foreign Affairs if we had arduous and prolonged bargaining in order to protect our economy and to suit conditions in this country? Our bargaining or negotiations did not take long and arduous years; the negotiations took some months, or rather they took place over a period of months because they were not conducted on a day-to-day basis. Neither were we concerned about obtaining a longer transitional period in order to protect our economy.

We are an underdeveloped country and facts and figures will show this to be true, apart from the obvious fact that there is high unemployment and poverty in the country. Our gross national product per head is half that of the average of the ten states who may become the EEC. We differ from other countries in that 30 per cent of our work force is in agriculture; so far as the EEC countries are concerned only 14 per cent is employed in agriculture. Therefore, we have a special problem but I do not know if this fact was mentioned at Brussels.

Our industrial sector could never provide for those who have left the land. In the last ten years there have been figures of 11,000, 14,000 and 15,000 persons leaving the land. Our unemployment figure is 8 or 9 per cent and in recent times it is over 9 per cent. Our GNP per head of the population is one-third that of Norway, one-fifth that of Denmark and it is the lowest by far in the group of ten nations. Even in the tiny Duchy of Luxembourg the GNP is twice that of Ireland.

Our economy needs special policies if it is to come to the stage of development in order to catch up with the other member and applicant countries of the EEC. We need to protect our weaker industries and to develop alternative industries behind a tariff wall. Could this not have been negotiated? Were any special efforts made to do this? Was any special effort made to ensure that we could control our own finances so that we could use them for the development of this country? Was any effort made to ensure that there would not be a flow of capital from here to other countries, to provide employment and money for people in other countries?

It is essential that we prevent our finances and manpower from being pulled into the stronger regions. This was referred to by Deputy FitzGerald. It is necessary for us to use State interventions as a means of economic development. Will we be able to do that in EEC conditions? Will we be able to keep our capital in this country for this purpose? I do not think those questions have been answered adequately by any Fine Gael or Government speakers.

All the statistics with regard to unemployment and GNP demonstrate how underdeveloped and vulnerable we are, and how much more vulnerable we would be if we became full members of the EEC. In the Anglo-Irish Free Trade Area Agreement our weaknesses were exposed, particularly in the industrial sector. There was not the bonanza that was promised at the time by the then Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries, Deputy Haughey. At that time he said very positively that so far as Irish agriculture was concerned there would be a direct benefit of £10 million in the first year. We have seen the effects of that agreement in the redundancies which amounted last year to 9,000.

We are concerned about people. Statistics can be thrown from one side of the House or the other, as has been done by Deputy FitzGerald and other speakers in this debate. I know the Minister will not repeat what he said to other people—we thought he meant us—when he described them as being anti-national, enemies of the country, guilty of treason and so on. I am sure the Minister will appreciate our genuine concern for the people, particularly those who are dependent on industrial employment. What we should be thinking about is not only this generation. It is not just making a decision in 1972 and hoping that by 1978 everything will be all right. This is something that should be seriously considered because we will not be thanked by succeeding generations if we make the wrong decision or if we do not obtain the proper safeguards which we have advocated should have been sought in the negotiations in Brussels.

The Government should have sought an associate agreement in order to safeguard our small population and the employment of our people. Such an agreement, even if we were only offered a medium-term one, could have offered us expanding markets and could have secured protection for our weak industries. Instead of exploring the feasibility of such a course, the Government opt for full membership without any reservations whatsoever. I think it has been said before— I did certainly say it in this House— that even if an associate agreement was turned down, our negotiating position in discussions for full membership would, I believe, have been strengthened and there would have been a better appreciation by those with whom the Minister negotiated of the situation in this country where we have an underdeveloped economy.

It was about 11 years ago that the Government decided on full membership and I assume that that was an instinctive reaction as soon as it was known that the British had applied for full membership as well. I also remember that around that particular time, the then Taoiseach, Seán Lemass, when questioned, in some queer mood of humour, said that even if Britain did not go in, we would go it alone. However, I think that idea was dispelled by members of his own party very quickly indeed. That decision to apply for full membership was taken in 1961. In 1961 we did not have, and I suggest the Fianna Fáil Government who were then in power did not have, a full appreciation of the consequences of full membership. There was no reversal; there was no re-appraisal of the situation, no worthwhile one that we know of. That is the essential difference between our party and that of the Government, the terms or the form of relationship with the European Economic Community.

We said, and we say again, that our economy is under-developed and requires special provisions which can only be secured through a treaty of association, but despite all the statistics which have been quoted with regard to the state of our economy in agriculture and industry, the Government still insist that our economy can withstand the full force of competition and all the obligations of membership. Instead of that, the Minister for Foreign Affairs said, without qualification, in, I think June of 1970:

I now reaffirm on behalf of the Irish Government our full acceptance of the Treaties of Rome and Paris, their political finality and economic objectives and the decisions taken to implement them.

He said that before we even started to negotiate, and there he was virtually throwing himself at the other Six and saying: "No matter what the terms are, we want to be full members without we want to be full members without any serious reservation." I think that was irresponsible on the part of the Minister. I think it was irresponsible on the part of the Government to allow him to say it.

Dr. O'Donovan

It was a disgraceful performance.

Dr. Hillery

I am on the right road now.

Mr. Corish

He said: "We do not expect that the application of the common agricultural policy will present us with any major difficulty." Of course, that went without saying. Of course, agriculture—it has been dealt with in full by Deputy Keating—will benefit in the short term. However, when one listens to what has been said and the evidence there is, submitted by members of this party, one realises that while there will be benefits in the short term, in the long term, the Irish farmer will undoubtedly find himself in the same mood as the farmers of Belgium, of Holland and of France where they find that the agricultural policy of the EEC has not proved to be the bonanza or the El Dorado which was promised to them 11 or 12 years ago.

Agriculture will benefit, but people will be induced to leave the land. We have here been decrying for a long time the flight from the land, and not from this side alone. The Government Party have tried to stem it, as they said, by the application of various policies; they have tried to stem the flight from the land, but now under the conditions on which this country will become a full member of the EEC, these people will be induced to flee from the land. Agriculture may be good but may be good for whom? For the few lucky survivors, but there will be thousands of casualties in my constituency, in the Minister's constituency and in every rural constituency in this country. The small and medium-sized farmer is expected to disappear, will be encouraged to disappear, will be induced to disappear, and this represents 70 per cent of the Irish farmers. That would not be so bad if on leaving the land, there was any sort of guarantee that there was going to be industrial employment for us.

Speaking again on 30th June, 1970 —if the date is wrong, the Minister will not deny the quotation—the Minister said:

We are confident of the increasing capacity of Irish industry generally to meet the competitive challenge involved.

How can he in honesty say that when, again, I remind him that we have 77,000 unemployed, when, again, I remind him that the industrial incentives introduced by his Government so very many years ago for re-adaptation and so on were not availed of by Irish industry? How can he say that when every Irish manufacturer is fearful for his survival, not in the next seven or eight years but in this year, next year or the year after? How can he say that when he knows the precarious position in which the boot and shoe industry finds itself? How can he say it when he has all the evidence —or his colleague, the Minister for Industry and Commerce has all the evidence—that the woollen and worsted industry and many other industries are hanging on from day to day and week to week, in the hope that something will turn up or that some other similar factory will close down and bring a bit of added business to them?

He did say in that speech that there was a very small number of sensitive industries for which the existing arrangements may not be adequate but this, he said, would be discussed during the negotiations. Could the Minister for Industry and Commerce, or the Minister for Foreign Afiairs, tell me whether any special terms were sought or any attempt made to get special terms for any industries outside the sugar industry or the motor car assembly industry? I am talking about industry now. If so, what were they? I know myself that because workers are fearful of their future, they have approached their Fianna Fáil representatives in the various towns and have asked what is going to happen. This is so in the case of an industry which comes to mind quickly, Springs Limited, who make springs practically exclusively for this country.

When they approached their Fianna Fáil representatives, they were told that the Minister for Foreign Affairs would attempt to negotiate special terms for that particular industry, and this happened all over the country. It was designed to stifle the antagonism and opposition there was, and still is, on the part of these workers to full membership of the EEC without adequate protection for the industries on which they depended for their livelihood. I think the Minister is bound to tell us this and not merely to say, as the Taoiseach said, that the motor car assembly industry is protected to a degree up to 1984, that we have our sugar quota for two years and that it will be reviewed. There are other industries, many of which I have mentioned here, which should have had special mention by the Government spokesmen and certainly should have had special consideration by the Minister for Foreign Affairs in his negotiations in Brussels.

I do not know what one can say for the White Paper. I shall not say it is unreadable but there is not much consolation in it for those dependent on employment in the industrial sector. The White Paper, like all the documents presented by the Government, are pieces of propaganda in the guise of economic projections. The Minister for Foreign Affairs, in the speech to which I referred, prior to the negotiations, I think, said that apart from arrangements for fisheries, plant and animal health—and I quote—"it is not expected that membership of the Communities would create exceptional problems for Ireland". In this, the last debate before the referendum, unless the Minister gives an answer different from what he has given, I think that should be described, and is being described by me, an absolute irresponsibility.

But there is a gleam of hope for those who are committed either by conviction or because of political loyalty to the idea of full membership of EEC. There is a projection that 50,000 new jobs will be created between 1970 and 1978. Why it should be dealt with in retrospect I do not know, but if we talk about 1970 and 1971 and prospects for 1972 it seems to me very unlikely that we shall attain the target of 50,000 new jobs. Between 1970 and the end of 1972, according to the information we have, there will be no increase in total employment. So, for the first two years referred to in this document, we have not increased the number of jobs. In 1970 and in 1971 there was no increase in employment. In 1969 we had 1,073,000 people in total employment; in 1970 it had decreased to 1,066,000; early in 1972 we had in total employment more or less the same number as in 1969. Since the projection is that there will be 50,000 more jobs created between 1970 and 1978 this means that the task of the Government on the assumption of full EEC membership is, within six years, between 1972 and 1978, to provide 50,000 new jobs. That represents over 8,000 new jobs per year.

From where and from whom will they come? This is all so vague when one gets down to the realities. Talk is all very well; in the White Paper the Minister could have said 100,000 new jobs. Where he got the 50,000 new jobs I do not know. Now that the Taoiseach has signed the Treaty of Accession, would the Minister for Foreign Affairs consult his colleague in the short time available to him and find out how many inquiries have come to the Industrial Development Authority from outside the country in regard to the establishment of industry here. It would be interesting to know if there has been an increase and much more interesting to discover if there has been a decrease. There is great talk about the Japenese and the Americans coming to establish industries here in order to gain access to Europe but, as yet, we have no evidence of this. I believe the figure of 50,000 net new jobs is based on the assumption that the flight from the land will slow down and that the rate of redundancy will remain the same as in 1970. But in 1971 redundancy doubled from 4,500 to 9,000. The assumption is that the number of new jobs created would be 110,000 but this is not justified in the White Paper and there has been no consultation with and no comment from the Irish Congress of Trade Unions or from individual trade unions or from Irish industry. The assumption that there will be 10,000 new jobs and a net 50,000 jobs is, I suppose, based on the assumption that fewer than 60,000 will lose their jobs in agriculture, plus redundancies. Is that how the figure of 50,000 is reached?

It is assumed that foreign firms will establish themselves here. Whether they will come from Europe or outside it, I do not know, but it seems unlikely that if there are 2,200,000 people out of work in the EEC countries at present they will not have sufficient labour there to establish industries in their own countries. Certainly, they will not come from Britain in view of the unemployment situation there and the unattractiveness of this country in recent years, especially when one remembers that they have one million unemployed to provide with jobs. We have our own problems with something in the region of 80,000 people unemployed.

In the White Paper there are also projections about the growth rate which, it is stated, will be 5 per cent per year between 1970 and 1978. Again, I do not know why it was mentioned in this way in the White Paper. In the first two years, between 1970 and 1972, the growth rate here averaged only 2 per cent per year. Therefore, in order to achieve the target the growth rate between 1973 and 1978 will have to be about 6½ per cent if we are to catch up at the time of free trade, if we enter EEC. We had the same sort of programmes from Fianna Fáil Governments since 1957. We had the same sort of forecasts in regard to employment and the same sort of projections regarding growth rate. I did not know my time was so limited. I wanted to talk about prices and refute things said in the White Paper and projections made there.

Mr. O'Higgins

Take another five minutes.

Mr. Corish

Thank you very much. The White Paper projection regarding prices was that there would be a 1 per cent per year increase in prices between 1973 and 1978. Yet, we were told agricultural incomes would increase by 50 per cent. Food prices on the Continent are nearly 50 per cent higher than in Ireland. In my view, the real increase per annum will be 4 per cent. If I am challenged on that I would say that my advice—and the advice I get is not as widespread as that available to the Government—is that it will be 4 per cent. My prediction of 4 per cent is as good as the modest 1 per cent mentioned by the Government. The White Paper cannot be sustained by any reasonable argument. It is not one that should be taken for the assumptions or projections it contains. It is merely a propaganda document, as have been all the other documents circulated by the Government. At this stage it would be no harm to compare it with a document issued by a trade union that have come out overwhelmingly against full membership of the EEC. I refer to that balanced document issued by the ITGWU which gave the pros and cons of entry or non-entry, of association or of full membership. It was a much more honest document than the literature produced by the Minister for Foreign Affairs.

This White Paper is not a serious document. Workers want to know what are the prospects for their future. It would not be an exaggeration to say that the workers are afraid of their own immediate future but there is nothing either in the White Paper or in the Taoiseach's speech that gives them any reason for hope or consolation regarding their security. We need not necessarily be concerned about the other applicants. We cannot say what will be the outcome of the referendum but we know that so far as Norway is concerned, 46 per cent of the people are against membership for that country and it appears that in Denmark the majority are against membership. There are indications also that in respect of Britain, a proposal for full membership would be turned down if there were a referendum, certainly on the conditions that were negotiated by the Tory Government.

The White Paper should have given a detailed assessment of the prospects for every section of industry instead of giving merely a global promise of 50,000 new jobs. If jobs are in danger, people have a right to be told so. It is not good enough to quote the special protocol for industry which in itself is vague and has no firm commitment as far as protection for Irish industry is concerned. In relation to agriculture we are told that if we do not opt for full membership we will not get benefits for agriculture. Norway has a special protocol for agriculture and we also should have sought a special protocol.

I have no wish to be too disparaging but so far as the Taoiseach's speech is concerned, it is a typical Brian Lenihan one. On top of it I wrote the words: "No problem". This was the message I got from the Taoiseach's ten page speech. I trust that within the time available to the Minister for Foreign Affairs he will expand further on the speech and will spell out the prospects for workers and for industry. This is not done either in the White Paper or in the Taoiseach's speech. For our part we will endeavour to try, by way of argument, to persuade the people that the terms that have been negotiated by the Government will do untold damage not only to the industrial sector of our economy but to the whole country.

Mr. O'Higgins

As Deputy Corish has said, this is the final debate in this House on the question of whether we join the European Communities. We should realise that the Community we are discussing is a political Community and the decision of any country to become a member is, primarily, a political decision. Indeed, in our case should we decide to become a member of that Community, we would be exercising our sovereignty.

Of course, there are strong political reasons as to why the European Community came into being. One can recall that in this century, before half the century was out, Europe had almost destroyed itself and its people in two dreadful wars, wars that brought carnage and destruction and and suffering to the Continent of Europe and to most European countries. We were one of the few did not have our land despoiled we did suffer our own losses. It is well to remember that this idea of Europe which has been discussed very sincerely and very fully during this debate by various Deputies has been discussed on the basis of statistics proving one thing or another. Necessarily, of course, we must approach it in that way but there is an idealism about Europe which I hope we will not forget. We should remember that after the last war had ended the great liberal statesmen of Europe, the great humanitarian movements of Europe, the vast number of peoples and organisations who were concerned for the future of European humanity and the great socialist leaders of Europe, great men like de Gaspari and Schuman, came together to form this new Europe. Let us recall, too, the principles they put before themselves. The first of these was to end forever the conflicts which for so long divided the nations of western Europe and the second was to restore Europe's self respect and to enable her to play a role in the world commensurate with her economic strength and cultural heritage, to improve by joint action the working conditions and the living standards of the people of Europe, to abolish the outdated barriers which split western Europe into small protected markets, to speed up technological progress and to make possible large scale operations in the increasing number of industries in which it was essential. The final principle was to make a special joint effort to help the less favoured areas of the Community and their overseas associates.

These are the political aims of Europe and it is a matter of regret for me that the Labour Party, as they are entitled to do, cannot for economic reasons subscribe to the idea of Ireland partaking in this great new political movement. I am sure it is not a question of their not being able to subscribe to the aims I have mentioned because these aims inspire the minds of everybody here and would arouse the idealism that ought to be latent in every political movement.

Our dialogue and discussion descends from the idealistic and comes down to facts and figures, percentages, statistics and all the dull dreary arguments which must be involved when one considers Europe merely as a training and commercial enterprise. If we must approach it in that way let us do so but let us do so with a sense of objectivity and of intellectual honesty.

Dr. Cruise-O'Brien

Hear, hear.

Mr. O'Higgins

However, it appears that a certain amount of intellectual honesty may be missing among certain people who have taken part in this dialogue particularly outside the House. Facts should be faced. Regardless of whether we like the idea, Europe will never be the same again and Ireland, from the end of this year will never be the same again. A change is coming in which we can have no say, no way of controlling it and no way of stopping it and the choice is not between remaining as we are and entering the new Europe. That is not the choice. That choice is no longer there. The choice is something different, which I will mention in a moment.

I suppose people who have a very emotional approach to Ireland will always hanker for the good old days, the Irish way of life, the special, particular, independent way in which they regard us as carrying on and living our lives. Such people do not want to be disturbed and really wish things would remain the same. What they are wishing for is that the British had not decided to enter Europe. If Britain had not decided to enter Europe, perhaps, we could continue in a sort of Celtic twilight, producing cheap food to feed the British as we have done for so many centuries, watching our young people leave the land and go to work for other countries and other people and sing Irish ballads in the local taverns, wishing to be back in Ireland. Such people never returned home. Some people regard this whole question in such a manner. Why can things not be the same? They cannot be the same, for the simple reason that the British have decided to enter Europe, and that places upon us the obligation to realise that a change is coming. We either control that change or we will be controlled and, in my view, destroyed by it.

I mentioned that because, strange to say, there are people in this country who do not realise it. They think that the choice is between continuing the existing trading arrangement which has operated over the years between ourselves and Britain or deciding to take a leap into the unknown. That is not the choice. Another factor should be mentioned. There is a strange feeling round the country at the moment. It is that people do not like the holding of a referendum and that the present Government are unpopular— and one can say that again—and that the people are likely to teach them a lesson and turn it down. There is such a danger. Had this party of which I have the honour to be a member decided to play politics, we could have caused a very serious situation, but we had regard to what we believed to be the national interest. We have not allowed any consideration of political or party advantage to enter into our view in relation to this question. People think that a referendum will be held which may or may not succeed, but if it does not succeed that they can always have another "go" in the autumn. Let us end that feeling here and now.

In my view this is Ireland's only chance to enter Europe. This chance will never again be repeated. If our people freely decide when the referendum is held not to go into Europe, that will be a decision for all time.

If we come next year like the Bisto Kids of Europe scratching at the pane, and trying to knock again we will be met by a veto so clear that it will blow the cobwebs from many of our ears. It is because we are here as a primary producer of food that Britain had her problems with New Zealand. Because we are here as a primary producer of food, the Danes are wondering whether they are better in or out. If we decide not to go in, let us do so knowing that if we apply again we will be met by a British or a Danish veto.

Let us approach the question in that knowledge and in that frame of mind. What is the choice? We either go in or stay out. In the referendum that is the choice. There is no further alternative. There is no possibility of an association relationship. Such a relationship is talked about here. It is amazing how people can invent an alternative from nowhere. I have always believed one cannot have a marriage without somebody being willing to marry you. We cannot have an association agreement without somebody being willing to associate with us. There is no alternative. We either go in or stay out. That is the choice.

Nobody now could doubt the consequences to us of staying out. Ireland is the nearest bit of rock to America. It is a little, rocky island off the shore of Europe. What sort of future would we have if we stay out? What would posterity think of those who led people to such a decision, who scattered our young people all over the world like the wandering tribes of Israel? We would be abdicating our responsibility of providing a way of life for our people if we decide to stay out of Europe. Do people realise that on such a decision from 1st January next year a European frontier would march across six of our counties from Newry to Lifford? Everything we sell would bear tariffs of from 10 to 20 per cent. We could live on our fat if we had fat, but we do not have it. We face an immediate situation in which there would be a general, economic collapse. Who wants that? Who desires that? Who is seeking that end in Ireland today? There may be some who desire it consciously—and they are not my concern—but if those who argue this way would only realise the eventual logic of their stand, I have no doubt but that they would change.

The Labour Party may say that they do not agree. They are forced into saying that if we stay out we must try to seek some agreement with Europe. We will be in a very nice, bargaining position, having slapped the Europeans on the face; rejecting the whole idealism of Europe, we now go crying to them, saying: "By reason of our decision, what will you do for us?" The Bisto Kids of Europe! that is what we will be. What will you do for us? At least the Swedes are at the moment busy trying to hammer out some deal with Europe before the inevitable logic of the facts of the situation force Sweden into Europe and I have no doubt but that, before 12 months are out, Sweden will be a full member of the European Community. She is trying to avoid that at the moment. What is she trying to do? She is trying to hammer out a free trade area agreement with the EEC. All right. Supposing we were lucky enough, and had the bargaining power to do it, to be able to seek such an agreement, where would we be then? They would not want our agricultural products. Presumably they would allow us some base in the British market at prices they would dictate. Presumably they would allow us to sell our industrial goods free of tariff—they are prepared to agree to this—on the basis that European goods would, of course, come in here.

What is our bargaining position? I cannot understand how people have got themselves into the position in which they appear to be. A Europe in those circumstances, Britain and the other seven, would represent 80 per cent of our export market and 100 per cent of our agricultural market. We refuse to join and then we say: "Let us do a deal". We have removed all bargaining power. The best we can hope for is the free import into this country of the industrial goods of Europe in return for some concession which will allow our agricultural exports to go in the same direction as they have been going, with the added problem that they will have to be levied in some undefined way.

This is suggested as an alternative. Maybe that would save our export industry, but it would mean we would still have to live with free trade; our textile industries, our boot and shoe industries, to which Deputy Corish referred, would still have to face the challenge of free trade in any event, but this time they would face it without our country having any control whatsoever or any rights whatsoever, in no position to develop any policy or in any way control our economy.

Is that seriously suggested as an alternative to entering Europe proudly, with confidence and courage? I cannot understand how ordinary rational men can put themselves in the position of so advocating. What would happen, apart altogether from the ordinary ravages of free trade? There are challenges and difficulties admittedly in free trade, as we all know, but what would happen to our existing industries, the ones that might meet the challenge of free trade in those circumstances, the ones which at the moment may be engaged not only in providing for the home market but also for the export market? Take Guinness. Guinness is a traditional Irish industry which controls many breweries throughout the country; there is one very important one in Kilkenny. What would Guinness do in those circumstances? They would produce for the home market. They would change their production to Britain and from Britain export to the European Economic Community.

Mr. P. Belton

And to Northern Ireland.

Mr. O'Higgins

And to Northern Ireland. Why would they not? Other industries in the country would also turn themselves to the home market. Future expansion will be inside Europe and those who talk in this way and lead to that conclusion are paying no service whatsoever to either the trade union movement, those in employment or the young people coming forward.

Mr. P. Belton

What about Waterford Glass?

Mr. O'Higgins

One could name any number of industries that would be so affected. I cannot personally see any logic other than the logic of taking what is there, the choice that is open to us and the opportunity that is offered. I should like to feel we could make this choice with confidence and enthusiasm, sharing in the political hope and the idealism that ought to be there, but that, as I have said, is a matter for each one's individual approach to this. Even on the mundane question of the material welfare of our people the logic points in the same direction as the idealism indicates.

The cost of living has been mentioned. Of course the cost of living will increase. Why would it not? Are we to be special among the nations of the world, we, a primary producer of food, that we are afraid of the economic consequences to this country if our farmers can achieve what they have been seeking to achieve for generations, namely, selling in an unlimited market at prices twice what they are getting at the moment? Are we going to squeal about that.

Whether the resulting increase in the cost of living is 1 per cent or 2 per cent over four or five years, is it suggested that this is a price we refuse to pay?

Deputy O.J. Flanagan talked about Laois-Offaly last evening. I will ask Deputy Flanagan to take a look at all the ghost towns all over Laois and Offaly, towns that saw their day, towns in which a penny is not stirring, towns in which nothing is happening. Why? Because of the impoverished farming and agricultural industry around them. What will happen to out country towns when we enter Europe? If you find £60 million increased income going into the Irish agricultural industry the lights will go on again in the midland towns of Ireland and I have no doubt you will find a real increase in business and in small industries. The small shopkeeper will again have a chance. There will be a transformation in the scene in provincial Ireland.

But we will have to pay more for food. I believe we can ride that; I believe we can adjust to it. But there are those who will suffer, and nobody ought to suffer. There are those who will suffer if we do not take steps now. I refer to pensioners, to those on fixed incomes, I do not mind whether they are from the State or from any other source. Let us give a commitment here, honestly and sincerely, that no person on a fixed income will suffer for the sake of putting the economy of this country on a sound basis. There will be £30 million net made available as a result of the removal of agricultural subsidies. My party will insist that that money will from a pool to insulate people on fixed incomes from any fall in their real incomes as a result of our going into Europe. It is only right, it is only fair and it is only socially just. If as a result of the decision to go into Europe prices have to rise, there are those who can ride that rise in prices. But these people cannot and they must be protected.

Other bogies have been used by various people arguing against Europe and I think one or two should be dealt with. It is said that the foreigners— the Germans, the Belgians and the French—will come here and buy up our land. People who say that are people whose general from of exercise is to shift their rumps from one arm-chair to another, sitting in Dublin and thinking of the place their family left in the West of Ireland centuries ago. They have as much concern for the preservation of Irish land and the Irish way of life as Mao Tse Tung or Ted Heath has.

What are the facts? Of course it is implicit in the whole principle of Europe that there shall be no discrimination in relation to the purchase of land, to living in any part of the Community, and so on. It is because of that we have this vista of the beer barons of Europe ranching Irish land with fat cattle and our people working for them somewhere else. But this is not in accordance with facts. The whole object and purpose—and it is being worked out now: whether people have a feeling in this respect or not the work is going ahead—of the Mansholt policy is to try to provide in every backward region a people established on the land entitled to earn a similar income as that which can be got in the industrial sector. That is the object and that is the policy. Towards that end in the transitional period inducement will be offered to the older land owner to give his land to somebody else. That inducement will mean that he will benefit and the person who gets his land will benefit. It is implicit in the Mansholt approach that a pool of land must be made available as priority to small farmers. Not only will we find when we go into Europe that the concern will be to provide land for residential small farmers in any particular region but we will be asked what are we doing about it. I should like to suggest to the Minister for Foreign Affairs that we take action now, in case there is any one now who still believes in this canard about foreigners purchasing our land. Let us now provide the machinery in the Land Commission, the list of priorities which will ensure that Irish land as a matter of priority, in accordance with European policy, will be available first of all for the small farmers of Ireland. I would recommend that that be done now. It is in accordance with the policy being advocated in Brussels.

Deputy FitzGerald dealt very fully today with regional policy but opponents of the idea of going into Europe have said that there is no regional policy. I suppose they felt that the statesmen of Europe for the last 25 or 30 years and all the people in Brussels have not been doing their job—they really should have been working out a solution for the future of Ireland. That is what they think. What have these Eurocrats been doing that they have not worked out an immediate policy to save the West of Ireland? We have no responsibility at all of course. They do not think there is any obligation on Irishmen to work out the destiny of their own country. Of course a regional policy must come from the region. A regional policy must be worked out by those who live there and know the problems. That is precisely what I hope we will be able to do when we go into Europe: that we will look at our underdeveloped area, which is west of the Lagan, which is west of the Shannon, which runs throughout all of Ireland. No Border will interfere with that; the regional problem will be the same in any part of Ireland. I hope we will be able to develop a proper regional plan for our own underdeveloped regions probably also incorporating the Hebrides and other parts of the neighbouring island. We can do it with our own intelligence, our own imagination, our own knowledge of the problems of our own country and we will be assisted in doing it by European investment: the money and credit can be made available.

Nobody can ever be certain. We are all human beings, we may fail in what we aim to do, but one can almost prophesy a real hope for the west and north west of Ireland inside Europe. What kind of a future would the west and north west of our country have if we remained outside Europe? What would happen to change what has been happening up to this? With the weakening economy, without any possibility of maintaining a way of life there, it would disappear; but who would come marching in? The beer barons of Europe? If you want to keep Irish land in the hands of Irish farmers you will do it by going into Europe. If you want to sell Irish land to the foreigners you will do it by staying out of Europe. That is as certain as night follows day, because the people will not stay, they will be offered a price which will be attractive to them and you will find this country, if we stay outside Europe, becoming the playground of the rich Europeans.

We would have liked the terms negotiated to be better terms. In particular we are not satisfied with the terms in relation to fisheries. We are very concerned with the provisions in relation to dumping. We have these reservations. We think we may have the responsibility of doing something about these things in due course.

Dr. Hillery

In ten years' time?

Mr. O'Higgins

I am talking about a proper team and proper Ministers and maybe there will be a possibility for a change, for a new approach to these problems. Let us remember this. We go into Europe and we go in on these terms and we go in to mix ourselves in Europe. Europe is developing. It can develop along lines in which we can have a say. We can help the development of Europe. I believe we can do it and if, once we are in, we find that things are not as we thought they ought to be, there is no power on earth which can stop us going out.

Minister for Foreign Affairs (Dr. Hillery)

The Minister for Local Government has today made an order appointing Wednesday, 10th May, 1972, to be the polling day of the referendum on the proposal to amend the Constitution to allow the State to become a member of the European Communities. Polling will take place between the hours of 9 a.m. and 10 p.m. The Minister has also made an order appointing Mr. Gerald O'Doherty, a principal officer in his Department, to be the returning officer for the purpose of the referendum.

I should like to add to what Deputy O'Higgins has said, that on 10th May we get an opportunity to vote and we have to insist that this chance will not come again. There will be no second run at it. We make a decision which, one way or the other, will be a firm decision about the future course of the country and the decision to join Europe is the only one that I or any member of the Government on behalf of the Government could recommend to the people. Anybody with any responsibility to bear, either in fact or in imagination, for the future of this country and its government could only be appalled at the prospect of carrying that responsibility if the country failed to decide now, in the present conditions and on the present terms negotiated, to accept membership.

Apart from some inaccuracies about the terms negotiated, I think Deputy O'Higgins made a very useful contribution to this debate in stressing this fact that the decision is so appallingly different—a decision to go ahead into membership, into a framework where this country can find its full economic and social development, where the normal democratic processes here can work for the development of this country in co-operation with countries democratically ruled in the same way as this one is, or a decision to turn away from the other democratic countries in Europe, to turn towards a situation where we would be seeking charity from a Community where we could have rights or where we would have to look elsewhere for the support of a crashing economy. This decision is such a big one that I would like to say again that we will not get the chance to make it twice. We make it on the 10th May and it will be made by the people. Anybody whom I can influence to vote "yes" for membership to Europe, I will do so.

Two years ago, when the Taoiseach asked me to go to Europe, to the capitals, to find out was there any change in the position about negotiations, I was met with the appalling news there at the time that there was a prospect of a Community of seven, that Britain would be admitted through negotiations and that the other applicants would follow at a later date. At that time we made a serious study of the effects of this on our people, on our economy and of our prospects for negotiating conditions of entry with a Europe of seven rather than with a Europe of six.

Since that examination I have put as much of my time and energy as possible into convincing the people concerned in Europe that we should be allowed to negotiate at the same time as Britain and accede at the same time as Britain. They accepted this and they have given us conditions on which we can do it and it is in the hands of our own people now. But, if by our own decision we fail to take this opportunity, the same prospect is there before us of coming back, as Deputy O'Higgins said, begging for charity from a Community where we could have rights, coming back to negotiate with a Community in which there are people whose interests are different from ours, to negotiate with a Community of people whose own interests would be damaged, perhaps, as Deputy O'Higgins said, by our admission. This opportunity to negotiate these terms of entry, to negotiate admission, will not come again.

About the same time as we started this investigation on behalf of the Taoiseach, or soon after, there was a leading article in one of the Irish papers saying that the Minister for External Affairs was interested only in the price of butter in this European venture. This, of course, was not so but, no matter how high up we start on the idealism in relation to membership of Europe, we always end up sliding down the economic and other problems involved until we come to the price of butter. Deputy Corish first, and then Deputy O'Higgins, started off by saying that this is a political decision and it should be based on political considerations. In both cases they met the same fate as I have so often met, ending up talking about the ordinary things that bother ordinary people about membership of Europe.

I will try it the other way round. I will try to deal with some of the points raised in the debate. Most of the points against membership have been dealt with by other speakers here and there is no need for me to deal with them. Some of the points made in the debate I will deal with and I will try to end by dealing with some concepts of the Community as I see it and as I would wish to have the country join.

Most of Deputy Corish's speech was taken up with the threat of free trade. I should like to say again— and I will say it as often as I can— that free trade is coming whether we join Europe or not. Free trade is coming. Europe is there. Europe is enlarging. Britain is joining Europe. These are facts of life. So, the question of worrying now about what will happen or what we can do about free trade is a job for a banshee. It is no good going around saying we will all be ruined if we join the Community because of free trade. We are going to have free trade whether we join the Community or not and, instead of doing a banshee job on it, the Government, ten years ago, commenced the preparation of this country for free trade. I do not know how well it was understood by Opposition Deputies at the time but when we made unilateral cuts in our tariffs, when we made the Free Trade Area Agreement with Britain, when we set up the Department of Labour and legislated for the provision of training for workers and retraining, when we brought in legislation for redundancy and resettlement, when the CIO reports were instituted, when grants were made available to industrialists for adaptation and when time after time the present Taoiseach and the Taoiseach before him went throughout the country exhorting managements to take steps to meet free trade, this is what we were preparing for. We were preparing for free trade, which is coming anyway. Our decision to meet free trade as a member of the European Communities instead of meeting it outside of membership, without any help, was a decision taken after we had made it quite clear that free trade was coming anyway. We decided then that we would meet the problems and difficulties of free trade as a member of the European Communities.

When Deputy Corish referred to the Minister for Transport and Power in a jocose way saying "no problem" I know he did not mean to offend him. Nobody in the Government has ever said there will not be any problem. We are prepared for problems. We have told the people there will be problems. What we emphasise is that there shall be fewer problems by our being members of the EEC. Free trade is coming anyhow.

Deputy Keating argued that an association agreement would be preferable to full membership. That is a measure of the weakness of the case he put. He illustrated his case by referring to the association agreement entered into by the Community with Turkey and he said that the same type of agreement would meet our interests, and suggested we could now negotiate such an agreement. That is nonsense. Ireland is not Turkey. The considerations which existed in the case of Turkey do not apply to Ireland. Turkey is an underdeveloped country—it is accepted as an underdeveloped country—and I suppose it is necessary to make the point that classification as a developed country or an underdeveloped country is done not by the country concerned but by other countries. It is done according to objective economic criteria.

We might look at some of the international statistics. We find that the gross national product in Ireland is four times that of Turkey. 72 per cent of Turkey's work force is in agriculture. The figure we have now for Ireland is 27 per cent. These are examples of the major economic differences between Ireland and Turkey.

In October, 1969, the EEC Commission gave an opinion on Ireland's application for membership. In that opinion they stated that we were a developed country and the Community has dealt with us on that basis. It was possible for Turkey to negotiate the terms of an associated membership because the Community regarded Turkey as an underdeveloped country. There were other considerations. The Community takes care of itself. For instance, the Community gave favourable concessions to Turkey for her agricultural exports because these consisted of products which are not produced, or produced in insufficient quantity, in Community nations. Therefore, when Deputy Keating speaks about agricultural products which the Community would buy, I should like to refer him to Turkey's exports to the Community—tobacco, hazel nuts, dried grapes, seeds, citrus fruits and olive oil. The Community will take any amount of these because they are not in direct competition with Community interests.

Even if the Community were prepared to begin to negotiate for associate membership for Ireland, I do not think Deputy Keating believes that the Community would be, or could afford to be, so generous with Ireland in respect of the temperate zone products which we export. In regard to temperate zone products, we are in direct competition with the nations of the Community, and we must remember that the Community is there for the benefit of all its people.

I do not think Deputy Keating has visualised a situation in which the Community would allow any exit for our dairy produce although he must know how much farmers, particularly small farmers, depend on dairy produce. He said that Turkey got a transitional period of 22 years. I can tell him that the basic transitional period given to Turkey was 12 years and in respect of some produce it was given 22 years. Therefore Deputy Keating was inaccurate in that respect. Neither was he accurate when he said that from time to time all Turkish produce has free access to Community markets. The condition does not apply to fabrics and textiles which comprise one-third of Turkey's industrial exports. The excluded products are those which are in competition with Community production.

The Deputy can take it that the Community lets in what does not harm them in any type of market. All our industrial products would be in direct competition with all or some members of the Community. Therefore, the likelihood of free access for our industrial goods would be removed even if the Community thought in terms of Ireland being an underdeveloped country. I suppose the Deputy thinks we might get free access for some of our industrial products for a 12 or a 20-year period. In that time we would be excluded in respect of our industrial products and we would be excluded— and I emphasise this—from participation in the EEC common agricultural policy and from taking an effective part in the making of Community decisions.

I think any decisions made by the Community will affect vitally our interests in the near and far future. Our exclusion would mean that in a period of, for instance, 12 years our growth would be less than that of the Community and everybody will accept that the rich countries are getting richer and the poor poorer. Therefore, there is no point in advising our people to take the road to being worse off, and I do not think anybody legitimately will suggest that in a period of 12 years we could close the gap now existing between us and EEC countries.

We need the help of the Community. There is not anything to stop us from growing except lack of capital. If there is one thing which will stop us from creating new jobs for our people it is lack of capital. As members of the Community we will have access to capital. As I have said, the gap between us and the Community will widen if we are outside it, and the disasters spoken of by Deputy O'Higgins—the wiping out of our industries and the wrecking of our entire economy—will bring all the bad effects that people forecast who speak against membership of the Community.

If we do not join the Community now, the arguments put up by the Labour Party against our joining will certainly come true. If the Community negotiates with us on the basis of recognising that we need help—as that was done in the protocol—we will get it and it will be guaranteed on the basis of our present state of development. Anybody making an assessment of the progress made by countries who have capital available to them, and who compare that with those who have not, will see that our decision to join the Community now is the wise one. A decision on our part to stay out of the Community would have the effect of widening the gap, of making it much more difficult for us to become members of the Community at a future date. If we were to become members at a future date our contrary decision now would create a much bigger problem for the Community then in respect of what they have now undertaken in our respect—to bring this country's level of development up to that of their present member nations.

Deputy Corish remarked that the Minister for Industry and Commerce and the Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries could not get in. I would remind him that they have spoken in many debates here in regard to our membership of the EEC. One point the Minister for Industry and Commerce might have liked to deal with is the cost of living. It is impossible exactly to predict what the cost of living will be in membership of the EEC. Nobody knows the changes that will take place in agriculture prices during the next few years. The only estimate that can be made is one related to prices in the EEC and in Ireland at the moment. If we are to close the gap between these two sets of prices in a period of five years from now, it appears that the overall cost of food will rise here between 2 per cent and 3 per cent. Because the cost of food represents only part of the cost of living, the increase in the overall consumer price index would be less than that, not more than 1 per cent a year. That is the extent of the increase in consumer prices directly attributable to membership of the EEC. However, membership of the EEC may be expected to bring reductions in the prices of some items other than food. The elimination of protective duties on trade within the Community and improved competition in the sale of many goods should benefit the consumer by lower prices or better value for money.

It must be said that factors such as rising costs due to general inflation may affect prices in the years ahead. I think the House would agree that it would be clearly wrong to attribute all that or any such price increases to EEC membership. The direct effect of EEC membership on consumer prices will be quite small. Some opponents of membership, who have made very misleading and even dishonest statements about food prices after we join the EEC, must know that the real effect will be quite small. These people have quoted the retail price of some food in Germany and claimed that we in Ireland will have to pay the same prices as they now do in Germany. This is simply not true. In the present Community of six countries prices vary greatly and widely.

Membership of the EEC does not require us to have the same retail prices as any other member of the Community. The results of a survey of retail prices within the Community published last year illustrate this position. The price of bread was found to be 10 per cent higher in Germany than in the other countries while beef, fresh fish and some milk products were cheapest in the Netherlands. Variations were found in the cost of other goods and services largely due to local conditions in the member countries. It is quite irresponsible and quite misleading to select prices of particular products in particular countries and say that the Irish prices for these goods will be similar. The classic example which has been taken is that of the price of tea. The anti-EEC lobby implied we will all have to pay the very high price now found in Germany. There is no reason whatever why the price of tea should change because we join Europe. We do not buy our tea for Europe and there will be no import duties payable on tea.

Reference has been made to the question of neutrality. Deputy Cruise-O'Brien went so far as to allege that I had in the negotiations voluntarily offered that we would enter into military commitments. This is totally without foundation.

Dr. Cruise-O'Brien

The words in the negotiations were put in by the Minister.

Dr. Hillery

I did not offer this to anybody concerned with the negotiations. The negotiations were only concerned with the terms of our accession to the European Economic Community, the European Coal and Steel Community and the European Atomic Community. Military or defence matters were never mentioned during the negotiations. How could they?

Dr. Cruise-O'Brien

The Minister mentioned them publicly and they had to have their impact.

Dr. Hillery

I have answered questions. I think the Deputy's party are more responsible for this than I am. Questions were asked of me in the Dáil and in newspapers but in the negotiations this did not arise. When the Taoiseach opened the debate, and I think it is clearly stated in the White Paper, he said that there are no military or defence commitments whatsoever in Ireland's acceptance of the Treaties of Rome and Paris. Our obligations as a member of the Communities will not entail such commitments. It may be instructive for Deputies on the Labour benches who persist in this anxiety on the question of military and defence commitments if I recall some of the remarks made by the representative of the French Government, the French Foreign Minister, M. Schuman, when he visited both Dublin and Copenhagen in the second half of 1971. He is reported from Copenhagen as saying— I have a quotation which is a translation from the transcript of a television interview:

France has never at any time associated adhesion to the European Economic Community with conditions of a military character. That would be absurd. The European Community, as its name indicates, is an economic one. The proof, moreover, is that among the countries applying for membership at the present moment there is one, Ireland, which is not even a member of the Atlantic Alliance, which is a country, if you wish, neutral in the general sense of the term and which in no way renounces its neutrality in entering the Community.

That is a quotation from a television interview in Copenhagen. While he was in Dublin M. Schuman, apart from the discussions I had with him and which he had with members of the Opposition, spoke to the press on the question of neutrality. I quote from the Irish Independent of 21st October, 1971:

There was no provision whatever in the Treaty of Rome stating that membership of the EEC involved belonging to any particular alliance. The EEC was a purely economic community. It was wrong to say that joining the Community involved a change in Ireland's neutral policy.

If Deputies on the Labour benches will not heed what the Taoiseach called the repeated unequivocal assurance given by the Government on this subject perhaps they will at least take note of the considered remarks of the distinguished Foreign Minister of France.

Dr. Cruise-O'Brien

We do not object to what M. Schuman says. We object to what the Minister says. M. Schuman is all right.

Dr. Hillery

Shall I say I agree with M. Schuman?

Mr. M. O'Leary

They will not like that in County Clare.

Dr. Hillery

Deputy Cruise-O'Brien in his speech also alleged that the Government were claiming that membership would solve the problem of Partition. We are not. Neither the Government nor any speaker in our party made such a claim. It would be absurd to make a claim like that. What we have said, and what is obviously true, is that, as a consequence of Britain's decision to join, the North will be in the Community. That decision is made.

Dr. Cruise-O'Brien

As part of the United Kingdom.

Dr. Hillery

If we in this part of the country decide to join then the whole of Ireland will be in the Community and a very considerable degree of economic integration will follow. For example, both parts of the country will be participating in the one Common Market. This means that there will be no tariffs or other restriction on trade between North and South. For agriculture much more will be involved. As a result of the operation of the Community's common agricultural policy throughout the whole country, Irish farmers, North and South, will be working under the same conditions as regards prices and marketing of their products.

Membership of the EEC will bring about freer movement of people between the North and the South because with Britain and the Six Counties a member of the Community the restriction at present in force in the North on employment of people, which we regard as most undesirable, will have to be abolished. Another advantage of joining the EEC in so far as North/ South relations are concerned, is that the common policies of the Community in matters of great importance to us will be in operation throughout the Thirty-two Counties.

In addition to the common agricultural policy, there are also economic, regional and social policies. The operation of these policies throughout the whole country will provide an unprecedented opportunity for concerted action North and South in dealing with the economic and social problems which we share. In membership there will be unprecedented opportunities for close co-operation on a practical basis between North and South for the benefit of the people of the country.

The Minister for Lands dealt fully with the matter of the structural reform of agriculture and the related question of the purchase of agricultural land by non-nationals. I should like to return briefly to these matters as some comments were made by speakers who followed the Minister in the debate. I should like to make three points. First, there has been a draft Community directive before the Council of Ministers since 1969 which, if adopted, would give nationals of one member country the right to purchase agricultural land in another country under the same conditions as a national of that country. We have received assurances that no action will be taken with regard to the adoption of this draft directive before the enlargement of the Community. If after enlargement moves are initiated towards its adoption, Ireland as a member with a full voice and vote in the Council of Ministers—the decision-making body of the Community—can and will ensure that our interests are taken into account and are protected.

Secondly, the Community is now on the point of adopting proposals in regard to the structural reform of agriculture. One of the main features of these proposals is the opportunity and assistance that will be offered to small farmers who decide to adopt development plans for their farms for the purpose of improving efficiency and productivity, thereby giving them a decent standard of living. There is a very important provision which will give these small farmers priority in the allocation of land becoming available if they require more land in order to give them the requisite standard of living. As the Minister for Lands pointed out, this is very much in line with the priority system at present operated by the Land Commission in the allocation of land.

However, this provision has a greater dimension so far as this country is concerned. In operation, it will afford us a considerable measure of protection in the disposal and allocation of land. This protection will help us greatly to continue to operate measures of structural reform for agricultural land designed to improve the viability of small farmers.

I agree with Deputy O'Higgins that we must take whatever measures we consider necessary to ensure that the sale of land is controlled here in the interests of land structural reform. I should like to assure the House that the Government have under active examination the question of our adopting measures by way of legislation and otherwise which, while being compatible with the obligations we shall assume as members, will afford us the necessary protection for our own interests with regard to the disposal of agricultural land.

The preoccupation to date in relation to the vital question of Ireland's membership of the EEC has been centred on specific economic and trading issues and their implications for us. In the negotiations we were primarily concerned with obtaining terms of accession which would enable us to adjust gradually to the economic and trading conditions of membership and, at the same time, take advantage from the outset of the opportunities membership will offer. The national debate on the question of membership which is now gaining momentum is centred on specific economic issues— employment, the cost of living, prospects for our farmers, and so on. These are understandable preoccupations but because of them sufficient attention has not perhaps been paid to the nature of the Community we have applied to join. Sufficient notice has not been taken of the aims and achievements of that Community.

In the White Paper and in this debate the arguments in favour of alternatives have been well and truly demolished. Throughout the discussion there has been the assumption that we should seek an alternative, that some alternative should be possible and that we want it. The Government and others in favour of entry into Europe, in their anxiety to demonstrate to the public how unfounded are the arguments in favour of an alternative, may have appeared to accept the implication that if an alternative were available we would take it, and that it would be preferable to protect our trading and economic interests in another way. This implication may have been accepted, but it is not the case.

The Government are convinced, and I think we have shown this in a definite way, that outside membership of the enlarged Community—which includes Britain—we could not adequately protect our economic and trading interests, nor could we realise our potential for economic expansion. We believe that the EEC is a Community worth joining. We believe that because of our history and traditions, because of our commitment to the democratic way of life, to peace in the world, because of our aspirations for the future of this country and the rest of the world, the EEC is a Community we should join, that our appropriate place is in full membership of the Community.

It is important that in this national debate we should ask ourselves what the Community is all about. The essence of the Community is to be found in its foundation and in the inspiration that motivated the founding fathers. The EEC and its two sister Communities were born out of the devastation of the last world war. The founders were determined that Europe would never again become the cockpit of the world. They aspired to the ever closer union among the European peoples, of which the Preamble in the Treaty of Rome speaks. This unity would make war in Europe impossible in the future. But, with a unique blend of idealism and realism, the founders realised that this objective of unity could be achieved only by a series of practical concerted measures.

Robert S. Schuman said: "A united Europe will not be achieved all at once, not in a single framework. It will be formed by concrete measures which first of all create a solidarity in fact." The present member states undertook in the creation of the three Communities to take these concrete measures.

In the case of the Coal and Steel Community, which was the first, the member states set about pooling their coal and steel resources in a single market. They saw the establishment of that Community in the context of safeguarding world peace by creative effort and in laying the foundation of a broader and deeper Community among people long divided by conflict. Euratom was established for the purpose of creating a major nuclear industry within the Community and in the awareness of nuclear energy as an essential resource for peaceful progress and in the desire for co-operation in its peaceful development. In the establishment of the European Economic Community, the founder members set as their aim the creation of this ever-closer union among the European people. The EEC was seen as laying the foundation for this union and the member states in this new Community set about ensuring the economic and social progress of their countries. They accepted as an essential objective of their efforts the constant improvement of the living and working conditions of their people. They committed themselves to reducing the differences existing between the various regions in the Community and reducing the backwardness of the less favoured regions.

The achievement of balanced trade and fair competition within the Community and the progressive abolition of restrictions in world trade were two tasks also of the member states. They also recognised their obligations jointly to help in the economic and social progress of the developing countries. The member states of the Community sought by thus pooling their resources in concerted, practical effort to preserve and strengthen peace and liberty. They did not seek a compromise between their respective interests. In an unprecedented way, they took a common view of their common interests and together sought ways of achieving the objectives which they recognised as being valid for all.

I have dealt with the origins of the Community, the motivations for its establishment and the immediate goals and ultimate objectives which the founder members set themselves because I think it is important that we know about them and appreciate fully the nature of this Community which, subject to the approval of the people on 10th May, we shall be joining. I would like to ask: surely the ideals I have mentioned, the objectives set, the tasks they have undertaken are ones that we in Ireland fully sympathise with and can support? The Government are convinced that they are. We are certain that they find a ready response in the Irish people and if we sympathise with and support these ideals, these goals, these tasks of the Community, surely we will want to participate in them fully? We should be all the more anxious to participate when we look at the achievements of the Community in the 13 years of its existence and the objectives and tasks now being set for themselves by the Communities for the years ahead, objectives for the creation of a wider and stronger Europe.

It is remarkable that those people who oppose Ireland's entry to the EEC always ignore the experience of the Community to date and the evidence of Community policies and actions as they affect each member state. Perhaps it is no wonder, for the operation of the Community and its very considerable achievements are a clear manifestation of the will and purpose of the member states in achieving the goals and fulfilling the tasks they undertook together when the Community was established. These achievements I speak of are not something theoretical, something remote. They permeate and colour in a very real way, a real tangible and beneficial way, the lives of all the people in the member states. There are certain things which young people growing up today take for granted which the founders of the European Communities knew they had to ensure. There is freedom which exists within the boundaries of the Community for the Community is composed of like-minded, democratic countries. This freedom was hard won out of the near anarchy and despotism and the threat of despotism in the earlier decades of this century in Europe.

The Community is also characterised by peace and the pursuit of peace.

It was created, as I have said, out of the horrors of war, a war in which we did not participate, but who can guarantee that we will be far removed from further wars that might start? It was created out of a war because of the determination of its founding fathers that they would construct a new Europe in which war would be impossible. The construction of a Europe, this new Europe in which war would be impossible, has yet to be completed, but what has been achieved so far by the Community is the framework of a broader and deeper community between countries which have long been opposed to each other in conflict, and this, the true basis of lasting peace in Europe is being made by the creation and enlargement of the European Communities.

Another of the major achievements of the Community is its prosperity, the economic and social progress of the member countries and the improvement in the living and working conditions of their people which was envisaged by the Treaty of Rome. And it must be remembered that the prosperity which has been achieved has been achieved by the concerted efforts of the member states working in the common interest and realising their own national objectives for their economic development and the welfare of their people. Freedom, peace and prosperity—these benefits characterise the Community which has been created. They are real, tangible benefits affecting and shaping the lives of the people of the member states and the societies in which they live. As I have said, people born since the last war have grown to accept these things as normal and those of us in positions to give leadership should think in the same terms as those who founded the European Communities; that what the young people expect as normal may now be guaranteed.

Dr. Cruise-O'Brien

Do not forget about the benefits to the Irish language. You have only two minutes to go.

Mr. Power

Sin duine glic—sin é an focal ceart.

Dr. Hillery

If I could say one further word about the Community— we have all been thinking of the price of butter—I have tried to go back to matters which motivated the founding fathers and for which we now have responsibility to make sure that it continues. There is one other aspect of the Community and its prosperity, that is, its obligations and responsibilities to the rest of the world. The next meeting of heads of state will deal with the relations between the Community and the other developed countries, with the development of détente and the easing of tensions in Europe, the development of relations with the eastern part of Europe and in particular, and of interest to this country, especially, I know, its relations towards the Third World and the increasingly generous contribution which the European Community must make as its own prosperity grows.

These are the things that are emerging as a blueprint for the Europe we want to join. As I say, they are already preparing, with the full participation of the applicants, for a meeting of the heads of state and Government which will take place in October and which will decide that this Community, which is democratic, human, prosperous, committed to peace between countries and within them, is also committed to helping the developing world. This is a Community which I think we should join, a Community for which the Government feel the people of Ireland should get the leadership to join. The ideals of the Community are our ideals and I would like to finish by saying what I said at the beginning, that the vote on 10th May will be the last chance to go in on the conditions negotiated now, and if I might say so, they were very good conditions.

Amendment put.

The Dáil divided: Tá, 16; Níl, 56.

Tá

• Browne, Noël.
• Cluskey, Frank.
• Corish, Brendan.
• Coughlan, Stephen.
• Cruise-O'Brien, Conor.
• Desmond, Barry.
• Kavanagh, Liam.
• Keating, Justin.
• Murphy, Michael P.
• O'Connell, John F.
• O'Donovan, John.
• O'Leary, Michael.
• Pattison, Séamus.
• Spring, Dan.
• Thornley, David.
• Tully, James.

Níl

• Andrews, David.
• Barrett, Sylvester.
• Boylan, Terence.
• Brennan, Joseph.
• Browne, Patrick.
• Browne, Seán.
• Carter, Frank.
• Childers, Erskine.
• Colley, George.
• Collins, Gerard.
• Forde, Paddy.
• French, Seán.
• Gallagher, James.
• Geoghegan, John.
• Gibbons, Hugh.
• Gibbons, James.
• Haughey, Charles.
• Healy, Augustine A.
• Herbert, Michael.
• Hillery, Patrick J.
• Hilliard, Michael.
• Hussey, Thomas.
• Kenneally, William.
• Kitt, Michael F.
• Lalor, Patrick J.
• Lemass, Noel T.
• Lenihan, Brian.
• Lynch, Celia.
• Connolly, Gerard C.
• Cronin, Jerry.
• Crowley, Flor.
• Cunningham, Liam.
• Davern, Noel.
• de Valera, Vivion.
• Dowling, Joe.
• Fahey, Jackie.
• Faulkner, Pádraig.
• Fitzpatrick, Tom (Dublin Central).
• Lynch, John.
• McEllistrim, Thomas.
• MacSharry, Ray.
• Meaney, Thomas.
• Molloy, Robert.
• Moore, Seán.
• Nolan, Thomas.
• Noonan, Michael.
• O'Connor, Timothy.
• O'Kennedy, Michael.
• O'Leary, John.
• O'Malley, Des.
• Power, Patrick.
• Sheridan, Joseph.
• Smith, Michael.
• Timmons, Eugene.
• Tunney, Jim.
• Wyse, Pearse.

Tellers:—Tá: Deputies Cluskey and Kavanagh; Níl: Deputies Andrews and Meaney.

Amendment declared lost.

Motion put.

The Dáil divided: Tá, 89; Níl, 16.

Tá

• Andrews, David.
• Barrett, Sylvester.
• Belton, Luke.
• Belton, Paddy.
• Boylan, Terence.
• Brennan, Joseph.
• Browne, Patrick.
• Browne, Seán.
• Bruton, John.
• Burke, Joan.
• Burke, Liam.
• Burke, Richard.
• Carter, Frank.
• Childers, Erskine.
• Clinton, Mark A.
• Colley, George.
• Collins, Edward.
• Collins, Gerard.
• Conlan, John F.
• Connolly, Gerard C.
• Cooney, Patrick M.
• Cosgrave, Liam.
• Cronin, Jerry.
• Crowley, Flor.
• Cunningham, Liam.
• Davern, Noel.
• de Valera, Vivion.
• Dockrell, Henry P.
• Dockrell, Maurice E.
• Donegan, Patrick S.
• Donnellan, John.
• Dowling, Joe.
• Dunne, Thomas.
• Esmonde, Sir Anthony C.
• Fahey, Jackie.
• Faulkner, Pádraig.
• Finn, Martin.
• FitzGerald, Garret.
• Fitzpatrick, Tom (Cavan).
• Fitzpatrick, Tom (Dublin Central).
• Flanagan, Seán.
• Forde, Paddy.
• French, Seán.
• Gallagher, James.
• Geoghegan, John.
• Gibbons, Hugh.
• Gibbons, James.
• Governey, Desmond.
• Haughey, Charles.
• Healy, Augustine A.
• Herbert, Michael.
• Hillery, Patrick J.
• Hilliard, Michael.
• Hogan, Patrick.
• Hussey, Thomas.
• Jones, Denis F.
• Kenneally, William.
• Kenny, Henry.
• Kitt, Michael F.
• Lalor, Patrick J.
• Lemass, Noel T.
• Lenihan, Brian.
• L'Estrange, Gerald.
• Lynch, Celia.
• Lynch, John.
• McEllistrim, Thomas.
• McLaughlin, Joseph.
• MacSharry, Ray.
• Malone, Patrick.
• Meaney, Thomas.
• Molloy, Robert.
• Moore, Seán.
• Nolan, Thomas.
• Noonan, Michael.
• O'Connor, Timothy.
• O'Donnell, Tom.
• O'Higgins, Thomas F.
• O'Leary, John.
• O'Malley, Des.
• O'Reilly, Paddy.
• O'Sullivan, John L.
• Power, Patrick.
• Ryan, Richie.
• Sheridan, Joseph.
• Smith, Patrick.
• Timmins, Godfrey.
• Timmons, Eugene.
• Tunney, Jim.
• Wyse, Pearse.

Níl

• Browne, Noël.
• Cluskey, Frank.
• Corish, Brendan.
• Coughlan, Stephen.
• Cruise-O'Brien, Conor.
• Desmond, Barry.
• Kavanagh, Liam.
• Keating, Justin.
• Murphy, Michael P.
• O'Connell, John F.
• O'Donovan, John.
• O'Leary, Michael.
• Pattison, Séamus.
• Spring, Dan.
• Thornley, David.
• Tully, James.

Tellers:—Tá: Deputies Andrews and Meaney; Níl: Deputies Cluskey and Kavanagh.

Motion declared carried.