As I said last night, I was surprised, and rather disappointed, with the Opposition. I went to the trouble of reading all the speeches and I noticed that there was an appalling lack of any constructive alternatives put forward by the Opposition. I am objective in my criticism and I am equally critical of the Government. The Opposition could have proposed alternatives to the Government in the present critical state of the economy.
Adjournment of Dáil: Motion (Resumed).
Debate resumed on the following motion:
That the Dáil at its rising this week do adjourn for the Christmas Recess.
—(The Taoiseach.)
Government Ministers are not here to listen to the Deputy.
I am not concerned but I am concerned that the Opposition should be more constructive. The public will see their contributions as lacking constructive criticism. A Government is only as good as its Opposition and if there is not an effective co-ordinated Opposition there will be a lax and arrogant Government. This is an important debate, a review of a year in which we had an unprecedented economic crisis.
The problems facing the Government are many. We had a serious crisis when the Arab countries demanded extra money for their oil and this had a devastating effect on our economy. In a situation like that any Government would have to face the options open to them. Do they have massive unemployment immediately and not provide for the people in such a situation or do they cushion them against the bad effects of the situation? In the circumstances, the Government chose the right thing, to cushion the people against the adverse effects of this. However, I do not think they did sufficient. The problem they were faced with was whether to fight inflation and preserve employment at the same time. It is very difficult to deal with those problems because if the Government decided to fight inflation and adopt deflationary policies we could have had more unemployment. They had to face an agonising choice. The Opposition blamed the Government for spending too much, creating the inflation, but I did some work on the questions on the Order Papers and——
On a point of order, I should like to point out that for this debate which has been described as an important debate there is no representative of the Government present.
There is a junior Minister present.
The junior Minister is here because, as he was about to depart, he was called back. A member of the Government should be present to listen to contributions in this emergency situation. At least we should have a quorum to listen to Deputy O'Connell.
Notice taken that 20 Members not present; House counted and 20 Members being present,
So I have an audience. The main criticism of the Opposition is that the Government are spending too much and, therefore, that they are an inflationary force. Anybody who would take the trouble to do a little research will discover that the Opposition would be big contributors to this expenditure. For instance, in Private Motions we have called for reliefs in CIE and ESB charges, we have had demands by Deputy Leonard to take VAT off furniture, from Deputies O'Kennedy and Power to build more Garda stations, for more money for coast protection in Donegal, for more water and sewerage schemes.
All this money must come from Government sources. We are all guilty in this respect. I have demanded expenditure on the provision of more employment on public works. Other Deputies have asked for increases in post-primary education grants. In this way we are not facing up to the problem. We do not realise that if the Government complied with our demands we would be increasing the expenditure by, in my estimation, £200 million in the current year. It is easy to rant and rave about the economic crisis. We can parade depressing facts and figures, and we have a great supply of them, but if one expects to be worthy of being heard above the din, one must couple criticism with some constructive ideas, with areas which deserve investigation.
I try to be constructive in my proposals. If we were to use the time of the Dáil in more constructive criticism we would be a much more effective legislative body. If my comments here are considered to be critical, at least I hope they will be looked at as responsible in the circumstances.
The OECD Report is alarming. In a way, it points out the harsh fact that things are bad, that we must try to provide 28,000 extra jobs each year. In these circumstances what alarms me is that there does not seem to be an economic plan. We seem to be drifting along day by day hoping for the best. We had had a severe crisis during the war and the Government then failed to formulate a policy for the years following the world catastrophe: they just drifted along and we were, therefore, very slow to catch up with the rest of Europe who in the aftermath moved quickly.
Unless the Government of today plan today, we will be following the same pattern as our predecessors in the fifties. The Government may say this is not the time to do it but the Minister for Finance has been planning ahead through his capital taxation legislation. The revenue from these bills will be negligible, but that to my mind does not nullify the need for them. This is the time to plan and, therefore, this is the time to have brought them in. Anything we borrow these days involves large interest plus capital repayments many years ahead. I was disturbed by the statement of the Minister for Finance, reported in Volume 277, column 220 of the Official Report:
Of all the tasks which could engage my attention, the least realistic would be the publication of a medium or long-term economic plan based upon irrelevancies in the past, hunches as to the present and clairvoyance as to the future.
I disagree. This is a time to plan for the future because otherwise the growth which will inevitably come internationally will pass us by and we will find ourselves lagging behind our colleagues in Europe.
An interesting aspect of the OECD Report relates to the question of restraint. They say that reflation is needed, with more money for housing and so forth, for the provision of temporary jobs for the unemployed. This is a hobby horse of mine, in line with recommendations I put to the Government during the last year for a massive public works programme that would mobilise the unemployed for socially important projects such as schools, other public works, community projects. This would have a big effect in easing the psychological malaise we have as well as having residual effects.
We pay over £100 million a year by way of unemployment benefit and the other benefits that accompany it. That is a wonderful and humane gesture. This unemployment is demoralising. Were we to introduce a programme such as the one I suggest, it would have an uplifting effect on the unemployed. We could mobilise this force, have them working on community projects and give them an interest. If this leadership were given, it would make a great difference to our people. I feel very strongly about this and the OECD recommend such temporary measures. Why not, because we would see the results of this work in the community. The only effort I have seen made at present is a pilot scheme being undertaken in one area. This engaged in on a massive scale could help our economy.
The Taoiseach mentioned the pay pause. We have to be realistic here and to give the Opposition their due they have fallen behind him in recommending this. However, when one speaks about a pay pause, it is important that one elaborates on it and also on the other measures which we hope will be taken if the congress of trade unions responds to the Government's request. In my mind it would not be good enough to have a profits pause or a freeze on dividends. The pay pause will mean that the man does not get paid and where dividends and profits are concerned it could mean deferring payment of them so that in a year or two this money would be paid out to shareholders in the normal way. I submit that would not be an equitable sharing of the sacrifice. I hope the Government will consider seriously making it clear to those who receive dividends and profits that they must be ploughed back into the company to create more jobs and not merely put in cold storage to be handed out later. It is important that we get that understood. If that were done it would have a dual effect. It would be seen by workers as a serious attempt by the Government to restrain the other side of industry and would also have the effect of creating more jobs.
One of our difficulties at present— and it is important that it be said— is that, unfortunately, we equate inflation with pay increases. We speak about products being non-competitive because pay and salaries are too high. I disagree with this contention because in every single country in the EEC the pay rate is higher than that in Ireland. Also we tend to forget the other aspect of non-competitiveness, if we may call it such. There is also the question of technology and managerial expertise. These are matters never referred to by anyone. I believe that it is not necessarily pay increases which make a product non-competitive. A product can be non-competitive if one does not have the most advanced technology available in its production. In the same way, if there is not management with expertise, the product will be non-competitive. It is an aspect of competitiveness of products we should consider seriously. We should give it more attention and not concentrate so much on the question of pay increases. It has been said over and over again that the worker is responsible for the fact that a product is non-competitive. I think that is incorrect.
I realise that a number of industries are experiencing a tough time at present; profits are not being made by many of them. Our financial institutions have a very important role to play which I do not think they are fulfilling. I believe that governments have not power, that the real power in this country lies in the hands of those who control the economy, who control the finances of our country and they are the financial institutions, the banks. We have banks with resources of almost £3,000 million. They control everything. Therefore, they hold the power. They can cripple industry, create recessions, move their money abroad, do anything they like and we are totally dependent on them. It is debatable whether they live up to their responsibilities in our society. With resources of almost £3,000 million one wonders are they fulfilling their proper role. Do they contribute sufficiently to the economy, industry and society in general? I wonder should we not ask them—with accompanying legislation, if necessary—to contribute a lot more to the economy. What would be wrong with their lending money to industry at very reduced rates of interest? Many industries at present cannot borrow money to invest because of the high rates of interest being charged. It is completely useless to attempt to do so in many cases with profit margins so low. We should be able to compel our banks to lend money for investment in industry at very nominal interest rates. In that way we would have a stimulated economy. We would have industries here able with advanced technology to compete in world markets. As a result, we would have more people employed, more demand for goods and a solution to many of our problems. The banks have a vital role to play in this.
I said at the outset that to my way of thinking the Government were faced with a problem and they decided to gamble. I think they were gamblers and I do not mean that in a critical sense. They were justified in gambling as they did. Even the most knowledgable experts in the world believed that the recession would be of short duration. Last year there was every indication that the recovery would commence in May, 1975. Unfortunately, such was not the case. The Government have incurred borrowings that are really phenomenal. They borrowed in 1975 over £700 million and they are still very short. The interest to be paid on those Government borrowings will reach, I think, £100 million next year which will be a rise of 50 per cent on the preceding year. What can they do now? First of all, they can increase taxes, curtail expenditure or work with a combination of both. Those are the options open to them. If they increase taxation, it will mean that there will be less spending power, less demand for goods, increased overheads in industry, fewer goods sold, more unemployment, more people receiving social welfare and, in all, greater demands being made on the Exchequer. That is what will happen if they increase taxation to any extent. If they do not do that but rather go for more borrowing, the interest on the borrowings will be such that it will take a very high proportion of the gross national product and that would not be feasible.
The question then arises as to whether it is possible to spread the load, cast the taxation net a little wider. With due respect to my rural colleagues, it is easy for me, a city Deputy, to criticise the farming community but I believe there are many of our farmers who could afford to pay more by way of taxation. We know they had lean years. So did industry. I think the big farmer of £100 valuation and over could afford to pay more by way of taxation. There are many farmers with very high incomes who are not paying any tax at all. Too big a burden falls on the other sector. This is not an equitable situation. We talk about everyone sharing the burden. It is a burden we will all have to share. We will all have to make sacrifices and the farming community will have to be asked to contribute more. The £100 valuation will barely scratch the surface but the Government must get more by way of taxation from the farming community. If they do not do this, then the section carrying the burden will no longer be able to carry it. One must spread the load. If one does not get tax in, then the Exchequer will not be able to pay out. One section is being asked to pay too much. We will have to strike a balance and ask the other section to pay also.
Looking back on the budget in January of this year, I find it cost the Government £50 million to provide the increases in social welfare benefits. Those increases merely took account of the inflationary trend, which was then 21 to 23 per cent. All the Exchequer got from taxation on drink, tobacco and other items was £30 million. If the same increases are applied in the coming budget, all we can expect to get is £30 million Increases in social welfare benefits designed to keep pace with inflation will cost at least another £50 million. I am wondering from whence will the extra taxation needed come. It is very difficult to see how the money will be found.
Public service pay accounts for 33 per cent of Government spending. I believe there is need here for a pay pause. At the same time, there is a certain section of the community which might have to be exempt from a pay pause. It is important that we should look at this matter very seriously, with a patriotic eye, and say to ourselves that we are able to live. I appeal to those in the public service to appreciate the fact that there are people living in very great hardship. We should all recognise this, especially those in the public service. We are all finding things difficult, but some find the situation much more difficult than others. We have become too selfish. We are all trying to feather our own nests. Sectional interests is a predominant feature and nobody is prepared to be the first to call a halt. We should be prepared to do this, to tell ourselves our jobs are secure and we will not be out on the dole. I would ask those in the public service to assist the Government by accepting a pay pause. The other evening I was told those in the public service had got their increases under the national wage agreement but they were still looking for more. This is very selfish remembering there are so many unemployed. The interesting thing about the unemployed is, and this is reported by the Confederation of Irish Industry, that they are suffering a 50 per cent reduction in their real income as a result of the recession. Those on pensions and so on are suffering a 25 per cent reduction. Those in secure jobs should bear this fact in mind.
I was wondering if the Government would give more by way of incentive to creating employment. The employment premium is excellent and it was recently extended to cover additional industries. Possibly it could be extended even further as a productive use of Government money to stimulate employment. We should place more emphasis on labour subsidies rather than on capital grants for the purpose of guaranteeing employment. This is done in other EEC countries. They are more concerned with labour subsidies than they are with capital grants. There would have to be an assurance that the subsidies would be used for the purpose of creating more employment.
I believe we have been too lax in the allocation of grants to various sectors. We have given grants for hotels. Why not establish a central loan fund from which loans could be made at zero rate of interest over so many years? If the borrowers cannot afford to pay the money back, then they will not be asked to do so. Where loans are concerned, there need be no stipulation that they must be repaid within a certain time but any money coming into the fund could be used for productive purposes. I think the policy of giving grants was a mistake and the time has come when we should change our whole approach in this matter.
I was in Malta earlier this year. It is a very interesting little island. The Prime Minister, Mr. Mintoff, has done wonders. He is loath to give grants for anything. He gives loans only. Loans mean money coming back all the time and that money can be used over and over again. The Government should seriously consider this whole matter. With regard to grants given to agriculture, when I asked for in-information about these I could not get a satisfactory answer. The Minister would not give the information. Many millions have been given to agriculture and there is no information as to what the money was given for or to whom. I asked for the names of those who received grants in excess of £500 and I could not get the information. We get information, however, when grants are given in the industrial sector. I was surprised and disappointed to learn that the information could not be made available to the public, because since public money is involved there should be public accountability.
There is much talk of price increases and of the policing of prices but we should look realistically at this whole question and have regard to the fact that a stricter surveillance in this area means further Government spending in so far as a greater number of inspectors must be employed. We must ask ourselves whether such expenditure is justified because when the upturn in the economy occurs and there is free competition there will be no need for these extra civil servants and the cost of maintaining them would be phenomenal. Is it worth while, for instance, reporting the owner of the small huckster's shop which stays open until midnight for charging an extra 1p on small items? Might we not regard this small additional cost as part of the service charged? These people do not make fortunes and we might be only harassing them in having this stricter control.
However, there is a real need to have regard to the overcharging engaged in by publicans. These people are making very high profits in an industry which has a very fast turnover. They have readily disposable products and are making profits of 40 per cent and more whereas the grocer makes a profit of less than 6 per cent. I am a non-drinker and, consequently, drink prices do not bother me personally, but I am concerned for all those who are affected by the overcharging. Groups of people such as publicans can defy Governments openly but this situation should not be tolerated. As a people we should stand up against any such pressure groups and not be intimidated by them.
At a time when sacrifices are being asked for on the part of the entire community groups such as publicans should not be exempted. This applies, too, to professional people and any others who may be seeking large increases. I was disturbed to read in today's papers that barristers are seeking an increase of 66 per cent. Again, this is an exploitation of a situation and is defying openly Government appeals for restraint.
The Opposition made much capital of the fact that the situation in the building industry is not good. I agree that it is not good but I do not accept that this was an orderly industry prior to the change of Government. Up to the time we took office speculation was rampant within this sector and vast profits were being made especially in relation to the building of office blocks which were being constructed all over the place. However, these buildings are empty now. The ending of that situation accounts to some extent for the significant drop in the number of people employed in the industry.
The Leader of the Opposition referred to the fact that money was being spent on local authority housing in preference to spending in the private building sector. I trust that Deputy Lynch did not mean this because it is in the area of local authority housing that we should concentrate most effort and, consequently, provide houses for those who are most in need of them. As a result of the speculation that went on in relation to building in the past, many people have made fortunes. One very enlightened piece of thinking on our part was the restriction of auctioneers' fees. Some of these auctioneers were making so much money that they were able to build office blocks for themselves. There is one office block in this town that was built by an auctioneer specifically for use as his own premises. This is an indication of the level of profits they were making. The situation now is that the vendor pays the fees concerned but the purchaser of the house is not required to pay any such fees. This change too, accounts partly for the drop in the number of people employed in the building industry.
I should like to see in operation a public works programme with the concentration, not on office blocks, but on work that is useful socially. Office blocks may be built by foreigners but with Irish money. Some of these people came here and were able to get the money for their operations from Irish banks. However, their boom time has passed. Every effort must be made to employ as many people as possible on public works programmes.
Deputy Lynch also referred to the question of rates and said that his party wished for the abolition of rates. I am objective in my criticism. I can be scathing with the Government on occasion but in this instance I must be critical of the Leader of the Opposition. Referring to Fianna Fáil's promise before the general election to abolish rates Deputy Lynch said that while it was late in the day that they thought about it——
(Dublin Central): Deputy Lynch said that the question had been under consideration for a long time but had not been completed.
I suggest that Deputy Fitzpatrick read his Leader's speech. I am not being offensive to Deputy Lynch but he was naive, not only in regard to the rates question but in referring to family law in respect of which he said that when his party return to power they will ensure that family law legislation is implemented.
We are entitled to ask what his party were doing during 16 years of office that they took no action in regard to this legislation. Now he realises how enlightened is our thinking in this regard. For many years in opposition we had been asking the then Government for legislation in this sphere. We had been asking, too, for rates relief.
Deputy Lalor during the course of his contribution last night was forthright and honest in some of the points he made. I enjoyed listening to his speech and I found it most constructive. I said that the Opposition can contribute significantly to the debate by offering constructive criticism. When we were in Opposition we did this and Fianna Fáil listened to us and implemented some of our suggestions. One of our suggestions was the establishment of a National Prices Commission and in the medical area we called for the abolition of the dispensary system. To give Fianna Fáil their due, they implemented our suggestions. It is the job of an Opposition to make suggestions. Once they are implemented it does not matter who takes the credit for them because all that is important is the welfare of the people.
We have been given every indication that the budget will be a very tough one. For a while I thought this was a conditioning process, that we might be told this repeatedly and then when the budget was presented that it might not be as bad as we thought. I often got that impression in the weeks preceding other budgets and I thought this might be the same kind of propaganda. However there seems to be every indication that the coming budget will be a tough one. I am convinced we must look at the bright side. The recession will not last forever and there is definite evidence that there is light at the end of the tunnel——
(Dublin Central): The Deputy must be the only one who can see the light.
We must not become too despondent. There is enough despair in the world without talking too much about depression. It is not too much to expect us to give one year to the country and this also applies to the irresponsible people who go on lightning or unofficial strikes. We should appeal to everyone to try and make the coming year a strike-free year because this would help the economy and would encourage everyone.
I would ask the Minister for Labour to consider the question of some kind of early warning system. All of us know that strikes are settled in the end and we must ask why we have not got some machinery to investigate them more quickly. The Labour Court is not entirely without blame because it has taken considerable time to examine the question of strikes. I remember the very serious bus strike that had devastating effects on the economy of the city. I was obsessed about the matter and wanted very much to have it solved. I was not too happy with the attitude of both sides: one said they could not continue the discussions because the World Cup matches were on and the Labour Court could not meet until the end of the following week. In a situation like that there should be machinery available to investigate the matter urgently, even if it meant working on Saturday or Sunday and into the night. We have had too many strkes. Many of them were unjustified and could have been averted if the proper machinery were there. We should do our utmost to make 1976 a strike-free year; this would be the greatest contribution to our economy.
There is a depressing feeling throughout the country. We should try to instil confidence in the people, tell them that there is light at the end of the tunnel but that we must prepare for it. We should have our plans ready to meet the upturn and to be able to cope with it. As I see it, it will come within the year, but there is no use in our sitting back and twiddling our thumbs. If we do that our country has no hope of recovery. Now is the time to prepare for it, to give the incentives to industry and make our banks play their part. We should spread the net more fairly so that all sections play their part.
(Dublin Central): On a point of order, with the permission of the Chair I should like to raise a matter that is of vital importance in the Dublin district. Our postal services have practically come to a halt——
If the Deputy is giving me an indication of raising something I shall communicate with him.
(Dublin Central): I am particularly concerned because parcels are not being accepted today and neither are second-class letters. I should like if we could discuss it with the Minister when the Dáil adjourns this evening.
I will communicate with the Deputy on the matter.
The short time available to the House does not allow Members time to deal with the various aspects of the problems that face the country. One can only lightly touch on a small selected group of problems, whether by way of criticism or constructive suggestions.
While there has been much talk in this debate about unemployment, the depressed state of the economy and high prices, such has been the deterioration in recent years that the public have become almost immune to such talk. They are not reacting as they might have been expected to react in the past. Formerly because of public pressure, sometimes exerted in violent ways, there was a much quicker reaction from Governments. While our periods of depression may have been just as severe they tended to be shorter and the upswing was quicker because the Government were forced to take remedial measures at an earlier stage.
Perhaps the cushioning of the public from real want has left the Government without the real prodding they might have expected, and it may be responsible for their lack of action to remedy the situation. It is absolutely essential that we have an upturn in the economy; otherwise we will stay down, and nobody wants that. That we have more than 100,000 people unemployed does not seem to strike any great chord; it does not disturb us as it would have done ten, 20 or 30 years ago. That is a pity. We appear to be cushioned to such a degree that the effects are not severe enough to make us react sufficiently quickly to prod the Government into the action which they now propose to take. We have yet to see if their proposed remedies have a hope of making any impact on the problem.
The prices situation is like the killings in the North: they used to be the first headline news on our radio station but are not any longer. The other night in ninth place we had the shooting of a 17-year-old boy. I only mention this to parallel it with the daily increases in prices which five years, ten years or 20 years ago would have set off an alarm system which we would all have heard and taken some action about. Those increases have been taking place so frequently that we are deadened to their effect. Rounds of price increases take place day in and day out without any reaction from the public that would make the people in this House, particularly the Government, sit up, because they have the responsibility to try to remedy the situation.
This apathy in regard to unemployment and rising prices is very dangerous. Added to this we have the Government's contribution. I have heard various speakers, not only in this debate but in others, tell us about the impact the increases in oil prices have had. The Arabs are blamed for all this. The increases which have been imposed for all sorts of spurious reasons in this House are far greater than the total amount the Arabs get for the raw product. We should not try to cod anybody, least of all ourselves, that the increases in oil prices are totally because of the price the Arabs have looked for. Justly and belatedly, they have sought those increases for their products. In the not-too-distant future oil supplies will run out and they will probably find themselves in some hole with nothing at all to sustain them. The Arabs were bled white in the price they took for their oil while others throughout the world got rich on it.
When we were asked to pay the increased price for oil there was a huge outcry from everybody. We attributed all sorts of disasters, economic recession and increased costs of production to the Arabs. The increases we imposed, giving extra money in taxes to the Government, were at a greater level than the increases caused by the producers, who are getting no more than that to which they are entitled. We, like other countries, use their product in order to gather taxes in a big way. I have no doubt that the Arabs and other oil producers, now that they have looked at the situation, will continue to put the pressure on and continue to push up their rake-off for their product.
Nobody likes paying taxes. But now there is such pressure on because of the Government's lack of funds, that they come in shoals to many people who before this might not even have had to fill up a tax form. They have to engage in all sorts of form filling nowadays. The people who have to pay the piper, those from whom the taxes are demanded, are, nine times out of ten, in no position to understand the intricacies that have been woven into the tax system over the years. When they have to pay they pay blindly and this leads to frustration and the feeling that what one does not understand is unfairly taken.
I wonder in all this welter of new tax codes if the brains of the civil service—and there is no lack of brains there—should not be devoted to the simplification of the whole spread of taxes as they apply to our workers, wage earners, farmers, industrialists, right across the board. Nobody will deny that our tax operations are difficult to understand. The lack of understanding of the system we apply makes it more objectionable and obnoxious to those who pay. In many cases they cannot comprehend completely, if caught in various tax nets, where they are. This is not a good thing. It must be within the competence of the civil service to devise ways and means of simplifying the whole tax procedure. It is probably too much to expect, that a simplification of the tax system might also mean that taxes would cease to soar, as they have been doing. We are burdening the backs of the people still fortunate enough to be working, considering there are over 100,000 out of work and little prospect that things will change in the foreseeable future. This depression has been pretty lengthy and I believe we are not at the bottom of the pit yet. The longer it takes us to go down the longer it will take us coming up. The present depression appears to be worse than the depressions we have had in the past.
All sorts of efforts have been made to control prices. I do not believe that the most ardent supporter of this Government or the last Government will claim that these efforts have been successful. While an eye is being kept on certain things, price increases and price mark-ups are taking place day in and day out all over the country and no notice is being taken of them. When one can find things 50 per cent dearer in one shop than in the next door shop surely there is a need for some sort of control. It is not good enough that there can be such disparity in prices. It does not speak well for the effectiveness of the price control system we have.
I referred to oil and petrol prices. Without doubt petrol will be soon £1 per gallon and that will be a crazy situation. In many cases private transport has to be used by a man as part of his everyday working life. Why has he to pay such exorbitant prices? Why, for instance, must the price of a car be almost 50 per cent greater on this side of the Border than in the Six Counties and England, and that for cars not manufactured in England but elsewhere? This is a fact. We are paying more for insurance and nobody can tell me that the incidence of accidents in the Six Counties is less than here. Why does the discrepancy arise and how can it be justified? Despite all the concern the Minister expresses, how is it that insurance continues to rise here and that on every level it is beyond what is being paid across channel or across the Border where the accident rate and incidence of accidents, fatal and non-fatal, is greater than here? Who is codding whom and who is getting the rake-off? This is an additional imposition on our motoring public after the cost of the vehicle, cost of spares and the cost of repairs. All these cost more here than they do across the Border or in England. Tax is also higher here. How do these things arise? The long-suffering motoring public are entitled to an answer before there is any further twisting of the motorists' tail by further taxation on petrol and oil—which is very likely to happen in the coming budget or before it. It is better that we should know about these things because it is bad enough paying but it is worse when we are in semi-ignorance of the reasons why we have to pay more than people living a short distance away or across the channel. It is time we had such information. We can then see if there is justification—and this we all doubt—for the discrepancies under all these headings.
We should also take a hard look at the fishing industry. Great play is made in the glossy annual report that emerges and tells, on a purely percentage basis, of how well we are doing in regard to fishery development measured by the value of landings, exports, number of craft on the water, amount of money provided by State agencies for the purchase of new boats and gear and the occasional improved landing facility that is provided. I am not saying this in any carping way; I have said it innumerable times, even when I was in charge of fisheries within the Government. I maintain that our whole approach to the fishing industry has been too smallminded over the years and this is still so. The smug complacency with which we present the return showing that a 20, 30 or 40 per cent increase has been attained in value of landings or in exports or in the provision of boats over last year or over the last five years is, I think, the cause of our failure to reap the reward that our seas hold for us, particularly off the west coast which seems to be a haven for every fishing nation across Europe.
It is no exaggeration to say that if the Russians can fish off the north or north-west coast of Ireland and if Europeans from all the fishing nations can do so and find it profitable—they would not be there if they did not—it should be extremely profitable for us to put our backs into developing the fishing industry on our doorstep. We would be doing two things at the same time: providing an outlet for the chronically unemployed people of the west coast and building up the industry to be one of the most important in our economy.
This is all possible. Instead of looking at other approaches to our unemployment problem and the problem of increasing production and output, here is one solution washing our toes and this has been the case for generations under different Governments and Ministers. Our thinking is so small and our outlook so smug that to show a 10 per cent or 20 per cent increase from one year to the next seems to be something that merits a clap on the back whereas a good, hard kick is deserved for looking at the matter in that way at all. We are far too small-minded about the fishing industry, which seems to be treated as if it was a sort of social service, whereas potentially it is one of our greatest assets that can be no less an asset in the future than it is today and it is a great potential asset today.
We need better landing facilities, anchorages and harbours particularly along the difficult west coast and the back-up on-shore facilities also. I think they will be provided if the landings are taking place, if the harbours and anchorages are provided, the men trained and the boats going out and the fish coming in. On-shore facilities can be left fairly safely to private enterprise which in many cases in the recent past has shown that if the goods are there, the enterprise will be there to process them. We are certainly not doing enough about harbours and anchorages and we are not doing anything like enough about educating our people in the skill and craft and knowledge associated with a thriving fishing industry.
We have a fishery school which was specifically erected at Greencastle in my own constituency. The extent to which it has been used since it was provided is a disgrace. I do not think the Department or the Minister or the Parliamentary Secretary are much more than aware that it exists. If they are aware of its existence the use to which they are putting it is nothing short of scandalous. What is being done in that fine, new school is no more than what was being done in a semi-derelict, disused old national school that we got on loan many years ago to launch this project while the new building was being erected. After spending a lot of money on installing new equipment we are doing no more in it than was being done in the old, disused national school at Moville before we got the new building. I had envisaged Newcastle school as ultimately developing into what one might regard as the fisherman's university, that it would not just provide skipper's courses which can be done anywhere—a six months' course which can be provided and has been provided in other places and this could continue to be the case. There is much more that could be added to the base that has been established there about the development of which nobody in the Department responsible seems to be taking the slightest interest. One can only assume that this is a reflection of the lack of interest by the Minister and his Parliamentary Secretary in doing a really good job at Greencastle. It is being under-used to a scandalous degree. This would be only one of the two centres which should be in the country; the other preferably should be down south. I see the money spent on the present building as a waste because it is not used enough and the people responsible for using it have shown a lack of imagination.
We want our fishery limits extended. While 50 miles are being talked about at the moment, if our fish industries are to be preserved and exploited in the future to the advantage of our country we should be talking about a 200 miles limit. Side by side with an extension of the limit— or even without it—we must have protection from marauding foreign trawler fleets. They are visible daily right around our coasts and they scuttle off when one of our few protection vessels approaches. When a number of them are fishing, one can be sacrificed while the others skidaddle. We are not doing enough about this.
I have never believed that we can properly police our coastal waters and protect our fishery beds by the orthodox system, that is, the Irish Navy. We must look at what is available to us and think in terms of recruiting from our fishermen. These men could be trained. In every port, big or small, there should be an armed vessel and on that protecting vessel there would be a Navy NCO in charge. I am not suggesting that we should put guns aboard every fishing boat or that even on the selected boats which would be mounted they should be left in the hands and at the dictates of part-timers—fishermen and protection men when the occasion arises. We must develop along these lines. Whether the limit is 50 miles or 200 miles is not important if we cannot protect ourselves.
Salmon conservation is another subject which will probably come before this House as a result of the commission's report which was circulated lately. I do not agree with the gist of the report. There are two elements in salmon fishing to be catered for: the rod man up the river and the traditional, genuine fisherman who derives a substantial amount of his annual income from taking salmon at sea. I suggested a long time ago that the traps, charter fishing and estuaries are the places where our fishing stocks are being destroyed. It must be remembered that there are only about 16 nights of the entire running season that are net fished by our fishermen. This is such a small proportion of the entire time limit that it is no exaggeration to say that more must get through so far as the sea going salmon fishermen are concerned than they take, despite what the figures produced will show. In my view they can take the amount they are taking at present and still preserve for spawning the stocks without which the system will break down. Salmon may be lying at the mouth of the river for weeks at a time waiting for the flood and these fishermen do not have only one chance, they have chances every time they swing a net. They have so many chances that it must be said the fish have no chance at all. We must step in there. You cannot throw them out. I have always held against bitter critics that this is a right which must be respected and cannot be abandoned or taken from them. If it is taken from them, they must be paid compensation. I fully subscribe to this.
The Foyle Commission in my opinion were responsible for more depredation than the poachers they are allegedly trying to control. Do not let the State take over and say: "We will take over this estuary, these traps or these charter rights and fish them ourselves." Let us stop fishing them altogether and let the fishermen at sea fish as they have done traditionally and let our sportsmen, fishermen and anglers have the run of the river. Between them I do not think there is the slightest danger to the continuation of a very lucrative take by our salmon fishermen in the years ahead.
In regard to social welfare, as I have said on previous occasions, I take great exception to the fact that a person can have benefit stopped overnight for no specified reason but just for investigation purposes. There is a precept in law that a person is innocent until proved guilty. It should be the same with social welfare. If it is shown after investigation that a person is fraudulently or otherwise drawing money the whole or part of which he is not entitled to, there is the ordinary course that the Department can follow in seeking to have the amount repaid or, if it is a blatantly fraudulent case, of prosecuting the person concerned. However, seeing that they are the Department whose main function is to look after those who for one reason or another are not fully able to care for themselves, they should ensure that no hardship is inflicted on anybody who is drawing social welfare benefit, until it can be proved that they are not entitled to it. Such action can bring desperate hardship upon innocent people who are ultimately found to be in the clear and entitled to what they are getting and to whom the back money is paid. However, during the weeks or months of investigation how are these people to exist? Where will they get credit? There are dozens of such cases week in and week out, and it is time this was stopped. By all means, deal ruthlessly with those who are getting what they are not entitled to, but do not hurt those who genuinely need it by setting traps on a hit and miss basis for those who are fraudulently getting it. I have no sympathy for the latter, but I have a great deal of sympathy for those who are cut off and who suffer great hardship as a result of these reinvestigations.
I want to refer to local government and its housing grants and loans system. Everybody, most of all the Minister for Local Government, must be aware that if grants were ever justified, then either we were paying far too much ten years ago or we are paying far too little today. I subscribe to the latter view. Grants at their present level are ludicrous and should be increased not only for the benefit of the person who can reach the point at which he can avail of it but for the benefit of the building industry, the importance of which is accepted by everybody in the House.
The SDA loans limits are also totally unrealistic. Again, it is not only a matter of helping a man who wants to build his own house but a matter of the loss within the building industry which is going through a bad time and is likely to go through a worse time in the immediate future.
I find school transport to be one of the greatest nagging problems there is, particularly in rural areas. It was inadequately researched as to how best to do it, and it is, perhaps, costing more than it should. I recommend to the Minister and his Parliamentary Secretary the undertaking of a searching investigation into the whole application of the school transport system. In so doing he could well not only improve the system, which has so many faults in it and which causes so much difficulty in rural areas, with unfair decisions being made, but save money by giving a better, more efficient service.
In regard to national school and second-level school premises, there are so many pre-fabricated buildings around the country, it is hard to see the original school building. At the same time, more space is needed by many of our schools, not always, unfortunately, due to increased numbers of school-going children but rather due to the almost stupid attitude of the Department in closing down perfectly good schools in order to bring about their amalagamations, which seem to be almost sacred. There is so much to be done in regard to school buildings that where amalgamations are not "on" for one reason or another we should not be rowing about it; let us have them where they are "on". Greater progress would be made in that way. The closing down of recently built schools in order to fulfil a blueprint that was in somebody's drawer in Marlborough Street is not something on which we should waste too much of our time, energy or money at a time like this.
There is discrimination in regard to grants for third level education. The facilities available to those who decide to go for the academic or professional fields in the universities are not available to those who attend the regional technical colleges. Why is there this discrimination? Surely those who go to our regional technical colleges are entitled to at least the same consideration, financially, from the national purse as those who are proceeding towards professions. They are not and never were given a fair deal.
Our regional technical colleges which were built at great cost by the dedication of the management and staffs are getting a raw deal. It is the country's loss that they are being given that raw deal. The raw deal is the discrimination against those who attend those institutions rather than the universities. In addition, there has been an insane approach in the non-sanctioning of lecturers' posts in those institutions. If it was fully examined, it would be found to be an insane policy. We have the potential to do so much in those institutions and yet we permit the ship to almost sink for the want of a ha'porth of tar. Something should be done about this.
There are peculiar difficulties in so far as my constituency is concerned and they are so many and varied that I would not have time to go into them in detail. There is a large, though falling population in Donegal but we are truly in a disadvantaged position. This has never been fully recognised by this Parliament. We are regarded as part of the South with none of its advantages. We are isolated on the one hand by an unnatural Border and on the other by the broad Atlantic. We do not get from our own Dublin Government the special consideration we are entitled to. We are the products of Partition and our disadvantages are largely due to Partition, and we are treated in much the same way as those who live west of the Bann have been treated by Stormont governments. As far as the Dublin Government was concerned it was through total ignorance and in the case of the other it was deliberate and with complete determination to keep those west of the Bann in their places by not giving them jobs or houses in the hope that they would go away thereby diminishing in number to a point that would upset the balance of political power in the Six Counties.
There is no such problem as far as Donegal is concerned but we have all the other problems created by Partition and we are left there. As far as transport is concerned, the only public service provided is by bus. That bus service goes through the Six Counties, through the kind hands of the occupying forces of the British crown, at Strabane and at Aughnacloy. That is what our Government are providing the people of Donegal with. It is not very luxurious and far from what it should be since we have no rail, air or sea service. It is totally inadequate and could be described as a service provided for second class citizens which apparently we are in Donegal except when somebody wants something from us. In that case we are the best in the world.
That is all we have by way of connection with Dublin for trade and commerce. The bus must travel through County Tyrone and the Border checks by the British Army. The British Army gives special consideration to intimidate the travellers from Donegal to anywhere in the South. It is not unusual to find in the most inclement weather a bus load of passengers travelling from Donegal standing in the rain while they and the bus are searched. I have not heard any crib from our Government about that treatment.
On the constructive side, I should like to state that the EEC Regional Fund would be better spent in providing a proper air service to and from Donegal, with feeder links to our main airport, rather than filling the gaps and holes in our sanitary services, which the Government have not put up enough money for. We are using that fund by spending a few thousand here and there although Donegal needs an air service without which we can never develop. We also need a sea service into our county, particularly a car ferry service. The fishing potential of that county is second only to our tourist potential. We know what the potential is but we are doing damn all about it from a national point of view.
We have also in Donegal one of the best natural ports in Europe but all we hear about is money being spent on surveys and technological operations to ascertain how other ports can be improved without a word about the Lough Swilly port. That port is on the northwest approaches and surely has a potential beyond measure. It has never been looked at with any benevolent sort of gaze by any Government Department who could and should be doing something about it.
We have suffered from Partition and continue to suffer and our Government in Dublin do not understand our problems. I hope they will be a little more realistic in the future, particularly as they have come to be so concerned about the problems of the Six Counties, especially the Loyalists'. The Minister for Foreign Affairs devoted his contribution to this debate to the situation in the Six Counties. He told us that we have to identify the problem and went on to do so having given us a warning that careless words here and there could cause damage and death in the Six Counties. He told us that fear led the Unionists to the breakaway but that the decisions of 1920 and 1921 did not end their fears. He told us that fear has manifested itself in discrimination and oppression —a nice way of putting it. That Minister told us that the Unionists or Loyalists suffer from a lack of a sense of security and a lack of a sense of identity, an identity they could find if they were allowed to do so by the usurpers in the Six Counties, the British, who should not be there at all. Those people are as much Irish as I am so that there is no problem about their identity if the shackles were taken off the Six Counties by the occupation which has been a feature of this island for centuries by Britain.
The Minister for Foreign Affairs told us that the Loyalists were no longer clear where they belong or stand but how could they be when they were cosseted and nurtured by British occupation forces down the years for, undoubtedly, Britain's own gain in the past although it may be to her disadvantage now? It is very good to hear all this from the Minister.
What I would like to say to him is in the form of questions. Why all this concern for the Loyalist Unionist people in the Six Counties? Why all these exhortations to do everything we can to understand their problems, even to changing our Constitution if it will do them any good? There is another element in that population who have resented, fought against and will continue to fight against their position in the Six Counties, which is only a small part of the island, that is, the half million minority. I set them against the million that we hear all about. We were exhorted time and again not to bond them into a united Ireland. Nobody wants to bond them into a united Ireland or into anything else——
Nobody?
Nobody. Nobody wants to bond them into anything. I want to say a word on behalf of the half million who have suffered discrimination and oppression. Last night the Minister said that fear had manifested itself among Loyalists over the years, fear about oppression and discrimination. That is a terrible way to put it. It is his view not mine. But what about those on whom discrimination and oppression have been visited during the past 50 years? Are they to be abandoned by us as they have been throughout the years? Are they to be told: "The majority up there want it this way and even if that means walking on your neck, it is better to walk on half-a-million necks rather than there should be any question of the million getting into line and coming back to where they belong and telling Britain to get out as she should, and must, if she has any sense." She must give this declaration of intent the demand for which has been so maligned not only by Members of the Government benches but by Mr. Rees, if you do not mind.
Is it a declaration of intent? I do not think it is a declaration of intent. I do not think that is the wording.
It has come to be criticised as such and to be defended as such, and for short phraseology I think it is much more descriptive than any other form of words one could use. Mr. Rees is critical of this and has trotted out what we have been told so often that, perhaps, everybody down here now believes it, that if the British presence were to go even ten years from now there would be rivers of blood in the streets of Belfast. That is what we are being told here by the British. The country should know the truth, that unless and until Britain declares that she no longer has any intention of indefinitely remaining in the Six Counties there can be no rational reasonable talk with or between the two communities or with the Loyalist group in that community.
It is totally unrealistic to expect them to talk of this island as a united island while Britain declares her intention to stay. The converse is that Britain declares her intention to go. Then, and not until then, will we get reason and a sensible approach which Loyalists and others in Ulster would be prepared to give. Not until then will we have a true unification of our people. We are as blind to that today as we have been in the last 50 years, and there are British politicians, including Mr. Wilson and Mr. Rees, who seem to think we do not know anything down here. There is nothing so tragic as to hear Mr. Rees, after his short couple of years' association with the problems of the Six Counties, about which he may or may not have had knowledge, chiding us and blaming us for our ignorance. It is the ignorance of the Loyalists he is blaming us for, not ignorance of the cause of the problem today and in the last 50 years.
I intervene to advise the Deputy that of the time allotted to him only one minute remains.
I am sorry I have not time for that gentleman, Mr. Wilson, who when he was in Opposition not many years ago, put out some kind of a programme—I do not know whether it had 14 points or 15 points —about a British withdrawal. Now that he is in Government there is no word about it, and Mr. Rees is lambasting us down here. All I would say to that gentleman is that when he is as long around, about and through the Six Counties and the Border and its problems as I and others like me have been, then it will be time enough for him, as Secretary of State or otherwise, to start telling us about the ignorance of the people of the South of the problems of the Six Counties.
What does he know about it? In recent months he has demonstrated nothing but abysmal ignorance of the whole problem that is the Six Counties. Indeed, one can only wonder that when the opportunity was available Mr. Rees was not replaced by somebody who would have had some semblance of thought as to what the whole thing was about. The Great Britain Prime Minister is without doubt—I admire him for it though it may not be a very complimentary thing I am about to say—the most adept political ballet dancer outside Faulkner of the Six Counties over the years. I admire him on a purely political basis, but I would say to him: "Do not take your ballet dancing into the arena of the Six County problem. We have enough problems there and they are bad enough without this sort of talk and double talk."
I would ask him finally: "Where has the money been coming from to the Loyalists in the Six Counties? Has he checked out what subscriptions have been paid in money and in guns from the Masons throughout the world to their brethern above in the Six Counties?" He should not be selective when he is condemning what is going on. He should understand and realise that there are two sides to this problem. There is a Minister sitting over there who sees only one side as well——
I have called another speaker.
The greatest problem facing the country today is that it is leaderless. The country is only too well aware from experience of this Government that solutions announced for the purpose of getting the economy on its feet again will not be followed to their logical conclusions. Ever since the Government assumed office our economy has been in decline, with one possible exception in the period up to autumn 1973 because of sound Fianna Fáil financial policy when the economy continued its forward movement. From that time on the crazy financial policies of this Government began to take effect. The economy took a downward plunge until it reached its present frightening and deplorable state.
During all of that period we did not have any shortage of declarations by the Government in relation to what they proposed to do to correct the shocking drift which has now reached danger point. There is little doubt that the Government had a considerable amount of expert advice on the steps which should be taken to correct this trend from their own advisers, from the Central Bank, industrialists, farmers, trade unionists and Deputies on this side of the House. The evils of inflation were pointed out and, on occasion, decisions announced by the Government were such as might have gone some way at least towards correcting the downward plunge of the economy. But, as I said a moment ago, the disastrous thing for this country was that they never carried out those decisions. At the first sign of opposition to their proposals, at the first sign of political danger to either of the parties in the Coalition Government, they pulled back and the economy was allowed to continue to drift into chaos albeit, of course, the Government using very carefully chosen language to cover up the retreat or withdrawal, to try to make it appear that the withdrawal, which in fact was taken in the face of opposition, was simply another facet of their declared policy. Whatever the words used to cover up this retreat—and a retreat it was in every instance—we, the people of Ireland, are paying dearly for it today. We are paying dearly for the vacillation of this Government and, as far as we can see now, we will pay even dearer in the future.
We have always held on this side of the House that coalitions were fair-weather governments, that if such governments were manned by reasonably intelligent people—when times were good and there was plenty of room for manoeuvre—they could put on a show which appeared to be a worthwhile performance. But, when the clouds came down and the problems and difficulties came apace, then the inherent incapacity of coalitions to take difficult decisions became very apparent. The basic damage resulting from such indecision is tremendous, has very far-reaching effects, touching, as they do, every single individual in our community.
What difficult decisions would the Deputy like to see taken here.
In defence of this Coalition it has been said that most countries in western Europe are governed by coalitions. The fact is that, in most of those countries, the parliament is made up of many small parties and the coalition is usually formed from a group of parties who have some natural affinity. One would never find a situation such as we have here where the support— and I emphasise support—of one party is made up of a very conservative element in the community while the support of the other ranges from left of centre to radical socialism. Of course, that underlines the basic difficulty this Government have in making decisions and in giving leadership. Again, let me emphasise that I speak of the type of support which each of the parties has in the country. I do not speak of the parliamentary parties themselves because, as has been rightly said by the Leader of this party, the Labour parliamentary party now stands to the right at least of a certain element in the Fine Gael party. Whenever a difficult decision came to be taken which would spell out trouble for one or other of the Coalition parties, then it was not taken, whatever might be the detrimental effects on the country as a whole. Whenever one of the parties was frightened by the reaction of the public to a particular policy announcement, just as surely that policy announcement was shelved. This is no airy-fairy pronouncement on my part. It is a description which can be shown to be factual of what has been taking place in this Government since they assumed office.
Through this lack of decision-making and its follow up, we find ourselves in this present deplorable situation. It has been said sometimes of Fianna Fáil that perhaps they are also a coalition. If this means that there are different viewpoints and so on within the party itself, that can be a fact. But the important thing is that the Fianna Fáil Party is a unit which decides on policy by a majority decision and proceeds to put that policy into operation in the knowledge that, whether it is popular or unpopular, it will affect every member of the party in the same way. Therefore, decisions were taken by the Fianna Fáil Government, not on the basis of the problems they might cause the party itself but on the basis of whether or not the decisions taken were in the best interests of the country. Over a period of time Coalitions have proved themselves to be incapable of taking action when faced with great problems. Each of these Coalitions has led the country into financial chaos, such as we find it in today. Crucial decisions have been put to one side or have been taken too late.
In relation to this Coalition we have seen that in their efforts to be all things to all men they brought in budget after budget, each more damaging to the economy than its predecessor. The Government in their first budget had the benefit of the £30 million saved from agricultural subsidies because of our entry into the EEC. That money was used for social welfare purposes. We were all aware during the general election of 1973 that this money was available and we had all promised that it would be made available for social welfare purposes. However, this apart, I wondered —in the early days of this Administration—where the rest of the money was coming from used for purposes other than social welfare. There were times when I thought we must have been misled in some way or other in regard to the amount of money available. Of course, I now recognise that we were not being misled because we are all only too well aware of where the money came from.
Therefore, what perturbs me now is the knowledge of what happened previously in relation to the Government, when they took certain policy decisions and backed out of them at the first sign of opposition, and dodged every major issue. What worries me now is how we can believe that this same Government are likely, even if they have the policies and if those policies are announced on the day of the budget, to carry those policies to their final conclusion. How can we be sure these policies will be implemented? If we are to judge by the actions of the Government on many occasions since they took office the only conclusion we can come to is that, irrespective of what decisions are made, the Government are more likely to back off carrying through these decisions designed to get the economy back on its feet again, more likely to pass up standing by these decisions, more likely to do what they did before, We can only hope they will face up to the exceptional problems which have brought this country into very imminent danger. We do not want to end up like New York. We should remember that, unlike New York, we unfortunately have no fairy godmother in the shape of a federal government to come to our aid. The Government have not had the political courage to take the steps that should have been taken and the sooner they make way for another Government the better.
The power of persuasion of the Government publicity machine has created a fatal flaw in present-day thinking which, while it may be a useful ploy by the Government, can mean that the road to recovery will be much longer than it might otherwise be. They have succeeded in brainwashing people into believing nothing more can be done than the Government are doing, that things are as bad in other countries as they are here and a change of Government, therefore, would make no difference. In fact things are very much better in other Common Market countries than they are here, with the possible exception of Britain, and Britain has taken some action; she has, of course, a greater capacity for survival than we have. The fact is that where a nation is convinced nothing can be done to overcome its problems an atmosphere of inertia is created and that leads ultimately to destruction.
For too long our people have been told by the Government that all our ills stemmed from the oil crisis and we had no control over this crisis. That continued to be the Government's line until it became clear that other EEC countries suffering the same oil crisis problems had overcome the difficulties and were making rapid progress towards recovery. I have no doubt the Government would still be sheltering behind the oil crisis had not the Taoiseach been forced to change his mind because the national wage agreement negotiations were about to begin last week. At that point he began to tell us the problems were largely of our own making. His purpose was to try to get a lower increase in incomes than that visualised.
Reaction to a given situation rather than planning ahead has become an integral part of Government policy. The Government told the people we were caught up in a world-wide inflationary situation over which we had no control. This was accepted by the public and by some of the media for quite a considerable time. The frame of mind created by this attitude resulted in our inflation rate continuing to escalate while the inflation rate in almost all our partners in the Common Market was being quite considerably reduced. I remember during a debate on a Private Member's Motion earlier this year on the footwear industry mentioning the steps taken by Italy to protect her industries. The Minister for Industry and Commerce asked me to take note of the detrimental effects this particular policy had on Italy. He referred to the fact that the Italian Government had fallen. The fact is that by the time I brought in a similar motion six months later the situation in Italy was that they had cut their inflation rate by half while our inflation rate continued to soar.
We advised the Government on more than one occasion prior to the budget of last January to introduce food subsidies and remove VAT from a number of commodities as a temporary measure. We pointed out the effects which would flow from such an action in regard to the cost-of-living index and the effect on the national wage agreement which was about to be negotiated at that time. The Government refused to listen and the effect on industry since has been catastrophic.
It has also been catastrophic where employment is concerned. After the earlier efforts to achieve a national wage agreement appeared unlikely to be successful the Government's main objective seems to have been to have a national wage agreement at whatever level. We were not concerned about what the effect might be of such an agreement but, when the agreement was negotiated the results were highly praised by the Minister for Finance and the Minister for Labour. A few weeks later the Minister for Finance had to issue a statement in which he said that, unless changes could be made in the agreement and unless it could be reduced in size, the effect on the country would be very severe indeed. This showed a complete lack of leadership.
The Government are now seeking the adulation of the public because they claim the action they took in the June budget has succeeded in keeping the cost-of-living index increase below 3 per cent and this is proof that the measures taken in that budget were the correct measures. I would once again underline the fact that we on this side repeatedly asked the Government to take these steps in the January budget and, had they done so, they would have succeeded in keeping down the rise in the cost-of-living index between January and June and they would then have been in a position to negotiate a national wage agreement which would have assured our competitiveness in the export markets as well as on the home market and many of the industries which went to the wall, due to the ineptitude of Government policy in regard to inflation, would still be in existence and the workers who are now swelling the unemployment figures would still be gainfully employed. In my own constituency I have seen a number of industries closing down completely and thousands of workers becoming redundant. Inflation is the bugbear which has undermined our whole economic position and the Government did not have the political courage to tackle it until it was too late.
I should hope that for the country generally it is not too late to take some action but, unfortunately, it is too late for the many people who have lost their jobs. A typical example of the detrimental effect of the Government's failure to control inflation is that of the closing down of a clothing industry in my constituency. This was an industry of German origin which exported 90 per cent of their total production, mainly to Britain. They employed more than 100 workers but the escalating rate of inflation priced their products out of the market. To get a picture of their difficulties I would cite as an example an article produced by them and sold last year for £100 but which would have to be sold this year at £120 to £124 while a similar article produced last year at the same price at the parent company in Germany could be sold this year for £106. How could the Irish subsidiary compete in such circumstances? Although the situation had been clear to the ordinary worker in Louth for a long time, the Government failed to do anything to help. It is symptomatic of the Government's approach to the grave problems facing us that regarding this industry they appeared to have been much more concerned with ensuring that it did not sell more than 10 per cent of its products on the home market than in ensuring that the factory could continue to operate.
There are now 110,000 people unemployed. Regardless of what excuses or comparisons the Government may seek to make to explain this situation the fact remains that we are facing the most frightening unemployment situation ever in the history of the State. Our percentage of unemployment is the highest in all of the Common Market countries. The situation is particularly bad for our young people. Instead of showing some signs of trying to cope with the problem the Government are showing signs of panic and the policy appears to be now simply to react to situations as they arise. There is no overall plan for future development. The Government are merely muddling along and getting nowhere.
It is well known that there is no industry which can produce jobs as quickly as the building industry, that is, if it is properly financed. Therefore one would have expected that a real effort would have been made by the Government to develop this industry. The manufacturing industry is very useful in terms of the creation of jobs but this is a relatively slow process.
There are no indications from the Government of their intention to develop the building industry. Instead we are treated to a constant reiteration of housing statistics in an endeavour to prove that the Coalition are building more houses than were built by Fianna Fáil. We are anxious that more houses be built, but even if the Minister's figures are correct we are far from doing sufficient in this industry, not only to provide the new jobs that are so badly needed but to retain the jobs already in the industry. Here again inflation has played a big part. The inflation rate in the building industry was running at about 32 per cent, which was very much higher than the general rate. It is heartbreaking to find from the official statistics issued within the past few days that the greatest fall in employment during the past 12 months has been in the building industry, that more than 8,000 workers who were engaged in the industry 12 months ago are now out of work. These included skilled as well as semi-skilled workers.
The most recent figures I have here show that for the month of November there were 8,204 fewer workers in employment in the industry than there were for the same month last year. It is a grave reflection on the Government that they have allowed such a situation to develop. During the past year, too, sales of cement have fallen by approximately 9 per cent. There has been a fall also in the demand for building material such as timber, concrete blocks, chipboard and so on with a further loss in employment in the retail end of the business. These people and those on the manufacturing side who lost their jobs are not included in the figure of 8,204. All the Government can do in these circumstances is to issue housing statistics in an effort to prove that they have built more houses than were built by Fianna Fáil.
When we were in office there was continuing development in housing and in construction generally and the volume of employment continued to increase. During the past two-and-a-half years, though, the trend is in the other direction. The Government may say that in relation to the unemployment in the industry there are elements other than housing, but they cannot deny the drop in the number employed in the industry.
On many occasions we demanded that the Government take action to ensure that the industry made the progress it was capable of making but we were constantly told by the Government that the industry was in perfect condition, that there was no need to worry. We see the results now. Far from giving the industry much-needed incentive, the Government have done the opposite. The SDA loans and grants were the backbone of the private house sector of the building industry. In May, 1973, the maximum loan level was £4,500 and it is still the maximum loan level in spite of the enormous escalation in costs since then. The qualifying income limit in May, 1973, was £2,350 per annum and it is still the qualifying limit in spite of the raging inflation we have experienced since then. This loan is useless so far as industrial workers are concerned.
As I pointed out on a previous occasion, the average wage of an industrial worker is now about £400 higher than the level of the income limit. We must remember that these loans were intended originally for such people but now they cannot qualify for them. Anyone who qualifies for an SDA loan today must get another loan elsewhere to make up at least part of the difference between the loan and the cost of the house. The average price of a house built with the help of an SDA loan was given some time ago as £7,500, but I have no doubt that the price has increased considerably. The borrower's repayments will be far above the percentage of his income which could be regarded as tolerable. This is mainly because of the fact that he has to borrow a considerable sum over and above the loan level if he is to buy or build his own house.
The way the Government met the problem was not to increase the maximum loan level as we asked. It was not to increase the qualifying income limit as we asked. Rather it was to increase the interest rates on the SDA loans issued by local authorities from 10½ per cent to 11½ per cent and to reduce the repayment period from 35 years to 30 years, thus adding a further disincentive to the development of the building industry.
Having increased the burden on the SDA loan borrowers, the Government then proceeded to increase the burden on borrowers from building societies by removing the subsidy which has been paid by the Government to the societies. This resulted in the societies, with the consent of the Minister, increasing their mortgage rate by 1 per cent and thus putting an additional burden on the already overladen shoulders of those anxious to own their own homes. These mortgage holders were already at their wits' end trying to make ends meet and now they are faced with this added imposition. Many of them had become redundant during the year due to the inept policy of the Government in dealing with inflation and their inactivity in providing more employment. We should try to visualise how these people will face the new year. They will draw little consolation from the statement of the Minister for Local Government that they are assisted in the repayment of their loans by the high inflation rate. I always assumed that as the inflation rate increased the societies were permitted to increase their rates.
The increase in rates throughout the country is phenomenal. No matter what averages the Minister for Local Government may present in this House, the fact is that the rates are now an intolerable burden. It is universally accepted that they are unjust and inequitable and that they bear no relationship to the ability of people to pay them. Our policy which we declared before the last general election, which we have reiterated since and which I now state, is that when we are re-elected to government we will remove rates from all dwellings, urban and rural, and that the portion of rent payable as rates by all tenants of flats or houses, whether on the differential or fixed rent, will be reduced or removed. Of course this will reduce the weekly payments of such tenants. Rates will also be removed from the dwelling portion of residential business premises.
I have been asked how we propose to finance the removal of rates from private dwellings. Perhaps I could repeat here what I said earlier today, that if I were asked how I would do this in 1972-73 when we left office I would have said we would have done it from buoyancy. At that time the economy was in an exceptionally buoyant condition. Of course, today it would not be possible to make a similar statement because of the shocking situation, both economic and financial, which the country is facing due to the ineptitude of the Government. Therefore, it would be necessary to replace the income from rates by some form of taxation. This tax would be spread out, it would be broadly based and it would be much more equitable. Might I add that the rates of taxation suggested in the ESRI document as being necessary are far and away above the rates that would be necessary, as we discovered as a result of a very deep investigation which we made. The fact is that only about 3 per cent of the total revenue taken up by the Government would bring in the amount of money necessary to take the place of the money that would no longer be available from rates on private houses.
Today a report was issued on the rates system by the ESRI. It dealt with the economic aspects of local authority expenditure. This report was commissioned by the Minister for Local Government. I find this document very disappointing. There are no stimulating new proposals in it to deal with the rates problem. There are no new proposals in it as far as I can see. It appears to me to be simply a repetition of established and departmental views. I am not putting any blame on those who did the research. I feel they were given very narrow terms of reference and, therefore, the results were predictable. It is almost a repetition of the Minister's views.
I was rather surprised to note the cavalier manner in which they appear to dismiss the Fianna Fáil policy. The principal recommendations to me appear to be that there should be a general revaluation carried out in the country. There is nothing new about this and it will be quite obviously a long time before anybody undertakes this. If it was undertaken it would not solve the social problems involved. A Government which cannot afford a relatively small amount of money to have a census this year can hardly be expected to rush into a general revaluation of the country.
Another recommendation refers to the removal of exemptions, something which was recommended already in the inter-departmental report on local taxation. We would not accept one suggestion which has been made in relation to the removal of exemptions: the suggestion that the rates remission from new houses should be abolished. I believe this rates remission is an incentive to young people to buy houses and build them. I certainly want to put my views on the record of the House in relation to that matter.
Another recommendation is simply a further development of the Fianna Fáil scheme of rates waivers and the transfer of their costing to the central fund. There is nothing radical in the recommendations put forward in this report. There is nothing in it to raise the hopes of the over-burdened rate-payers. I am not critical of those who caried out the research. Their terms of reference were such that they could not have taken a much broader view of the situation and come up with solutions to the rates problem.
The only worth-while proposal on rates is the Fianna Fáil policy which, as I said before, is to abolish rates completely on dwelling-houses and replace them with a more equitable form of taxation. The rates of taxation suggested by a spokesman for the ESRI are far above the rates which would be necessary. In the event of our returning to office we would have to have a good look at the priorities of this Government. It is quite possible that in some areas we could also have money transferred to help to solve the rates problem. In financing the removal of rates from dwelling-houses it is likely we will use a combination of methods, but the overall effect would be that the additional taxes which would be imposed would relate to ability to pay.
Would that take financial power away from the Government?
No. In reply to Deputy O'Connell the principal objective of the Fianna Fáil policy on rates is that local bodies would be given a greater say in deciding how to spend moneys received from central government. One way of achieving this might be to give the local authorities a block grant, which would be calculated not only in relation to population but to needs and indicating the minimum level of service which must be supplied but leaving the local body free to decide how to allocate the remainder of their funds. In doing this we would not only ease the rates burden but we would give a real meaning to the phrase "local democracy".
When Fianna Fáil decided to introduce the free education scheme it was generally pooh-poohed by many people on the basis that it would not be possible to find the money to do it. We believed it was the proper thing to do and that it was essential that our young people, whatever their backgrounds and whatever the incomes of their parents, should be entitled to free education. We said we could get the money to do it and we did. We also believe firmly in our policy in relation to the removal of rates on the homes of the people. It is an inequitable and an unfair tax. The only solution is to remove rates from dwelling-houses. We will get the money to do this.
The Minister for Local Government referred to planning. I should like to refer to one aspect of it. There was a great flurry when the Planning Bill, which was prepared but not finalised by the former Minister for Local Government, Deputy Molloy, before he left office was introduced into the House by the Government. We were told that they were particularly anxious to get this Bill through the House as quickly as possible so that they would be able to fulfil their commitment to the electorate and hand over the adjudication on appeals to the board. The Government, when introducing the Bill, did their utmost to garner whatever kudos were available for the transfer of the Minister's power in relation to planning appeals to the board, but they and the Minister appear to want to have their loaf and eat it. They want to have whatever credit is available but at the same time keep the Bill in cold storage. We have now had a full session of the Dáil without any reference made to this Bill. It has not reappeared since the summer.
My understanding in the summer was that it would have been possible to have taken the remaining Stages of the Bill in a very short time before the Summer Recess, that the amendments that had been agreed and promised during the debate on the Committee Stage could have been ready and that we could have expedited the passage of the Bill, but we are now in the Christmas period without having made an iota of progress since the summer. I hope that very early in the new session this Bill will reappear so that we can have it on the Statute Book as soon as possible.
In this Government are many Ministers who have failed to live up to the very bright promises held out for them in the media in March, 1973. In fact it is difficult to point to even one successful Minister especially after discarding the well organised ballyhoo from their so-called performance. One of the Ministers who has been a failure is the Minister for Industry and Commerce and the tragedy is that it is to this Minister the country looks for more jobs through industrial expansion and retention of the jobs that exist. The rapidly rising unemployment figures show how he is losing out on both counts, neither retaining the jobs of those at present employed nor creating sufficient new jobs. Industries have closed and are closing all over the country and far more jobs are being lost than are being created. I underline the word "created". One of the most useful propaganda words which this Government have created is this word because jobs "created" mean that you can refer to thousands of jobs when the number actually filled could be counted in tens or twenties. The remainder of these "created" jobs can be filled some time or possibly never.
My constituency, one of the most highly industrialised in Ireland under the Fianna Fáil Government, is now feeling the full brunt of the inadequacy of Government efforts to control inflation and the failure of the Minister for Industry and Commerce adequately to protect industry. We had a number of industries closing completely and quite a number of other where large numbers of workers were declared redundant. I refer particularly to the footwear, textile and clothing industries. On several occasions I moved Private Members' motions on behalf of the footwear industry which was, and still is being decimated by goods imported from low cost countries directly and also imported through some of our EEC partners, particularly the United Kingdom. I pointed out that it was impossible for us to compete with those imports coming in here at a lower price than what we would pay for the raw materials in this country. Neither the footwear industry nor I were asking for a complete prohibition on imported footwear; we were simply asking that the competition should be fair. I explained in detail our rights under the Treaty of Accession in regard to an important industry where there was serious danger but we got no reaction of any serious consequence from the Minister. We had a task force here which it appears did not accomplish very much because since then we find there are 200 more going on the unemployment register from the footwear industry in Cork and that a considerable number have become redundant in my constituency.
The Government, as far as I can see, have no policy in regard to Northern Ireland. In this, as in all other spheres, they react to situations as they arise. There is no initiative, no forward planning because the Government are in the strait-jacket designed for them by the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs—I am glad he is here when I am speaking on this matter. In the past two-and-a-half years he has dominated Coalition thinking on Northern Ireland and today when it is clear that the star in this respect is on a downward path they are unable, much as they might like to do so, to find their way out of the mire into which he has led them. At a time when there is so much violence and destruction, caused in part by paramilitary groups of all persuasions and in part by institutionalised violence, and when no end is in sight, it is more important than ever that the policy of the Government here should be clearly stated, that it should be unequivocal and that it should be based on ultimate unity, at the same time being flexible so as to embrace all shades of political opinion. It should be so geared as to help all of our people, whether Protestants, Catholics, Unionists or Nationalists to recognise that it is only through unity in whatever form that we, as a people, can reach our full potential and so raise our standard of living and remove the spectre of unemployment.
It is only through united effort that we can provide a worth-while future for our children. Many solutions to the shocking problem of the North have been produced and tested and they have all failed. The only solution which has not been put to the full test is that of unity. Now is the time to put it to the test. We all recognise that violence is no solution; violence and unity are contradictory terms. Therefore, we know we cannot have unity unless we have the agreement of the majority in Northern Ireland. Equally, we cannot accept the situation where a minority of the people of Ireland can retain a permanent veto on Irish unity. Therefore we must endeavour to create the conditions where a rethinking of the whole matter can take place. What contribution are the Government making towards creating those conditions? The answer is none. Their softly-softly policy is but an excuse for a policy.
Fianna Fáil have issued a restatement of their policy on Northern Ireland, a clear and forthright statement with the full support of the whole Parliamentary Party and of many more than the 50 per cent of the electorate whom we represent. It has vast support among the Nationalist population in Northern Ireland, as those who were so quick to denounce it are now very well aware. The document repudiates violence and underlines the desire to have unity by agreement. It calls on the British Government to declare their commitment to implement an ordered withdrawal from involvement in the Six Counties. This is consistent with the attitude of Fianna Fáil through the years expressed by its various leaders. We have set no time limit for the withdrawal. Britain has many responsibilities, political, financial and others, which she must shoulder and discharge before she leaves so as to ensure peaceful reunification of the country. Is it not clear that only after the declaration of such a commitment by Britain that the Unionists whose stock reply today is "no surrender" will find it necessary to begin to think in terms of reunification?
The Deputy's time has now expired.
We here in the Republic must get down to the task of beginning to accommodate ourselves constitutionally and otherwise towards the same end.
I should like to take advantage of the brief time at my disposal to make a short, factual statement about the industrial dispute in the Dublin postal district.
The first thing I want to say is that the Department very much regret the inconvenience and hardship to the public which must result from the restrictions in postal services which we have had to introduce today. The disruption of the post over the Christmas period when it is so widely used is indeed a serious matter. I can only wonder if the staff concerned really appreciate the consequences of what they are doing.
I will explain briefly the background to the dispute. Postal traffic during the pre-Christmas period runs at about four times normal levels and special operational arrangements are necessary to cope with it. These arrangements involve the working of considerable amounts of overtime by the regular postmen staff in all centres and the recruitment, through the National Manpower Service, of numbers of temporary staff. As in previous years, the Department's special arrangements this year are based on a forecast of the probable volume of mail traffic and on providing a due course service to all the Christmas mails. Christmas postal traffic has been falling for some years past and both the overtime attendances scheduled and the number of temporary staff to be recruited during the pre-Christmas period are lower this year than in 1974. I would like to stress that a very substantial level of overtime would still be worked and all the regular staff would share in it. Even more important, the Department have made it clear that, if the volume of traffic were higher than expected, the necessary additional overtime would be worked to clear it. Deputies may well wonder from this last point, and I can only say that I would share such wonderment, in what way the Department could be accused of being unreasonable.
The great majority of postal staff are operating the Christmas arrangements as usual. Postmen drivers in Dublin, however, have refused to work overtime today. Their action is unofficial and is in support of a demand by them that the Department should agree beforehand to the working of a higher level of overtime in the period between now and Christmas than the Department considers will be needed to handle the expected volume of mails traffic. A particular demand is that deliveries should be provided in Dublin on Sunday, 21st December, although the Department are satisfied that this would not be required to dispose of the mails.
The effect of conceding such demands would be that postmen drivers would be paid at overtime rates for attendances at certain periods which would not be required. Let me repeat that the overtime which has been scheduled is very substantial—postmen drivers in Dublin would obtain about £50 on average in overtime payments for the week before Christmas—and that extra overtime would be worked if the traffic so required. The staff concerned have, unfortunately, not been prepared to accept this. Apart from postmen drivers in Dublin, one other group at Crumlin have refused for similar reasons.
In the circumstances I have described, it would not be possible to handle the increased volume of mail that would ordinarily be dealt with between now and Christmas. In order to maintain the ordinary letter services, therefore, it has, unfortunately, been necessary to restrict services to a scale which can be operated without requiring the working of overtime by the drivers.
How much longer does the Minister intend to be?
With the Deputy's permission, I expect to speak for about two minutes more. I would ask him for the courtesy to allow that. His colleague, Deputy Fitzpatrick, Fianna Fáil spokesman on this matter, was anxious to have an explanation made in this House on this matter and I am anxious to give that explanation and I believe the public want to hear it.
(Dublin Central): I was anxious to raise it on the Adjournment.
(Interruptions.)
I have no objection provided I am allowed extra time.
We are in injury time now.
(Interruptions.)
I thank Deputy Colley, the House and the Chair. Dublin is the hub of the national mails distribution network and the postmen drivers who have refused to operate the arrangements proposed for extra attendances play a key role in the movement of the mails. The effects of the action taken by these drivers are particularly serious. The restrictions in services which have been necessary have, therefore, been severe. If the services were not restricted, a chaotic situation would very quickly develop and it would not be possible to maintain any sort of postal service.
From today, the following postal services have been suspended until further notice:—
(i) acceptance of parcels at post offices in the Dublin Postal District; (ii) acceptance of parcels at post offices in other parts of the country for delivery in the Dublin Postal District; (iii) acceptance of second class mail, including Christmas cards, in the Dublin Postal District, and (iv) acceptance of second class mail in other parts of the country for delivery in the Dublin Postal District.
The public have been asked not to post second class mail of the categories referred to and are being told that such mail already in the post will be subject to indefinite delay. Other postal services, including incoming mail from Britain and other countries, may suffer delay.
Discussions regarding the Christmas postal arrangements were protracted and concessions were made in an effort to avoid disruption of the mails. The Department could not, of course, accept that overtime should be scheduled to an extent not required by the estimated traffic or that former levels of overtime should be maintained regardless of traffic trends.
I would like to say again that I very much regret the effects on the public of the unreasonable action by the staff concerned. The action will not bring any benefits to the staff and will result only in a loss of earnings for themselves and for their colleagues, including the temporary staff who had been specially recruited. I would earnestly appeal to the postmen drivers and to the postmen at Crumlin to call off their action so that further inconvenience to the public and to their colleagues can be avoided. I can naturally assure Deputies that services will be restored as soon as at all possible on the termination of the dispute.
(Dublin Central): Could the Minister hold out any hope of a settlement before Christmas?
I can assure the Deputy and the House that my Department are making every effort to bring the dispute to a close. Unfortunately, the section of the staff concerned are making an unreasonable demand. I hope as soon as they realise the inconvenience they are causing to the public and to their colleagues that they will desist from this. If they do not desist but maintain their present position, unfortunately, the dispute will continue.
(Dublin Central): The reason for this dispute was that——
The Chair allowed a question. We cannot have a debate.
(Interruptions.)
This Adjournment Debate is, of course, concerned with the performance of the Government in this session of Dáil Éireann which is now ending. Of course, the shocking state of our economy overshadows all our other problems. Before dealing with that, I want to refer to one or two other matters. Firstly, I want to refer to the situation with regard to Northern Ireland.
Suggestions have been made in the news media in the fairly recent past arising out of the murderous bomb attacks on innocent people at Dublin Airport that Fianna Fáil's attitude to the Criminal Law Jurisdiction Bill might be altered. I want to make it quite clear that such suggestions were both ill-founded and dangerous. I want to make it crystal clear that Fianna Fáil will not be stampeded on this or any other matter by the criminal activities of any group, whether they come from the North, the South, or abroad.
Or from within the Fianna Fáil Party.
Our stance on the Criminal Law Jurisdiction Bill has been determined by a careful appraisal of its contents and by what we conceive to be the best interests of this country. Neither violence nor threats of violence will alter that stance. Only those who wish to bring the democratic institutions of this State into disrepute can hope to gain by suggestions that Fianna Fáil will bow to the violence of the bombers.
I must admit that some superficial credence may have been given to those suggestions by reference to the attitude of the Fine Gael Party when in 1972 they vigorously opposed the Offences Against the State (Amendment) Act and then cravenly changed course after the bombs went off in Dublin. I viewed that volte face at that time with the utmost contempt and I still do. What must be understood, however, is that Fianna Fáil, which is the major party in this country, are made of sterner stuff. No bomber is going to stampede us. That is one of the many differences between Fianna Fáil and this Coalition and it is also one of the reasons why our people know that in a real emergency they can depend on Fianna Fáil but not on the Coalition.
We had peculiar criticism of the Fianna Fáil restatement of policy in regard to Northern Ireland. I say "peculiar" because it was impossible to pin it down with any degree of certainty or precision. I challenged any spokesman on behalf of the Government to say with what portion of that statement he or the Government disagree. Nobody did so except, perhaps, the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs whose objections seemed to be to its timing. He is entitled to his views, as is anybody else, on the question of timing, but I would suggest that the manner in which it was misrepresented suggests that there was a great deal more substance in the objections made to that policy than a question of timing. It is significant that no objection of substance to that policy has been forthcoming from the Government. I would suggest also that the threats which are now emanating from loyalist circles in the North to the effect that they will not go back to the Convention in any circumstances show how relevant the Fianna Fáil policy in regard to Northern Ireland is and how irrelevant and even dangerous is the Government's low profile policy, as the Taoiseach called it, which is, I suggest, a euphemism for no policy.
The whole performance of the Government over most of their areas of activity has been inept, to say the least. Even the relatively minor matter of getting under way studies of cross-Border economic co-operation with the assistance of the European Economic Community has been mishandled and delayed for a very long time. Only very recently there was an announcement in this regard and that announcement was, in substance, what the British Government had indicated they were willing to do at least a year ago. That virtually is what has emerged from all the talk and all the delays, and I suggest it is another example, small, perhaps, but typical, of the ineptitude with which the problem with which this Government are faced is handled. The Taoiseach, speaking in this debate, said, and I am quoting from his script as issued:
We in Government have, as strongly as anyone in this House, an aspiration to see the unification of our island, but we see just as clearly that this cannot be brought about by violence.
That last statement, that it cannot be brought about by violence, is, of course, re-echoing the Fianna Fáil statement of policy in regard to the North. The first part of it I am afraid I must beg leave to doubt. I would not have doubted it some years ago, but I do now. I am not going to go into all the evidence as to why it should be doubted except to remind the House of the notorious statement by the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs to the effect that he was not actively working for Irish unity. That statement was not repudiated by the Taoiseach or the Government, and we must assume, therefore, and, indeed, the general stance of the Government would entitle us to assume, that it represents this Coalition Government's approach to the whole question of Northern Ireland.
It does not represent the Fianna Fáil approach, and I want to make that perfectly clear. We are actively seeking Irish unity, knowing the problems and abjuring violence as a method of achieving it. However, we are certainly not prepared to agree that the matter should be forgotten or left in abeyance. We believe that all the thinking and all the activities of an Irish Government should be directed actively to seeking Irish unity, because, apart from anything else, we believe it is in the best interests of all the people of Ireland, North and South. I notice that the Taoiseach also stated in his speech today:
We have also gone a long way towards making our courts more effective in the struggle against violence, and where there are defects or shortcomings in their operation, we have shown ourselves ready to remedy them.
That is an interesting statement by the Taoiseach. It is in line with the general stance of this Government of trying to paint the members of this Government as being devoted law and order men and to paint the Opposition as being very doubtful law and order men. Of course, the facts do not bear that out. The facts are that it was Fianna Fáil who set up the Special Criminal Court. The facts are that it was Fianna Fáil who enacted the 1972 amendment of the Offences Against the State Act, two of the major weapons on which this Government are relying to deal with subversion. We did it in the teeth of the opposition of the men over there, including the members of the Government and those behind them.
It was Fianna Fáil who enacted the Forcible Entry Bill in the teeth of their opposition, and it is a very poor commentary on the stance of any Government in relation to law and order that you can have a situation in which there are something like 700 squatters in Dublin Corporation dwellings today, that there are cases on record of people going out to funerals, going out to shop, and coming back and finding their furniture out on the road and squatters in; that a whole protection racket is growing up in the city of Dublin whereby gangsters are doing this and are collecting rent from those squatters they put in, and using violence and force to achieve their aims; and nothing appears to be done about it by this so-called law and order Government. I wonder whether it is due to political difficulties that they are facing in operating the Forcible Entry Act, which they opposed so vehemently and which they now know was so necessary.
I want to turn now to one aspect of the economy referred to by the Taoiseach and of particular concern to the Minister for Industry and Commerce, who is, I understand, going to reply to this debate on behalf of the Government. The Taoiseach said:
Satisfactory agreements were recently concluded by the Minister for Industry and Commerce with private mining interests for the exploitation of the Navan lead/zinc ore body and the question of maximising the the amount of processing of the ores in question in this country, whether by smelting or other activities, is being methodically pursued.
I understand there have been certain technological developments whereby a chemical process can be used in place of what we know as smelting but, at the moment, at any rate, it operates only in relation to copper and has not been sufficiently developed to operate in relation to lead or zinc. If that is what the Taoiseach had in mind when he said "or other activities", I understand it. If it is not, perhaps the Minister for Industry and Commerce would elaborate on it.
Whatever the Taoiseach had in mind, we are entitled to ask why is it that, in the granting of those mining leases in respect of that ore body in Tara, no conditions appear to have been imposed and, indeed, no conditions were imposed, which would ensure the operation of a smelter or other activities if there is technologically another way of doing it at the moment. We all know that this type of operation, particularly a smelter, would make a major economic contribution and would be of great importance in the employment scene. The non-imposition of such conditions raises large question marks over the Taoiseach's statement that satisfactory agreements were recently concluded.
If we look at our economy generally, I think we could be forgiven for wincing and looking away again as fast as possible. Comparing ourselves with our EEC partners, we see a picture of inflation running about three times the level of some of the other EEC countries. Our unemployment rate is the highest in the EEC. Incidentally, I put down a parliamentary question to the Taoiseach recently asking the percentage of the work force unemployed in each of the member countries of the EEC. I got a reply which set out certain qualifications, and then gave a list in columns.
The first column was headed "Country". To my amazement, when I counted down there were ten. I thought there were nine countries in the EEC, but there were ten in this. The tenth one, believe it or not, was Northern Ireland. The reason was obvious if you looked at one of the other columns. That was the only one which had a higher rate of unemployment than was shown for this State. Of course, the question was in relation to the member countries and the clear answer was that, amongst the member countries, we in the Republic have the highest percentage of our work force unemployed.
Inflation and unemployment are, of course, two of the major problems with which we are faced. Although, perhaps, not so obvious to the general public, borrowing is an even more major problem now under this Government. As the Leader of this party pointed out when speaking in this debate, proportionately we have a far higher rate of borrowing than any of the other countries in the EEC, including even Britain which is considered to be in such a bad way, and which has had to borrow terribly heavily in order to defend sterling. Even allowing for all that, we are way above any of them.
We also see in this picture of our economy that our industrial exports have fallen between 7 per cent and 8 per cent this year. Our whole economy has contracted. Dealing with the economic situation, and describing it as it was by the Government early this year, and the budget which was then introduced, the Taoiseach said: "We aimed at careful expansion." In the light of what has happened this year, all I can say is that the Government should take lessons in marksmanship. If an aim at careful expansion produces that kind of result, clearly there is something wrong with the Government's aim.
In the January budget of this year, a huge deficit was provided for, estimated at £125 million. The actual deficit at the end of the year turned out to be about £280 million. That is an increase of just 125 per cent. In January of this year, borrowing was estimated at £450 million. It turned out to be £700 million. That is an increase of 55 per cent. What did the Taoiseach say about this? He said: "We adopted a courageous budgetary policy." I want to suggest that, with the kind of estimating we got in January of this year and, indeed, subsequently in June, either the Government were deliberately cooking the books, or the situation is totally our of control and they have not got a clue at what will happen next. To underestimate your budget deficit by 125 per cent and your borrowing by 55 per cent is incredible.
The Taoiseach has described the position facing us in the coming year and, allowing for cuts, and pay pauses, and so on, he still comes out with a gap to be filled by borrowing and taxation amounting to £1,000 million. On the basis of the Government's estimate in January of this year, at the end of next year that figure is likely to be £2,250 million. Is there any guarantee that the estimate this year is more accurate than last year's? If there is such a guarantee, perhaps the Minister for Industry and Commerce would tell us what it is. What reason have we to believe that the gap to be closed will remain at or in the region of £1,000 million considering what happened earlier this year?
A few weeks ago a number of people saw on television or heard on radio the Tánaiste and Leader of the Labour Party boasting—anybody who saw or heard him would agree that is a fair description of what he was doing; he was boasting—about the amount of borrowing which this Government have done. Now, a few weeks later we are told this cannot go on. Of course we all know it cannot go on. It is not something to boast about. The truth is that, since they took office, this Government have deliberately budgeted for deficits which were economically unjustifiable at a time when the problems were nothing like what they are now. As a result, they have frittered away our national substance, and now when we really need it, it is not there. That is nothing to boast about. The Taoiseach also told us of the situation as it was seen in January this year.
We expected that the international situation would show some improvement.
That has been the excuse and the plea of the Government for quite some time. They were depending on other Governments to do their job, or they were depending on the discovery of oil. Anything in the hope that something would turn up rather than face the harsh, difficult decisions any Government doing their job are faced with but particularly liable to be faced with in times of international difficulties.
The Minister for Industry and Commerce in the past has been fond of trying to pretend that on this side we ignored the existence of international difficulties. On one occasion when he said this I challenged him to produce from the records of the House one record of a speech by a member of this party suggesting that there were not international difficulties, that the Government had not international difficulties of that kind over and above those normally expected. Of course we were not so unrealistic as to pretend that. What we have been saying is that faced with these international difficulties the Government failed to take account of them, to take the decisions which would have been difficult, to cope with them, to take the people into their confidence, explaning exactly what the implications would be, for instance, the increase in oil prices: effectively that meant we could have a 3 or 4 per cent growth rate without any increase in our standard of living in order to pay for the increased price of oil.
But that is not what they did. They borrowed and they borrowed again and they borrowed again, and now we are all facing the reality we have been pointing out to the Government all along. Arising out of the June budget, on a television programme I made a present to the Minister for Finance of the information that there would be no improvement in the international situation as far as our economy was concerned in 1975. Still at that time he was talking about an improvement at the end of 1975. Now, for nothing, I will make another present to the Government by telling them there will be virtually no improvement in the international scene as far as we are concerned in 1976. Please do not base economic policies for this country on the assumption that there will be. Let us base our economic policies on reality for a change, and if there is an improvement, and if I am wrong, that is a bonus which I am quite sure we can put to good use.
But let us have no more of this Mr. Micawber approach. Let us face the reality and work on the basis of the resources we have available to us and not be depending on other Governments to do the job our Government should be doing. This gambling on improvements in the international scene or on the discovery of oil has to stop.
The records of the House are littered with our warnings to the Government of what would happen to our economy given the international situation and the Government's approach to it. I will not bore the House by giving the quotations: they are now well known and it has been well established that we told the Government from the beginning what would happen, we told them the consequences of their actions or inactions, and now unfortunately it has come to pass. From the beginning and in their first budget this Government indulged in wild taxation increases directly increasing the cost of living and fuelling inflation. I commented during a previous budget debate on the contributions by the Ministers for Industry and Commerce, Finance and Foreign Affairs. They had posed the problem of what the Government were faced with in regard to expenditure and receipts, and the possible courses open, and they ended up purporting to justify what they had done in the way of a deficit. I said that not one of them mentioned as a possible line of approach the pruning of Government expenditure.
I do not wish to be misrepresented again in regard to deficit budgeting. I have pointed out that I was the first Minister for Finance in the history of the State to budget for a deficit and I pointed out in regard to previous budgets that deficits are justified, but it is the size of the deficit and what you do with the money that is important. If you put it to productive use, good, but if you do not and if you simply use it to pay ordinary day to day expenses you are deliberately fuelling inflation, much more so than any workers making wage demands, than any business people seeking price rises. It is a deliberate mathematical result of the Government's budgeting for a deficit over and above the extent to which they can put the money to productive use and the capacity of the economy to grow.
We pointed that out to the Government at the time but now, ignoring that, we are faced with the consequences which if they could be put down to one single cause would be inflation which has caused the situation in which we have had this enormous borrowing. It has caused a great deal of our unemployment, which will grow. It will cause a lot more trouble for us unless we get it under control.
Getting inflation under control is no easy matter: there is no magic wand and it cannot be done overnight or in one or two years. I freely acknowledge that and I have never suggested otherwise. But getting inflation under control requires a determination on the part of the Government that they will do it, and it requires hard decisions. It requires saying to the people: "Yes, those projects you are urging on us are well worth while and we will certainly undertake them as soon as it becomes possible for us to do so, but to do it now when we cannot pay for them would simply have the effect of running down the economy, throwing more people out of work and it would mean that eventually even the essential services to be provided by the Government would be in jeopardy.
We are fast approaching that stage, unfortunately, all because the Government refused to face up to hard decisions when they would have been a lot easier than they are now, when they would have effected a lot fewer people and inflicted much less hardship. They would not do it and we are all, but particularly our young people, now paying the price for that profligate approach by the Government.
Not alone did we tell the Government what was going wrong and what would go wrong as a result of their general economic policies, but we told them precisely what should be done. One area now notorious is in regard to the green £. The Government dithered in regard to the green £ for something like nine months but eventually they did what we told them should have been done. The problem was that by adopting the green £ the cost of some basic commodities would be increased, and certainly the cost of living, but the fact is that if they had done what we told them, they would have adopted the green £, they would have introduced subsidies costing about £10 million a year, the cost of living would not have been affected, the great bulk of the articles involved are exported, and the net result to the economy would have been something in the region of £30 million during the time in which they delayed. However, the whole economy would have benefited, and agriculture, which was going through a bad time, would have benefited considerably, and our growth rate would not have disappeared out of sight.
The Government did not listen, and eventually, far too late, they took our advice. They introduced subsidies at a time when the cost of living went up. I suppose the most abject failure and the most inept performance of the Government was in relation to the subsidies, the relief of VAT rates, fares and so on, and tied in with that, the handling of the national pay agreement. Previously, in September of last year, and indeed before that but specifically in September, we spelled out what the Government should do in regard to such subsidies and VAT reliefs. We told them that by doing so they would ensure that the Exchequer and business and industry generally would save a very considerable amount of money under the existing national pay agreement, and furthermore, that the new agreement could have been negotiated at a much lower level if the Government had done that. That was totally ignored in January.
The Government were aware, when they brought in the January budget, not alone of the logic of what we were saying to them but that the national pay agreement talks would be taking place shortly. The agreement was concluded in April on the basis of much higher cost of living figures because the Government had not accepted the advice we had offered. Clearly the problem was becoming enormous. So, six weeks after that agreement, the Government bring in another budget which did what we had urged them to do. But they did it after the damage had been done and then asked for renegotiation of the national pay agreement which was not in the terms the Government had sought, terms which were supposed to be a condition for the subsidies. If ever there was an example of how not to handle a problem it was the Government's whole approach in that regard. As I have said, it is not as though they did not know what was involved. We had told them. Now we are faced with the consequences of that ineptitude.
I must say I have not a very high opinion of the capacity of the members of the Government, but even so the mishandling of that whole situation was incredible. I do not know how it was so badly mishandled with such dreadful results for our whole economy. The position is that we have reached a stage when according to the Taoiseach we are faced with a gap to be closed by borrowing and taxation of £1,000 million. If that is estimated on the same basis as last year it would be £2,250 million. Let us assume it is £1,000 million. The extent of the deficit which this Government have allowed to grow up, the gap between Government expenditure and receipts, is now so great that it may well mean there will be no real increase in expenditure on things like education and health for quite a number of years because that gap has got to be closed. Even the Government acknowledge that we cannot go on as we have been going.
If that enormous gap is there and if there are limitations on borrowing, and there are, and if there are limitations on the amount we can raise by way of taxation, and there are, where will the money come from for real increases in expenditure on such things as education and health? I suggest that that is mortgaging the future well-being of our people over and above the mortgaging involved in our enormous borrowing and having to pay it back. It is another aspect of the mortgaging of the future in which this Government have engaged.
We have had some suggestions as to how this problem might be solved. When things get really difficult, there is always somebody who has an easy remedy, to wave a magic wand. In this case the man with the magic wand is Senator Halligan, the general secretary of the Labour Party. His magic wand is to break the link with sterling. I should like if the Minister for Industry and Commerce would tell us whether the general secretary of the Labour Party, in talking about breaking the link with sterling, is talking for the Labour Party or for himself. Do the Labour members of the Government subscribe to the views he expresses? If they do not, do they think it is helpful to have a man in his position propounding these views?
Of course the truth is that while we may well reach a stage where it could be advantageous to us to break the link with sterling—I think we are getting closer to that, certainly closer than we were a few years ago—we are not at it yet. But supposing we were, there is one aspect of this matter which has been very carefully glossed over. It is that if we were to break the link with sterling the discipline we would have to exercise in the conduct of our economy would be such that Senator Halligan would run a mile from it. Certainly this Government would be in no position to produce deficits of the order they have been producing if we broke the link with sterling. Certainly, any failure to do so would result in the most appalling unemployment and lowering of the standard of living of the great majority of our people without that discipline. For Senator Halligan, in his position as secretary of the Labour Party, to talk about breaking the link with sterling while he supports fully members of the Labour Party in a Government totally lacking in discipline is either ignorance or hypocrisy.
One of the casualties of the Government's mishandling of the situation is the provision of equal pay for women. I want to put it to the House that the economic and financial circumstances inducing the Government to go back on the legislation passed in this House in regard to equal pay were well known to the Government a long time ago and that the Minister for Labour has been deliberately bluffing his way through, up to the last minute, pretending that he was introducing equal pay when he knew, as did his colleagues, that he was not going to be able to do it. The discovery of the problems involved did not, I hope, occur to the Government within the last week or two. If they did, then the situation is even worse than I suspect.
One of the major remedies proposed by the Government to deal with the situation with which we are now faced is a standstill in pay. The Taoiseach said in his brief, from which I quote:
I want to make it clear now that it is the intention of the Government, if agreement on a pay pause is reached, to introduce legislation providing for restraint in non-pay income, including dividends, directors' fees and rents similar to that which would apply to pay under the present agreement and the pause.
We are entitled to ask, if the Taoiseach makes that conditional, as he does, on agreement on a pay pause being reached, what if agreement on a pay pause is not reached? Then what do the Government propose to do? Do they propose to restrain non-pay income, as described by the Taoiseach? Do they propose to restrain pay income? If they do not, do they propose to let everything rip? I believe the time has passed when the Government can afford to indulge in this kind of play-acting. It is much too serious and the Government must take people fully into their confidence. They have gone some of the way in spelling out some of the stark economic facts with which we are faced but I suggest they should go the whole way, say precisely what they intend doing and give the lead. In the long run it is not the duty of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, the Federated Union of Employers, the Irish Farmers' Association, the Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers' Association or anybody else to make decisions as to what is going to be done about our economic problems, huge as they are. That responsibility rests clearly on the Government. They may consult all they like with those people and others but the decisions have to be made by the Government and the responsibility is that of the Government. Whether those people agree with them or not, that responsibility rests on the Government.
Ultimately what is at stake here is the relationship between the Government of the day and the people. These various interest groups are important but they are not the people, they are only sections of the people, and a lot of people are not represented by them. The people as a whole are entitled to be told what the Government intend doing. They are entitled to get a lead from the Government. They are entitled to be told by the Government what they want them to do and be encouraged by the Government to follow that lead. That is the role of Government. That is a role this Government have singularly failed to play up to now.
Of course, we have had White Papers; we have had talks about national partnership, a lot of high sounding phrases over a year ago, but the situation has got steadily worse. We cannot afford that any more. We need action. We need to know what action the Government propose taking and intend to make stick, because the time has passed for any other approach.
There was a most interesting phrase, to me anyway, in the Taoiseach's statement, and it was this:
Without investment and the profits that come from it there is no future for this country. In today's world they are, in the end, the means by which employment is created and sustained.
I would agree with that fully.
The Minister for Finance stated recently in my hearing that the problem we must tackle now is expansion of the private sector. He is right. Compare that approach with that of a Government which set out, apparently deliberately, to sap all confidence in the private sector, to give an impression that they did not want to see the private sector thrive and prosper. In particular, compare it with the approach of a Government which introduced a totally irrelevant wealth tax in this country, which I suspect is not going to yield very much, but which did a great deal to sap the confidence of the very people on whom the Taoiseach says we depend, on whom jobs and growth depend and, what is worse, did it in such a way as to penalise Irish people as against foreigners who show any enterprise and initiative in this country.
I suggest that is another example of the total ineptitude of this Government. In my view we would be far better off to have a full-blooded Socialist, even virtually a Communist Government, in the economic sense, than to have this kind of nonsense from this Government, where they pretend, on the one hand, to operate alleged socialist principles, on the basis of alleged equity and, on the other, tell us about the importance of private enterprise while killing it. The Government ought to make up their minds where they think the salvation of our economy lies. If they think, as the Taoiseach says, that it lies in investment and profits, then let the Government gear their policies to encouragement of investment and profits, getting them ploughed into our economy, not frighten them out of the country.
When the Taoiseach made his announcement on radio and television in regard to the appalling state of our economy, we through the Leader of our party, outlined some steps that should be taken. Pay restraint is necessary, of course. We certainly would not dispute that. Indeed without it there is no hope, I would say, for the future of our economy. But pay restraint requires a good deal more, if it is to work, than simply people on wages and salaries not getting any increase in 1976.
The Government must be restrained. They must restrain their spending and their borrowing to match the restraint they are seeking from the workers. A great deal of our difficulty is due to the failure of the Government to restrain themselves. Of course there are political kudos in spending money. There are political kudos, if you can get away with it, in borrowing money and dishing it out here, there and everywhere.
There are great political difficulties in restraining Government expenditure. I know. I went through it. I was Minister for Finance and I know what has to be done and I know how unpopular a Minister for Finance has sometimes to make himself with his colleagues and, indeed, with the general public. Failure to exercise restraint is totally irresponsible for not just the Minister for Finance and his colleagues but for every man, woman and child in the country who has to pay ultimately.
Restraint by the Government in their spending and in their borrowing is necessary. Furthermore, we suggest that great care and restraint has to be exercised by the Government in regard to any additional taxes that may be imposed or increased charges for services under Government control. Regard has to be had to the impact of such things on the cost of living. An effort has to be made to direct spending under Government control into productive purposes, into the creation or the maintenance of jobs because, unless we can get growth back into our economy, the economy will continue to contract with more people being thrown out of work, more people depending on a smaller national cake.
That is what is happening at the moment and, to reverse it, you have got to get growth into the economy. We will get no growth in the short term certainly from any State activities. The private sector, as the Minister for Finance has said, and now the Taoiseach, is the one we are depending on to get growth back in the economy. Let the Government bear that in mind in their approach to trying to solve the problems they have themselves largely created. There are areas, such as house building, mining, shipbuilding, footwear and textiles and other areas where judicious policies and judicious expenditure by the Government would yield far greater returns than the investment involved. That is the kind of thing that ought to be in the Government's mind. Above all, what is needed is realistic economic planning. We have been urging the Government for at least two years to give us some kind of realistic economic plan and for a long time the Minister for Finance told us there was no need for it—things were too uncertain. Then he made noises to the effect that, perhaps, it could be done. Then he said they would have something by the end of the year. We are very close to that now—the Dáil is about to adjourn— and we still have not got anything approaching a realistic economic plan.
I do not think the Minister for Finance really means a word of what he says. Something may be produced but I rather suspect it will be something like the White Paper on National Partnership, a whole lot of window dressing with no reality in it. Maybe I am wrong. I hope I am but, for God's sake, let us get it and get it soon. I do not want, and I hope I will not, to hear the Minister for Industry and Commerce telling us that we urged no deficit in the budget or that we would have thrown a whole lot of people out of work because we would not have had the huge deficits this Government have had because what has put so many out of work is the inflation which has occurred under this Government and that inflation was deliberately fuelled by the Government. The extent of the borrowing the Government have gone in for and the extent of the deficits on the budget, not related to productive purposes was, as I said earlier, mathematically calculated to produce inflation. That is where the problem is and, if you did not have that problem, you would not have anything like the unemployment we have today and you would have a chance of competing and increasing our exports as the world economic situation improves.
For myself, if I had been Minister for Finance presiding over an outcome such as we are faced with today after practically three years in office I certainly would not hesitate. I would resign recognising clearly that, whatever other qualities I have, I did not have the qualities required of a Minister for Finance. But I should not single out the Minister for Finance. I think all of his colleagues, some of them professing to be expert economists, are equally guilty and, if I were in their shoes, I would have a good hard look at the results of my efforts and I would know what the right course in the interests of this country was—to resign, to get out, and let us get the country moving with some chance of success.
Deputies
Hear, hear.
I either read the report or listened to a large part of this debate and I find the tone of condemnation so intemperate and unmeasured and the simplicity of the analysis on the Opposition's side that everything is totally the Government's fault and we are extremely inept, and that is an end of the analysis, so silly and so superficial as to be irrelevant in the circumstances as we know them and reflect more on the problems of the Opposition than on the problems of the Government.
We have no problems except what the Government have made.
Deputy Colley spoke without interruption and the same courtesy should now be accorded to the Minister.
I want to take up on simple, factual grounds three items that have been referred to, not by backbenchers who might be forgiven as newcomers to the Dáil for saying silly things, but by people who were former Ministers and, in one case, a former Taoiseach. I want to preface what I have to say by saying that I suppose Irish people have found at various times, dealing with other countries, that we are offended because we are not taken seriously, because we are Paddies, because we are funny chaps, nice to have a drink with, but not meticulous about facts and not meticulous in carrying out our work. This is a national slander that has offended us from time to time and, therefore, I hate to hear it pushed here in this House with almost lightheartedness. I would beg people to please be serious, to please do their homework. We have had some very shocking examples, to my mind, of the contrary from people here who ought to know better. I bring this in because it relates to major things and here I want to try to set the record straight in regard to national growth, to inflation and to investment—all major things.
In the speech made earlier in the debate by the Leader of the Opposition he said—I cannot give a reference since the Official Report is not printed yet—that in terms of lack of national growth we are twice worse off than any other EEC country. That is a specific and a serious charge and I want to indicate that it is wildly wrong but I will indicate this by way of outside statistics, mostly by way of OECD reports.
This charge, from a man who was Taoiseach and who at one stage held the office which I hold now, is extraordinary. The December, 1975, OECD Forecast of Industrial Production has become available and gives figures for the whole year. If these figures should be wrong in respect of one country they would be wrong in relation to others but I shall quote the figures for eight countries. Luxembourg is not included. We are told that the estimated fall in industrial production for eight Community countries, including Ireland, was as follows: Belgium, 9 per cent, Denmark 8 per cent, The Netherlands, 6 per cent, Italy, 10 per cent, France, 9½ per cent, Germany, 7¼ per cent, the UK—the lowest—5 per cent and, the next lowest, Ireland at 5½ per cent. To be told in these circumstances that we are twice worse off than any other Community country when we are second best is not traducing this Government but traducing the industry of this nation.
Would the Minister like to quote the GNPs?
Yes, but I am not finished with these statistics yet.
The Minister must be allowed make his speech in his own way without interruption.
In the OECD Economic Outlook, December, 1975, we find real GNP declines and these are as follows: Germany, minus 3.75, Italy, minus 4.5 and Ireland, minus 3.75 which is the same as for Germany and better than Italy. Allegedly, though, that is twice worse than for any other country.
The Minister is quoting declines but I referred to GNPs.
The GNPs are different for all of the Community countries. The relevant figure is how much they have declined by.
Let us take up my own area of responsibility, industrial production, and here again my source is the OECD and their report of the main economic indicators for 1975. They give figures for industrial growth for the Community countries taking the year of 1970 as a base line of 100. From the various quarterly figures available I have chosen the fourth quarter of 1973 because that was the quarter during which the oil crisis began. Also, it happened to be shortly after we came into office. We have not yet got the figure for the third quarter of 1975 so for this year I have chosen the second quarter. Taking all nine countries the best performance of any country for the fourth quarter of 1973, compared with 1970 was an increase by France from 100 to 122 while our increase in that time was from 100 to 120 leaving us joint third. If you take that increase to the end of the second quarter of 1975 and still taking 1970 as 100, we are first in the list of the nine Community countries. The figures are, Belgium, 107, France, 111, Germany, 103, Ireland, 116, Italy, 106, Luxembourg, 92, The Netherlands, 114 and UK, 101. Yet, an ex-Taoiseach and Minister for Industry and Commerce traduces the economy of this country by saying that in terms of lack of national growth we are twice worse than any other EEC country. This is an example of the twisted figures which are due either to profound malice or profound ignorance or, possibly, to a mixture of both.
I turn now to the question of inflation rates. There is a habit on the part of the Opposition whereby, regardless of whether something is true, they pluck it out and repeat it continuously on the assumption, presumably, that if something is repeated often enough it will be believed. On the 14th March, 1973, the day on which we took office, Deputy Lynch said, as reported at column 28 of the Official Report for that day:
The success of these actions on prices and incomes can be judged not alone on the falling off in the rate of inflation, which is now more than 2 per cent below the level of two years ago and still falling,...
We know about Deputy Lynch's memory but in the previous quarter from mid-November, 1972, to mid-February, 1973, prices had risen, according to the index, by 4 per cent —from 2 to 6.5, to 235.4, that is, 9.1 points which expressed as a percentage is 4 so that when it was alleged to have gone down by 2 per cent in the previous two years it had increased by 4 per cent in the previous quarter. This shows the Opposition's regard for information that is obtainable easily. However, it might teach some people a lesson about distorting the truth in regard to inflation.
Deputy Brennan who is not a backbencher and who has had ministerial experience, talking last night about the previous Government's performance, said that prices were rising but that we should remember that in February, 1973 we had a modest 3 per cent per annum inflation rate. The figure was 10 per cent. It was 4 per cent in the previous quarter. Why twist the truth in such an irresponsible way?
We do not measure monthly in this country; we measure quarterly. In the quarter to mid-August, 1975, there was a decline of .8 per cent and in the quarter to mid-November, 1975, there was an increase of 2.8 per cent. Taken over a half year, you add the two and find an increase of 2 per cent. That is one of the lowest rates in Europe. It is evidence that the package of June, 1975, which was a firing of cannon in a very expensive way to try to break the self-accelerating cycle that we got into in the course of 1974 from external causes, was successful. The evidence of the two quarters since then is that that cycle is breaking and that people are behaving in a responsible way. In 1974 inflation was generated externally but in 1975 it was beginning to be generated internally by exploding wage costs. Now we are finding great maturity and great restraint on the part of trade unionists and the people about a halt in the expansion of consumption to which we had become accustomed.
We find that the past figures and the present figures are distorted about the real performance. I do not suppose this is a specific piece of wickedness to drive people crazy so that restraint will not work. It is only silly, trivial, half-wicked and irresponsible, but it has that effect. I am quoting examples of a way in which an Opposition are producing an end result that I am sure they do not want. I am not accusing them of that, but they are doing it out of silliness and incompetence and, above all, out of a lightheartedness in regard to readily available factual things.
I am not picking up the remarks of Fianna Fáil backbenchers; I am commenting on remarks of former Ministers who should know better. Last night at 10 p.m. Deputy Lalor made a point that the cost per job for new industrial projects in 1975 was £18,800 and for domestic industry it was £23,000 per new job. He then went on to compare this with when he was Minister. He should know about this because it is something a Minister for Industry and Commerce has to deal with. He said the cost per job was between £2,000 and £3,000. What is so shocking and worrying is that he is mixing the total fixed asset investment on the one hand with the amount of grant on the other hand. His figures for total investment are about right but our figures for grants are between £3,000 and £4,000—a little bit more than when he was in office but comparable. This is such basic silliness that one is terrified for an Opposition that can get themselves into such a mess. One is terrified for the effects they can have not through specific villainy but by sheer silliness on the balance and morale of an economy at a difficult time.
I want to deal with another matter that relates to my Department and which also relates to basic economic policy for the country, where some specific charges were made recently, because the effort is being made, I think irresponsibly, to promulgate the impression that we as a Government are, and specifically that I, as a Minister, am indifferent on the matter of choice between the use of Irish products and non-Irish products, that I really do not care where the products come from. It was not my initiative but that of a group I set up a year ago that, for the first time, in the history of the country, we have a serious, intelligent, well-thought out and well-executed programme for the promotion of Irish goods. However, that is an aside. I want to deal with specific charges that suggest that we are lightheartedly using foreign products when Irish ones are available.
I was charged by Deputy Brennan earlier today with insulting and slandering a firm—I shall not name it but it is known to both of us—in regard to the erection of a particular piece of the NET plant at Marino Point. He said I had been inaccurate and had slandered people and he asked me to withdraw what I said. I have checked what I said. I did not slander them; the facts were as I stated. When we are choosing between a product to go into a piece of high technology like the plant using the natural gas at Marino Point we must think of the jobs of Irish workers doing the construction work. However, we must also think of the jobs of Irish workers working there and the well-being of the people who are depending on the production of that plant. If we force particular firms—assuming that such were possible either in the law of the country or of the Community, and it is not possible—to use a piece of technology that was not the best available, or to distort their best economic and technological decisions, then we would be jeopardising the health of that company and the future of the people working there. We were specifically accused by Deputy Fitzgerald of using foreign steel in the NET plant. That accusation is not true. NET have insisted on Irish steel in that context but it did not stop the Deputy making his remark in the same kind of mischievous way that I have indicated has characterised the use of statistics earlier.
There was also an effort in regard to Verolme shipyard. I saw the Verolme workers two days ago. We had an amicable, sensible and calm meeting and we agreed that when these matters were made political footballs everyone suffers. What we are doing in regard to Verolme, far from threatening the future of the shipyard, is guaranteeing its economic health and its future. It is bad for the jobs of any sector if we force people into uneconomic activities, into activities that are not competitive with other countries, and which are too expensive vis-á-vis other competitors in a free trade association. All one does by those sort of actions is to jeopardise the future of that section of the economy, to dig a hole in the ground into which one throws money forever. If one builds a fundamentally false economic situation the jobs in such a plant are in threat forever. It is good for nobody to do that.
I have said something about price increases in the recent past, about the evidence that there is an ebbing, about the effect of our package of measures last summer. Now I want to return to the responsibilities of my Department and the National Prices Commission with regard to price control because it seems they are often misunderstood and criticised wrongly on the basis of this lack of understanding.
First, let me make it clear that both trade unions and consumers are represented on the National Prices Commission and when I implement a recommendation from the NPC I do it on the basis that it comes from them unanimously and that it expresses the consideration of consumer and trade union interests in that recommendation. Secondly, the tightrope the NPC have to walk every day is the one I have to walk. It is the tightrope where if you fall off the threat on one hand is that prices rise too rapidly and inflation disrupts society, but on the other hand that you screw down prices so tight that nobody can make a profit and you produce bankruptcy and unemployment. It is necessary to balance on that tight rope, not falling off in the direction of increases which are not permissible but not falling off in the other direction which would refuse increases which are essential for the economic health of the particular firm or planning. If that balance is not kept, one can destroy employment and one can deny to people the profits they need to re-equip to retain efficiency and, therefore, to guarantee the future of the enterprise.
We recently altered the terms of price control in response to the circumstances which now exist and a rise of 2.8 per cent in the last quarter was a very low rise in terms of the past and in terms of other Community countries. We have intense competition in the country at the moment in certain sectors, we have very low profit rates and that competition is a very effective traditional brake on price rises. We have drawn off the forces of price control from people we were pursuing at all levels of the scale and are concentrating our surveillant mechanism on to the big firms which are the dominant fish in each pond. That is not a dismantling of price control. It is a sharpening of it so that we target it most effectively.
I do not want to have a circumstance where we make absolutely binding terms for every sector of the economy, every shop, wholesale, distribution and retail. I do not want to disrupt people. I do not want to take people to court. I want the price mechanism to work but I also want to target the efforts of my inspectorate so that they produce the maximum effect. That is what we have done.
I want to say something on the European Community because I do not think we discussed it very much in the House. This is an Adjournment debate not at the end of the Irish Presidency but at the end of another half year of very active Community activities. I particularly make reference to the Community and our role in it in the light of a specific reference by the Leader of the Opposition. He referred to my criticism of the Community in a speech I made last summer. There is an effort to suggest that Ireland is not effective in the Community, is not pulling her weight, is missing opportunities. I want to say it, firstly, because he is not here and, secondly, because it is obviously true, that in the Minister for Foreign Affairs we have a leader of Ireland's activities in the Community who has won—anybody who reads the newspapers fairly will recognise this—an extraordinary admiration for his own abilities and vigour but also an admiration for the role of Ireland. It is fair to say that largely due to his efforts but also due to the efforts of other Ministers and the staff of various departments, the estimation of Ireland in the Community has altered from one where in the past they thought that, perhaps, we were charming but were not quite serious to an estimation of us now where they take us as a mature, effective, serious, practical, and vigorous country.
I see no fault, no defect and no contradiction in other Ministers or I criticising the Community very severely. In spring, 1972 we had a referendum and we had the good fortune to get a clear result. It will be four years since then by the time the next anniversary comes around. I accept that result wholeheartedly as do the Labour Party. We know we identified many of these defects correctly. We know that the Community was oversold in Ireland in a sort of euphoria where it had no warts at all. We believe we served a useful democratic purpose in raising that debate and in raising it on the correct issues. We believe our criticisms have stood up well to the experience of almost four years. When that is said, I want to be absolutely explicit that we are in the Community and from the moment we went in my task as Minister, because of the trade and commerce bit, in my Department but with other Ministers of the Labour Party is to reform that Community, to humanise it, to make it work and to force the changes which are necessary because of the inadequacies we pointed out.
I do not believe anybody looking at the Community will pretend now that the warts are not there, that the mechanisms are satisfactory or, indeed, that the Community is not in very serious difficulties in certain ways and is not in need of reform, humanisation and of pushing forward. Our position is not alone that it needs reform in pushing forward but it is also the position that what is needed most specifically is the strengthening of the central institution as a protection against the great countries which would seek to rule the Community alone without letting the little ones in. The dangerous thing in the Community seems to me to be the axis of Schmidt, Giscard and Wilson and leaving out other countries so that they cannot be heard through the proper democratic mechanism. Our efforts are entirely constructive.
That needs to be said because of the efforts to present them otherwise as negative or destructive. I believe it is no harm to put it on the record that one of the things one has to learn to do in politics, as in life, is to learn to lose wholeheartedly. As far as I am concerned, when the referendum results came in May, 1972 I lost wholeheartedly. I am now concerned wholeheartedly in Community reform in the directions I have said.
I also want to say a few words about the Industrial Development Authority because in the present economic difficulties the role of the IDA is very central and because I have heard from Deputies from the Opposition, in private and also in a debate very recently on the IDA Bill, and through the ordinary bush telegraph channels that exist all over the country, criticisms of the IDA which seem to me to be unfounded and damaging. That is not to say that the IDA are beyond criticism or the need for reform. There seems to be a sort of persecution feeling being fostered that Irish people who want industrial development are not treated as well as foreign people, that the IDA, the Department of Industry and Commerce or the Government prefer to create a job by foreign investment than to create it by Irish investment, that Irish entrepreneurs or Irish firms coming forward do not get a fair crack of the whip. That feeling, which is a sort of paranoid, is a travesty of the truth. The truth is that through many schemes, the small industries scheme and our recently announced project identification scheme, which is working very well and about which I will give more information, and the general attitude and policies at all levels of the IDA, where there is favouring done it is favouring of Ireland.
The sequel to the thought, which is particularly dangerous, that Irish people or Irish firms are differentiated against is an effort to try to write a statutory limit, as was done in an amendment from Deputy O'Malley a few days ago, which he did not move, to the percentage of what would go to overseas firms. If we were in the middle of a boom, where we had five projects for every £ we had to spend, I would see very powerful argument for channelling the great bulk of our efforts towards Irish industry, towards indigenous industry. The position we are in now is that, firstly, we cannot get enough sound Irish projects coming forward and, secondly, in the middle of a depression I will support industrial jobs provided they are sound projects wherever they come from.
I do not have to choose between Irish and foreign projects; I am glad to maximise both in hard times. I shall refer to the IDA's statistical performance in a moment. It is one that they and the country can be proud of. My point is that this growth of xenophobia in a depression is spreading insecurity. I am not inventing this; it has been said to me by overseas industrialists: "Are we not welcome any more?" That sort of xenophobia can damage what exists and hamper— for instance, if we had passed that amendment—the job creation activities of the IDA. It is unnecessary at this stage because the problem is to get sound projects coming forward in sufficient numbers from Ireland. No sound project from Ireland will be unanswered in financial terms. If there has to be any pleading that we cannot proceed with the project because we have not the money for the grant, it will be said in regard to the foreign ones, not the Irish ones which have first call. In fact, at this time there is no conflict.
I must say that there are people going around saying: "They would not help me". There are circumstances where the IDA do not help. For example, I had a parliamentary question today about why the IDA were not helping a particular industry in the concrete products area. If you help a particular industry you must think of all the jobs in all the other plant in the same industry. There are areas where there is over-capacity where the IDA will not give aid. Since moneys spent on industrial promotion come from the taxes of all the people they have to be spent with probity. The IDA have a good record. I have encouraged them to be a little more risk-taking because I certainly will not reproach them if they make an occasional mistake. There is no way in which we can ensure that they will have no errors. It is not possible to make selections with total certainty. Their track record is very good for staying away from duds, but if people come forward without proper management experience, proper quantification of the project, with something dreamed up on the back of an envelope which is not real and serious. I will sustain the IDA in refusing those sort of projects from wherever they come because we cannot have circumstances where public money is wasted.
I want to say something in the context of the world economy about the IDA's performance. Recently, I heard Opposition speakers making dramatic contrast between the effectiveness of their industrial promotion in their time in office and the way we are driving away investment, saying that we are against private industry and profits and that we are damaging the whole atmosphere so much economically that the work of the IDA is made impossible and the whole thrust of our industrial investment programme is being rendered completely ineffective. I shall give figures for new jobs at full production from projects approved over a series of financial years including one nine-month period—because we changed the basis of the financial year —and also the terms of the IDA financial commitment and the amount of the fixed asset investment.
When we talk about new jobs it means the total new jobs in a project. The project can be approved within a certain period but all those jobs do not come on stream necessarily within that period. I want to make that clear. But all the figures I give from one year to another are comparable, all spread downstream from the year in which the decision was taken. Projected new jobs at full production for 1970-71 were 12,487; for 1971-72, 8,734; for 1972-73, 14,139; for 1973-74, 23,316; for the nine months to December, 1974, which was a short year, 19,818. In that nine months it was not the carry-over of the previous Government because we were well into our term of office then and in that nine months there were more jobs than in any 12 months of the time when the Opposition were in office. In 1975, in the middle of the worst depression for 40 years, the number is 17,000. That is well down on 1973-74 and it is well down on a 12-month basis on the nine months of 1974, but it is more than in any year during the Opposition's time in office. I think that is very creditable for the people concerned. It is a statistical answer to the sort of thing that I heard Deputy Colley say an hour ago—and he said it with more polish perhaps than many of his colleagues from whom there was the same sort of suggestion—that we were wrecking the IDA's job creation effort because we had created a bad environment. I think the figures are the answer. They speak for themselves.
I could talk in terms of the money committed which has continued to increase—that is State money committed. I could talk about the total of fixed asset investment which, I agree with Deputy Colley, is an extremely important figure, and that has continued to increase. Let me give an example: in 1970-71 it was £94.7 million; in the nine months to December, 1974, fixed asset investment was £287 million—nearly three times higher in nine months than it had been for a whole 12 months three years previously. People may not like the conclusions I am drawing but those are the figures and they represent the vigour, maturity and strength of our economy which I am bound to say I am proud of as coping very well with very difficult circumstances.
We have said it before but let me say it again and we might reach a consensus on all sides of the House to say it to everybody in the country because there is a sort of romantic double-think that we can be very realistic during the day; then, when we have had a few beers and we sing a few "Republican" songs that it does not much matter what we do after dark from the point of view of the economy. I want to give figures that are at best a guess; they do not purport to be absolutely accurate; it is not a sphere in which you could be entirely accurate but I hope to indicate to everybody in the country and—I have no words to describe the category of people I want to include because the word republican has been so prostituted in debate but if I use it in inverted commas I suppose they will understand themselves—the romantic "republians" who believe that physical force methods are a means of solving Ireland's problems, what that has cost us; some parts we can quantify; some parts we cannot.
In extra public expenditure from 1969 to now it is about £80 million for various sorts of security, perhaps a little more or less. The current annual extra expenditure is about £25 million—what could we not do, what could not each individual do with £25 million? As regards the indirect cost, in tourism we have lost the equivalent of one year's tourism since 1969; we have lost some industrial investment and lost some growth. We have areas in which it is very hard to get investment because of the security situation. Because of the fears of overseas investors we have lost something like £300 million. If one does compound interest on the security expenditures and other losses since 1969 to bring them to current figures, it is something in the region of £400 million and £500 million. That is a vast sum of money capable of transforming the whole economic environment. It has always seemed to me that the greatest argument one can offer to people you are asking to join you is to say: "Look, we are richer than you; we are better off; we do things better". That is a very powerful argument. Yet, that £500 million is the difference between being poorer and being a good deal richer. Apart from other arguments—arguments of humanity, hatred of brutalisation, hatred of death, destruction and cruelty—I wish they would ponder on the economic argument also.
I am not going to anticipate a budget speech. The budget date is known and it will be discussed very soon after we reassemble. But I want to say something about the general line of policy in regard to budgeting in our period in office. I know the freedom of Opposition. I came into this House in Opposition. I know that substantially one can say almost anything——
And did.
——and that different Members of an opposition say things and even if they are in the same party, they do not have to be reconciled with each other. I know the discipline of Government is not there. Even allowing for that, a great deal of the urgings we get from the other side of the House are for more expenditure. If anybody doubts that, let them read parliamentary questions and the supplementaries. We have then been consistently urged to have less taxation, that we were being too expansionary. The third simultaneous irreconcilable is that we should have less borrowing. It may seem too simplistic to put it like that, but that, in a very brief form, is the content of the criticism: firstly, that we should be doing more of a rescue aid stimulant kind, secondly, that we should be taxing less, and thirdly, that we should be borrowing less. When put like that, it is obviously contradictory and silly, but the assaults we have had on our budgetary policy in our period in office have been contradictory and silly. I could agree sentence by sentence with many of the less extreme things said. I know Deputy Colley is given to a rather inflated form of utterance——
Not nearly as inflated as the budget.
——and excessive forms of words come to him very easily, but he knows that timing is crucial in economic matters. He knows there is time for stimulation and time for restraint. It is like the wild illogic: if at one time you are for stimulant and another time you are for restraint, that is inconsistent, why can you not be the same all the time? Of course it is appropriate to do different things at different times. What seems to me unanswerable is that in the course of the years since we came to office— three years in the spring—had we been less stimulant, less expansionary than we were in the budgets, had we acted according not to our own decision of what was correct but according to the Opposition's criticism at the time, we would have had deeper recession and more unemployment than we have currently.
If people want to go back and read through those budgets and the debates they will realise that it is not given to people to get something as delicate as budgeting exactly right. Anybody with hindsight, especially at a time when all the pundits are wrong and all the economic factors have been pointing in different directions simultaneously, not alone in Ireland but all over the world, can see that the people who claim expert knowledge have been saying contradictory things and have been codded. Anyone who claims perfection in decision-making is totally wrong. That sort of wisdom is not given to people and it is possible to be wiser afterwards. The general thrust, the general assessment and the general response to that assessment of each of those budgets was in my view correct, and I believe that any reading of those budgets debates will validate that.
I want to say a very little not alone about wage policy but general income and consumption policies over the year 1976, because it is absolutely crucial to our economic health. It is a simplistic and wrong analysis to say in these concise terms: diagnosis—wages are going up too fast; cures—stop wages going up. That is part of the truth but taken by itself it is a dangerous oversimplification. Let me put it another way. GNP is declining. If, when GNP which has in different sectors different slices of the cake, and if when the whole cake is shrinking a little, one particular sector of that cake wants to grow, it can only do so at the expense of the others. If therefore the various sorts of distribution for spending increase when the GNP is static or shrinking, then the sector of productive reinvestment gets robbed. You are not able to make the cake grow. You are eating the seed corn and consuming the future if you do that.
Except if you borrow.
I thought the Deputy's colleagues said our borrowing was excessive?
I am correcting the formula. I am not approving of borrowing.
The point I want to make is that if you say to people to control wages and not look for increases in consumption, that is reasonable and, in my opinion, we will get a very mature and reasonable response on that, but it means simultaneously that other forms of distribution are controlled too. I believe it is possible to do that without damaging investment and the economic health of this country. That undertaking on behalf of the Government by the Taoiseach yesterday to the effect that the restraint would be shared and borne by all the sectors of the community was a very important one, and was the condition of our having a positive and mature response from the trade union movement, which I believe we are going to get.
I do not want to stick out my tongue and say "boo" to the Opposition about by-election results but they are important measures of what the public feel. Even allowing for all the local conditions one could think of this Government got a very important endorsement in Mayo. I cannot read it any other way. It is very reassuring for a Government to find that the people understand in desperately difficult times what we are trying to do and to find that they sustain it. Because, in the end, strength comes not only from one's own conviction and analysis but from the support of the people. They put us here and they are the source of our strength. We have received the strength and encouragement of their endorsement to a remarkable degree.
We are going away at this Christmas in desperately difficult times but in times when the division, the uncertainty, the in-fighting, the chaos and the instability are not in the ranks of the Government but in the ranks of the Opposition. I think that the people of Ireland have demonstrated that they analysed the situation in that way by the Mayo result. Speaking as a Minister I found that immensely heartening. We are unified. I believe this is a hardworking and able Government, but apart from my belief, I am satisfied from the figures that the public think the same.
We are going into hard times, unified and resolute and, above all, sustained in our policies by the people. Those three qualities—unity, resolution and the support of the populace, who understand what we are doing and believe it to be correct—are the guarantee that we will emerge from the difficulties and I believe, the guarantee that 1976 will be a better year for us than 1975.
Question put.
The Dáil divided: Tá, 64; Níl, 61.
Tá
- Barry, Peter.
- Barry, Richard.
- Begley, Michael.
- Belton, Luke.
- Belton, Paddy.
- Bermingham, Joseph.
- Bruton, John.
- Burke, Dick.
- Burke, Joan T.
- Burke, Liam.
- Byrne, Hugh.
- Clinton, Mark A.
- Collins, Edward.
- Conlan, John F.
- Coogan, Fintan.
- Cooney, Patrick M.
- Corish, Brendan.
- Cosgrave, Liam.
- Costello, Declan.
- Coughlan, Stephen.
- Crotty, Kieran.
- Cruise-O'Brien, Conor.
- Desmond, Barry.
- Desmond, Eileen.
- Dockrell, Henry P.
- O'Connell, John.
- O'Donnell, Tom.
- O'Sullivan, John L.
- Pattison, Seamus.
- Reynolds, Patrick J.
- Ryan, John J.
- Ryan, Richie.
- Dockrell, Maurice.
- Donegan, Patrick S.
- Donnellan, John.
- Enright, Thomas.
- Esmonde, John G.
- Finn, Martin.
- Fitzpatrick, Tom (Cavan).
- Flanagan, Oliver J.
- Gilhawley, Eugene.
- Governey, Desmond.
- Griffin, Brendan.
- Harte, Patrick D.
- Hegarty, Patrick.
- Hogan O'Higgins, Brigid.
- Jones, Denis F.
- Keating, Justin.
- Kenny, Enda.
- Kyne, Thomas A.
- L'Estrange, Gerald.
- Lynch, Gerard.
- McLaughlin, Joseph.
- McMahon, Larry.
- Malone, Patrick.
- Murphy, Michael P.
- O'Brien, Fergus.
- Spring, Dan.
- Staunton, Myles.
- Taylor, Frank.
- Timmins, Godfrey.
- Toal, Brendan.
- Tully, James.
- White, James.
Níl
- Allen, Lorcan.
- Andrews, David.
- Barrett, Sylvester.
- Blaney, Neil T.
- Brady, Philip A.
- Brennan, Joseph.
- Breslin, Cormac.
- Brosnan, Seán.
- Browne, Seán.
- Brugha, Ruairí.
- Burke, Raphael P.
- Callanan, John.
- Calleary, Seán.
- Carter, Frank.
- Colley, George.
- Connolly, Gerard.
- Crinion, Brendan.
- Cronin, Jerry.
- Cunningham, Liam.
- Daly, Brendan.
- Davern, Noel.
- de Valera, Vivion.
- Dowling, Joe.
- Fahey, Jackie.
- Farrell, Joseph.
- Faulkner, Pádraig.
- Fitzgerald, Gene.
- Fitzpatrick, Tom (Dublin Central).
- Flanagan, Seán.
- French, Seán.
- Gallagher, Denis.
- Geoghegan-Quinn, Máire.
- Gibbons, Hugh.
- Gogan, Richard P.
- Haughey, Charles.
- Hussey, Thomas.
- Kenneally, William.
- Kitt, Michael P.
- Lalor, Patrick J.
- Lemass, Noel T.
- Leonard, James.
- Loughnane, William.
- Lynch, Celia.
- Lynch, Jack.
- McEllistrim, Thomas.
- MacSharry, Ray.
- Meaney, Tom.
- Molloy, Robert.
- Moore, Seán.
- Murphy, Ciarán.
- Noonan, Michael.
- O'Connor, Timothy.
- O'Kennedy, Michael.
- O'Leary, John.
- Power, Patrick.
- Smith, Patrick.
- Timmons, Eugene.
- Tunney, Jim.
- Walsh, Seán.
- Wilson, John P.
- Wyse, Pearse.
Tellers: Tá: Deputies Begley and B. Desmond; Níl: Deputies Lalor and Browne.
Question declared carried.