I should like to compliment the three men who were promoted today. I am particularly pleased for Deputy Burke because the Burke family have a long association with politics. Deputy Burke's father was a well-liked member of this House and I am sure he is happy that his son has become a junior Minister.
We often talk about Moses coming down from the mountain with a tablet of stone. Somebody came out of a think-tank with the Fianna Fáil manifesto and that is why it has turned out to be wet. It was the first time Fianna Fáil put anything down in writing. Because there was so much in the manifesto, people glanced through it and read what they wanted to read out of it. The result is that we have had some remarkable interpretations. The manifesto had the effect of changing the Government. Unlike some people who believe they had no right to do wrong, I believe the people had the right to change the Government and they did so in no uncertain terms.
So far, what have we got from the Government? We have a change of names of Departments. Some of the changes are appropriate and some of them are awkward. For the life of me, I cannot see how the Department I served for four-and-a-half years can benefit from being renamed the Department of the Environment. I could understand the change if there was pressure for it, but change for the sake of change is ridiculous. To make matters worse, everything connected with the Department had to be changed and that was a fairly expensive job.
Since their defeat in 1973 the Fianna Fáil Party set out to return to power. They worked very hard at it and good luck to them, but they were completely unscrupulous. Up to May of this year the charge was made in this House again and again that the correct figure for unemployment was 185,000 instead of nearly 110,000. The two people who used that figure regularly were the Taoiseach and the Minister for Labour. A few weeks ago I was amused at the Taoiseach being asked the current unemployment figure. He did not know the answer then but he knew it last May. I would quarrel with the figure of 185,000. If it is correct, then we must surely have passed the 200,000 mark by now because this year's school leavers must be added to it.
One of the main problems we have had under Fianna Fáil, and for a period under the National Coalition, was the introduction of capital-intensive industry. When a new industry was started or an existing one improved, the industry became more efficient and this resulted in the loss of many jobs. The new Government should look at this matter very closely. Fianna Fáil said they were going to remove the dole queues. I remember the Taoiseach being very sure of himself in regard to the number of people who would be employed after Fianna Fáil returned to power. During the interview he was asked, "When do you intend to reduce the dole queues?", and his quick reply was, "Immediately we take office". The Taoiseach has now been in office for six months and he has not done it. A lady member of Fianna Fáil appeared on television the same night and she was abusive. She talked about the right to work and that this lot— she was referring to the National Coalition—were keeping people out of jobs. She succeeded in getting a seat in this House but the people are still being deprived of the national right to which she referred.
Today I listened to Deputy O'Kennedy talking about the EEC, how things were to be done and the great Europeans we are. When I consider the number of people who are unemployed in the member states it makes me wonder whether we should copy the EEC in regard to running our economy.
Before they came into power, Fianna Fáil had an answer to the problem of school leavers. They were very noisy in this House about the rights of school leavers. I remember answering a question on behalf of the Minister for Labour on the number of last year's school leavers that had been employed. It turned out only 7 per cent of them were still seeking work at that time. A Deputy who is now a junior Minister asked me if many of them had taken jobs for which they were not trained. I would ask the Minister who is present to find out from his colleagues if they are going to supply jobs for which people have been trained to the school leavers who are at present seeking jobs. I know the answer. Little if anything has been done for those people. I am afraid they will have to live on the pre-election promises of Fianna Fáil.
Fianna Fáil were very definite about prices before the election. They said they would make efforts to ensure that prices would not increase. When he was in Opposition the Minister for Industry, Commerce and Energy was adamant about prices but they are still increasing. The only difference between now and when we were in office is that price increases were headlined by the media. For some extraordinary reason price increases are not being headlined now.
Recently, there was a substantial increase of £5 per ton in the price of coal and it was difficult to find a report of it in the newspapers. Recently, three price increases were announced on the radio. On the same day I got a copy of the prices report which had been approved by the Minister and discovered that there had been 43 price increases. Now where did the other 40 go to? Fianna Fáil are very good at covering up; they seem to be able to ensure that people are not made aware of price increases. Ask any housewife, particularly in Dublin, and she will tell you whether she is satisfied with Fianna Fáil's performance in regard to their promises. The only time you will find out about price increases is when you are paying for goods at the supermarket check-out. Incidentally, a regulation was passed that the prices of certain commodities should be displayed in shop windows in such a way that they could be easily read by people before they enter the shop. I do not see many of them now. I believe there is a shop in town where a very patriotic gentleman has the prices in Irish. I am sure it is in the interests of the Irish language that he has the prices in Irish in the window but there is no English version and since most people in the city only read English, the Irish version is not much use to them.
Reference was made to the question of the Christmas butter. Some years ago when an amount of butter was being made available at a reduced price we decided that it should be given to social welfare recipients. I should like to know why the Government did not decide to do the same thing. If ever there was a scandal the distribution of the Christmas butter was one because not alone has it not been delivered to some of the small shops but some of the supermarkets appear to have more than they can get rid of. Some of them even made it a condition that a customer had to buy £5 worth of goods before he got a coupon entitling him to 1 lb. of Christmas butter. Where would the old age pensioner, the widow or the unemployed man or woman fit into that scheme? Like everything else the Government have put their hands to so far, they have made a mess of the distribution of that butter. The Minister concerned should see to it that this does not happen again.
In the course of his speech the Taoiseach made a short reference to the new Department of the Environment and to housing. He also referred to the building industry and the tremendous improvements being made. I suggest that there has not been a tremendous improvement in the building industry and, as far as housing is concerned, I regret to state that we will not be able to have the annual 25,000 house-average which we had over the last four years. That is no fault of mine. During my period in office I made a provision that an allocation for local authority houses be given to local authorities early in the year and when the progress was well known a further allocation be given. I do not know what the general position is but I am aware that in my constituency, County Meath, only one allocation was given, the first one. They have not been given the second one. More than £1 million has not been paid. Has that happened elsewhere or was that specially reserved for one constituency?
With regard to the number of new houses, I am afraid we will find that the number will drop considerably. People engaged in the business of house building and selling houses have told me that there is a slump in the market. I am aware that the Government decided to increase the amount of money which a local authority could lend for the purpose of building houses but I am not aware that this has made a big improvement, because with present interest rates on SDA loans it is not very attractive. I am glad the building societies were able to produce a tremendous amount of money and that they are getting the support they should get from the Government, as they received from the last Government. I regret that those who will be borrowing money through the SDA loan scheme will not have much joy. I wish now to refer to the change in housing grants. We would all love to see grants given to everybody anxious to build a house, particularly those in need. I remember a case being made in the House that enough money was not being given and that people engaged in agriculture could get £900. It was stated that it did not matter whether they originally owned a hovel or not: they got the £900 if they decided to build a house. The Minister was asked some time ago whether those people would qualify and he said he would make arrangements to have them included as if they did not previously own a house. I understand that arrangement has not yet been made. Anybody who owns a house, not alone in this country but—according to the form issued by the Department—anywhere in the world, or if their spouse owns a house anywhere in the world, will not qualify for the £1,000 grant.
I asked the Minister yesterday the number of people in County Meath who had qualified. I was told there were 580 applicants and that one person had qualified. I was told also that so far it had not been found possible to pay him. At that rate the first £1,000 will go a long way because if the Government cannot pay one grant in six months in a county where a lot of houses are being built it does not say much for the counties where fewer houses are built. The reconstruction grants should have been increased. I said before that I would like to see them increased and I hope my successor will do so, because we must preserve existing housing stock at all costs. I understand the Minister will be going around in the near future opening a number of beautiful housing schemes and the best of luck to him. However, he will not have to do as I had when I started opening schemes erected under Fianna Fáil, carry a notebook to take complaints from the tenants who were only a few weeks in the houses. They complained that roofs were leaking, that walls were crooked, floors broken, windows were not fitting and about absence of heating. The houses the Minister will open are fit for working class people to live in. I hope that, no matter what economies the Government decide to make, they will not make an economy on the standard of house building. We do not want any more of the type of houses built under the last Fianna Fáil Government.
I should now like to deal with the question of rents of local authority houses and the sale price. I understand that in the Dublin South-West Constituency during the election campaign a special election manifesto was issued to the effect that those who bought local authority houses before 1973 and paid cash for them would get a refund of one-quarter of the money if Fianna Fáil were returned to office. When this matter was raised in the House by a Fine Gael Deputy some weeks ago the Minister said Fianna Fáil had no responsibility for that document. From that I assume that Fianna Fáil can be all things to all men. If it suits in one place they can say it and then the party can say it has no responsibility for it even though there is a Deputy from the area in the House as a result of that manifesto. The rents of local authority houses are up for review. Last year a deliberate attempt was made by a Deputy, now a member of the Government, to cause as much trouble as he could on a local authority because the local authority had not notified tenants of an increase in the rents. A substantial amount was due in arrears. Even when I compromised and gave them exceptional terms —not given anywhere else—so that the burden would not be too heavy on them, that Deputy kept up his agitation and did his best to cause trouble. Although that rent review was due in July it had not been completed. I understand that NATO have not been able to meet the Minister to date. I believe there is a possibility that the Minister will meet them today and I hope he treats them as the responsible body they are. When I took over in the Department of Local Government there was a two-year-old rent strike on hands and I had to settle it.
I hope my successor will not be foolish enough to create or cause a further rent strike, something he can do pretty quickly if he starts dealing unfairly with the decent people who live in those houses. Those people living in houses built before our time have a lot of real complaints.
Since this Government took office there has been a dramatic increase in the number of road accidents. I cannot blame the Government for that, but I want the Minister to do everything possible to get back to the situation which prevailed in the last three years of my term when the number of people being killed and injured on our roads was dropping annually. I do not know why the position has changed. It should not happen and those who drive recklessly should be condemned. I do not think it was a good idea to suspend the test for those alleged to be driving while drunk. If there is a mistake in the test it should be remedied. Any loophole should be fixed up and the test put back in operation. Drunken driving causes many road accidents. Nobody who is drunk ever gets killed. We are too polite to say he was drunk if he happened to be killed but if he kills somebody else it is different.
Yesterday the Minister made an announcement about rates on local authority houses. A great deal of publicity was given to the fact that the Minister and the Government had decided local authority tenants would be treated the same as any other householder so far as rates are concerned. Why would they not be? When we took 25 per cent off the rates this year, we took it off the rates of local authority house tenants. Why should they be treated any differently from anybody else? Why should there be a song and dance about this, or is it an effort to say that because they will have a reduction in their outlay under that heading they cannot complain if rents go up as a result?
I am sorry the Minister for Foreign Affairs has left the House because I wanted to say something to him. He lectured us on how well he is getting on in Europe and the great respect being shown to his Government. Great respect was shown to the previous Government. Our Minister for Foreign Affairs did not belong to our party, but I would say that perhaps he was the best Minister for Foreign Affairs we ever had. I am not surprised to hear the present Minister for Foreign Affairs saying he is being welcomed with open arms in Europe. He was the adviser to the IFO and he told them that of course they were entitled to hold out for a 50-mile limit. They were not to mind what the Coalition Government were talking about, they were entitled to a 50-mile limit and they would have to get it. I wonder is that being mentioned in Europe now?
That is not the line adopted by the Minister for Fisheries when he steps from one foot onto the other and decides what he wants to say. Apparently he says one thing and, if it does not suit his listeners, he changes to something else very quickly. Of course, that would be no problem to the Minister.
The Minister for Education appears to be working very hard. Like his predecessor he is meeting with many difficulties. In the short time available to me I have one or two cribs to which I should like to refer. I should like to know why the Department, under the new Minister, decided to change the decision on the building of a technical school in Navan. The building of this school which had been decided on by his predecessor has now been cancelled and it has been decided to improve or increase the size of the existing school, although it had been agreed by the Department that the siting of the existing school was a traffic hazard. Perhaps somebody might answer that one.
I should also like to know why the Minister has reduced the amount of money being given by way of State grant to a school in my parish of St. Mary in Drogheda. I should also like to know, when he was increasing the grant to students, why he did not consider it necessary to increase the income limit of those eligible for the grant. I have had numerous complaints from people. One person's daughter would be eligible but for the fact that she has £355 per annum as a librarian in a local branch library. This amount put her £5 over the limit. The amount her daughter would get would be nearly double the amount she is earning as a part-time branch libarian.
On the question of social welfare, I remember the Minister for Economic Planning and Development stating early this year that one of the ways he felt the Fianna Fáil Government could reduce expenditure was that £30 million could be taken off social welfare. I put down a question on this matter. A number of people have been working for years in Butlins Holiday Camp near where I live. One woman who worked there for 29 years and another woman with 17 children whose husband died have been refused unemployment benefit on the ground that they work on a seasonal basis only. When I tried to get further information from the Minister, he made some reference to their economic circumstances. That was the first time I knew there was a means test for social welfare disability or unemployment benefit.
Once you stamp a card either you are entitled to benefit or you are not. Your economic circumstances do not come into it. This is happening. Some of my colleagues tell me the same racket is being worked throughout the country. Similarly, many people, particularly women, who have been drawing disability benefit for a number of years now find themselves debarred from benefit. They are brought in and examined and told they are not unfit for work. If this is the way in which Fianna Fáil are to give parity to women on social welfare as they claimed in their election manifesto, it is a damned peculiar way of doing it.
On the question of the number of jobs created by Fianna Fáil, the health services have been quoted. I was very interested last week to hear the Minister for Health stating honestly in the House, as I would expect him to do, that Fianna Fáil had not paid for any of the jobs which had been created. They were included in the budget and provision had been made for them in the existing arrangements. All Fianna Fáil had done was to continue with the arrangements to give these additional jobs. Quite a substantial amount of money was made available in this year's budget for job creation. With it, we expected to bring down the unemployment figure to under 100,000 before the end of the year. Unfortunately, Fianna Fáil have not succeeded in doing this. They got it down to about 105,000 and now it is climbing back up again. I am sure that before very long it will be back to where it started.
We hear a lot of talk about wage negotiations. Everybody is an expert on this matter. I have been a trade union official for almost 30 years and, while I do not agree with unofficial strikes or with the decision sometimes taken to honour an unofficial strike picket—that is wrong—at the same time I believe there has been too much messing with trade union negotiations. If the Government think they can get away with 5 per cent next year they will have to have their heads examined collectively or individually. There is not a hope in the world of getting away with it, because it does not represent a reasonable amount.
There is another issue we must remember. We hear a lot of talk about competitiveness with other European countries. Wages in most European countries are very much higher than they are here. If we can get production up to the right level, we should be able to compete very well with European countries. The big trouble for this Government, as it was for the previous Government and Governments down the years, is that they do not want to admit the rate of pay given to the civil service, which must be paid directly out of State funds, is causing all the difficulty. Why do they not come out in the open and say that? I was amazed to hear even the Taoiseach talking about an average wage. A couple of weeks ago the Minister for Economic Planning and Development talked about an average wage of £78 a week. The Taoiseach mentioned a figure of £80 a week. The majority of workers are in the lower paid category. They earn between £40 and £50 a week and they must make do with that.
The Government must tighten up security. They must change the system whereby people go before the courts, and the courts know they are guilty of a crime, but they can walk out free because an "i" was not dotted or a "t" not crossed. The Garda are doing a good job and they must get support. The additional gardaí now on duty were included in a scheme prepared and put into operation by the previous Government.
