This budget, by removing all the major obstacles to growth which have been highlighted over and over again for the last three or four years, by reducing company and personal taxation, and by a massive injection into the various productive sectors of the economy, has thrown down a challenge to every sector of the community, private and public, to grasp the opportunities that have been created, opportunities that may not be there in one or two years. We are challenged to make a magnanimous response and to throw our efforts behind those of the Government in tackling the major twin problems of our nation, unemployment and high inflation. This was not just a throw-away budget. It was not giving away money for the sake of doing so. There was a specific reason behind every aspect of it. The massive cuts in personal taxation were the Government's contribution to the control of inflation by trying to dampen down the demands of the people in various sectors who are seeking increases in the National Wage Agreement. From the result so far it would appear that the efforts in that direction have been reasonably successful. While we may not get the desired increase of 5 per cent or thereabouts in the National Wage Agreement, nevertheless we will get an increase that will regularise our pay structures considerably. It is unfortunate that by going above the guideline set by the Government we could be throwing 4,000 jobs out of the window when if we were prepared to do with 1 per cent or 2 per cent less we could have shortened the days of unemployment for some people.
The challenge has been thrown down by the Government to every sector. I will now attempt to identify what the challenge means and some of the areas in which response can be made. The challenge in the main has been thrown to the private sector and I believe this is the correct course to take. Private enterprise is always the cheapest and most efficient way to economic growth. While we have been criticised for putting over-reliance on the private sector, the record around the world shows clearly that private enterprise economies have nearly always out-passed and out-performed the socially oriented countries. We have only to look at Japan, West Germany and the USA for clear examples of what private enterprise can produce and has produced. No doubt if the proper commitment is given here we can produce in the next three or four years, and indeed into the 1980s, many of the jobs so necessary for our country. The gains of private economies are always long-term.
That does not mean that the public sector, as distinct from the public service, has not a very distinctive role to play. Most of our public sector semi-State bodies have, with one or two exceptions, been very successful and there is little doubt that they too will make a major contribution in the years ahead. Their ideas and energies can be channelled through the industrial consortium and put together with the many other ideas we hope will be channelled into that area.
I believe in the private enterprise system and private enterprise incentive. The Irish people can never be driven. They must always be led. The best way we can lead them is by incentives. Deep down in every one of us is some type of an entrepreneur, or tradesman or business man. We are always interested in making a few shillings. That is a basic instinct of the Irish character. The young people today are no different from us. They are waiting for an opportunity to set themselves up. In any programmes to identify where the areas for enterprise are, young people have come forward time and again with their ideas. This was tried in my own constituency by the Industrial Development Authority and the local Chamber of Commerce. The idea was to get ideas within our own community. There was a very definite response and 86 ideas were put forward. At least 20 showed very great promise and prizes were given. This is an area which can be expanded throughout the country. There are plenty of ideas and plenty of creative ability waiting to be tapped.
We have been criticised in this budget for not being socially orientated or socially committed. Our total commitment to the social side of our economy is in the region of £610 million. In itself, that figure bears out the social conscience of the Government. We have always said—and we stand by our commitment—that we will keep the social side in line at least with the cost of living and as the economy expands, as we hope and know it will, we can put more and more of our resources to improving the lot of the less well off in our society. You cannot make a poor man rich by making a rich man poor. My idea is that, first of all you create the wealth, and then you distribute it. Unlike our predecessors, we do not want to make the mistake of trying to distribute what we have not got. They ran into trouble trying to do that.
I commend the Minister on his recognition of the small disadvantaged groups in our society and one, in particular, the mentally handicapped. For years nobody has taken up their cause to the extent it should have been taken up. The development stage in that area which we are at today can be attributed by and large to voluntary associations. We must compliment them. In my own town I have seen at first hand the marvellous work voluntary organisations have done over the years for mentally handicapped children. I am glad that at last more recognition has been given to them and I hope it will continue in future budgets.
Most of the budget is concerned with jobs, job creation and job maintenance. Here is the challenge to us as a nation and as a people to see if we have the will to solve the problem and to respond as the Government expect us to respond. We need to hold what we have and at the same time, start to create what we need. What we have is no meaningless achievement. Our exports are in the region of £2,500 million and, for a small nation, that is not to be sneezed at. We need to consolidate our position. I compliment the Government on their job subsidies to the labour intensive areas which have been under very severe pressure by the distortion in trade caused by the British employment subsidy.
We must consolidate what we have and start to create what we need. In consolidating what we have, there is one area in which each and every one of us can play our part. By the massive injection given to the economy, spending power has been very heavily increased. It will be all for nowt if that spending power is used to buy more and more imports and not to support our own Irish produced goods. It is high time the Irish nation realised that, if they continue to import and to disregard Irish produced goods, more and more of our young people will stay longer and longer on the unemployment list. If a mere 3p were diverted from every £1 worth of foreign goods we buy, it is estimated that over three years that would produce 10,000 jobs. Whether it produces 10,000, 8,000 or 6,000 jobs, it is a very small sacrifice to ask from the people of Ireland if they want to play their part in solving this great national problem.
When we look at the make-up of our unemployment problem, we see that 45 per cent of the unemployed are under 25 years of age. If I were asked what our approach should be to such a huge problem and where are the areas in which we should set out to solve it, I would say we should start there. That figure of 45 per cent does not include many people for one reason or another. That is a waste of one of our greatest national assets. We have educated those people and put a national and a State investment into their education, and we cannot now stand aside and allow them to remain unemployed.
To tackle this problem we must use all our assets wisely and well. By that I mean our people and our national assets. They are there in abundance waiting to be developed. If we as a nation with a mere three million people have not got the will to solve the problem, nobody from outside will solve it for us. The world does not owe us a living. We are in the hard world of today and we have to earn our own living. We are quite capable of doing that. We have the ability to do it, but ability is not much good without opportunity. Now we have the opportunity presented to us in this budget.
Where are these opportunities? We have our natural resources which have been highlighted time and time again. We have the basic raw materials for all the industries we need to solve our unemployment problem. We have them right on our doorstep and it is better for us to use them than to bring in foreigners to use them for us. Even if we have to bring in foreigners to use a certain amount of them, nevertheless in my view Ireland is still the land of opportunity and, in the words of the Minister, 1978 is to be the year of opportunity.
In looking at our unemployment strategy for the future I believe it will have to be more broadly based than it has been in the past. When we think of jobs, naturally we think of manufacturing jobs, but over the years manufacturers will have the problem of trying to stay competitive in a very competitive world. We cannot blame business people if they have to put some of their money into more modern machinery to adapt to the consumer needs of today and to stay competitive. Having made their prices competitive, they can think about opening up the factory for longer than the eight hours most of our factories are open for today.
Shift work can be considered because in that way more goods can be produced more cheaply and can still be sold by using the resources lying idle for two thirds of the day in many of our factories. Lying there is a great national investment, a waste of a national resources and of a personal resource. I accept that the Irish make-up and character has not been orientated towards shiftwork. We have always looked for the easy way out. We have got away with it up to now but I do not believe we will do so much longer. We must educate our people towards these changes, changing times, change in work and change in the type of jobs available. If we accept the challenge that change brings we can make a sensible inroad into the unemployment problem.
Last week at the RDS, at an engineering exhibition, I noticed many and varied opportunities for small engineering companies, opportunities that have been identified from the import list, opportunities on view there for Irish entrepreneurs to replace the imports flowing into this country. They were identified by the IDA and the Institute for Industrial Research and Standards, two agencies that every day point up various areas of opportunity only waiting for entrepreneurs to take them up.
I have little doubt but that there will be many jobs created in the tourist industry as we hope to maintain our competitiveness and as forecasted figures show more and more tourists coming here in the ensuing year.
There are many job opportunities also in the leisure industry, many that have remained untapped so far. Indeed we have the finest inland waterways in Europe. Can anybody say we make the fullest possible use of them? There are job possibilities in every sphere. There are those in the environment, in the creation of town parks and recreation areas so badly needed around the country. If young people undertook such jobs at least they would be better off than remaining on the unemployment register. By so doing they would be creating a national asset, one that will be called into question in the not-too-distant future.
I believe we will have to examine the area of early retirement and plan for it. We must plan for leisure, educate people in this respect so that when the time comes it will not be the big shock we all fear. Anybody on the point of retiring will tell you that the greatest fear they have is what they will do with their spare time. If we approach the situation in a broad-based fashion, if we use wisely our natural resources—those of land, sea, mines and so on—we can reap beneficial results. We are now in a 250 million consumer market. We need no longer rely on our neighbours in the British market as we did for years. There are many and varied opportunities there with the consumer waiting to be supplied, and if we do not supply him somebody else will.
I believe such opportunities exist because I am often out in the market place and see them. However, they need to be identified. There is need for more research into and development of consumer tastes—what the consumer will be demanding in the future. Here we have fallen down badly because not sufficient of our resources has gone into research and development in identifying goods to be produced. In this respect I believe our academics have let us down. We have spent millions and millions of our national resources keeping our third level institutions going. If we examine the contribution they have made to our economy we will find it is a very small percentage. When we examine the make-up and business acumen of managers of Irish-based industries we must admit that the leaders of our business sector have not come from third-level education.
They have failed us here because they have not taken up the role of repaying to society what it has given them. They should be in the area of modern science to identify problems and to produce many of the answers needed today. But are they? Rather they prefer to drift into a soft job in the public service or elsewhere, creating problems for us businessmen trying to carry the country on our backs. They create problems through red tape, paperwork and so on, frustrating us many times along the way. The time has come for them to examine their situation because the load is being carried by too few. Too few are expected to produce the national wealth to carry this country back on the road to national reconstruction. It is time each individual in this society took up his part of the load. It is precisely that challenge the Government have thrown down to each of us in this budget. I hope everybody will seriously examine their position, see how they can help, what contribution they can make, make it honestly, thereby making this small nation great, because it can be made great if only we are prepared to accept that hard work is the order of the day and that there is no substitute therefor. There is an old saying that time lost is not found and that today never comes again. The time is opportune, the white flag is flying, the ball is in and the game is on—describe it how you will—the opportunities are there for Irish people to build this into the nation they all desire.
I do not think it is an impossible dream to tackle the unemployment problem. There are structural changes that will have to be made. I do not accept that defeatist attitude evident in many sectors and indeed expressed in this House. We do not have to accept this defeatist attitude. What have we got? We have all the tools we need to do the job; all we need is to get down and do the job. We need to multiply our effort. Indeed we, as public representatives, have a very special role to play in motivating our people into a greater national effort. We have the responsibility of ensuring that every individual interested in improving enterprise and effort in all areas is fully aware of the incentives existing, of the various schemes to help them in business, whether it produces one, ten, 100 or 1,000 jobs. I have always believed that if we look after the small man the big man will look after himself. It is our duty and responsibility to identify any possible areas of investment or enterprise in our own fields.
I do not believe in dealing with the problem only at national level. Each area should make an effort to solve its own problems and not expect the Government to solve them. I know that history has made us a dependent people and that we always tended to look to the Government, and now we are looking to Brussels. If we look in our own backyards we will see many areas that can be developed. When one or two local entrepreneurs start up in an area it is amazing the interest that builds up at local level. The Minister for Industry, Commerce and Energy opened four small units in Longford recently and since then people have come to me believing that they could also start up. I have little doubt that these three people will be added to the list. The industrial base in my area is purely small industry. We have two large units starting to build, but the small local man is much more important because he needs to keep in business in order to earn his living, he cannot blow out when the trade winds change as large foreign businessmen can. Small industry is the backbone of the American and French economies, why not make it the backbone of the Irish economy? The time has come for a great effort to be made. I hope that 1978 will be the year of which future historians will say: "Ireland stopped talking and started acting." We can no longer afford to slumber in the traditions of our fathers. The world is advancing, let Ireland advance with it. Only this way we can cherish the children of the nation. Let future generations not condemn us for not taking up the opportunities presented in this budget. This is a once-off operation and we owe it to our children, to their children and to the nation to avail of the opportunity. It is time we stood up to be counted, and took up our cross and carried our fair share of the national burden.
