: The motion before us relates to the Green Paper and to the adjournment of the House. We must examine the contention of the authors of the Green Paper that it represents "an imaginative and positive approach towards the problem". The paper also said that "the agenda for public discussion contains many radical choices". There is an urgent need not only for my party but for the House to examine the Green Paper and to put forward a critical but constructive alternative strategy to the country.
The Taoiseach has described the proposals in the Green Paper as radical. I submit that it is an abuse of the English language to suggest that it is in any way radical. The contents and the options outlined in the Green Paper are more akin, at a first reading, to an election manifesto of the Conservative Party in Britain for the next election than a response to Irish economic and social needs. The most frightening aspect of the Green Paper is that after 12 months in office all the Fianna Fáil Cabinet have to offer is the rather vague concept of work sharing and cuts in social expenditure. I do not know what the Cabinet have been doing for the past 12 months but they certainly must have worked with the enthusiasm of a chained gang in irons on this Green Paper because it certainly does not contain very much.
I am aware, as every Member of the House is, that there is a deep sense of national concern about unemployment, particularly about jobs for the thousands of young people who are now leaving school. I have no doubt that very many Irish people in employment, including myself, are prepared to make sacrifices so that our families do not have to emigrate or live on the dole. I believe that any Government calling for restraint must, above all, be seen in word and in deed to place a fair burden of sacrifice on all sections of the community. That is a real alternative which our party offer. We cannot support the assurances of my constituency colleague, the Minister for Economic Planning and Development, that all our people will ride on a rising tide of future prosperity provided people now in certain sections of the community are prepared to half drown themselves with sacrifices. I do not believe the deprived sections in our community will fall for this illusion. They fell for it in the past and they are still deprived as a result.
I am shocked to see that very many members of the Cabinet have no conception of what the real life of industry is on the factory floor and in the public service. It is absurd to suggest that work sharing, in the context in which it is proposed, which is also income sharing, reduced overtime and early retirement would produce 65,000 jobs in a year. When those jobs must come about in the context of reduced earnings, no real increase in earnings, more taxation or public service standstill in terms of expenditure, the proposition borders on the preposterous. If those meagre and largely irrelevant proposals towards job creation are all the Fianna Fáil Party have to offer on the anniversary of their election to office the prospects for the next few years are quite grim.
I believe that my constituency colleague, the Minister for Economic Planning and Development, is capable of far better work than was produced in the Green Paper. That is perhaps one of the most striking aspects of it. It is about time we got away from the pre-election article which he wrote in Business and Finance on 4 March 1976 because the Green Paper is virtually a rehash of the article by himself and Mr. Seán Barrett. We are told in that article where the cuts can be made. My constituency colleague is more than capable of producing far better work than this very disappointing document. I know that the pressures of party politics and of inter-departmental conflict and internal power struggles, which always goes on no matter what Cabinet are in office, leave their scars on documents but there is no reason why they should have left such a massive scar on this document. Another disturbing aspect is that the more hard-nosed and realistic members of the Cabinet—I will give two names to the Minister, Deputy Haughey and Deputy Brian Lenihan— freely admit that the basic assumptions behind this document are quite impractical at best. In practice they are quite reactionary, because we have the contrast of a political party which gave a £10 million handout to the best-off members of the community while threatening to abolish food subsidies for the poor. That kind of analogy does not require elaboration.
The £10 million tax rebate to about 2,000 individuals gives them £5,000 a year each. For each year to come they will have that benefit. That money would have built 650 houses each year for the homeless and would have helped to provide about 1,500 jobs each year. The situation is that a budget policy of massive handouts to everybody has resulted in a decrease of £200 million in State revenue in 1978 money terms. Now we are told that the shortfall has to be made good by general cuts in public expenditure. The pensioner and the unemployed breadwinner with a limited income who is getting no relief from the abolition of rates and car tax are now being asked to suffer from the abolition of food subsidies in the years ahead. They are even being asked to suffer from the cutback in the CIE programme. They are being asked to suffer what will effectively be a standstill with no real increase in social welfare or in the health services.
The electorate are going to scorn that kind of inverse means test. I do not see anybody morally supporting a Government which provides massive handouts to the electorate, particularly to the better-off sections of the community, and a year later demands sacrifices from the less well-off members of the community. The money that is urgently needed for social welfare, the health services and education was squandered by Fianna Fáil in their quest for power at any price. At a time when every single scarce resource of the State should be exclusively devoted to job creation, all Ministers Colley and O'Donoghue gave in the budget was a supermarket of free offers. Like all free offers, the customers will have to pay in full measure at the checkout.
The Green Paper does not hold out much hope for a significant reduction in unemployment in the short term. The job creation measures of the Government in the budget were welcome. They were decisive but are not sufficient to make an impact on unemployment. It has to be pointed out that the emigration figure of 14,000 in the past 12 months together with the partial recovery of the European economy and an excellent tourist season this year, have contributed as much to the reduction in the number on the live register as the Fianna Fáil job creation programme.
I am disappointed that the Green Paper does not see any major dynamic future for public enterprise. The proposals concerning State-sponsored bodies are rather sparse. The idea of an industrial development corporation is once again ignored. We are back to the old consortium which has not met more than three times in 12 months. I am disappointed that the CIE capital programme is half buried. By and large, the public capital programme seems destined to stand still. I am disappointed that the prospect of joint ventures between State-sponsored bodies and private companies is only half-heartedly endorsed. There does not seem to be any urgency about the need for exploiting our oil, gas and mineral resources. I do not know what the Cabinet are up to these days but I do not get an impression of urgency in that regard.
I know that the Government have bragged about the reduction in inflation to 6.2 per cent. When considering that figure we must take into account the abolition of rates and the stability in world commodity prices. To some extent it ignores the hidden inflation in food prices which has hit low-income families and pensioners. For example, the food price index showed an 8 per cent increase over the past 12 months. The underlying aspect of the 6.2 per cent inflation rate should not be ignored in the context of phasing out food subsidies, no increase in children's allowances this year and no social welfare increases in October.
One of the more sickening aspects of the Green Paper is its failure to see any responsible role for a fair system of taxation in our economic and social structure. We gave a few tax reliefs, abolished wealth tax and that is it. I have always said that taxation is a method of serving the dual purpose of providing the State with resources for financing vital public and welfare services and of ensuring a more equitable distribution of income and wealth. The squandering spree of the Fianna Fáil Party in the election, the two-stage rocket of a budget and the scramble backwards in the Green Paper have emasculated our taxation system. I believe that taxation is necessary if we are to have the public services we need in a modern and socially progressive democracy. Taxation is necessary if we are to reform the quality and improve the scope of our social welfare, health and education services.
The Labour Party's dispute with the Fianna Fáil Party's approach is with the manner in which the weight of taxation foreshadowed in the Green Paper is to be distributed now and in the future. There is clear evidence in the Green Paper that the relative burden of taxation and general charges on wage and salary earners are to be further increased. An example of that approach is, the temptation open to Deputy Colley to put a 2 per cent payroll tax on wage and salary earners to pay for our future health services which would bring in £35 million per year. That is the kind of option which people will be facing.
The Government have already made the tax system less progressive by dismantling capital taxation, the abolition of most domestic rates and the abolition of most road taxes. As a result, the contribution in taxes by the relatively better-off sections of the community has diminished. They are now buying bigger and better houses and will have much to say if second mortgaging is proposed by the Government. They are grabbing as much property and farmland as they can buy. Most of them are blowing their tax reliefs and rates reliefs on foreign holidays. Just try to get your car in or out of Dublin Airport at present and you will see clear evidence of where this money, given by Fianna Fáil to the relatively better-off section of the community, is going.
Comparatively little of what that section saved in taxation is being invested now in productive capital formation. If it were not for the productive investment growth from America we would be in even more serious trouble. Such investment is by no means assured or stable. Therefore, the alternative strategy of the Green Paper should have been directed to strengthening the general recovery of the economy, towards more radical and more definite measures to reduce unemployment and raise living standards. Instead we see prospective inflation and budget cuts, increased taxation and a minimal job creation programme.
There is an alternative to this very conservative Green Paper. I regret to have to use that description. I had been very hopeful that we would see a major document. I can assure the Minister, Professor O'Donoghue, that there is no more critical person in the House than myself in relation to previous Green Papers. In Killarney I had great disappointment in saying very harsh things about the Green Paper of the previous administration in the final year of their office. I was in serious difficulty with the Government side at that time for expressing such views, but I have always expressed my views and that is what we are here for. The present Green Paper is on a par with the previous one except that undoubtedly some of the chapters dropped from the earlier one in Deputy Ryan's time as Minister for Finance seem to have been resurrected and are emerging in a very conservative context, particularly as regards public expenditure.
The alternative strategy should be that of a modern mixed Irish economy. We can bring about full employment without poverty. It is not enough to say to the Opposition: "Are you or are you not in favour of full employment? Do you or do you not want it?" The issue is how to have it. Our strategy should be based on a much more effective system of national economic and social planning which would include the development of more commercial State enterprises. I should like to see the expansion of agriculture-based industries, where there is considerable scope. We need the encouragement of more investment in home-based exporting manufacturing plant in the private sector. I am not opposed to private enterprise but I do not expect it to provide full employment—which it never set out to do. Those who say private enterprise has failed to provide employment can scarcely understand the fundamental mechanics of the economy. I favour more investment in home-based manufacturing enterprise and I favour the balanced encouragement of foreign investment. The Government have given excessive emphasis to that aspect, trotting off to America at every hand's turn and to multinational companies trying solely to get foreign investment going here almost as though it was our saviour.
We should have an extension of our public capital programme to provide a better general infrastructure, better transport and communications. We can also provide employment from the immediate exploitation of our oil, gas, mineral, bogland and timber resources. The latter two have great potential. We should set up a national development corporation to initiate new industrial development and co-ordinate existing programmes. Two or three years ago I was sceptical about the idea of a national development corporation. I am opposed to bureaucratic structures for their own sake but the more I see the lack of Government policy in the case of successive Governments and the more I see lack of co-ordination between different State agencies the more I am converted to the idea of a general industrial development corporation, an extension of the concept of the IDA. This would be of major benefit. The consortium idea proposed and initiated by Fianna Fáil is not working. I do not think the Minister for Industry, Commerce and Energy, Deputy O'Malley, a very competent Minister in many ways, believes in it. The measures I am suggesting would provide many new jobs which with the provision of more jobs in our education and training services and in our social and health services, could bring about a degree of full employment.
There has been excessive dependence of late on foreign companies for the development of new industries. I am perturbed that we are becoming heavily dependent on American and multi-national enterprises. No Government here is likely to carry great influence on the foreign investment policies and controls of the Carter administration, for instance. We may have a good deal of ethnic influence, but any retrenchment in US policy in this area could have most serious effects on domestic employment. Large sections of our industry are now subject to external control. There is still a substantial degree of uncertainty about the future of our export tax relief system in the context of EEC policy. Therefore, I would wish to see much greater stress in Government policy on Irish participation in our industrial sector. For example only 3 per cent of jobs in manufacturing industry are in our public enterprises. We should have far greater expansion in that area.
In the Labour Party, as in ICTU, we have advocated the setting up of an industrial development corporation. It would have a number of functions. I am open to argument on it but I believe there is need for the establishment of new State industrial enterprises and for a more positive approach to the promotion of joint ventures between State-sponsored enterprises and private entrepreneurs. An industrial development corporation could identify potentially viable new industrial projects, for instance, in the food processing and maritime sectors.
I have been hypercritical of the Green Paper but I think the food processing end of it was reasonable. The section dealing with agriculture as a whole was thoughtful. There were other sections such as higher education, which are courageous, to say the least of them, but I do not know what happened in the slot machine at Cabinet discussions, but by and large there are aspects of the Green Paper which are certainly very defective.
There is need to balance the current large influx of foreign based industry, and an industrial development corporation can do this. We need a countervailing industrial influence with the development of more Irish participation in industry. A further function of an IDC would be to co-ordinate the substantial involvement of State agencies in the industrial sector. These agencies do invaluable work in industrial research, export promotion, in the advisory services and in industrial training and education, but there is need to co-ordinate these activities to ensure that they do not waste taxpayers' money and that we obtain the optimum benefit from their resources.
We come back to the old problem: where does the money come from? I believe there are cash resources in the country. The more I travel around the country, even in my own constituency, the more I am convinced that there is plenty of money and no need for great cutbacks in public expenditure. I am completely opposed to abuse even with regard to social expenditure, but I am appalled at the way this document has been presented. One has only to go into a public house in any city or town on any night and one can see the amount of money being spent. We can find the money for many of the services we wish to introduce.
We can have the cash resources we want from a just system of general taxation, which we do not have. We can have those resources from a proper social incomes control over the banking and credit systems, particularly with regard to the use of their money on house construction. We must do something about land speculation which is outrageous. All sections of the community will have to make more sacrifices in the national interest.
A good deal of the money which has come from the EEC by way of CAP income should be more fairly distributed. I am not opposed to the farming community getting as much money as they can from the Community but once the money comes to this country it should be redistributed more effectively. At the moment it is being distributed in a very narrow way, to very large farmers in certain counties, and they pay no tax.
The stress and the balance of the Green Paper is out of touch. It has proved to be a disappointment. I have not met many economists who regard it as a significant analysis of the present situation. I have not met many members of the NESC who regard it as containing positive and far-reaching proposals. I do not want to discourage the Minister for Economic Planning and Development but we must go back to the grindstone. There is a need to take very difficult political decisions at Cabinet level, to have another look at the document. My outline of alternative strategy has something to offer. I hope my contribution will not be regarded as too critical and that it will be regarded as positive. After 12 months of Fianna Fáil Government we are entitled to take stock of the economic and social policies of the Cabinet. I have no doubt that the Green Paper will be changed substantially. The Minister and the Cabinet should have a radical re-think of the document. I would then welcome it, irrespective of party political affiliation.