The Opposition are now on their third attempt to row back from a decision taken twice by this House to support the national plan Building on Reality and to try to reopen the whole question in a manner which does not really address any of the policies that are in place and which will not produce constructive proposals to deal with the problems which we face which are widely recognised in the House and which were dealt with at some length last night by my colleague, the Minister for Industry, Trade, Commerce and Tourism.
In spite of what the Opposition said last night and in spite of the line they have taken, the kind of programme they are talking about in the motion which they have down on the Order Paper actually exists. It exists in the national plan which, as I said in the House before and as the Taoiseach said when he introduced the plan to the public, is the first time a Government have stated for three years in advance their expenditure plans on both the current and capital side and have set out clearly what amounts to a picture of the total financial resources available to the Exchequer over that period and the disposition of those financial resources to meet the policy requirements that are identified.
We are all at one in the House on identifying — it is not today or yesterday it happened — the absolute necessity for us to take whatever measures are in our power to deal with the problem of unemployment. Deputies opposite and Members on this side have made it very clear that they see a particular problem in relation to people who are long-term unemployed and young people who are unemployed. The latter part of the problem could do with a bit more calm analysis than it often seems to get. I remember an educational correspondent of one of the national newspapers carried out her own examination of the problem of youth employment and found — this was confirmed by the chief executive of one of the State agencies operating in the area — that the record of young people coming onto the labour force for the first time and getting employment after the various training and work experience courses was a lot better than it is popularly supposed to be. I make that point to put it on the record of the House. Deputy Ahern will agree that there is enough discouragement around without making people believe that a particular situation is more difficult than it actually is. It leaves us with the undoubted problem of the long-term unemployed which we must redress. I intend to come to that in a few minutes and will have something more specific to say.
The plan sets out a programme over the three year period 1985, 1986 and 1987. The programme does the kind of things the Opposition are calling for in their motion. The motion requests the Government to undertake an immediate and comprehensive programme of investment and other measures designed to provide employment and alleviate the widespread hardship caused by mass unemployment and to halt the rising tide of emigration. It is couched in language which makes it clear from the beginning what the tone of the Opposition's address will be. I am bound to say that, having reviewed the kinds of things that were said in the House last night by the Opposition they are acting — I suppose one can understand it from a political point of view — as if the national plan had never been published and there was no policy framework over the next three years for either investment or action on the current expenditure side. They are acting as if there was no policy designed to bring these things about. That is not the case. There is a body of policy covering all these points and it does more than cover them. It sets out very clearly the amount of financial resources that will be available to the Exchequer and the public authorities over that period and not just the financial resources that are available from within the country by means of taxation or the capital we can raise here. It also sets out the amounts we expect in total, including the contribution to the total amount of resources made available by foreign borrowing.
If the Opposition are saying we should have a greater volume of investment in the public capital programme, which is the area they are specifically addressing, than is provided for in published Government policy, there may be an argument there that could be sustained. That is one of the aspects of policy for the next three years we examined very closely before we published the plan. If that is what the Opposition are saying they must go the rest of the way. There is no doubt but that if we were to follow that course and use more of the resources we will have over the next three years for capital projects of the kind talked about by some Deputies opposite the inevitable result is we will have to divert funds into that area and away from other areas of expenditure. Where will we divert them from? We will divert them from current expenditure. I should like the Opposition to tell me what areas of public expenditure they want to see reduced over the next three years in order to make possible the kind of things that underlie their motion. I know from my experience of over two years in this position that that will be met with a deafening silence.
The Opposition are in a position where they say we need more capital investment. They also say they are against any kind of restriction on current spending. They have completed the hat trick now in the last few months by saying the Government are not making progress rapidly enough in reducing the current budget deficit. From time to time in their wilder flights of fancy when certain Members of the Opposition become involved in the financial area they say equally inconsistent things about the way we go about borrowing to fund the kind of programmes we have.
There are no two ways about it. If the Opposition are saying we should put more money into the capital expenditure side in the next three years they are also saying, if they are any way consistent about it, we should put less money into the current expenditure side. I should like them to tell the House and the public what areas of public expenditure they will cut over the next three years. If they were talking about making a large addition on the capital side they would inevitably find themselves making large reductions on the current side.
Anyone who has considered the general pattern of current Government expenditure knows that if substantial reductions are to be made in current expenditure, one must list the areas to concentrate on in order to find the money. More than 80 per cent of total expenditure is in the areas of health, education, social welfare and environment. Consequently, the making of a substantial reduction to finance extra capital outlay would have to be in those four areas particularly. One would be forced to look at those areas not because of having any hangup about expenditure on them but because they are the only ones big enough to be capable of yielding any kind of leeway that would make a substantial addition on the capital side. If the Opposition continue to refuse to face that fact they must consider the other possible option, to increase borrowing substantially.
To many Members of the Opposition borrowing seems to be the answer to whatever problem we have. Their attitude is to borrow more money in order to bring about immediate effects, but borrowing is deferred taxation. We must repay such funds. The interest must be paid during the term of the loan and the principal must be repaid at some time. Those moneys would come from tax revenue. If the Opposition are saying seriously that, in order to finance what they are advocating we should increase borrowing in that period, they must accept inevitably that there will have to be a bigger provision for the funding of the debt, for the payment of interest and for the repayment of principal at some point. Again, on the current side they would be forced into making room for that by reducing expenditure in some of the other current expenditure areas. Inevitably they would be forced into considering the four areas I have mentioned.
That scenario was not referred to by the Opposition last evening. It does not suit their case to make such references. Having regard to the point at which they start they appear to be doing themselves very little favour by adopting that line. Even if Fianna Fáil do not agree chapter by chapter with what is in the national plan — and I can conceive of that being the case — they would be doing a far more constructive and better job for the people for whom they are concerned, and I do not doubt that concern, if they took the plan and said that, "in chapter so and so, we think that the balance is wrong, that a readjustment should be made." They should be prepared to put forward more specific proposals about a rebalancing of expenditure as between the capital and the current side or even a rebalancing of the current expenditure side as between different areas. That kind of exercise, rather than the road they took in the discussion last night, would be far more in keeping with the concern they have expressed.
To an extent the Opposition have tried to reconcile their very ambivalent budgetary stance by resurrecting this old proposal of the self-financing tax cuts.
