There are just a few points I would like to stress and one of them has been alluded to by Senator Ruane, that is, in relation to the county medical officers of health. The position is very greatly aggravated. The doctors in our county find it impossible to make rounds to the schools and although I have not the exact figures I know that it is a number of years since they have been able to attend some of them with the result that there are various children suffering from defects which should have been attended to in earlier years.
Central Fund Bill, 1947 (Certified Money Bill)—Second Stage (Resumed): and Subsequent Stages.
Question again proposed: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time."
Would not this be a matter for the local authority?
It is one of the services, I presume.
It is one of the local services administered by the local authority.
There is a grant given in aid of it under this Charge.
But the administration is really a matter for local authorities.
I do not want to take any advantage of the House but I think it is a very important matter. If the Chair rules against me I will willingly abide by that ruling. I just had a suggestion to make to relieve the situation—that dispensary doctors would examine the children. The point has been raised that they would not be fully qualified on that particular subject. What I would suggest to ease the position is that the dispensary doctors in Roscommon, for instance, would, if possible get leave of absence for six months and take a special six months' course. They could then go to work in the schools. My idea would be that even if they were not experts on the matter they would be better than a layman about children who are not up to standard, and arrangements could be made that the most important cases could be examined by the county medical officer of health. That is all I have to say on that.
In regard to workers going to England, I think at the present time when there is a great need for tillage and fuel that they could be very usefully employed over here at fairly decent wages. I think the majority of our Irish boys if they got fairly decent wages at home would prefer to work at home rather than go to England especially under present conditions. I think the food situation beyond is not very good. A big factor against them staying at home is that they have seasonal work instead of permanent employment. I am going to suggest that the people engaged on turf, for instance, could be permanently employed. I know there is a lot of turf on the bogs at the present time and if these bogs were properly drained and proper roads made into them it could be taken out and transported by rail or lorry to Dublin. On that point, too, I think provision could be made for paddocks adjacent to bogs and along the main roads. It might mean the making of a little by-road for 15 or 20 yards and some draining. The turf which it was not possible to remove could be brought from the bog and built into those paddocks. If that was done along the main roads then at any time lorries would be able to get it away or you could have it transported by rail to the city. I have personal experience of a bog at the present time where there is a lot of turf in ricks but it is built in half-a-mile in the heather, whereas if it had been brought out and built on the road it could have been transported when turf was very necessary.
In this particular case I have drawn the attention of the local authority to it and probably the next time there might be something effective done. I think with regard to little grants or making provision in that way where the amount would not be much, it would be money very well spent. There is hardly any winter in which we do not get a spell of cold or bad weather—a fortnight or three weeks— and there is scarcely any winter in which we do not find that a little extra turf would be useful.
The next point is one in which I am in thorough agreement with Senator Seán Ruane. He made an appeal on behalf of the ex-national teachers. I would like to couple with those the old age pensioners. I understand some provision is being made at a later date for an addition to their pensions, but that addition I have heard is 2/6 and it is not a big lot. I think that scarcely any taxpayer, whether rich or poor, would complain of an addition to the old age pensions. Senator Ruane referred to the old national teachers, who moulded the youth of the country in their day and who gave very meritorious service to the country on very small remuneration. It is too bad that, in the evening of their lives, when the value of the £ has dropped to 10/-, they should feel in any way insecure.
I do not think that a proper return is obtained from the premiums paid through the agricultural committees. The Government give a grant and the county committees also make a contribution. I do not think that the scheme of premiums for bulls, for instance, has met with the success we should like. That is very noticeable in the dairying districts. I briefly referred to it before and I should like to stress it. In a large area round my district, which is a creamery district, the countryside consists of small farms of £3, £4 and £5 valuation. The operation of this scheme means that these farmers may have to keep an extra beast. They get a heifer-calf and they are anxious to keep that calf. They must keep her until she is three years old to become a cow. That means feeding an extra beast during that time. I fear that very valuable calves are lost, not alone in that district, but in the country in general, owing to being sold as suck calves. I suggest that the Department should consider some scheme by which calves got by bulls with a good milk record would be inspected and branded. Then, whether sold as calves or not, they would, at least, be in the country. I should go so far as to say that the export of a number of these should be prohibited. Even if farmers had to get some little subsidy in the dairying districts for keeping them, it would pay in the long run. At present, very large prices are given for bulls. Very large premiums are paid— as much as £28 a year—for dairy bulls. All that is lost. If you went into some of these places and asked any farmer what was the record of one of these bulls, I do not believe he would be able to tell you.
If the Department would insist on bull-owners giving notice in the papers of the milk record of the bulls and the history of the animals, it would have a great effect. Later, the calves could be branded and that would mean, at least, that they would remain in the country. Farmers who went into the market to purchase a cow would then know what they were buying. The present system is, I think, largely responsible for the milk yield. I speak for my own county of Roscommon, where that scheme has been in force for practically 20 years, and I cannot say that there is an improvement in the milk yield.
Taxes which the farmers will have to pay are included in this Bill. May I refer to the increase in the rates for carriage on the Córas Iompair Eireann system? That will have a serious effect on cattle fairs. If anything could be done in the way of giving special rates for the carriage of cattle, even during the emergency, it would be a relief which would be very much appreciated because it is very much needed.
I was present when this debate was opened by Senator Hayes, and I was very pleased to hear him praise the Minister for the way he had treated professors and lecturers in the universities. Professors in universities cater for a comparatively small section of the community. It may be an important section but it is small in number. It is good to know that some people appreciate those who are responsible for education. I am sorry that the same spirit does not obtain in the Department of Education. That is a pity. The nation is the poorer, because, in our national schools, the harmony which ought to exist between the teachers and the Department is absent. It is in those schools that the great majority of the students of the country are to be found. Judging by published reports, the relations between the teachers and the Department are very strained. In fact, the Department is acting in the same spirit in which many employers used behave in the bad old days when they got the better of strikers. They rubbed their noses in the mud; that is being done in the Department of Education to-day. I shall mention only one incident—a most unseemly incident, in my opinion.
The people who remained at work, although members of that trade union, were regarded in trade union circles as "scabs" or blacklegs. The fact that these people are being singled out for particular honour and special remuneration by the Department is calculated to intensify the very bad feeling that exists there already. I am not speaking on behalf of the teachers but I am very much concerned regarding the students. I am anxious that they should be fully equipped to fight the battle of life. So long as that spirit exists, I submit that they are not getting the instruction they should get. Yesterday evening, according to the Press, one of these teachers stated at a public meeting that 90 per cent. of the students attending national schools were fitted only for labouring work. If that statement be true, we are spending a great deal of money unwisely. The nation is not getting value for the money that is being spent.
We hear a great deal about youthful delinquency. I shall not expatiate on that. My main purpose in rising is to try to influence the Department of Education to give more sympathetic consideration to the teachers. I do not propose to go into the merits or demerits of the dispute. I refrained from making any comment at the time it occurred other than appealing to the Minister to do all in his power to prevent a strike occurring. The strike occurred and continued for a very long period. The children were deprived of education during that time and they can never overtake their loss. The Minister had his victory and he should not rub it in, if by rubbing it in he is going to deprive the mass of the students attending the national schools of the education they should get and the sympathy and interest which the teachers should have in them. It is extremely important to educate the mass of the people so that they may be equipped to fight the battle of life in this or any other country to which they may go. I appeal to the Minister and, through him, to the Minister for Education, to bury the hatchet. He had his victory, if it can be called a victory, and he should not rub it in.
Certainly, it was most unseemly to pay those people a bonus or honorarium for having "scabbed" on their fellows. That is not calculated to create good feeling amongst the teachers in general and it is, certainly, not going to create good feeling between the teachers and the Minister. I am not concerned either with the teachers or the Minister. I am sincerely and earnestly concerned regarding the students at our national schools. I do hope that a better spirit will prevail between the teachers and the Department and that the Minister will use his best endeavours to bring that about, not in the interests of the teachers but in the interests of the future citizens of this country. There are other features in the measure before us to which I could refer, particularly the national health provision. However, I reserve my remarks on that matter for the Bill which will be before us in the near future.
I think Senator Foran is quite wrong in saying that there is any vindictive spirit in the Department of Education towards national teachers. As a matter of fact, when one comes to look at all the increases that have been given to civil servants, to the Garda, to secondary teachers, or by way of grants to universities to help them to pay their way, and give some salary increases, it will be found that percentages were given to national teachers that were not given to anybody. If we take averages, their average was higher. Senators have only to look at this Book of Estimates to see what was done for national teachers.
I referred only to the spirit that existed.
I regard this as an important subject, because we have been talking all day about various national problems: what has to be done in the universities, on the farms, in the factories, and in the vocational schools of which Senator Ó Buachalla talked. The big majority of our people get their education for life in the national schools. I do not want to let it go with Senator Foran, or with anybody else, that this Government did not fully realise that, and did not do all it could to try to put the national school teachers into as good a position as this country could afford.
As Senator Sweetman properly pointed out in relation to the increased grants to the universities, the Government did not pay them out of their pockets but had to take them out of the taxpayers' pockets. We have also to take out of the taxpayers' pockets the very big increase we gave to national school teachers. Anybody coming from the West of Ireland knows that the sum given to some of these teachers per year represents the combined income of very large numbers of families of the pupils they teach.
Anybody can see for himself what was given to the national teachers. I think that the increase was a very reasonable one, having regard to the circumstances of the people who must pay the taxes to pay the salaries. It is wrong to say that the Government, through the Minister for Education and myself, started out to be strike breakers. In the City of Dublin there are large numbers of teachers, but a big percentage of them was not in the teachers' organisation. They were represented by religious organisations or communities teaching in national schools.
It is well known to the people of Dublin that they took in big numbers of pupils, that their work was very much increased. We gave them a small bonus by way of appreciation of the very good work they had done for the children of Dublin, in taking them off the streets and contributing in some measure to their education. I do not think the national teachers have any right to resent the small amount of money that the Government gave these people by way of appreciation.
Everything that could be done was done by the Minister for Education in order to prolong the negotiations with the national teachers. On two or three occasions the Minister came back and asked the Government to increase the sum made available for improving their status and the Government made improvements. The Minister came back again and said that the teachers wanted the last word. The Government gave the Minister the last word. Before we knew where we were, we had the unfortunate strike that was carried on in the City of Dublin for so many months. I think it is time the national teachers pulled themselves together, and realised that they are paid reasonably well, having regard to the income of the people who have to pay their salaries. They have very valuable work to do, and the people appreciate that work. The people have shown their appreciation by the amount of salaries they are prepared to pay.
Some Senators adverted to the size of this bill for the public services we are going to budget for this year. They stressed the fact that our ability to meet the cost depends on increasing production in the future. I wholeheartedly approve of that line of argument. If we can increase the national income we can bear with equanimity this particular bill. I would be glad to double it if by doing so we could double the national income. Supposing we brought this bill up to £100,000,000, and the national income up to £500,000,000, then the people would have £400,000,000 left, whereas they have only £200,000,000 left for themselves at the present time. In the last Budget we did everything we could to stimulate enterprise in this country. Unfortunately, during the year the amount of machinery and the quantity of raw materials available for purchase elsewhere were not as large as we had hoped. However, it can be seen from the statistics of exports and imports published in this day's newspapers that during the year we imported a very large volume of goods.
I am hoping that during the coming year we will be able to get an increasing amount of raw materials and machinery, so that they can be put to the work of producing goods that would give us an increased standard of living, and create national income out of which these various services have to be paid. Numbers of people think that we can get over our present difficulties by increasing the volume of money within the country. I wish it were as easy as that. If we had a problem here of a surplus of goods, and a short supply of money, it could be met by increasing the volume of money. At the present time when money is more plentiful it would only be foolish to meet our difficulties by increasing the volume of cash.
Senator Baxter suggested to-day that we should discourage emigration to England by reducing the value of cash sent back here; in other words, by appreciating our £ in terms of the British £. The difficulty with Senator Baxter is that on occasion he does not see the whole picture.
I know what the Minister is going to say very well. It is in reference to cattle prices, of course.
Let us follow that up. Supposing we made £22 that a man earned in England and sent back here worth 20 of our £'s. Then when a person should get £44 for a cow he would only get 40 Irish £'s. We could if we wanted to do so, change the value of our £ in relation to the British £, but the immediate effect of appreciating our £ in terms of the British £ is to put a tax on exports, to give a bounty to imports. To depreciate our £ our £ in relation to the British £ is to give a subsidy to exports and put a further all round percentage increase on imports or to place a tariff on all imports. I do not think that would meet the situation.
It is unfortunate that since the war we were not able to provide sufficient jobs that would attract our people to stay at home, having regard, particularly, to the amount of money the British were prepared to pay for work connected with the war. Even this year the British have gone further into debt, and with a big volume of money floating around freely, it attracts our people by the nominal value of their weekly wage. I spoke already about the real value of the wage here compared to the wage in England.
As to the real level of the wage here, compared with the real level of the wage in England, taking the position in our urban communities of the man in a job, whether he be artisan, teacher or university professor, it will be found, I am quite certain, that in all but very few posts which are highly paid in England, our people are better off in terms of real living. It is true that the nominal cost of living in England has only gone up by 30 per cent., but if a housewife, accustomed to a basketful of goods of a certain size for her family, is suddenly told she can fill only one-third of the basket at a very cheap price, what concerns her is what she will get a full or something near a full basket for to keep her husband and family in a reasonable standard of physical comfort. The fact of the matter is that taking the workman's basket that could be filled pre-war in England for a certain amount of money, and here for another amount, if we take the position as being equal prewar—it was not quite that—it will be found that the same basket could be filled much cheaper here than in England at present.
What could be put into it?
A half or one-third of the basket could be filled in England at 30 per cent. above pre-war cost, but the other portion would cost 300 per cent. more. Here the total is 70 per cent. for a full basket. All I wanted to prove in the Dáil, and all I am attempting to prove here, is that circumstances are not such as should make it over-attractive for people, who can get a reasonable job in this country, to migrate to England to look for a job. I hope that with the increase in raw materials and machinery more and more of our people will be put to work to produce the things we require and be given as high a standard of living as the country can afford. There is no use in saying that we should have here overnight the standard of living that the people of America now possess. This cannot be done at once, but if we have the will and if our people have the wisdom to go at a reasonable speed we can develop towards that standard. If we go too fast we will simply break our necks. Take any particular group here in this country who are organised. They can hold the community up to ransom if they are performing an essential service: they can, for a time, improve their position vis-à-vis the rest of the community but the rest of the community is going to suffer for their selfishness.
The modern community is very complicated and is so interlocked that selfishness on the part of any individual group is going to throw the whole machine into chaos and the final result will be that these groups will make the whole community, including themselves and their own families, worse off. In this complicated age we want enlightened selfishness and not unenlightened selfishness. Enlightened selfishness on the part of people who have a fair appreciation of their own good as part of the community will urge them to go carefully at the present time and not demand from the community more than the community can afford to pay for their services. Certain increases have been enforced recently with the result that certain industries that could start here cannot start now because wages here are so much higher than in Britain. Senator Douglas and a few other Senators spoke about the question of strikes and what should be done to stop them. I do not think anyone wants to have that type of issue settled by legislation. They would prefer that it would be done by reasonable compromise between employers and their workers, reasonable compromise arrived at with due regard to the national interest as a whole.
There are certain industries here, whether it is one employer or a group of employers, that have a practical monopoly of their particular products and in circumstances like that an employer and his workers might be shortsighted enough to agree to improve each of their positions at the expense of the community. But this thing must eventually come to an end. I think that when wage levels are being fixed by employers and employees they should have regard to what the community can pay for the services they are giving and that they should act in reason. Now, Senator Ó Buachalla spoke to-day about increasing the number of artisans, men with trades, and he alluded to the fact that you have very restrictive practices in certain of the trades regarding the number of apprentices that will be admitted. That is bad in the long run. Take one trade union, for instance, that I am up against at the moment as Minister for Finance and as Minister responsible for the Government's Stationery Office. We find that at the moment there is an urgent necessity for getting 50 per cent. more printing done than pre-war but the capacity of output of the Dublin printing firms as a whole is only about 75 per cent.
Seventy-five per cent. of pre-war?
Yes, on present hours and output. This has a most disastrous effect. The printers who form the trade union want to see their sons and their sons' sons live here in this country but they are holding up development at the moment to the extent that urgent printing cannot be done, printing that is necessary for trade and industry, printing that is necessary for State work of an urgent and important kind. They have restricted the number of hours they will work and they have restricted the number of apprentices they will take in. That is a very bad business for the community at the present time. Even if there could be some easing of the situation until such time as we can get more machines it would be all to the good. People who complain about the volume of money not being sufficient to do the nation's work should try to secure that we have a sufficient number of printers and machines to do this work. It is important, very important. In modern economy we cannot get away from forms. I wish we could get away from a lot of them but unfortunately everything we do seems to involve forms, books and booklets of all kinds. Someone complained here to-day that we were giving a very small amount to the old age pensioner but our problem, in view of the shortage of printing machinery in this country, was how on earth we could give them even the half-crown before six months' time.
That is bad enough.
It is quite true and the Department of Social Services have had to devise a scheme by which they will give some sort of stamp which will be put on the books. If this country is going to progress, as I hope it will, we will require not only all the existing artisans and school teachers and professors and so on but a very increased number, and if we are to do the programme of house building, not to talk of the programme of public works that is suggested and that the Government would like to see carried out, I see plenty of work here ahead for all sorts of tradesmen for the next couple of generations. I think that trade unions who have the power at the present time to control the life of the country, trade unions of teachers and associations of this, that and the other, should act up to the responsibility they have and see that their particular groups do the work that is required of them in order that the nation may make progress in the future. Senator Honan, speaking of the increase in town rates, dealt with the necessity for housing and for increasing housing grants. But he is mistaken if he thinks there is a limit of two-thirds of £350. In addition to the two-thirds of £350 there is an average, at the moment, of about £250 per house promised out of the Transition Development Fund.
This enables a house to be built even at the present high cost and let at a few per cent. more than the pre-war rent. There is a limit to what can be done in this regard. I brought forward the Transition Development Fund last year and it is available for next year as well. Up to date we have paid very little out of it but we have promised to pay out of it about £1,500,000 for housing, sewerage schemes and other sorts of activities in the country. There are several items that go to make up the cost of a house of which money is one and we have reduced down its cost pretty well. We are able to give the money at cheap rates for long terms. In addition we are prepared to give, out of the Transition Development Fund, a reasonable amount, having regard to the present costs due to scarcity of the materials. But there are a couple of other items in the building of a house that should be looked into. One is the point of view of the contractors, to see whether they have their jobs organised in such a fashion as will give a reasonable output and enable them to produce houses at a reasonable cost. The other is trade unions who can set wage demands and have control over the methods of work of their members.
I think that one of the most urgent of our problems is to get a large number of houses built quickly. We will have to build them with the materials that are available in the country. We start off in the post-war world with a good record of house building in the past. During the six or seven years through which we passed before the outbreak of the second world war, we added about 20 per cent. to the number of houses in the country. That was reasonable progress to make. Some people will say that the houses that were built are not as good as they should be; that they should have been bigger, that, where they had no bathroom, they should have had one, and that where they had one bathroom, they should have had two. Well, if we want to make progress along these lines in the future at least we start off with the knowledge that, in spite of all difficulties—dear money, world economic wars and our own economic war with our neighbour—we did add that 20 per cent. to the number of houses in the country within a period of seven years.
If we can get money at reasonable rates, and if we can get the co-operation of contractors and their work people, even though foreign materials are scarce, I believe that we can within the next five or ten years give every person in the country who is looking for one a house of a reasonable standard, and that, after that, we can continue to improve that standard as time goes on.
I do not think that either the contractors or the people employed by them need fear that housing is going to come to an end, because the desire for a house, like every other human desire, has no end. The first desire of a man who has no house is to get one. No sooner has he the house than he wants to get a better one, and he has not that very long when he wants to get a still better one. I feel that contractors and their employees should get into this job of work. They should try to organise themselves and understand that they have a responsibility to the community to give us houses as quickly as they can and at the cheapest possible rate.
I doubt whether we can go any further at present in regard to the Small Dwellings Act, as Senator Honan wants us to do. In the immediate future there will not be very much material left over after the requirements of the local authorities have been met. I do not want to see the price of houses inflated at the present time either. I think it is a bad thing that the prices for old houses have been inflated to the extent they have been in the last couple of years. I am afraid there are a good many people going to get their fingers burned in that matter. In my talks with the banks I asked them not to advance money for the purchase of old houses—to enable people to bid against each other, and to their own detriment in the last analysis.
Senators know that outside the ordinary commercial banks we have some other organisations here that are advancing money for the purchase of old houses. I think that is a bad policy for everybody concerned. Much as I would like to see building going ahead, I would prefer, if we were going to give money for the purpose of small dwellings, that it would certainly be for new dwellings only and not for old ones. As soon as materials become available, I certainly would look with favour on raising the limit of £750 somewhat higher.
There were a number of minor points raised in the course of the debate that I do not care to go into since they concern other Ministers and other Departments. The fact is that I have not got the details to enable me to deal with them. Senator Meighan seems to have the same idea as a Deputy who spoke in the Dáil the other day, namely, that, if we could by some measure prohibit the export of dairy cows and of heifers, we would cure the milk situation. The number of cows and the number of in-calf heifers that we have depends on what the farmer thinks now the price of in-calf heifers is going to be in a year's time from now. If we were to attempt to put an export tax on in-calf heifers or on cows, the result would be that the supply down the country would dry up, and that our last case would be worse than our first.
We have almost the same number of cows now that we had away back in 1939. The number that I gave the other day was about 1,200,000. We have plenty of cows to give us all the milk we require for butter and to provide a big increase in the consumption of milk, if the cows were good milkers, and if they were cared for to give good milk yields. You can have the best bred cow in the world, one with a good milking strain from its father and mother, but if it is not well cared for it will not give you milk. You require a cow to have a good milking strain and to be well cared for in order to get the output. I gave figures in the Dáil the other day showing that both the consumption of milk and the consumption of butter had gone up until last year. Of course, there is not the export now that there used to be. During the last four or five years people who formerly used margarine have been eating butter.
The earlier speeches on the Central Fund Bill were devoted principally to the question of university education. It is important that we should have higher education both of a cultural and technical character. If we want to improve our farms we will want agricultural technicians and they can only be turned out from the universities or the agricultural colleges. The same applies to the other types of technicians that a modern community requires in order to have a reasonable standard of life. The Government, in spite of the fact that it had to get the money from the people, felt that if this nation was to make progress in the future the people would have to make the sacrifice that goes with providing for an improved university education. We are giving increased grants to the colleges. I feel, having met the heads of our colleges to whom we are giving grants, that the people will get good value for them. Senator Hayes said that he thought that all primary teachers should have a university degree. That is really a question for the Department of Education. At the present time the universities in Dublin, Cork, and Galway are simply crowded with students, and I do not know how they could accommodate any more.
I am afraid that it is going to be a long-term problem to increase the size of the university buildings and the equipment in them so that they may be able to take more students. It is a problem which has been gone into. In our post-war programme of buildings of all sorts, we have in mind that a number of million pounds will have to be spent on the extension of university premises. The way the Government feel about it is that we cannot afford not to spend that money.
I remember arguing with Senator Baxter before as to the amount of farm production here during the war.
The net output went up from £41,000,000 odd in 1938 to £46,000,000 in 1945 at 1938 prices. I suppose there would be included in that figure of £46,000,000 a couple of millions for turf.
Not more than that?
If we take the price of turf delivered here in the City of Dublin in 1946 it would be a different matter, but if you are talking about volume, in relation to 1938 prices, it also is a different matter. Probably £1,000,000 or £2,000,000 for turf at 1938 prices would come into these statistics. The fact that the net output of agriculture went up by this 10 or 12 per cent. represents really a tremendous achievement. The farmers of the country do not realise how big an achievement it is. I stated in the Dáil, in order to give them a realisation of the work they did, that in the boom years in America, if you wanted a tractor or 100 tractors, if you wanted 1,000 gallons of oil or 1,000,000 gallons of oil, all you had to do was to go to the telephone and they would be at your door instantly, and that during those boom years from 1922 to 1929 the American people were proud of the fact that their output went up 3 per cent. per annum. Here our farmers, with all the disabilities from which they suffered, went up a couple of per cent. per year during the war. It was really a tremendous achievement, and I feel that having done that job of work so well during the war, when they get more and better equipment and can get feeding stuffs, manures and so on, they will give a still better account of themselves in the future.
I have no doubt that as time goes on, with better agricultural education, with more experience in the handling of breeding problems, seed, and cattle and so on, we can increase our agricultural output and give our farmers a better standard of life and at the same time give the people a better article at lower cost than they are getting it at the moment.
The farmers, I repeat, have the money to do the job, the money to modernise and improve as opportunity offers. They reduced their shop debts, they reduced a big amount of their land annuities arrears which they had before the war. They have reduced their rate arrears. They have paid off their bank debts to a large extent and they have increased their deposits by about 70 per cent. in the commercial banks since the war. They have the money to do it and if anybody urges me to give more and cheaper credit from the Government I say that the best and cheapest source of credit is that the farmers should use the deposits they have lying at the banks at 1 per cent. or no rate of interest. Not only have the farmers the money to equip themselves but industry has it too.
I could see no evidence to support Senator Baxter's statement that the Post Office deposits are largely held by the rich. There are about 400,000 or so different depositors in the Post Office Savings Bank and I do not think Senator Baxter in his more pessimistic moment would say there are 400,000 prosperous people in the country.
I do not think the Border is going to be stereotyped for all time simply because we give cover from the weather and the wind to the unfortunate customs officers who have to do their job there. I do not agree with Senator Baxter that the provision of houses for customs officers should be postponed. I do not think it will have any influence at all on the final solution of that problem.
Senator Baxter concluded his remarks by saying that we should make provision for storm damage. Now, everyone from a humane point of view would like to see storm damage—particularly of a harsh and severe kind— dealt with by the State but it cannot be dealt with by the State. One thing about the Government, of its very nature, is that if the State makes provision for meeting a particular case it will be drawn to meet all such cases in the future even though they do not approach the original case in hardship. If you were to compensate a man whose house and farm were wiped out by floods or some act of God, then you would be driven to compensate a man who loses a few cocks of hay owing to bad weather. There is no saying "Here we stop". We will be driven from one to the other and that is the very good reason behind the refusal of all States to take official responsibility for compensating people for acts of God. It cannot be done.
In conclusion, I want to say that I feel we can make good economic progress in the future if we use the brains and the brawn that the Lord gave us. There is no use in saying that there are vast numbers of our people sick. I think the health record here is as good as that of any other white people. We have plenty of people here sufficiently strong and healthy to do a good job of work to improve their standard of life if they want to do it.
The Minister referred to the printing industry—might I ask him to give a more detailed explanation?
Perhaps on the next stage.
I can answer it by way of answer to a question.
Well, yes, as an answer to a question.
Our experience is this: if you take that Book of Estimates there, we did not know whether we were going to get it out in time to give the Dáil, the Seanad and the President the constitutional time. In fact we did not, even though we started many months ago to get it out. There is a five day week and I think there are restrictions on overtime.
We got to the stage in regard to the Supplementary Estimates that in order to get them before the Dáil we had to roneo them, a thing that never happened before, I think. We could not get them printed. I know that the Controller of Stationery has orders stacked up for six months and I have recent complaints from the Revenue Commissioners that they could not get certain tax forms ready, and that we could not get them printed and that this was going to result in a loss of revenue. These considerations are what I have in mind when I spoke about the matter.
Question put and agreed to.
Question —"That the remaining stages be taken to-day"—agreed to.
Bill passed through Committee without recommendations.
Question—"That the Bill be received for final consideration"— put and agreed to.
Question proposed: "That the Bill be returned to the Dáil."
With reference to the Minister's reply to my question, there are certain terms or words that cannot be used in this House since a decision was given in the Dáil a couple of weeks ago, but I want to contradict flatly the statement made by the Minister that there is any restriction on overtime in the printing industry. We are in fact forcing our men to work overtime. If there is one industry in this country, or more particularly, in this city, that has had regard to the difficulties of the present situation, it is the Dublin printing industry and I state that very categorically as chairman of the Dublin Printing Trades Congress, with a membership of nine unions including the National Union of Journalists. I want to make that very clear to the Minister. A recent demand of the printing industry was made for a 50 per cent. increase and shorter hours in the industry. We went ahead with our 50 per cent. increase demand and succeeded. We were also looking for shorters hours and notwithstanding the advice given against it by myself and other officials of the printing industry they instructed us to go ahead. We advised them not to proceed having regard to the conditions obtaining and ultimately we prevailed on our people not to press for a shorter working week at the moment.
We are working 45 hours now, the same as in 1939, and I would say that we are working longer hours than most other industries in this city which in some cases have only 41 or 42 hours. After we had agreed to accept the 45-hour week, the union which controls the whole of the unions of Dublin, the British union got a 42½-hour week. Naturally our people feel aggrieved but we prevailed on them for the time being not to force that issue. The Minister has made several incorrect statements. The difficulty here is much the same as all over England in regard to the supply of craftsmen and that difficulty arises from the fact that no new machinery has been introduced. Huge orders have been placed with British and American firms for new machines but these cannot be supplied. There is a shortage of printers all over the world. Last year, we had agents here from South Africa who took away several of our members. I filled in a form only yesterday for a young man about to go to South Africa, certifying that he was a member of our union. They were paying his fare to South Africa and he was being guaranteed two years' work at £10 a week.
These are the difficulties against which we are contending. So far as my union is concerned, no union has greater appreciation of its responsibilities, having regard to the conditions of emergency which exist at present. I myself had a piece of printing on order for my own office since last January. I received it only yesterday. These difficulties are not peculiar to Government Departments or to any large organisation; they are general.
I regret that the Minister thought fit to make an attack on the printing industry. As regards the question of restriction of apprentices, we deal with that matter as conditions arise in the industry and complete unanimity with employers is achieved. Naturally, they would like to see 2,000 apprentices for every 1,000 craftsmen. When conditions so require and when representations are made by employers, we agree to an increase in the number of apprentices. A few days ago, ten extra apprentices were allowed to the Dublin newspaper industry—an industry in which it is very difficult for a man to become a craftsman, because he deals with only one class of work—newspaper work— when serving his apprenticeship. I do not want the impression to go to the House or to the public that we are engaged in a racket to restrict output by reduction of the number of working hours or by preventing an adequate flow of apprentices to the industry. All the facts are to the contrary.
I am sorry that the Minister has thought fit to make an attack on one union, which has done everything to meet conditions of emergency in the printing trade in Dublin. The people here are heartbroken trying to get men from other centres. Everybody is trying to pinch them from other centres. There is a war between the newspapers and jobbing printers because they are stealing men from each other, notwithstanding that some of those in control are directors of both jobbing houses and newspaper offices. We are not responsible for that. We have no power, such as the Minister has, to introduce legislation to prevent it. I want to protest, not alone on behalf of my own union but on behalf of the Dublin printing-trade group, of which I happen to be chairman and of which I have been chairman for ten years, against the Minister's statement. To my own detriment, I have often expressed views more akin to those of the employers than to those of the workers. I feel very sore that the Minister has thought fit to single our industry out—one industry which is facing up to all responsibilities of the emergency conditions in which we find ourselves.
I was speaking of one of the difficulties in the modern world— that is, to get done the work that people require, so that the standard of living may be raised. I instanced the printing business. I did not refer solely to the Dublin printing houses. My reference included the printing houses in the country. There is an increased printing demand of about 150 per cent. and, due to whatever causes, there is only 75 per cent. of the 1938-39 output. These are figures given to me by people whose job it is to know not only the amount of printing demanded but the volume and output in Dublin and in the whole of the country. The Controller of Stationery gets very little of his work done in Dublin—a few jobs. It is only a few weeks since I had to give him authority to take a car and go round the country, taking orders from one firm and hawking them around to other firms to see if he could get them fulfilled. That is a bottle-neck so far as development is concerned and I do not care what is responsible for it—whether it is, as Senator Campbell says, due to reduced machinery or whether it is due to the reduction of hours given to all the printers outside Dublin.
One of the excuses we get from the master printers is that they cannot execute the work because they have not the men, because apprentices are not coming along and because the men are working shorter hours and will not work overtime. That is the report I got when I had to make complaints to the Controller of Stationery, and ask why this Minister's job was not done and why that Minister's job was not done, and why work for the Revenue Commissioners was not done. I am sure that he did not invent that explanation, that he got it from the master printers whom he had asked to do the work. I am merely using the printers as an example——
It was a bad example you took.
Even on the case made by Senator Campbell, a certain amount of controversy is going on between the unions and the master printers as to the number of apprentices who should be admitted. I think that the working printer should take a chance in this matter. As the standard of life goes up, there will be an increased demand for printing and printers. Trade unions are not the worst offenders. The masters are often much worse as regards restrictive practices than the trade unions. I am not blaming the trade unions more than the masters. I think that both masters and craftsmen should, in their own organisations, do their best to step up production. It is my job to see that what is produced is distributed, that the money is there in sufficient quantity, and I shall try to do that job if I live.
I want to get Senator Campbell and other persons in charge of unions to discuss the matter. If they demand a higher standard of life, they should do their best to produce more and not to restrict unduly the number of apprentices. I know that one apprentice per man would be unreasonable but a reasonable number should be arranged. What that reasonable number should be, the trade will have to determine because I do not know. If we are to have an expanding economy, then there will be an expanding need for printers and the number of apprentices should be expanded accordingly.
Question put and agreed to.
Bill ordered to be returned to the Dáil without recommendation.
The next motion on the paper is in the name of Senator Duffy but he is not available. In the circumstances, we must now adjourn.
The Seanad adjourned at 8.40 p.m. until 3 p.m. on Tuesday, 25th March, 1947.