I would like to repay the courtesy given to me in this House by an equal courtesy by attending to all the things said, but that would be too tiring, and I hope I shall be pardoned if I attend to the major matters which were discussed. May I say, at the outset, that it is an astonishing thing to come into the House and find that fears are expressed that the new Government were going (a) to disband the Army, (b) to destroy Irish industry, (c) to create unemployment, (d) to wipe out all turf-cutting in the country, and, finally, to weaken everything done for the Irish language. I begin to wonder how we got 750,000 votes against all these fears. And that is what we did get. Apparently, the people who are on the other side and who were promoting agriculture, saving industries, getting turf-cutting going, preserving the Irish language and strengthening it, just failed to get the votes that would have made them a Government. In this House, apparently, there is still a certain amount of playing politics and exaggerating fears because, surely, political advantage will be made out of fears. I do not believe that anyone in this House really believes that these fears are reasonable or that they are justified.
Senator Sir John Keane referred to certain public companies. On that, he can rest assured that the new Government has a mind very like his own. I do not know at the moment what will be done about public companies of the Government-sponsored type. I have a proposal myself, but I do not regard it as going the whole way towards dealing with this matter. My proposal is to bring in the Department of the Comptroller and Auditor-General on top of these 25 companies which can be regarded as Government sponsored. It is quite clear that the light of day must be let in on the transactions of these bodies. First of all, it is necessary because it will do these companies themselves good and, secondly, it is necessary from the point of view of the people of the State who have been made support them.
One example occurs to me. I spoke last night in Dáil Éireann of the amazing situation which met us three weeks ago when we began to consider the fuel position. I found that after the very bad winter of 1946 and early in 1947 there was scarcely anything in the way of provision made for fuel for the people of this city. Compare that with the situation which presented itself in February, 1948. There was an amazing transformation. Of timber alone there is sufficient for a five years' supply. Without cutting any more there is enough turf to carry the country through until the spring of 1950 and there must be at least 500,000 tons of African or American coal.
Supposing the stocks of fuel were under the public eye even to the limited extent that stocks of butter are under the public eye, there is no doubt that public attention would have been called to this megalomania that there was about fuel and there would have been an earlier stop put to the piling up of all this stuff, most of which will be useless. However, if it is to be got rid of from the park, it will be at the public expense, even if it means hauling it back to those parts of the bog areas from which the stuff originally came.
At any rate, these Government-sponsored companies will have to be inquired into. The public must know the objectives of the different companies and there must be some attempt to get efficiency. How it is all going to be done I am not now quite clear. There can be some light thrown upon it by having an investigation by the Comptroller and Auditor-General. He will have to be helped by the Committee of Public Accounts. I am not sure that this will be sufficient.
A thought has occurred to me, arising out of an investigation I had to make at one time in connection with the Electricity Supply Board when it was established. I might for the moment elevate that as an analogy as to what procedure might be adopted with regard to these companies and indicate it as one road. On the occasion I have referred to I asked the public to give me quite an amount of public moneys behind that scheme and I offered by way of return the greatest amount of publicity that could be given to the scheme year after year. Every year the board had to produce accounts and the Minister who was made responsible for this board was given the right and the duty of putting in an outside accountant or auditor to deal with the accounts. The Minister could ask the auditor whatever questions might appear reasonable in the circumstances. Eventually, the Minister had to be responsible for whatever the board presented in the nature of accounts and whatever the auditor had sought or failed to see.
There was also this situation, that a day on demand was to be given each year for a discussion on the accounts of that body. There has not been a day ever required for such a debate, but that was because the board conducted its operations in an efficient way and the accounts clearly demonstrate the efficient way in which that board acts. When that was being considered, the Swedish example was given to me, and this will assure Senator Sir John Keane and others who are interested in this particular aspect as possibly a way in which to meet this matter. The situation in Sweden with regard to the corresponding authority to the board here is a board known as the Waterfalls Board. The situation in Sweden is that the person who corresponds to the chairman of the Electricity Supply Board presents himself to the Committee of the Parliament on one day each year. The accounts were prepared a good period ahead and there was a certain amount of time in which further information might be gathered. But the chairman of the board appeared at a public sitting with representatives of the newspapers present and with the Deputies who form something corresponding to our Committee of Public Accounts empowered to ask such questions as any member of the public who was entitled to be present liked to suggest for the consideration of the Waterfalls Board directors. Officials of the board could also be present and they could be questioned and the whole thing was open to public examination.
I would like to proceed along some such lines as those, but I still see a difficulty. I do not know who will be properly acquainted with the affairs of these bodies to make him a good cross-examiner of the officials who present themselves for examination. But some effort can be made and I have no doubt some plan can be worked out. The objective is clear. We want to get these people brought before the public; we want to have their accounts examined and we want to have them made responsible to the public and preserve Parliamentary control over their activities. In that way we shall have the light of day shed on those people and I think it will be good for them as well as giving the public some information about what is happening.
Senator Douglas spoke here of a matter which within the past three weeks has been the subject of a great deal of gibing. When people have nothing very serious to talk about they can gibe. What I am referring to is the difference of opinion that, it is suggested, exists between the various groups who have combined at the moment to form a Government. There are not many differences of opinion. I found a vast field of agreement. I have found nothing fundamentally distinct in the views of the people who sit with me although they do not all belong to my own Party. We are going to have a new situation here now. We are going to have a situation in which opinion will be canvassed openly and in which governmental decision and governmental opinion may have to be taken in the full light of day. That is not a very big change from what used to happen heretofore. I do not believe anybody here accepts the myth that has been promulgated that every person who belongs to the Fianna Fáil Party, immediately he associated himself with it, found himself with the same views as every other member of that Party. That is a nonsensical attitude. Party views were found on occasions to be contradictory in certain matters. These differences were reconciled in the Committee Room; as soon as that was done policy was brought out as if it were 100 per cent. firm. Of course it was not. People hung on because they knew that if they did not agree they would be flung aside and, without the Party behind them, their chances of re-election were not so good.
We propose to have our differences of opinion shown to the public. We propose to reconcile those differences of opinion in public. That may not do any great harm; it may, in fact, lead to a much healthier public opinion. I do not think there can be any weakness in that method of Government. I do not say that that is going to happen very often. I would like to have more opportunities for free voting in the two Parliamentary authorities than have hitherto existed. If we do that we shall have a better power to reason because we shall get back to the old clash of mind on mind and, if we get that, we are likely to have a much better policy instead of having a situation where one or two strong-minded individuals lay down the law for a lot of followers, who walk into the Division Lobby to support a policy while contending that they do so at the expense of their consciences.
A number of people have raised the matter of industries here. I would like to say something to this body in that connection. There has been far too much politics in connection with industrial development in this country. It is time that that political influence was cut out. I have no objection to people in industry having political affiliations or even showing the strength of that affiliation by the strength of their subscription and by parading themselves as having such political affiliations and being content to dig deeply into their pockets to support their political party. People are entitled to do that. The industrialist does not lose his right to freedom of choice in political Parties just because he is an industrialist. It is a peculiar argument to advance that one Party is in favour of industry and another Party is not. We have had two changes of Government. No matter what fears may have existed up to this it should now be clear that those fears were groundless.
When I was in office in 1924 and 1925 I started the imposition of tariffs upon articles imported into this country. Subsequently we set up the Tariff Commission. While I was engaged in operating tariffs in this country I tried at the same time to preserve the consuming public from the imposition of too heavy tariffs and our scheme, though it was a rough and ready one, worked well in practice. We recognised that every tariff we put on was likely to or did impose some increase in the cost of living to the consuming public and every time we put one on we made some calculation as to the likely cost of it and we always remitted taxation to the same extent. We took something like tea or sugar and reckoned the cost of what the tariff on boots and shoes would mean in the family circle and threw off as much in the taxation on tea and sugar as would equate it in our minds. As a result of that we were able to promote industries in this country thereby giving employment and we did not decrease the value of the £. When we left off the £ was running at a value of about 25/- in comparison with what it had previously been.
We did one thing that was supposed to be a failure. We did not allow a few people to grab all the money. The higher the tariff the better the chance of grabbing money. We tried to stop that. We gave people an incentive through the profits they could make. We did not hold out to them the temptation of excess profits. We are in the region now of excess profits and have been for many years back. Until industrialists get back to the view that profits are a good thing but excess profits bad we shall not have a healthy condition in industry. For some years back industrialists have represented themselves as being afraid of a change of Government because, as a result of that change, there might be a change of industrial policy.
Supposing there had been two Parties of almost equal strength, such as the old Liberals and Conservatives in England, and that alternatively one Party swung in and another swung out; that you had a tariff group and, opposed to that, a free trade group, I can imagine then industrialists being justified in saying: "While the tariff group last we have to make our profit and recoup to ourselves our capital expenditure." That never was the situation here and I think it was an unfair use that industrialists made of the benefits they got under two Governments here that they tried to recoup their capital commitments over a very short period of years. I do not say they all did that, but a certain number of them did.
The situation ought now to be clear. I was in favour of moderate tariffs in my time. I was succeeded by people who had whole-hog tariffs and who gave the manufacturers the chance to make good. There is now a new situation in which it is quite clear tariffs are not going to be disturbed. This is the time, if ever there was a time, when manufacturers could say to themselves that they have now an easy mind and that they know that tariffs are going to continue. We have, therefore, a situation in which we can look forward to security in regard to industry and industrialists need not seek to recoup themselves their capital commitments over a limited period of years, as they tried to do previously. Industrialists can now give the consumer a chance.
I would like to make an appeal to industrialists at this time. We are facing a very serious situation. The country requires a vast amount of money to enable it to be restocked as far as its main industry is concerned. I refer to agriculture. Agriculture will require a great deal of money. That money can be raised if things go well. We have also a public who are afflicted by a cost of living.
On the other side appeals are being made to those engaged in industry and business to come together and plan deliberately to break prices and bring them down for the benefit of the consumer. Will our industrialists and businessmen listen to a similar appeal? I think they should. I think we can put it to them that since 1924 at least they have been given by two Governments—and they are now promised it by a third—a continuance of all the benefits they have enjoyed. I think they should now come to the assistance of a sorely tried public to see what they can do to bring prices down. If they do not do that of their own volition there are ways of breaking prices. That, however, would be harsh and might lead to other reactions which might not be healthy. I would rather have the method of appeal that has been used on the other side. On the other side the people who have been appealed to have been taxed severely during the war. They had standards laid down for them on a pre-war basis. Anything they made over and above those standards was taken from them 100 per cent. In this country we were not quite so ruthless. We had the same idea of a standard year but we did not take in taxation the full 100 per cent. of what was made over and above that. Industrialists were allowed to take 25 per cent. while 75 per cent. was paid over to the State. The 25 per cent. was a relaxation but it was, at the same time, an incentive to make higher and higher profits and from that angle it was intrinsically bad.
Now our industrialists and business people in comparison with their English counterparts have the advantage that they were allowed to take certain things during he war. Excess profits could be taken from them and there is every moral justification to take those moneys from them because at the beginning of the war it was laid down by my predecessor, now President of this country, that he would allow nobody to make money out of the exigencies of war. If there are moneys piled up it is possible to get them.
I do not wish to embark on any campaign on going back to 1939 and examining accounts, as was done in the days of arrears of income-tax, but I think we should expect some response from our industrialists and business people at this time when we are so hard-pressed and they should now permit to filter back to the public something of what they got over those years, and let us get prices down, decrease the cost of living and enable people to get some better approach to the old standard of living they had prior to 1939. I think it was Senator O'Dea who said that industrialists felt there had been too strict a Government eye on the affairs of business over the past five or six years. I agree and I disagree with that statement. If the Senator has in mind inspectors butting in on the affairs of private business he is right, because I do not think any good was done by having these inspectors around and cluttering up business. Just as the Minister for Agriculture made a promise that when those inspectors would meet the farmers they would stand outside the fences, I will appeal to my colleague in office, the Minister for Industry and Commerce, to arrange that his inspectors will stand outside in the streets. I will, however, have a little inspection by tax collectors. I am sure the last Minister for Finance was a quieter individual in that respect. Again, however, that is not going to happen immediately. If I can get, as I hope I will get, a willing response to an appeal to industrialists and business people to do something on their own then we can cut out the rather harsh inspection of the tax gatherer.
Two or three Senators have referred to tourism. Senator McGee made a plea for it and Senator Hawkins said it was worth £17,000,000 to this country last year. There are many views on this question of tourism. I have expressed views that are not the ones that are usually held. I do not think that, as it is run at the moment, it is a healthy business. I think it adds very much to the inflationary pressures that are here. I do not think it is the best way of doing business even from the point of view of those who get the benefit of the better foodstuffs here. I think if we had to export these foodstuffs to England, where they would come under the control of a rationing authority who would ration them, we would be doing greater justice to the English. However, that is their affair, not ours. Let us examine the view that tourism is a valuable matter. I question anybody who says to me that the proposed development of the Tourist Board or, say, of Aer Lingus or Aer Linte has anything or very much to do with tourism. Tourists came here before we had any Tourist Board and before we had any air services. The amount of, say, tourists' dollars available to this country is significant but not terribly significant. But how much of those are coming in because we have either air terminal development or a Tourist Board? I think it is only a very small fraction indeed of what we get. My anxiety about the Tourist Board is that there is something short of £1,500,000 of public money behind it. About £220,000 of that sum is for five hotels which are operated by the Tourist Board. It is not possible to get any exact calculation on how the Tourist Board is managing the public funds which it has, other than such public funds as are in the five hotels, but judging by their activities the Tourist Board is not a good development.
It is an amazing thing that in the two years in which tourists were pouring into this country and during which, as I said last night, nearly every boarding-house keeper in Dublin and throughout the country was making money, the Tourist Board, with public money and operating five hotels—and, incidentally, in one instance charging the highest price in all Ireland—could not meet their ordinary trade expenses and the managing expenses of Fáilte Teoranta. When I say that that undertaking lost money it is only judging the activities in a particular plane. When I say that they have lost money I would point out that they have not been asked to repay one halfpenny of the £220,000 of the State money they have, and that they have not been able to pay a single point of percentage of interest on the money they have. Yet there they are with five hotels and £220,000 of public money. Marvellous as the last couple of seasons have been, this undertaking could not make money when others could. There seems to be something very wrong, something very unhealthy and bad about that and I want it to be inquired into at once. It was said last night, and the comment might be made here too, that the tourist expenditure might not be very big but I would point out that there are capital moneys in the background. Apart from that, I cannot see how any business man in this country could be urged or stimulated to any type of good effort if he were to see around him the activities of that company—and some of the other Government companies were not much better. If he took his example from those companies he must have seen that there was a good deal of lack of thought in Government service—and business people were inclined to take advantage of that. Generally speaking the activities of that body, so far as they had any influence, were demoralising in their effect on the whole of the business and it is time that that situation was cleared up.
Turf of course, has been very much talked of here. One small point was made by Senator Honan, I think, as regards hauliers. Senator Crosbie also referred to the matter. The obvious way is to give these men hauliers' plates and to let them run in competition with Córas Iompair Éireann. Of course there will be a howl from the people who established Córas Iompair Éireann because it would seem to them that any competition is bad for that company. I do not accept that point of view. One more or less can hear the directors moaning and bewailing and saying that they have lost nearly £1,000,000 already and what will their losses be if we put lorries into competition with them. But I wonder if they would be stirred to better effort. I have not the eye of the management of Córas Iompair Éireann but, even to my own business-like eye, for that matter, I can see day after day a whole lot of potential fares hanging around the bus stops in the city—penny, penny-halfpenny, twopenny, and three-penny fares. The buses appear to be making money whereas the railways are not. There are multitudinous potential fares in the City of Dublin and we are told that there are buses in the Córas Iompair Éireann depôts but yet they are not out in the city collecting these fares. If four or five hauliers were allowed to go into combination and to transform their lorries into some form of rough and ready ramshackle bus conveyances—not like the green-painted Córas Iompair Éireann vehicles—they might make money and show Córas Iompair Éireann now to make money.
There is a similar matter in connection with turf. I do not know what they expect me to do about it. There was employment for any number of people in this country before the great turf drive came on. Has it wholly disappeared? I do know that one of the previous Minister for Agriculture. Dr. Ryan, was in his time responsible for the shifting of about 40,000 people from the land, and I know from the statistical returns that, between 1941 and 1946, 36,000 people have left the land. I do not regard that as being fairly normal. I think some of those 76,000 people will eventually be restored to work on the land. I understand that there are many parts of this country in which there is work of an agricultural type to be done but that there is not enough labour. That is one side of the problem. The other side is this. What is supposed to be the minimum target that anyone has to aim at with regard to turf production? There was a time when the highest figure, I think, was 600,000 tons of turf cut at one time. The average would not have been anything like that, call it 400,000. What am I to do? There is a vast area in the Park which is overcrowded with fuel of different types. Remember what I said before of the situation—five years' supply of logs; enough turf, if another sod was not cut, to get us through until the spring of 1950, and 500,000 tons of American coal which was brought in here in 60 liberty ships at great expense to the community. It is laying out in the Park. Even while it was lying there, during my first week in office I found that logs were pouring into the city at the rate of 10,000 tons a week and at a cost of something like £4 or £4 5s. per ton. We had to pay eventually £40,000 per week on that stuff coming in. If there were no dumps in the Park, what was brought in in one week would have been sufficient to cover six weeks' consumption in the city. All that was pouring in, while you had the depôts in the Park chock-full of three types of fuel. It would have been intolerable if that were allowed to continue one hour longer after we had taken office.
The Minister for Industry and Commerce, however, has been persuaded to provide for 200,000 tons of turf to be cut this year. Mind you, we do not require that turf. I am speaking now of hand-won turf. The Minister has said in a public interview that it will have to lie on the bogs for some time. He cannot go on bringing it to the dumps for storage. In fact he will seriously have to consider whether it will not be necessary to ask the hauliers to take back some of the stuff already landed there. He will have to stack the 200,000 tons to be cut this year out on the bogs and along the roadsides near the bogs. It will be left there without much protection, because we could not involve ourselves in the expense necessitated in providing protection for it. It may be pilfered but, in any event, we have got to cut it because there is an unemployment problem in the background that no one can face with equanimity. That is the shocking situation in which we have been landed.
If there had been any public notice given, or if there had been any chart kept which should have shown the amount of stuff of three different types which was accumulating there, there would have been some public warning and the thing could have been scotched earlier. Instead of that, there has been an accumulation of this useless stuff and people have been led to believe that they could get further employment on work of that kind were it not for out ruthless cuts. We are going to ease that situation but I do not think anybody who is sane would ask us to go on subsidising these logs and subsidising turf in the way to which people have got accustomed in the last few years. I think it was one of the prophecies in Macbeth that Macbeth was to be secure "until Great Birnam wood to high Dunsinane hill shall come". Well, we have all the woods of the West brought up to the Park. They are lying there and it will take years to get rid of them.