It is not nonsense. If Fianna Fáil are as progressive as they claim to be, why did they not start the scheme in 1951, 1952, or 1953? England started it away back in 1945. The United States started in 1943 or 1944 and other countries started 25 and 30 years ago. Why did Fianna Fáil wait until Deputy James Dillon came into power in 1954 and started the TB eradication scheme? Is it not because Fianna Fáil had no belief in the cattle industry? Did they not tell us from their own mouths the British market had gone and gone forever?
On the 9th May, 1960, when the Taoiseach was speaking at Inchicore he said that Fianna Fáil realised that agriculture is now the cornerstone of their economic policy. It is a pity they did not realise that 20 years earlier. If they had the people would be much better off than they are today and there would not have been the emigration of 215,000 people during the past five years.
One of the greatest dangers facing us today on the ever of our decision to enter the Common Market is the high-priced economy forced upon us by the Fianna Fáil Government. It was forced upon us by their reducing the food subsidies, extravagantly increasing the cost of living, the cost of Government administration and taxation which is now, according to the Book of Estimates before us £2,000,000 higher than it was five years ago.
Senator Nash said that when the Government got markets abroad it was found very often it was not economic to export to those markets. What is the real reason? It is that the Government have forced upon us a high-priced economy and we are now pricing ourselves out of many of the markets of Europe and even of the world. That has been forced upon the farmers and people of Ireland by deliberate Government policy. As regards butter, for example, it costs us £3,000,000 or £3,500,000 to export it to Britain and sell it there at 2/7d. when we were charging our own people 4/7d. per Ib. Some of our industrial products are much higher-priced here in Ireland than in Common Market countries due, I claim, to the Government policy of putting prices in Ireland at a relatively higher level than world prices. A flabby cost structure over the years has been inflated like a balloon. There is a serious danger of a collapse of the balloon. It cannot be denied that Government policy both in its timing and general direction has caused this rise in costs and in prices.
As far as we on this side of the House are concerned we welcome new industries. Away back in 1924 Cumann na nGaedheal started the first of our industries. They started the Shannon Scheme and the first of our beet factories. We hear people talking about destructive criticism but people who are now Ministers and in high and important positions in the Government referred to those industries as white elephants. We welcome industries. We do not mind who sets them up. We welcome people with money from abroad, with technical know-how. In 1956 it was the inter-Party Government who made the decision that those people could come here, who gave tax concessions, and who gave grants of up to two-thirds of the cost of erecting the factories.
We hear talk about constructive criticism but it might be no harm to quote what the Taoiseach had to say about those grants at that time. At column 1948 of Volume 160 of the Official Report he said:
These are provisions which I think are likely to be far more effective in retarding industrial development than helping it. I believe that over the main part of the industrial field, private enterprise is the best force on which to rely.
At column 1949 he went on to say:
I must confess that I have a very considerable dislike of most of these proposals for money or nothing...
He was not in favour of these grants at that time. Further down in the same column he said:
I have calculated that the maximum amount of money that it could possibly cost the Government, even if we assume that we will get a 10 per cent. increase in industrial exports and a 10 per cent. increase in coal production, is less than £10,000.
I have not the exact figure but I would say that, perhaps, from £25,000,000 to £30,000,000 was spent on grants since the Taoiseach made those famous statements away back in 1956 when the Bill to give grants to industrialists coming in here was introduced in Dáil Éireann. At column 1950 of the same volume he said:
The Minister can have his Bill, as far as I am concerned, but I want to make it clear that, in my view— and I may at some time in the future be empowered to influence Government policy—I think it has no importance whatever in relation to our industrial development and it represents a completely wrong approach to the problems of Irish industry as they exist to-day.
How wrong can a man be? The Taoiseach bitterly opposed the Bill at that time and now, in the Seanad, Fianna Fáil are claiming full credit for the industries which were established under it. Yet here it is in black and white that the Taoiseach opposed the Bill that gave the concessions which made it possible for those industrialists to come here from abroad with their money.
We all know that at the time of the 1932 Control of Manufactures Act Fianna Fáil wanted no one. They wanted us to be a little isle in the middle of the Atlantic. They told us that if every ship were to go to the bottom of the sea we would be all right, that we could do without England and the rest of the world. They made it impossible for anyone to come here from abroad with foreign capital. We believe it is better to have such people coming here and setting up industries giving employment to Irish boys and girls at home than that they should have to go to London, Birmingham, Liverpool or any other part of the world. We are completely in favour of that now, and we were then. It was the inter-Party Government that introduced the Bill for which Fianna Fáil are claiming credit today. Unfortunately they are getting much of the credit because they have three newspapers, the radio and television, to put across their side of the story at all times.
The Fianna Fáil Party went around the country putting up posters at every graveyard and on every hoarding saying that borrowing money would make the country bankrupt, that it was a wrong approach and we were even told, to use the Taoiseach's words, that the provisions of the Bill were "likely to be far more effective in retarding industrial development than in helping it." They have changed completely over the past few years and they now know and value the work that was done under those schemes.
The Industrial Development Authority Bill was introduced in 1949. The Taoiseach voiced his aggressive opposition to it in these terms:
I want it understood that my opposition and the opposition of Fianna Fáil to the whole idea in this Bill is fundamental and that at the earliest possible occasion we will terminate it.
They have not terminated it yet. They adopted it, as they adopted other schemes introduced by us.
It has been pointed out that despite the promise of 100,000 new jobs there are almost 51,000 fewer people employed to-day than there were six or seven years ago. I shall give the figure for 1956. Some one always asks what about 1956, because 1956 is always looked upon as a very bad year? There were 1,163,000 people gainfully occupied in 1956. In 1960, that figure had dropped to 1,112,000, that is, a decline of 51,000. That is the year that Fianna Fáil like us to take. We were told during the election that 1960 was the country's best year. The Minister has the figures. I should like him to refute them if he can. Instead of more people being put to work, there are fewer in industry, fewer in agriculture, fewer employed on the roads, fewer employed by the county councils. That is especially true, and it is caused principally by the discontinuance of the Local Authorities (Works) Act.
Before the elections, away back in 1957, Fianna Fáil said they were to be judged on what they would do in relation to emigration, if they were returned to power. They published a pamphlet headed "Facts for Voters". In that pamphlet, they said:
The present state of emigration is the most serious problem now facing the nation. The recent census return has shown that the situation must be righted quickly if disaster is to be avoided. The full employment proposals recently announced by Fianna Fáil show how the Party intends to deal with the problem of emigration by providing work for our own people. The Fianna Fáil plan proposes an increase over the years for five years in the number of new jobs by 1000,000.
Instead of ending emigration, 215,000 people were driven out of the country in those same five years, due to Fianna Fáil policy and, as I have already said, there are 51,000 fewer people employed in 1960 as compared with 1955.
When the Germans were running out of East Berlin to West Berlin at the rate of 1,000 per week, that exodus rated bannerlines throughout the length and breadth of the world. If we take an average over the five years, we find that 43,000 people left the country annually at the rate of 800 per week. In face of that, we have Fianna Fáil speakers telling us that everything in the garden is lovely. We have Fianna Fáil Ministers making after-dinner speeches at public engagements, and some of them are just Party political meetings. The Ministers are like film stars. At these dinners they tell us all about the great little country we have. Every Irishman and woman would like to see our own people working at home for decent wages. Any responsible Government would face up to the situation and tell the people the truth. They would admit that their policy has not been a success; they would promise to change it and to do their best to give employment. But they do not tell the people that, even thought they have their papers, and the wireless, and television. No—they say the people were never better off.
Recently a Fianna Fáil councillor in Westmeath mentioned a townland where there were 46 people on the register ten years ago. The last voter died a month ago. There is not one voter in that townland now. In Westmeath in 1926, we had a population of 57,818 people; in 1936, the population was 54,706. It remained at that figure up to 1956; it was 54,122 in that year. Then we had the golden reign of Fianna Fáil. In 1961, the population was 52,778. That is no proud achievement for any Government. It was Goldsmith who said:
"Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey,"
where Governments impose more burdens, increased taxation "and men decay". Governments may flourish or may fade, but people can unmake them just as people made them, and——
"A bold peasantry, their country's pride,
When once destroyed can never be supplied."
As Senator Fitzpatrick has stated, going through the country today, one sees doors closed and houses locked up. The people have emigrated. Some of them have written home to auctioneers instructing them to sell out the little homes. Nobody likes to leave his own little home or his own parish and go abroad to a strange land; but there is no living for these people on the land of Ireland today. It would be much better if the Government faced up to their responsibilities and told the people the truth. One of the grave failures of the Government is their inability to realise that a declining population means a reduced home market for the products of both agriculture and industry. What is the use in talking about increased production when the most important market we have is shrinking daily? The Government's complacency in face of a rapidly declining population is alarming. It shows how completely out of touch they are with the facts of the situation.
Fianna Fáil claim credit for a reduction in the number of unemployed. That reduction was purchased at a dear price. It is an empty boast to claim they purchased a reduction in the number of unemployed by exporting 215,000 of our people in the past five years. These were the cream of the country. What is left are those under 15 or 16 and the older people. If we want to hold our own in the future, we must keep the cream of our people at home. It seems to be the Government's intention to create two social strata in the country—the well-off and the poor. Admittedly, there is prosperity in the cities and towns because there are industries in these places. In rural Ireland, the majority of the people are worse off than they were four or five years ago.
The policy of the Government of giving increases of £10 to £20 per week to High Court and Supreme Court judges is completely wrong. Their policy is to give the man at the top of the ladder £10, £12, £20 a week and to give the man on the bottom rung of the ladder 5/-, 7/6d. or 10/- per week. The man at the bottom of the ladder requires the increase more than the man at the top. The Government's policy in that respect is wrong.
Another breach of faith by the Government with the people is in regard to the Civil Service. We clearly recall the popular reaction to the statement by the Minister for Finance a few years ago that he would carry out a survey which would result in greater economy in the Civil Service; that it was the intention of the Government to weed out any surplus personnel and that the examination would result in more efficient administration with fewer personnel. How has the Minister weeded them out? What is the position in regard to the promise made in 1957? The Minister will have to admit that he has failed miserably in reducing the number of civil servants. He has not weeded them out. According to the Book of Estimates, there are 483 additional permanent civil servants and an increased cost to the taxpayer of £2,000,000 as compared with last year. What is the explanation for the fact that the number of permanent civil servants has increased by 483 and the number of temporary civil servants by 247—a total of 730?
I should like to know what the Minister has to say now about the proud boast he made in 1957 that he was determined to see that the numbers and the cost of the Civil Service were reduced. How has he kept that promise? He has kept it as Fianna Fáil have kept the majority of their promises, by doing exactly the opposite. Instead of weeding out surplus personnel and reducing the cost to the taxpayer, he has increased the number of civil servants by 730 and the cost to the taxpayer by £2,750,000. So much for that promise. It is not to be wondered at. It is just one to be added to the long list of promises broken by the Government.
I have already referred to the fact that the subsidy payable on the export of beef is to be abolished on 1st April. That is a retrograde step which may have far-reaching consequences. This country lives by its export trade. Eighty per cent. of the increase in our exports in the first nine months of 1961 was attributable to agriculture.
I want to refer briefly to our marketing system, which, unfortunately, is antediluvian, hundreds of years out of date. For that reason, everybody on this side of the House gave the Minister credit and was delighted when, in 1957, he announced that he was setting aside the sum of £230,000 towards the establishment of proper marketing boards. What has been done in the past four years? Where are the boards that were to be set up? A question was asked in the Dáil about a month ago as to why out of that £230,000 only £23,000 had been spent. Nobody can claim that that is progressive policy or that the Government are doing their part to find markets.
According to the Book of Estimates, we are spending nearly £750,000 on embassies. Even though we are a small nation, it is right and necessary that we should hold our head high and hold our own in every country but I should like to know if we are getting value for the money that is spent. I believe we are not. In each Irish embassy or consulate, there should be a graduate of agriculture or a salesman having a knowledge of agriculture. In the modern world, aggressive salesmanship is required to secure the markets needed for the progress we should like to see. Farmers could increase production in the morning, if they had a market for that increased production. Unfortunately, it has been the experience of farmers that the moment they increased production of cattle, sheep, pigs, wheat or any other commodity, the bottom fell out of the market and the only time that it was profitable to increase production was a time of scarcity. It is completely wrong that that should be the case but it arises from the fact that our marketing system is completely outdated and outmoded.
Irish people are scattered throughout the world. If we had good salesmen in our embassies abroad, they could bring to the attention of Irish people in the different countries the fact that we had agricultural produce for sale and that the extra money was needed at home and could organise these people to buy more from us than they are buying, in the knowledge that they would be helping their own brothers and sisters at home. Our ambassadors would be better employed in that way than by apeing some of the bigger countries by having big functions and wining and dining. That might be all right for other countries but does not get us anywhere.
We should have our own ships to take our produce to the British or any other market and not be dependent on British Railways or any other company. We should have an air ferry service to London, which has a population of 6,000,000 and is one of the best markets in the world.
I want to mention health schemes. The Minister stated in the Dáil that he was prepared to quote figures to show that the health rate did not increase by more than 2/6d. or 3/- since 1953. Senator Fitzpatrick has spoken for Cavan and Monaghan and I should like to say that in Westmeath, the health rate is one of the most crushing burdens on the ratepayers. In 1953, it cost 2/11¼d. and at present it is costing 9/6d. in the rates. Rather than an increase of 2/-, there is an increase of 6/6d. The same applies in the majority of counties.
The year 1962 is a year heavy with destiny for the Irish people. Political decisions may be taken this year that will alter the fate and the character of our nation for years to come. I refer to the question of our entering the European Economic Community. The Government should have published a White Paper giving full information to the farmers in regard to the economic implications of our entry into the EEC and the effects on farmers, if we are accepted, as I hope we will be. Senator McGlinchey spoke to-day about destructive speeches being made by certain people. It would be no harm if he were to mention that matter at some of the meetings of the Fianna Fáil Party. It is a well known fact that some of the most destructive speeches were made by our own Minister for External Affairs.
