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Seanad Éireann díospóireacht -
Thursday, 15 Dec 1966

Vol. 62 No. 4

Appropriation Bill, 1966 (Certified Money Bill) : Second Stage.

Question proposed: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time".

The Appropriation Bill is an annual measure the main purpose of which is to appropriate formally the amounts voted by the Dáil for the various supply services. This time, in addition to the amounts voted for the present year totalling some £240 millions, provision is made for the appropriation of some £13 millions in respect of Supplementary Estimates for the year 1965-66 taken since last year's Appropriation Act and £118,354 for Excess Votes for the year 1964-65. There is also provision for treating receipts by various Departments as Appropriations-in-Aid of the Votes on which they arise instead of paying them into the Exchequer.

The exact totals to be appropriated are in Schedule A of the Bill and Schedule B gives details.

The present Bill also provides for the issue from the Central Fund of the £118,352 in respect of the Excess Votes for 1964-65. The issues in respect of 1965-66 and 1966-67 are covered by the general authority in the Central Fund (Permanent Provisions) Act, 1965. As Excess Votes are not a normal occurence, provision was not made for them in that Act.

The only other matters dealt with in the Bill are, first, the raising of the interest rates of the Post Office and Trustee Savings Banks from the traditional 2½ per cent to 3½ per cent to bring them into line with the interest now paid by the commercial banks on thrift accounts and, second, the raising from 3 per cent to 4 1/10 per cent of the maximum interest payable by the Minister for the Finance to the Trustee Savings Banks on moneys deposited with him. This is to enable these banks to pay the increased interest to their own depositors and also to enable the margin they are allowed for expenses to be raised to meet increased costs.

I recommend the Bill to the House for a Second Reading.

I suppose one's first duty is to welcome the Minister here in his new capacity. Quite frankly, one does it with some qualms. It is difficult to know whether the country would have been worse off to continue to have the Minister for Finance as Minister for Agriculture or to have retained the previous Minister as Minister for Finance. Neither solution to the problem of the distribution of Government portfolios commends itself very widely at the present time.

Except in Kerry and Waterford.

I am very glad to note that the Minister appreciates the sharp increase in the Fine Gael poll.

The moral victory.

I reply to interruptions, and perhaps sometimes even initiate them myself!

The Senator does things that require interruption.

The Senator is nearly as good a political assessor as he is an economist.

The performance of the economy during the period of the previous Minister for Finance is certainly disturbing and must give rise to very general concern. Looking first of all at the present economic situation, it is evident that in the first half of this year the economy was in a state of complete stagnation the likes of which had not been experienced for quite a few years. We know that in manufacturing industry output was lower in the first half of this year than in the first half of 1965 and that reductions in output were widespread in such industries as food processing, brewing and malting, tobacco, textiles, paper—we must exempt the Government in that respect because this industry was affected by a strike—printing, building materials, metal products, non-electrical machinery, car assembly and the miscellaneous products sector.

In all of these there was a decline in output reflecting the impact of faulty Government policies during the past two years. In the building industry, as mentioned in the report of the Central Bank published recently, output also fell considerably during the first nine months of this year, a trend so noticeably at variance with all the confident forecasts of the previous Minister for Local Government, now Minister for Agriculture, that some apology is owed to the building industry from that Minister and from the Department of Finance for the attempts to mislead them in the early part of this year when those Departments flatly refused to face the facts of what was happening in the building industry. They distorted the figures in presenting them and tried to persuade the building industry, which had already faced a declining output in the preceding months, that what was happening was not likely to cause a decline in the building industry.

In agriculture, similarly, the administration of the Government's policies over this period has produced unsatisfactory results. The growth in the number of calves has been somewhat smaller than either of the two preceding years. The growth was 6 per cent in 1964, 10 per cent in 1965 and only 2.3 per cent this year. Milk output was also down in the first half of this year.

The Central Bank points out that in the first eight months of the year there was a significant decline in the volume of expenditure. As far as investment is concerned, the Central Bank again refers to a substantial decrease in the import of capital goods which reflects the trend of the machinery part of investment in the first half of the year. Of course, I have already referred to the Central Bank's remarks about the building industry. We have, therefore, stagnation in consumption and declining investment. There is evidence of some improvement in the second part of the year but this is not sufficient to secure anything like the Government's aim for this year.

The Economic Research Institute recently forecast that in the current year national output would increase by only 8 per cent. An examination of the figures would suggest that this is optimistic. They assume maintenance of the volume of investment in arriving at that figure. The Central Bank do not agree with this. They remark indeed that unless industrial investment goes up very significantly there will be no significant increase in gross national product in 1966.

This is the picture we have at the present stage as to the condition of our economy. This loss of growth will not readily be made up. Last year we are told by official estimates that the national output rose by 2½ per cent. This year, it is unlikely that it will rise by as much as a half per cent. Therefore, in those two years, our economy has advanced by only 3 per cent. whereas according to the targets set, it should have risen by 8¼ per cent. We are thus 5 per cent behind. At the present rate of progress, even allowing for some recovery in industrial output, it is estimated that in 1967 we will show a rate of growth slower than that projected. Therefore, over those three years as a whole we will have lost something like two years' progress towards the targets, which we are most unlikely to make up.

How has this happened? It has happened because we have experienced some difficulty in a number of quarters. There is no evidence that this is due to external factors. Economic difficulties faced the country in 1951 and those difficulties were largely attributable to the Korean war. On this occasion there is nothing similar. The Government have made some comments on the UK import levy but this is not the complete cause. It must be said that the Government's policy in dealing with this by giving subsidies to Irish industries has largely alleviated the effects of this levy. As the Government measures were effective in this regard it cannot be held that the import levy was a serious factor affecting the progress of our economy in 1965 and 1966.

Government spokesmen have also tried to suggest that the economic situation in other countries during those two years might be the cause of our difficulties. Again, this does not hold because most countries in Europe have been expanding fairly rapidly during those years. In france and Italy there has been considerable growth, although it is true that Britain has been experiencing some difficulties in its economy. In 1965 British imports increased by one per cent, yet our economy expanded only by 2½ per cent in that year. In 1961 British imports fell by one per cent but this did not prevent us from achieving a growth of 5 per cent in our economy. If in 1961 we expanded our economy by that amount despite a fall in British imports, there can be no excuse for our failure to expand our economy in 1965.

The reason for our difficulties does not lie in outside difficulties but in the mismanagement of our economy during the years 1964, 1965 and 1966. There are three primary causes to be considered. First of all, the excessive size of the ninth round. Blame for this goes back to the Government's mishandling of the eighth round when they pushed up the increases given by the ESB thus leading to the excessive 12 per cent increase, which was copied in the ninth round.

Secondly, the inflation of credit, for which the Government was responsible in recent years has been a primary cause of our difficulties. This is something which should have been avoided. During the year 1955 there was an excessive inflation of credit but there was no wage round until the end of that year. That inflation can thus be clearly seen to have been caused by the expansion in credit. Despite the lesson learned in that year no steps were taken in 1964 and no direction was given by the Central Bank that any steps should be taken in regard to the excessive inflation in credit. In the 1959-61 period we made satisfactory progress because among other things our credit policy was kept under control. In those years our national output rose by about 5 per cent per annum and our credit expanded by slightly in excess of that, 6½ per cent to 7 per cent.

In 1962-63 the brakes were relaxed at a time when the rate of expansion of our economy fell back to three and a half per cent and the credit growth percentage increased to 10 per cent per annum. The credit inflation reached its peak in 1964. In 1964, when the economy grew by 4 per cent, credit was expanded by 14 per cent. This gap between credit growth and the expansion of the economy is something which should be avoided. The Central Bank should have had regard to the whole question of credit under these inflationary conditions. What was done was that the regulator proposed in "Economic Development" was dropped and nothing was put in its place, so we drifted through 1964 with no guidance to the banks as to the credit they should extend. No guidance was given until May, 1965. The failure of the Government and the Central Bank in this area is one of the major weaknesses of Irish administration in recent years.

The third cause of our difficulties is again completely within the control of the Government. The growth of public expenditure in these years had got completely out of control. In a period of two years, between 1962-63 and 1964-65, the volume of tax revenue at national level increased by one-third, from £173 million to £229 million. In the same years our capital programme was expanded by 50 per cent, from £66 million to £98 million. This was in a period when our national output grew by eight per cent.

Any government which thinks it can expand public expenditure, current and capital together, in a way which is totally disproportionate to the growth of the economy and get away with it, is a government not capable of administering the affairs of the country effectively. The result is the situation before us today. The inflation thus created by Government action and inaction forced a deflationary policy in 1965 which has led to a general reaction from which our economy has since suffered.

The deflation which arose out of the administration of the Government's policies in 1964-65 meant a loss of buoyancy in revenue which has tended to level off as the economy was thus pushed into a state of stagnation. This in turn resulted in a Budget deficit as current expenditure was not controlled within the limits of the declining growth in our economy. This Budget deficit increased the amount the Government had to borrow. The capital programme proved even more inflexible. The Government failed to any significant extent to cut the capital budget for 1965-66 and, as well, the amount they had to borrow was increased by virtue of the fact that current expenditure could not be cut thus leading to a budget deficit. The Government, therefore, increased their borrowing sharply, at a time when they were telling the Central Bank to cut back total availability of credit. The effect on the private sector of the consequent sharp cut in credit resulted in a sharp cut in expansion.

This provoked private individuals who had lent money to the Department of Finance by way of Exchequer Bills to take it back. The Government was then forced to borrow further money from the banks and so a vicious circle was set up which brought us close to a very really serious financial crisis. We got out of these difficulties by virtue of measures which brought the economy of this country to a standstill. The Government were forced to take so much of the available credit and to take credit on such a scale that it brought the economy of the country to a halt. This was far beyond the needs of the economic situation.

After 1964 there was a slowing-down, a kind of slowing-down which was necessary. Limited measures would have been adequate to tackle the economic situation but the Government caught in the grip of its own maladministration was forced to call a halt to the progress as set out by the Government in its own Second Programme. Instead of the 3¾ per cent growth which the Government foresaw, projected and promised in its review of the Programme in March last, we are now in the situation, according to the Central Bank, for example, where there is no growth in the economy at all.

These Government policies were forced on them through difficulties of there own creation. The Department of Finance told us in March last in its Progress Report that what was necessary was to cut the external deficit to £28 million, and the growth of the economy to 3¾ per cent this year—yet what has happened has been a deflation so sharp that economic growth has almost come to a stop and the external deficit was cut to below £15 million by last June. The economy has been deflated rapidly and sharply in order to get the Government out of the difficulties they had created for themselves. If that is not maladministration I do not know what is. By stopping the growth of the economy so that we are now running 18 months to two years behind the level of activity set out in the Second Programme by the Government. They have managed to avoid a really serious financial situation. Because of the situation they were in there was possibly nothing else they could do, but this has been most unfortunate for the economy of this country.

Who is to blame for this? There is an unfortunate tendency for Government Ministers to go round speaking privately about these problems and suggesting that the blame does not lie on them but rather on the advice they get from their civil servants. This is a disreputable performance and is one which no government should condone. In the years up to 1964 the Government took credit for the expansion of the economy. The Government is not entitled to have it both ways. They must take the blame as well as the credit for the results of their decisions. Whether they took advice or rejected advice, we do not know which, that may have been good or bad. The Government's attitude seems to be "nobody told us that our policies were going to lead to a crisis". I doubt very much if this is the case. I doubt very much if responsible advisers of the Government failed to warn them as to the effects of excessive Government expenditure. Certainly the Central Bank never failed to warn of the effects of excessive expanditure during all those years but the Government in the lack of wisdom rejected advice along those lines and proceeded with an inflation, the disastrous consequences of which now lie before us. I think we should reject any alibis of this kind. If the Government Minister's are not be able to make up their own minds on advice given to them, if they have not necessary qualities to decide these matters for themselves they should not be in Government. If they accept the responsibility of office they must accept responsibility for decisions and for evaluating advice given to them and deciding whether to take it or not. They should make their decisions and then accept the blame or the credit.

What we see before us today is a failure of planning. In the First Programme things went to a good deal better. This was perhaps partly because the First Programme was relatively simple and straightforward and within the grasp of Government Ministers copying with it. As it was within their grasp they were able to work it reasonably successfully. When the Second Programme was devised it was different. It set out specific targets and a framework for expansion. It was a programme which if worked properly, would have led to a continual successful growth of our economy. But this programme required a different kind of Government from the kind required by the First Programme. It required a Government which understood what was involved in planning and understood the discipline of planning and accepted this discipline. If we had that kind of Government we should have got through this period without the present difficulties. If the Government had insisted on having presented to them at all times a clear picture of where they stood in relation to each of the specific targets of the Programme and had insisted on not deviating from the targets then we could have avoided the difficulties we got into. What happened was that one target was over-fulfilled: the target of public expenditure and public revenue and it is the excessive level of public expenditure that has put our economy out of gear in this period.

I think it must be said in retrospect, and I think it is a fair criticism, that the planners, those responsible for this programme, failed to appreciate the dangers of presenting the Government with a programme of this kind and the difficulty the Government would have in understanding the discipline of the programme and accepting it. There was a rather naive assumption that this programme was one which would be understood and worked by the Government and that if deviations began to occur in one area that the correct conclusions would be drawn and corrective action taken. In retrospect it is clear that this kind of detailed planning was premature as regards the degree of political sophistication and the development of political institutions in this country. The present Government was not able to work a system of this kind.

However, our problems now is not to mull over these past difficulties except in so far as they afford lessons for the future for this Government and for future Governments. This Government have failed to learn from their own past mistakes. How can we get out of these difficulties and how can we ensure against their recurrence? There is a serious danger in the present situation. I have suggested that we are running one and a half years or two years behind the Second Programme targets. By 1970 we shall still be behind. That is the probability at the present time. To assume the contrary for the next three years is not realistic. I am far from convinced that this Government understand what this means and that they are prepared and are setting about cutting their cloth according to this measures. There is no evidence of a comprehension on the part of the Government of the extend to which the shortfall in our targets which now lies before us will necessitate a cut back in the Government's vague ideas of expanding public expenditure indefinitely. It is important that the full implications of the present difficulties for the Second Programme should be appreciated and accepted by the Government. Otherwise we are liable to get a continuation of the excessively rapid expansion of public expenditure in the years ahead which will reprecipitate these difficulties in a year or two.

In reviewing what we have to do in the situation, first of all I should like to say that the situation at the economic level is not as serious now as it may seem. We have got over, by drastic measures which have done serious temporary damage to the economy, the financial crisis. Our economy is basically sound. It has a potential for growth despite the Government's maladministration. The danger generally is not serious although the ground lost will not be rapidly retrieved and most of it will not be retrieved at all. We shall not readily catch up but, that having being said, the situation of the Irish economy is that the financial crisis is now behind us. The economy is basically sound although it is now running behind where it should be. This is a situation which should give concern to anybody who looked forward to the expansion of public services and community services in the years ahead, and who recognises that this kind of mistake, once made, is readily made again unless people realise the type of error that has been made. The economy itself is basically sound and a natural healing process will take place unless it is interfered with by future Government errors.

However, the immediate situation we are faced with is one in which the economy has been overdeflated beyond the needs of the economic situation as a result of the financial exigencies of the Government. What we have to try to do is to get the economy moving again as rapidly as circumstances permit. Here we face a difficulty in that external circumstances can affect us as they did not affect us in 1965. It is true that in trying to get the economy in moving again we face external difficulties to which we must have regard. The British situation is not one that would encourage a Government to reflate shortly even if the internal situation permitted it. One can therefore understand a certain temporary in action on the Government's part. But the need for some reflation has been clear since last May as I think I have said previously elsewhere and there has been an inordinate delay in taking action about it for reasons which are however understandable — viz., because of the bank strike which led for a period to the total absence of many financial data on which to base Government policy. The after-effects of the bank strike were much greater than expected. Even in mid-November is still left the Government in some doubt as to the true financial situation and left them in some difficulty about determining a policy. Thus, the reflation of our economy was put on one side for four months longer than was necessary simply because the Government and the Central Bank had not accurate information because of the bank strike. This was an unlooked-for and to some degree and unexpected consequence of the bank strike which itself did relatively little damage to the economy but to the extent that it has prevented the Government from re-formulating their economic policies as rapidly as they would otherwise have been able to do, it has held up our recovery. We now have a decision by the Central Bank that in the 12 months ahead credit can be expanded by 11 per cent. This is a fairly substantial figure, compared with the 6 per cent, which was the last target for credit expansion, given, I think, last March. This should have a significant reflectionary effect and it is encouraging that the Central Bank feels that the internal and external situation permits such a degree of credit expansion at the present time, because the Central Bank is known to be cautious in policies of credit expansion. This 11 per cent should certainly help to get the economy moving again.

When that happens, and when the economy is expanding again, we shall still face the after-effects of this crisis, however. I should like to evaluate these a little more precisely because I am personally quite unhappy, as I said a few minutes ago, as to whether the Government realise just what their mis-management of the economy will do to the Second Programme targets. If this is not appreciated, we could get, very readily, into difficulties again.

As far as can be judged, we are likely, by 1970, to be running something like 7½ per cent behind our targets. Perhaps that is the little on the high side; perhaps I am being overpessimistic; perhaps the economy may expand unusually rapidly in 1968 and 1969, and perhaps we could catch up, so that by 1970 the short-fall might be only 5 per cent, but we would be most unwise to count on that at this time.

These figures like 5 per cent and 7½ per cent may seem small but let us consider what 7½ per cent of national output in 1970 means. It means, in terms of current money values, £100 million. We are likely to produce in this country in 1970, at current prices, approximately £100 million less than was proposed in the Second Programme, and we shall have approximately £100 million less resources to distribute, to use for the benefit of the people of this country.

Moreover, owing to the fact that the Second Programme itself was defective in its investment target, this will have a quite disproportionate effect on living standards in this country in 1970. This does not appear to have been appreciated by the Government and certainly not by the trade unions or by the people at large.

The Second Programme made quite inadequate provision for investment and, already the level of investment in this country is well ahead of the level forecast. It needs to be ahead if we are to achieve the rate of growth we need. Consequently, out of this smaller, much smaller—smaller perhaps by £100 million—output we shall have to allocate a bigger amount for investment than had been proposed in the Second Programme. Consumption —the other way of spending our resources—will have to be squeezed between these two princers and it looks as though we shall find our living standards in 1970, 10 per cent lower than the figure proposed in the Second Programme. I can only say that if I were in Government at present time I would not count on having available for personal consumption in 1970 an amount more than 90 per cent of that provided in the Second Programme although when the times comes it could be perhaps up to 92 per cent. We shall be short 10 per cent on our living standards in that year.

What effect will this situation have on public expenditure? The Government, in the Second Programme, proposed to increase the burden of taxation in this country from 23.7 per cent to 26.2 per cent during the period of the Second Programme, a proposal which it must be said was accepted by all Parties, although nobody likes taxation, because of a general recognition of the desirability of improving community services. As far as I can calculate—and I should be very interested indeed to hear a correction from the Minister if he feels my figure is incorrect—the burden of taxation this year, four years before the end of the Second Programme, will be about 26.7 per cent. In other words, already, after only three years of the seven years, the burden of taxation has been pushed up well above the level projected at the end of the seven years period. We have been increasing the share of resources taken by the Government and other public authorities, three times as fast as was projected in the Second Programme, so completely out of hand has public expenditure got under the present Government, and so completely have they disregarded the discipline of the Programme which they themselves put forward and endorsed not much more than two years ago.

If one assumes, for the moment, that the Government succeeded in stabilising the burden of taxation at the present level, which is already higher than the target, and that 26.7 per cent was taken of the national output we are likely to have in 1970, this means that the amount of money available from taxation in that year would be something like £50 million short of the target figure the Government were planning for in the Second Programme. If they take a higher share, because of the likely short fall of output in that year—because we have lost up to two years' progress through the recent mismanagement of our affairs— the Government are likely to have £50 million less to spend, in current money values, in 1970 than they had planned for. One would like to know that the Government recognise this difficulty or, if they do not recognise it, what is their estimate of the situation. Perhaps my figures are wrong; I have not got access to the sources of information the Government have; perhaps the Minister would like to put forward his view of how the Second Programme targets will evolve? I am open to correction, if I have erred in these calculations; the Minister and his advisers are in a position to correct me. But, subject to correction, it seems to me that the resources available from taxation will be something like £50 million short of the target level in 1970 and that this is something which Government policy-making must take account of in the years ahead. If on the other hand the Government, once again, pursues a policy of expanding the burden of taxation at the kind of rate of expansion we have had in those heedless years of 1964 to 1966, than it will be a very short time indeed before we are back in the same kind of crisis precipitated by the maladministration of the Government in those years.

We require now a complete review of the Second Programme. We have been told this is being undertaken. One would like to feel it will be produced soon and that when it is produced the Government will understand and accept the discipline of the revised Programme, as they totally failed to understand and accept the discipline of the original programme put to them. There is no good whatever in producing a review of the programme for public edification of the Government themselves do not sit down, understand what it means and devise policies which fit within the limit of the resources which they themselves will be saying are likely to be available.

This review will need to take account not only of the loss of progress but also of several other factors which have become evident in the course of the last couple of years. Thus, there are grounds for believing that the employment targets of the Second Programme were erroneously assessed. In the absence of an adequate demographic analysis of our future population and employment trends, figures for employment targets were put forward, based on the estimates of emigration. A re-work of these employment targets is necessary because, it seems to me, the Government, through not examining properly the targets put to them in 1964, committed themselves to an expansion of employment which was, in fact, physically impossible on the basis of the estimates made as regards emigration for the period of the Second Programme. They committed themselves to an increase in employment which could not be achieved because, if the number of people that it was said would emigrate, did in fact emigrate there would not be enough people left to take up these jobs. It was a mistake on the part of the Government to talk about 80,000 new jobs being available by 1970 when the people simply would not be there. The failure of the Government to examine the figures put to them, and the failure of the Government— despite frequent representations from me, at any rate, and from others also— to establish any proper system of demographic analysis and forecasting have left them in the position of having promised an increase of employment which is physically impossible because people will not be there for these jobs at the level suggested for emigration in the Second Programme target.

We need therefore—and the Government should apply their minds to this to free themselves from possible Opposition taunts—to seek a revision of this employment target on a more realistic basis. They must establish somewhere in the public service a demographic forecasting unit capable of giving more accurate guidance than that given by the employment target in the Second Programme with its extraordinary crudities and inadequacies. We require a revision of the employment target and the Government in their own interest should see to this.

Secondly we want a revision of the inadequate investment requirements as proposed in the Second Programme. Here the deficiency is very substantial. It is difficult to understand how the Government could have accepted a proposition that this country would not need to invest any higher proportion of its national output in 1970 than in 1963. It was evident at the time— and this is not hindsight on my part— that the proposition that 18½ per cent of our national output should be invested during the period of the Second Programme was absurd and was out of line with the experience of other countries and with recent trends immediately before that time. This figure needs to be revised to a more realistic figure. As the years go by we will need to invest an increasing proportion of our national output to achieve the rate of growth we need to achieve.

Thirdly in revising the Programme account will have to be taken of the fact that it was prepared on the assumption that the Government would need to devote no higher proportion of national output to transfer payment purposes and particularly for social welfare purposes during the period of the Programme. One of the extraordinary features of the Second Programme is the fact that it contained no provision for an increase in the proportion of national output available for transfer payments. By some slight margin the target figure for 1970 is actually a slightly lower proportion of the national output than at the beginning of the Second Programme period. How such a proposition could have been put forward and how the Government could have been foolish enough to accept it, knowing all the pressures they would face to increase the proportion of our resources devoted to this purpose, is incomprehensible. That was one of the first criticisms I made of the programme.

The fact is that the Government have found it necessary to ignore that target. So far as I can calculate it in the current year the money devoted to these transfer payments is about 15 to 17 per cent greater than it ought to be if the Government were adhering to the target in the Programme in this respect. I do not blame the Government for moving this figure up and for ignoring this target, but when one decides to ignore one target one has to accept the corollary that one has to reduce something else. That is something which the Government have not shown a predisposition to accept. However, the idea that the transfer payments devoted to social welfare should not be increased is something which the Government have instinctively rejected. Therefore, this target needs to be drastically revised to a more realistic figure.

Fourthly, one of the other weaknesses of the Programme which was not clear at the time—and I suspect it was not clear to the Government—was that it made no provision for the status increases in the Civil Services. It is evident from an examination of the detailed figures in the Programme that it was based on the assumption that the price of the services provided by the public services would not rise any faster than prices generally, on other words, that salaries in the public service would rise in the line with salaries elsewhere, and that the cost of the public service would not rise more rapidly than the cost of other services. Anyone who examines the figures will find that this emerges clearly from them. The fact remains that the Government subsequently found themselves faced with the status claims to which they agreed. They are in the dilemma that these status claims were either unjust and should not have been agreed to, or that they were largely justifiable, which is my own view. If they were largely justifiable provision should have been made for them. What is quite intolerable is to draw up a Programme which makes no provision for a claim which is then said to be justified. If these status increases were found to be justifiable in retrospect there is no excuse for failure to make provision for them, provision which is substantial and which involves another £10 million of our resources—another £10 million to be taken away from something else.

These are some of the principal changes required in a review of the targets in the Programme. The Government will than be faced with several choices. I will put forward two of these choices. First they are going to be faced with either having to accept a totally inadequate level of investment which cannot possibly give us the growth rate in our economy which we require, or with having to halve the planned growth rate of living standards projected in the Programme. During the next four years if the Government are not prepared to put that proposition to the people they will be faced with inadequate investment, a slower growth of the economy and a situation in which living standards will ultimately grow just as slowly.

We have the right to ask the Government what they propose to do. Does the Minister accept the fact that we are not going to have available to us in 1970 the resources proposed in the Second Programme, or does he still persist in the delution that the enormous losses in recent years can be made up and that in 1970 we will have achieved the targets set out in the Programme? If he accepts, as I think he must, that the targets will not be attained, will be allocate sufficient resources to investment at the expense of the consumer or will he allow the volume of investment to be inadequate for our needs. He must have some policy. I should not say that. He ought to have some policy, and the country has a right to know what it is and what the Government's plans are for the allocation of the reduced resources which will be available in 1970—reduced by comparison with the targets originally proposed for the allocation of these resources.

The Second dilemma as I see it is that he will either have to accept an increase in the tax burden in the years ahead continuing at three times the planned rate, or he will be short £50 million of the money provided in the Second Programme for public purposes, or he must make some compromise between the two. Perhaps the answer will be that he will accept a compromise involving some cutting down in the services which the Government intended to provide, and an increase in the burden of taxation less than three times the projected increase in the burden of taxation. What is his policy? Is it to go on increasing the burden of taxation at three times the planned rate, or is it to cut back on that and to have a more normal, acceptable and reasonable increase in the taxation burden, accepting that as a result of this he will not have available anything like the reserves he planned to have in 1970 for financing the public services?

He is faced with a dilemma. The job of an opposition in these circumstances is to insist that the Minister faces that dilemma and that he answers these questions and does not go on dithering, avoiding the realities of the situation and dodging the issue. We have a right to press for an answer and to insist that he should tell us his policy on taxation.

That is like Fine Gael spending money without taxation.

A Senator

What about the buoyancy?

That is the next point I am coming to. I am glad that you raised this. I would myself put forward a suggestion to the Minister——

A second agricultural policy. You produced one for the by-elections. Produce another now.

I would put forward to the Minister some suggestions. I was going to suggest the lines along which this review of the Second Programme ought to be carried out and the kind of conclusions which would emerge from it as to the availability of resources for various purposes, and to commend to the Minister something along these lines——

Another rabbit out of the hat.

I shall be very interested to see whether the Minister's own conclusions which will emerge from the review of the programme which we are told is to take place early next year will differ substantially from mine, and in what respects. In the past four years tax revenue has gone up by £108 million or 62½ per cent. What do the Government have to show for this? Can we claim that social justice in this country has advanced substantially, that there have been enormous social reforms and great social programmes? I do not think so. There have been some improvements certainly. Social payments have risen a certain amount, and there has been the usual marginal edging forward on the existing front, but there has been no breakthrough, no new ideas and no new schemes, but an edging forward at various points along the front. Not to have achieved anything more than an edging forward after a 62 per cent increase in taxation in four years is something which can only be attributed to complete lack of planning. We have frittered away these increases in taxation because we did not know what we wanted to do with them and they were frittered away by meeting this, that and the other demand made ad hoc on the Government, which was not able to resist, because they had no clear-cut plan of campaign and had put no proposals to the country about the use of the increased resources and thus found themselves under irresistible pressure to give in to the strongest claim—the antithesis of planning involving a total absence of priorities.

The Government's job is to decide the order of priorities, to put first things first and, having stated the order of priorities to the public, to defend it and tell people who seek for their particular purposes increases for which resources are not available that they are not going to get such increases because to do so would be to take money away from some other specific purpose to which it has been allocated. The only way to resist the kind of pressures being placed on them from time to time for increases in expenditure, all of which can be justified individually, but taken together are impossible, is to have a clear-cut spending plan, to have a set of priorities worked out and presented to the country and accepted by it, which can be used as the base from which to defend the public interest against those pressures. We have not had this.

Fine Gael called on the Government several years ago to produce a social programme. The answer was a most surprising one, particularly from the man concerned, the Taoiseach as he then was. Deputy Lemass, from a general election platform in 1965, said that it was very difficult to produce a social programme and so the Government were not going to do that.

That never stopped you.

I never thought that I would hear that excuse from a Government — it seemed an extremely weak reply, because the Second Programme makes provision, admittedly quite inadequate, for extra resources to be devoted to transfer payments and the Government have also set aside quite excessive sums, as events have shown, for increases in the volume of the Government service and in the price of Government service. Yet the Government made no plans to allocate these sums. They have been tending each year to give in to the immediate pressures and dole out money here and there, but no attempt has been made to put forward a coherent programme for the utilisation of the resources provided in the Second Programme for public consumption, for transfer payments and for subsidies mainly to agriculture. There is no long-term plan in these areas. The absence of such a plan makes the Government an easy prey to pressures, as any Government would be which was lacking a coherent plan. That is why Fine Gael called on the Government to produce a social programme and set out how they saw those sums being allocated, to what purposes they thought they should be put, so that when they faced conflicting pressures requiring the allocation of resources beyond those available the Government would be able to stand firm against them and could more effectively meet pressures from all sources, including the Opposition. The Government should be in a position that they could resist pressures from the Opposition to spend money on this or that. They should be in a position to say "no, we do not propose to spend more money on this, that or the other because we have allocated sums for education, social welfare, and so on, and the only way to meet demands for additional services would be to reduce the expenditure we require on education, social welfare, or whatever it may be and we believe these are the priorities and we intend to spend on them." This is how a Government should govern. This is not how this Government are governing.

Let us face the facts with regard to the availability of the resources, and see what it may be possible for the Government to do within the resources available to them in the next four years. Let us accept first of all that our total resources, our national output, will fall short by £100 million or 7½ per cent in 1970. Perhaps that is pessimistic, but let us be cautious at this stage, having made so many mistakes through over-optimism. Let us accept that the cost of Government services has increased and that we have to pay for this indefinitely from now on. Let us accept that the provision for transfer payments is inadequate and must be increased even within the limits of these reduced resources. Let us accept that the burden of taxation, now 26.7 per cent, will not readily be reduced and may in fact have to rise slightly in the years ahead, by another half point or so. Let us accept that the Government will need at least the sum they have allocated for subsidies—£40 million at 1960 money values. Let us accept that the full sum provided for national debt interest will also be needed. That figure is moving more or less on target. Let us also however take credit for the fact that in the Second Programme completely excessive provision was made for the volume of public consumption, the using up of resources by the Government in administering the country and that there is leeway there. The rate of growth in public consumption if it continues as in recent years, will leave us in the position of requiring very much less for 1970 than the target figure. On the basis of those assumptions, which I think are cautious ones—perhaps the Government might describe them as stringent —it seems to be possible to provide something like 21 per cent or 22 per cent of an increase in the volume of social benefits—transfer payments— during the next four years, which in 1966 money terms would be £16 million or £17 million.

This is the kind of thinking the Government should be doing, the kind of programming they should be putting forward, the kind of internally consistent policy they should be following. Of that money which will be available, if I were in Government I would allocate £6 million or £7 million towards improving the educational services on the basis of the programme put forward by Fine Gael and fully costed.

You cut it by ten per cent last time.

The remaining £10 million I would allocate to social welfare improvements. I am, of course, thinking in terms of the value of the £ in 1966.

I put that to the Minister as an internally consistent and coherent programme for social development, for the employment of our resources in the years ahead, not because it has any enormous intrinsic merit but in the hope of provoking the Government to put forward new internally consistent ideas. It is not the job of an Opposition to put forward ideas of this kind but in the total absence of Government thought, it is desirable that we should put to them these ideas and let the Government contradict them if they find them objectionable. Let the Minister if he wishes get up on his hind legs and tell me I am pessimistic—that the Government propose to increase taxation to a higher level than I visualised. All I want is that the Minister produces a coherent, consistent point of view on the Second Programme and tells us how he proposes to allocate the resources which will be available in 1970 in a manner which will be internally consistent.

I have shown here precisely how this could be done and the Government are welcome to come and say I am mistaken, that we shall be less than £100 million short in 1970. They can tell me that if they have £16 million or £17 million to play with in 1970 they will not give one halfpenny to education or to social welfare. They can produce their answer. I have given them an internally consistent picture over which I can stand. The figures are there. I have told the Minister the exact assumptions on which they are based and I call on the Minister to give us his answer because it is his job to tell us how he proposes to allocate the resources that will be available in 1970 and what resources he thinks will be available.

Why was there not something about education in Towards a Just Society?

Are we to have a repetition of the mob rule that prevailed in the Killarney Town Hall?

I wonder who won down in Kerry.

The Minister is about to repeat his activities down in Kerry.

I am still in the Dáil.

He might at least conduct himself, not like Killarney.

When we produce for the Government a set of consistent coherent figures, the immediate reaction is to produce taunts and catch-cries. There is no attempt on the Minister's part to say he will try to put forward——

We know you are only nattering.

Remember their record of the past.

The only record that is relevant is that of the past two years.

Senators must cease interrupting.

Nobody need be in doubt as to who is endeavouring to lower the tone of the debate, of who is prepared and not prepared to face up to the problems with which the country is confronted and to discuss them in the House in a coherent and sane way.

Let him run.

I doubt if the Government are prepared even now to get down to tackling the production of a programme for the next four years. I have been speaking in terms of £10 million being available for social purposes in 1970 after the needs of education have been satisfied. If in the years ahead the burden of taxation goes up higher or even at the same rate of increase as is provided for the Second Programme, this would make available a further £9 million or £10 million for social purposes. It is within this range that planning must take place. I doubt if this or any Government would want to push up the burden of taxation as rapidly as it has risen in recent years because it is already at a very high level and this has given rise to a great deal of unrest. At the same time, the Government are under pressure for increased transfer payments and they are unlikely to be able to retain taxation at the present level.

Therefore, the likely thing to happen is that the level of taxation will go up at a rate something like that envisaged in the Second Programme, which will mean of course a much higher level of taxation in 1970 than that for which we had planned.

Instead of tackling the problem in the light of these assumptions all the Government offer us are taunts and catch-cries at a time when they should be discussing the resources they expect to have in 1970. I suppose it is being over-optimistic to expect the Government to produce any reasonable plan or to talk seriously about long-term planning. That was evident even from the former Taoiseach's first press conference: it was evident that the Government had not the glimmering of an understanding of what the Second Programme was all about. If at that time the Government failed to grasp the significance of the Second Programme, surely one would expect them to have made up for that and to be in a position now to sit down and do their homework, at least for their own self-preservation and to prevent a repetition of events of the past two years between now and the next general election. Is it not reasonable to expect they would now be doing some homework ?

We never had less difficulty.

I hope the Minister will be able to preserve his facetious demeanour in the face of the homework he has to do. Perhaps he will allow me to provoke him into doing in the privacy of his office the homework he has not done.

The Senator is making me dizzy.

There are other matters to which we should give attention at this time. At this point I should like to refer to the question of an incomes policy. In this House not so many months ago, addressing the previous Minister for Finance, I put certain questions arising directly out of recommendations contained in Report No. 11 of the NIEC. They were recommendations addressed to the Government on an incomes policy as well as recommendations to employers and workers. In this matter of an incomes policy it is up to the Government to give a lead. Of course the Government have been trying to evolve something on these lines in regard to industrial relations policy. They have been working hard and though we may not agree with what they have done they have been working to produce some worthwhile improvements in this area. What we must criticise the Government for is their failure to take seriously the recommendations made to them by the NIEC with reference to an incomes policy.

These recommendations were specific: they asked the Government to take specific action. Would the Minister please tell us what action the Government have taken or are taking in regard to the 17 recommendations in that report? There is first of all a recommendation about the disclosure of aggregate profits of industry. There is a recommendation about extending the role of the Fair Trade Commission. There is a recommendation about taxing profits to keep increases in profits in line with wages and salaries, involving something like dividend equalisation. There is a recommendation to publish details of total executive remuneration on the same lines as the requirements with regard to directors' remuneration, which has yielded some enlightening information about how some Irish companies have been run in recent years. There was a recommendation that there should be, in the future, a statutory obligation on self-employed people to maintain records of their remuneration in order to prevent tax evasion. There was a recommendation about the additional measures which should be taken about tax evasion. There was a recommendation that decisions about the current level of support for agricultural income would require to be taken at the same time as and be recognised as an integral part of decisions concerning nonagricultural money income. We have a notable example of that not being done in recent months for which the present Minister was responsible. There was a recommendation about removing the distinctions and irregularities of opportunity for advancement which exist between manual workers and other workers. This is something which the Government have a first duty to implement in regard to their own employment. There was a recommendation that investment projects should be ranked in a proper list of priorities so that the rate of return on them could be calculated and that these returns should be published. What have the Government done in this regard?

There was a recommendation for the production of adequate statistical information on building and for the compulsory notification of building staff. There was a recommendation that limited temporary controls on building should be introduced, if necessary, for certain periods in order to prevent an imbalance in the development of building. There was a recommendation that we should introduce some kind of regulator in the building industry, similar to that in Sweden. There was a recommendation that there should be a comprehensive and continuing study of the building industry's problems by the Government and the building industry, distinct and separate from the annual reviews. Finally, there was a recommendation in regard to the extension of credit policy to institutions other than commercial banks. Those are things which the Government should do something about. There has been very little done about those matters during the last 12 months.

When a body like the NIEC makes reports, the Government should study them. They should say if they intend accepting them and if they are not accepting them, they should give the reasons why. I do not think we can expect an institution like the NIEC to go on working in this respect, making recommendations, if the Government does nothing about them. It may be that some of the recommendations are such that the Government cannot do anything about them. I would like the Minister, when replying to this debate, to tell us what in fact he proposes to do in this regard.

There is one particular aspect of policy which the NIEC have referred to and in which the Government could give some lead. This is the whole question of equal pay for equal work for men and women. This is an emotive issue for many women. They feel there is a lack of social justice and there should be equal pay for equal work for both men and women. There are problems in some cases where men and women are not doing similar work. Nevertheless, it is an important issue and it is one which we must raise in this country at the present time with particular urgency for two reasons. In addition to the social justice element in this there are two practical reasons why those matters should be looked into now and the Government should give a lead in this respect.

The first of those lies in the fact that in proposing to join the European Economic Community the Government will have to accept what other Governments are accepting. As regards equal pay for equal work for men and women, when we join them, we will have to accept what they are gradually accepting. We should be taking the necessary preliminary steps in this regard now.

There is a further reason and a very cogent one. We have, in this country, at the moment, a very large labour surplus of men. We do not have any similar large labour surplus of women. There is something approaching full employment for women in this country. There is a great difference in wages between men and women at the present time. Emigration for men takes places because of employment reasons. Out of something like 20,000 people who emigrate for these reasons something like 15,000 of that total will be men. When they emigrate something like 15,000 women will also leave, simply because there is a natural process of maintaining a balance between the sexes. If men leave women do not remain long afterwards as they are very conscious of the marriage situation.

Experience has shown that in this country the emigration of women over any period of years is almost equal to the emigration of men regardless of whether there is any employment available. The present relationship of wages between men and women is mainly the cause of this. We have thus a much larger emigration of women than is necessary. When 15,000 men emigrate they are accompanied, not immediately but within a measurable period of time, by 15,000 women. Those women do not have to emigrate because of unemployment. Their places are taken, as far as one can judge in recent years, by married women being drawn back into employment because of the shortage of single women workers. We have, therefore, a double anti-social factor here. We have the effect of the present imbalance between the wages of men and women which virtually doubles the emigration figures and at the same time we are encouraging the employment of married women.

There is thus an economic reason for improving the balance of wages between men and women. If women's wages were made more attractive more women would remain in this country. If this happened we would show a reduction in the emigration rate of women. We would also reduce the pressure on married women to work. It is undesirable that married women should take the place of single women. We should not stop the employment of married women but we should discourage it.

Action should be taken by the Government in this regard. They should initiate a policy in this matter and should set about encouraging a better balance between the wages of male and female workers. I should like to hear what the Minister proposes in this respect.

There is one other aspect of incomes policy which is very relevant on the Bill we are dealing with and to which I should like to refer also. The Minister will perhaps hear me with more pleasure in this regard than in regard to some of the other points I have made. I think the system of remuneration in this country is a lunatic one. A Parliamentary Secretary costs this country something in the region of £5,000 a year over and above his Dáil salary. How much of that does he get in money? He gets £1,300, for which he is expected to give up his other employment. Dáil Deputies have some other employment but the Parliamentary Secretary has to give this up in order to work entirely in the public service. In addition to the £1,300 which the Parliamentary Secretary receives—I shall come to Ministers in a moment as I am working from Parliamentary Secretaries up—the use of a State car. This costs the taxpayer something in the region of £4,000 a year. I do not mean it costs £4,000 to buy. The capital cost is not that important. The running cost is £4,000 a year. The last figure I saw was £3,850 a year, from information in a question raised in the Dáil. There are something like 2½ drivers per car, and since then these drivers have had an increase which must bring the running cost per car to £4,000. It is lunatic to remunerate a man in this way and then to expect him to give up his employment elsewhere. If he is a Parliamentary Secretary he has capabilities. In most cases these involve an income beyond £1,300 a year. To present him with a car and drivers at a cost to the community of £4,000 a year while paying him £1,300 is a complete abuse of public funds. This is completely contrary to commonsense. The value of the car to the Parliamentary Secretary, or Minister, as a facility is probably not much more than £500 a year. That is what he saves, including provision for tax, in not having a car of his own. That it should cost £4,000 to give a Parliamentary Secretary something which is worth £500 a year to him is lunatic. The whole question of the administration of this should be examined.

These Ministerial cars are one of the abuses which should be stopped. The money should be used instead to remunerate the Parliamentary Secretary or Minister properly.

I am puzzled. The Fine Gael Party in the Dáil suggested that not alone should the existing State cars continue but that Leaders of the Opposition should get State cars as well.

I shall come to that point. A State car is something that should be given to the Taoiseach, the Tánaiste and the Leaders of the Opposition Parties as they are people who have particular responsibilities. A pool of cars in order to provide for official visitors to the State must be provided in any event and these cars should be available to Ministers going down the country on Government business. However, if they wish to deviate on private business they should pay the extra shilling or one and sixpence per mile involved. This would cut down the number of cars to a fraction, to possibly one-third of the present number.

At the same time, Ministers should be adequately paid. They could, moreover, be given a transport allowance for their own car if it is considered desirable to pay them in that way. Ministers would then be in a better position and would not be expected to live on the basis of giving up very remunerative employment at a salary which bears no comparison to their inadequate salaries as Ministers. In that way the abuse of State cars, as I see it, would be ended.

Most people will remember the origin of State cars. I do, as my father was a Minister. In the early days of the first Government Ministers did not have cars; they travelled by tram. Most of them could not afford a car. Up to 1927 they had no official cars but after the assassination of Kevin O'Higgins cars were provided for protection. There were two cars, four guards, four sub-machine guns, four rifles, eight revolvers and eight bags of ammunition. How they were supposed to fire all these is not clear! When protection ceased to be necessary the cars were maintained as a privilege for Ministers. The car was there originally as a protection for the Minister, and was not available for the use of his family. In the 1930's this protection was transformed into a facility available to Ministers and their families. It is quite inordinately costly at the present time. A Minister is attended on by two drivers and part of a reserve driver each of whom is paid £1,100. It costs more than twice as much to pay these drivers as to pay the Parliamentary Secretary.

Ministers should be properly paid. They should be capable of driving their own cars responsibly and they should have the use of State cars for public occasions only. There are strong reasons for this. A Minister's remuneration should not be so inadequate as to put him under undesirable pressures.

There is another matter to which I should like to refer for a few moments. I have referred to it in one context already. It is the question of Irish membership of the European Economic Community and the steps to be taken in regard to it. Government policy in regard to this has, with some exceptions, been clear cut for years past and they have followed a line which, on the whole, has made our position clear. There are, however, ambiguities on certain points raised by Ministers and the Taoiseach on several occasions.

My mind has gone blank on this point, but I shall come back to it again.

There is another matter to which I should like to refer. Recently I had occasion to look for copies of the Rome Treaty which is a basic text in a University course with which I am concerned. The Stationery Office, who are the agents for the EEC, had only three copies, no more. There is no provision at all made for making this text available to our people. There is something absurd in applying for membership of the EEC when the Government are not prepared to make available this basic information in regard to it.

I thought everybody would know it backwards by now.

Some people do. Perhaps the Government do. But there are people in this country who cannot get this document and it should not be treated as one of Edna O'Brien's publications.

Who is she?

Recently I accompanied the Leader of the Fine Gael Party to Brussels for talks in the EEC.

I hope the Senator did not do any harm over there. I was worried when I heard he was going.

The Minister had reason to be worried.

One striking feature of our visit was that some of the senior people we met were familiar with the proceedings of this House. In some instances they were able to quote verbatim from statements made in this House. I mention this to show that we do not have sufficient regard to the fact that our proceedings are considered and read outside this House. I am aware that in the past critical comment has been made on some irresponsible statements and foolish things that have been said about the EEC in either House and some of the foolish things that have been said on the subject of our membership of the EEC. I think we ought to have regard to this fact when speaking in either House of the Oireachtas —that what we say is read and considered and sometimes taken elsewhere more seriously than perhaps it warrants. At any rate the Seanad debate had clearly been read and appreciated and even quoted from by some of the senior officials.

One important point emerged from the discussions we had. It is something which the Government may or may not be aware of. It is that there is a strong feeling in the Commission that our negotiations for membership in the next round, if and when it takes place, as is now quite likely, should precede rather than follow the negotiations with the United Kingdom. It will be recalled that on the last occasion, although our application for membership was made a day ahead of Britain, in fact it was not accepted for negotiation until 14 months later, due to the doubts of some members of the Community as to whether we were ready for membership. It was finally accepted for negotiation in October, 1962. No negotiations took place between this and the breakdown of the Brussels talks. During all that time, from October, 1961 to January, 1963, the British negotiations proceeded and they proceeded to a fairly advanced stage without any cognisance being taken of the needs of this country, the principal reason being that the members of the Community were not quite clear that they wanted to negotiate with us for full membership until October, 1962. In the course of those British negotiations the shape of the potential package deal for Britain began to emerge and sufficient was established in those negotiations to make it fairly clear what kind of an agreement, particularly in regard to matters agricultural, might emerge. In regard to the forthcoming negotiations with Britain, if they take place, there is a feeling in the Commission, not confined to any one official, that it would be in the interests of this country to initiate its negotiations prior to the next round of British negotiations and as soon as it becomes clear that Britain is preparing to negotiate further. One senior official implied that if we failed to do that and waited until the British negotiations were completed the complications and complexities of the agricultural deal in particular would be such that it would be quite impossible to change it subsequently for our benefit. The Danish delegation have already decided to adopt this procedure. It would be in the strong interests of our Government to act similarly. The Government may of course be aware of this already as a result of their recent talks but I was struck by the emphasis placed on this by several officials who would be very concerned with our negotiations. They raised this point independently and obviously with some goodwill towards our interests.

In these negotiations there is a number of difficult matters which the Government will have to consider and in respect of which hard negotiating will have to go on; not alone in respect of some aspects of the agricultural arrangement but in respect of the transitional period for membership and in regard to the maintenance for their current life of our export tax reliefs, and also the protection of Irish industries against dumping. These are all things on which we shall have to negotiate hard, where our interests are at stake and it is important that negotiations should be carried on effectively.

There is one other matter I should like to refer to; that is the review of the Civil Service. I should like to welcome it and express regret that in the last debate in this House the previous Minister, I think inadvertently, misled me in regard to this matter. I was pressing him with regard to certain rumours that there was pressure from certain sources to appoint to this Commission of Inquiry people who were then serving members of the Civil Service. He seemed to say that no such appointments were contemplated and I accepted what he said and did not press the matter further. In retrospect I realise that there was confusion between us. The Minister was stressing that there was no pressure but apparently was not saying that there was no intention of appointing such people, although that was contrary to what was indicated when the announcement was originally made. I would not for a moment accuse the previous Minister of bad faith. It was my fault. I did not make myself clear. I should like to say now, however, that there appears to be a divergence between what he said then and what was announced originally. Originally it was announced that people then retired from the Civil Service and people from business and professions would constitute the Commission. What actually happened was that several of these members of the Civil Service were appointed subsequently, in one case immediately prior to and in another case after their retirement. Had I understood the Minister correctly and had I not been misled by his intervention I would have pressed the matter further at that time because it is important that this Commission of Inquiry should take an outside look at the Civil Service. It is important that the Commission should be looking at it from outside and not be overinfluenced by the views of people who are serving or have very recently served within the public service. I intended to press the matter further in that debate but did not do so because of my misunderstanding of the Minister's intervention. Therefore I mention that point again at this stage.

There are serious problems as regards the Civil Service. The Civil Service has served us extraordinarily well in many respects but one must not blind oneself to its deficiencies. In other countries with which we will soon be competing the Civil Service has been and still is regarded as an élite profession. This is true of France and to a large degree of Britain. This was the case in Ireland but it is not so today. This appears to reflect the continuation of an out-of-date recruitment pattern which does not take account of the fact that the whole level of educational standards has risen. As a result of this the Civil Service is not drawing the more brilliant members of the community as it used to do in former times. It draws some of them certainly but it is the common judgment of people close to the Civil Service or in any way concerned with recruitment to the Civil Service that it is not drawing as well as one would hope the best brains of the country. One reason for this is that the image of the Civil Service in Ireland has not been good. This has been due to bad public relations on the part of the Civil Service. Another reason which I regard as irrational but it is one which is responsible for many people, particularly university graduates, not coming into the Civil Service. It is that they object to facing an Irish language test. As far as I understand it, this is a test which should be within the competence of anybody with a good mind who has recently left an Irish school. Unfortunately, one must face the fact that there is a quite irrational objection to this test. I have myself attempted without success to persuade first class graduates of UCD to overcome this objection and enter the Civil Service. I have met the attitude that they will not lend themselves to the hypocrisy of this test. They are not prepared to go through with it. They prefer to work elsewhere. It is an irrational, emotional attitude with which I have little sympathy but I regard it as a factor which prevents some brilliant people from going into the Civil Service. That is one more reason why these tests should be reconsidered.

The method of entry to the Civil Service is still orientated to an earlier era. The proportion being drawn in from the universities is low compared to what other organisations are drawing in through their recruitment methods. This is a serious problem together with the irrational objection to the Irish language test and the bad image the Civil Service has had—and from which it is at present starting to recover. Good work is being done to try to improve this image, but the image still persists and with it these obstacles which have prevented the recruitment to the public service of people of the calibre we need in modern conditions.

There is another great unsolved problem which this Commission of Inquiry will have to consider—the relationship between the professional and the administrator. While there are two sides to this, one cannot help feeling that the balance is too firmly on the side of the administrator under the present system, and that we are not getting the best use of those professional. civil servants who show and who have administrative qualities. While something is being done to narrow the gap between them, I do not think we have done enough. This has been tried in the Ministry of Transport in Britain in recent years where they have tried both incorporating professionals as administrators at certain points in the hierarchical tree and have also tried appointing them as joint heads of Departments or parts of Departments. Surprisingly enough, the latter experiment has proved more successful and the system of joint heads has worked out quite well. I hope that this Commission of Inquiry will consider this problem, and these possible solutions, so as to make better use of the talented people in the professional arm of the Civil Service, some of whom have considerable administrative competence.

There are other aspects of the work of the Civil Service to which this Commission of Inquiry should give attention. I myself have detected what I would regard—I am not speaking now simply as somebody in opposition—an excessive concern on the part of the civil servants for the protection of the Minister from embarrassment, as distinct from the service of the public interest. I have detected also at times a belief that the public interest excuses actions which would not be regarded as completely ethical elsewhere; because the Civil Service is there for the public interest, and because the civil servant is acting in the public interest— which he honestly believes he is doing —at times things are done in ways which are arbitrary, or which would be regarded in business circles, at times, as unethical. The end justifying the means is a temptation we are all drawn to, and in the public service the temptation to allow the end to override the question of whether the means are proper is, perhaps, greater than elsewhere. Noticeable, perhaps, and associated with this desire to protect the Minister from embarrassment—which at times overcomes the sense of public interest—is a loyalty to departmental policies, which is quite out of place, especially in the strength it has reached in certain Departments. It is understandable, no doubt, that civil servants working, perhaps, for a longish time under a particular Minister may develop some emotional involvement in his policies—it is difficult to avoid this —but I do not think anything like enough has been done to maintain the detachment necessary in this regard. There is a serious defect here and there is a very marked difference in attitude between civil servants in Britain and those in Ireland in this regard. The problem exists in Britain too; this overriding of the sense of detachment is at times marked there but, nevertheless, it is a more marked problem in this country than in Britain and, at times, it is carried to a degree which is offensive to the public interest.

We have had cases of this recently which I think myself deplorable. We have had the Secretary of the Department of Education, speaking on behalf of the particular policies of a particular Government in regard to the restoration of the Irish language, and putting them forward as his own with a fervour which is quite out of place in a civil servant whose job it is to maintain detachment. We have had something of the same character on the part of the Secretary of the Department of Agriculture, giving a press conference himself to attack a farmers' organisation, on his own account with —for some odd reason—a phone call from the Minister arriving in the middle of it. The Minister for Agriculture is quite entitled to call a press conference but this is not the job of a civil servant. I think also there has been a case of the Secretary of another Department, I think of Lands, doing something similar and these are cases which should not happen. It is not the job of a civil servant, under any circumstances, to defend policies of a Government; it is his job to serve that Government loyally while maintaining his detachment so that when the Government changes—or indeed when the Minister changes within the Government — he will have no difficulty in continuing to do his job equally loyally. It is not always easy to maintain perfect detachment but I do not think that the standard of detachment attained in the Irish Civil Service today is as high as it should be.

This has begun to show itself recently in ways which are undesirable. I would hope that something will be done to prevent this trend developing, which is so undesirable. It extends from that to the whole question of the loyalty of Departments to past policies. We had an example in the Department of Industry and Commerce where the former Taoiseach, and former Minister for Industry and Commerce, did himself revise his ideas on protection in 1957. He left the Department subsequently but the Department was firmly loyal in its whole outlook to protectionism for a few years before that, even though the former Minister had himself a different policy. This kind of loyalty to past policies certainly shows a lack of detachment. I think this needs to be said and it is something to which this Commission of Inquiry should have regard, as to how it can ensure the continued detachment of the Civil Service so that it does not become too involved with the policies which it has the task of administering.

There are also other questions which, perhaps, are more appropriate to the Constitutional Review Committee—the lack of appeal from decisions of Ministers and civil servants; the absence of any administrative tribunal or Ombudsman. I must say I could not agree with the view of the Minister for Finance, put forward by the Secretary of his Department in his absence, that there is no problem whatever in Ireland as regards appeals by the Minister or civil servants because you have the public representatives who can undertake this work of making representations. That attitude is totally inappropriate; the extent to which public representatives' time is given up to making these representations detracts from his other duties and, instead of relying on this, encouraging this development and making this an excuse for having no system of appeal from decisions, we should be trying to reduce the area in which these activities are at present carried out and replace it by a system that will give protection against arbitrary decisions. The present system provides no guarantee that arbitrary decisions will be reversed, because representations can be made simply by TDs, even from the Minister's own Party. I think the Minister's defence of it, in a speech given on his behalf, is something I could not agree with.

In conclusion, the Minister has himself inherited—not inherited but has now been put in charge of—perhaps the greatest Department of the Irish Civil Service. He has a great opportunity there; he is coming in at a good time. Serious mistakes have been made; damage has been done, but the work of retrieving it has started and he has an opportunity of benefiting by coming in at a time when things are likely to improve rather than to disimprove and when, under his guidance—if it is efficient and effective, and with the help of the Department which, as I have said, is perhaps the most effective Department in the Civil Service—he can achieve a lot. I hope he will learn from the mistakes made by his predecessor, now Taoiseach, during whose term of office the financial and economic situation of the country deteriorated with such unfortunate rapidity. It will need the Minister's qualities of quick-wittedness and nerve to make a success of the Department. I genuinely wish him well, I hope he will have regard to some of the situations to which I have adverted in this House and that he will come to grips with the problems of planning, to which his predecessors have not given attention, as a result of which we have now got into difficulties that we must face up to.

Ós rud é gurab í seo an chéad uair ag an Aire sa Tí seo, ba mhaith liom fáilte chaoin a chur roimhe agus guím rath Dé ar a chuid oíbre sna blianta fada atá roimhe sa phost sin.

I listened to most of the remarks made by the speaker from the Front Bench on the other side of the House. I must say I was amazed and astonished at the effrontery and brazenness with which he sought to put across to this House his long sentences about the woe and gloom which, in his opinion, were facing the Government and the country in general. He reminded me of the man long ago whom they called O'Hanrahan who could always see a dark picture no matter what was on. It is amazing that a person of his education and calibre should be so foolish as to think that the ordinary people of this country are not well aware of the general position of the country at the moment.

Inside the past fortnight or three weeks the Government floated a loan of £25 million which was fully subscribed within three days. We also had the two recent by-elections and, despite the fact that we on this side of the House would concede that things were not as well as we would like them to be—and indeed the Opposition knew this quite well and to their credit they pulled every trick out of the bag but again this did not work—we won them in very convincing style. That in itself, apart from the success of the national loan, is sufficient evidence for anyone who cares to see it, that the majority of the people have unshakable confidence in the Fianna Fáil Government and Ministers. Indeed, it is not only in the past few by-elections, but ever since Fianna Fáil were founded 40 years ago, by virtue of the sound foundation upon which they based their policies and continued to pursue their policies for the betterment of the nation and individuals, the people who are very keen and shrewd judges have, on almost every occasion, returned Fianna Fáil to power.

Indeed, it is sad history now that on two occasions Fianna Fáil failed to get the necessary majority. We are old enough to remember the first Coalition Government which took office in 1948 with a great fanfare of trumpets. They were ushered in as the new deal for Ireland. In their composition, from the very beginning, they were doomed to failure because that Coalition was formed behind the backs of the electorate by many groups who came together with one object only in view —to ensure that Fianna Fáil would not take over the reins of government. At that time the American Government gave Marshall Aid to this country and the then Minister for Agriculture is on the records of this House as boasting that he spent £5 million of borrowed money overnight. That was used to buy wheat which was being produced in this country, and which was giving employment to the people who were producing it, and keeping down the price of bread.

Deputy MacEntee spent £24 million of it.

This £5 million was spent on importing a commodity that we were capable of producing, and were producing. It was spent because the then Minister for Agriculture was never in favour of the Fianna Fáil policy of growing wheat. Indeed, he is also on record as saying that wheat and beet and peat were gone forever. That £5 million is part of the burden that any Minister for Finance must face because the principal and interest have to be paid back. Opposition members seldom mention solid facts such as these. They deal only in the field of borrowing and the squandermania which took hold of them because they had not got the sense of responsibility which was needed. They lacked that, and in less than three years they were out of office. Again in 1955 they came back in, and at that time they had an overall majority of 14.

Why did the people put them back then knowing what they stood for?

Strangely enough the people did not put them back. They came back as usual behind the backs of the people.

Senator Sheehy Skeffington got back by the skin of his teeth only this time. He is very lucky to be here.

An Leas-Chathaoirleach

Senator Dolan on the Appropriation Bill.

At that time they had an overall majority of 14. Again, they parcelled out the Ministerial posts and for a time, according to them, everything in the garden was rosy. Then, in typical Fine Gael fashion when things were not going so well, when we had 95,000 unemployed——

There were 143,000 unemployed one year.

——and 1,800 houses vacant in the city of Dublin, and the boats full of people emigrating, and no credit whatever available and, indeed, in some instances, county council employees having to wait for months for their justly earned wages——

In County Cavan.

The Senator will have to stand over that.

I shall stand over any statement I make.

How many months had they to wait for their wages?

When I make statements they are solid facts. Cheques were issued in May and not honoured until November. I can produce the evidence. A local paper which is not too friendly to this Party——

They are good judges.

That black year which we remember the same as we remember the year of the famine. Black 1956 when you people were in office. You should have it written in front of you.

You never equalled our housing record. That was the year we built the houses.

That was the year you left the houses vacant in Dublin.

We built houses.

The people were not there to take them. They were flying out because there were no jobs, and there were 95,000 unemployed. That is part of your record. At that time Fine Gael dominated the Coalition and they were able to find some excuse about the Suez Canal or something else. Of course, if the price of cattle dropped at present, if an excuse such as that were used by this Government it would not be in order, but it would be quite in order for a Fine Gael dominated Coalition to use it.

Try Vietnam.

An Leas-Chathaoirleach

Deputy Dolan on the Appropriation Bill, without interruption.

He will do me no harm. He will help me along.

Contrast that with the position today. Contrast that with the confidence the people have had in good, sound, honest Governments since 1957. They have returned a Fianna Fáil Government in office because they knew that it was a Government that clearly knew where it was going and had a well-defined policy, not policies taken out of the hat by Fine Gael on the eve of an election, one on agriculture and another on education. Their muchvaunted document on a Just Society had not a single word regarding an education policy.

Read it. That is nonsense.

Is it not true that when they were challenged by the Minister for Education they were unable to produce a single page in it relating to their policy on education?

Page 29.

If you do not like facts that is a matter for yourself, but you will sooner or later have to come down and have some sense of responsibility in dealing with the ordinary people of this country, who are highly intelligent and not going to be fooled by gimmicks such as were dangled out on the eve of the elections. Indeed, Fine Gael should have been wise enough—though where the wisdom is in Fine Gael is hard to know—to try to benefit by their past mistakes from 1932 onwards, because every time they were in office here they were clamouring to have a general election and every time they got it they were losing seats. The last time they were to get a gain of 22 and now they are in a much worse position than in the last general election. Is it not time for them to do their homework and not try to hoodwink the Irish people, who have their feet on the ground and know exactly what is sound talk and what is sound efficient government and what it means as far as they and their families are concerned? Fianna Fáil has always been straight with the people from the very beginning, and if taxation was necessary to put the finances in order they have never been afraid to put these points to the people and stand over them. The difference between us on this side of the House and those on the other side is that they like to be in office when times are good but then if anything happened and any problems arose either internal or external they immediately bolted out and ran to the country, and indeed abandoned office as they did in 1957 when they had 14 of a majority.

Why did Deputy Lemass go?

He told you why he went. He was quite straight and honest about it. He said it was for political reasons. I will stand over it. It was an excellent statement from the man who did most to build up industry in this country, and gave us an industrial arm which will be a credit to him and to the country for years to come. He was, indeed, the industrial architect of the Fianna Fáil Party who provided the factories we have dotted over the length and breadth of Ireland from Dublin city down to the most backward places. There is no county that has not benefited enormously from that policy pursued by Deputy Lemass and his Government. That was the policy of trying to provide an industrial arm which would absorb the surplus people and provide for them in their own country somewhere where they could work for a weekly wage and not have to emigrate.

In the beginning that policy was scoffed at. It is on the records of this House that responsible Fine Gael people and others have boasted that the rabbits would play around Shannon Airport. Indeed, it was amusing some years ago when I was down there myself on an invitation given to Members of the Oireachtas, to see the number of Fine Gael Oireachtas Members who were there. I wonder did they have their eyes fully opened when they were there. What thoughts were in their minds when they saw those monuments to the efficiency, the dedication and the policy of Fianna Fáil?

They passed the Shannon Scheme en route.

In trying to provide employment for our people it is not alone in Shannon but indeed in every town practically in Ireland that there is some evidence of the worthwhile thinking and careful planning and execution of a policy which has given a better standard of living to our people as a whole, and a policy which has tried to provide work for our people. We have always been down to earth in that regard. We have never tried to hide anything from the ordinary public, and we have never been ashamed or afraid to go out and face the public and put our policy in front of them. We do not do it on the eve of the elections. We have done it over the years and we have backed up our plans and programmes with work and concrete facts that the ordinary citizen can see for himself. The evidence of the progress made under Fianna Fáil Governments is to be seen in the thousands of new houses all over the country. Every hilltop in Ireland has on it evidence of the progress made under Fianna Fáil Governments. We provided these amenities for our people, and indeed every time since we came into office we have always tried to provide better and better amenities for our people from one year to another. We have improved the roads beyond all recognition compared with those of 1956 when the road fund was raided to pay other moneys, and we now have the big highways that were criticised. Very few people realise that the plan for the Irish roads was drawn up in 1945, and it is to the Fianna Fáil Government that the credit must go.

In our towns and cities the evidence is there for anyone who wants to see, the better houses, the disappearance of the slum dwellings, and the creation of better homes for our people which has been our aim. We have persisted in it ever since and will persist until we are quite sure that every family has a decent home in which to live and rear its children.

And the people in Griffith Barracks.

We faced these problems, and the irresponsible stand of Fine Gael has never paid any dividends, and the people of Dublin know that.

They are there still.

Fianna Fáil have stood for probably 15 elections since 1932 and on all but two occasions have swept Fine Gael out of existence. The Governments that were formed after those two elections were disastrous so far as the country was concerned.

When we have tackled, as we have, this question of housing, naturally our eyes would go abroad to try to provide better facilities for educating the people of this country, and that is exactly what the Fianna Fáil Government is doing at present and has been doing over the years. We have been trying to replace hundreds of dilapidated national schools and other schools by new buildings, sanitary places where the sons and daughters of the people of Ireland will get a fair chance of giving themselves a good education so that they will grow up as better citizens, better able to enjoy the increased standard of living we have provided for them. In the last year as far as I can recall, quoting from memory, we built around 112 new national schools and reconstructed 34 or 35.

An Leas-Chathaoirleach

Before the Senator goes into too much detail on the question of education the Chair would like to point out that there is a motion on the Order Paper in regard to education, and the Chair understands that this will be debated at the first sitting in the New Year and the Minister for Education will attend. Now while it is not out of order to discuss education on this Bill, it is suggested that it would be more profitable to leave detailed discussion of education until the discussion on that motion, and to confine remarks to the general administration of the Department of Education.

I was merely pointing out that under Fianna Fáil Government we provided a number of new national schools last year as we did year after year. We also ensured that dilapidated schools were renovated and repaired and we provided for those new and improved schools a sufficient number of good teachers to carry out the curriculum laid down. We spent £1 million on the new training college at Drumcondra. Indeed, in every sphere of education, Fianna Fáil Governments during the years have been consistent in their endeavour to improve progressively the educational facilities and to provide the finances with which to carry out that improvement.

We built the new comprehensive schools and we have embarked on the first phase of a plan which will ensure that all children, irrespective of the financial position of their parents, will be able to avail of post-primary education, whether it be secondary or vocational. That is a tremendous advantage for which the people of the country are justly thankful to Fianna Fáil.

Those who have been telling us we should do all those things forget that they cut the grants to secondary schools by 10 per cent and to vocational committees by 5 per cent. All these are salient facts which must be considered when we discuss education. We know such a programme costs money and we have been always straight with the people. The others say this can be done through buoyancy but the people of the country are not fools and they do not imagine that things like these can be done by waving a fairy wand. The people are sensible and they know the money must be found if services are to be improved. We improved the services and the people are rightly thankful to us.

Our efforts in the field of education particularly will be a tremendous boon to our people, to those who remain at home as well as to the few who emigrate. There will always be those who wish to emigrate, possibly because they have relatives abroad or possibly because they like to travel. Our educational system now and in the future will ensure that when some of our people go abroad they will not go as unskilled labour: they will have the advantage of good post-primary education and will be able to take up decent jobs.

Why was that not thought up 40 years ago?

It took us a while. We had to get our priorities right. We had to build houses for our people. Forty years ago the position in regard to housing was deplorable.

You had not advanced very far in Trinity 40 years ago.

It is easy to make such interjections. It is also true that because of the poverty-stricken state of our people then the provision of work to give our people the bare necessities of life was a top priority.

They were driven to England in thousands.

One million went.

An Leas-Chathaoirleach

This Bill should be debated speech by speech rather than by way of conversation.

There are no greater experts on emigration than they are. They sent 95,000 people out during the last year of their administration. They know the position better than I do. In 1932 things were in a deplorable state. Few had the financial ability to give post-primary education to their children. Secondary education was far from the minds of most of the people in the country who had not the money to pay for it. It is grand now because of the increased standard of living: people now have the definite hope of being able to send their children to post-primary schools. Fianna Fáil do not look to the past but to the future: they think of children yet unborn and they are now endeavouring to provide the facilities which will give to these children a decent standard of education even where parents are unable to do so because of their financial status.

It is not alone in the field of education that Fianna Fáil have effected a strong policy. There is the matter of health which has always been a thorny problem as far as the poor of this country were concerned. In the past the fact that people had no money was a deterrent. Sickness strikes most families now and then and it was because of our concern about this and about the health of the poorer sections of the community that Fianna Fáil brought in their health scheme. There was much opposition to it when it was being piloted through the Oireachtas and, indeed, afterwards it was very often difficult to get local authorities to adopt it. In many areas it has not yet been fully adopted.

That health scheme was designed to give to our people a health service that would ensure nobody would die because he was financially unable to pay for medical attendance to keep him alive. In providing that health service we had to tackle the problem of building new hospitals. There are many new hospitals now dotted all over the country, some of them built when TB was raging and when it was the lot of many people to go in and die from that disease. Fianna Fáil changed that and in my county the new TB hospital built in 1946 has long since been turned into an ordinary medical hospital because the number of people suffering from TB has decreased to almost nothing because of the policy pursued by Fianna Fáil. Do the Opposition ever really advert to the change which has taken place since 1957 in this country alone? From the official figures we know the population has gone up. Usually the population goes up in a country if things are going reasonably well and if people have faith in the Government in office, their plans and how they are carrying out their programme.

I believe the majority of the people in this country have tremendous faith in the Fianna Fáil administration. That has been demonstrated on many occasions since then in a very telling fashion. It is true, too, that emigration has dropped and that it is down now to a matter of 12,000, whereas in 1957 it was running at 95,000.

The figure for the 12 months ended December was 32,000.

There were 95,000 going out of the country——

——without any hope of returning. Indeed, they were so despondent, not alone those who left but those they left behind them, that it took two years to instil into the people that confidence which is associated with Fianna Fáil Governments.

Business suspended at 1 o'clock and resumed at 2.30 p.m.

Ós rud é gurab í seo an chéad uair don Rúnaí Párlaiminte, an Teachta Davern, sa Tí seo ba mhaith liom fáilte a chur roimhe. Tá súil agam go mbéidh sé againn le fada an lá.

Before lunch I was referring to the fact that our policy on education had been extremely successful. Regarding our programme for building new schools, each year since 1957 we have stepped it up. Even last year we were able to say we had built 114 new schools and made 93 renovations. That was in respect of national schools where our target was 100 each year but we also have a proud record in the field of post-primary education. We approved a scheme totalling £7 million so far as the building and renovating of secondary schools is concerned. I should like to contrast that with the record of the Opposition while they were in office in regard to education in general.

We are now at the stage where we can offer the people of Ireland facilities so that every child will have a chance of pursuing his education beyond the national school. Nobody will be denied access to a vocational or secondary school by reason of the fact that his parents are not financially able to send him there. We are glad to have reached that stage and we know it is of great benefit to the country as a whole.

In the field of social services more than anywhere else you can pinpoint our success. If one Department can be said to be better than another it is certainly Social Welfare that might reasonably claim that record. Every piece of legislation designed to improve the lot of those less fortunate members of the community has been successfully piloted through the Dáil and Seanad during the terms of office of the Fianna Fáil Government. Many of these were designed to give better working hours and better working conditions to the workers. We were always gravely concerned to ensure that the workers would be well treated. In the jobs which we strove to provide for them we hoped they would be given conditions of employment and remuneration which would be fitting.

For that reason, this Government introduced half-days, limited the number of hours of work per day, and so on. We provided suitable insurance for the worker during unemployment or sickness. Those were tremendous advances. Anyone who cares to examine the record will find that unemployment assistance in 1956 was only 12/-whereas it is now 33/- for a single man.

In the field of old age pensions, in particular, there is a vast improvement. We all realise that old age pensions are given on a means test and irrespective of whatever Government is in office this has been the yardstick adopted. For reasons other than financial we feel it has always been the duty, and should be the duty, of children to make some little contribution towards the upkeep of their parents in their old age. For that reason, all down the line old age pensions have been kept on a means test basis. Old age pensioners are increasing as the years go on and the success of our social policies, health schemes, and so on has helped to push up the average age of people in this country. Therefore, the number of old age pensioners are also on the increase. In every year since 1956 practically we increased the old age pensions. In one year alone we gave an increase of 10/-. It is interesting to contrast that with the sorry performance of the two Coalition Governments.

As Senator Garret FitzGerald went back to the 1920s, perhaps I might remind him that the Government, in their desperation in those days when people were less well off than they are today, were brazen enough to take one shilling off the old age pensioners.

Why go back to that now?

We never made any promises to the old age pensioners. We have endeavoured to stand behind them. We never indulged in this shadow boxing by Fine Gael.

What percentage of those old age pensions did that 1/-represent?

Yes, ten per cent. In those days the old age pensioners had only 10/- and 1/- decrease was a serious blow to them.

The Parliamentary Secretary has intervened to ask the Senator a question. Is this normal procedure? Perhaps the answer could be extracted from the Senator.

In the experience of the Chair Senators ask other Senators questions. Senator Dolan, to continue.

The Parliamentary Secretary is a welcome guest but he has sought specific information which he has not yet been given.

I have given it. I said the old age pension then was 10/-.

Deal with the bridges and the public buildings. Give us the whole story. My only concern is that the Parliamentary Secretary should get the information he requested.

I have given an answer.

Senator Dolan.

I know it is hard for people to listen to this but these are bald, undeniable, salient facts that they know cannot be contradicted. I could travel over the other fields of Government policy but I shall refrain from doing so except to say that some mention was made here regarding our efforts to get into the Common Market. It is something that has engaged the activities of the Government for quite a long time. We all believe that if we were able to attain this it would be an immense help to the people of this country. But it is not as easy as people may think to get there and while suggestions may have been made from the other side that we should go into the Common Market on our own it is well to remember that if we were granted those facilities, which is doubtful, it is also quite true that under the Rome Treaty we would have to increase our external tariffs and that would have serious repercussions as far as our trade with Britain is concerned. This is something we would not be prepared to face.

Since 1958 a very worthwhile expansion has taken place in this country in all spheres. Some time ago we ran into some difficulties regarding credit liquidating and a reversed balance of payments et cetera but we now know these things are almost righted and that there has been a £20 million improvement this year. The national loan was a vote of tremendous confidence in the Government. The sum of £25 million was subscribed in three days. Let us contrast that with the £12 million loan issued by the Coalition Government. I think they got £4 million. I suppose it was the only time a Government loan was not subscribed to in this country. Usually the ordinary investor with the money is very shrewd and wise and knows whether the Government in office are serious or can take the business of Government seriously. We have always considered it a serious affair and not just a whim as the Coalition seemed to think it was during their term of office. They have been paying for that ever since.

It is also significant that the Central Bank instructed the other banks to release £10 million credit. Those are all pointers towards the expansion which we should all like to see taking place. We have always endeavoured to provide not alone better living standards but employment for all our people if at all possible in this country. That is the reason why we always took the line that people would leave the land and there is no doubt about it they would leave particularly areas along the western seaboard where the holdings were uneconomic. It was only reasonable to expect there would be a great deal of emigration from those areas. While we would concede that, we would like to be able to provide for these people in other areas of our country employment in the industrial sphere. For that reason we launched our industrial programme which was scoffed at and scorned by the Opposition in those days but which we now find to be very useful for absorbing many of the people from the small farms of Ireland. They can go into this mushroom of Fianna Fáil, as it was then called, but now it is very much praised by practically everybody and very much sought after by practically everybody. There is some hope of securing employment. We would like to see a situation such as that develop for the benefit of our nation as a whole and for the benefit of the individual. Bit by bit, as our exports increase our expansion will be stepped up more and more as will be the money we will spend on social services, education and so forth.

Industrial relations are something we all must give some thought to. We would all like to see good relations between employers and employees. In this respect I feel that the managements and the trade unions can play a very big part. I have always held the belief that it is good for a person in industry to be in a trade union. I am a member of one of the oldest trade unions in Ireland. I have found it very useful in trying to deal with grievances for certain sections. That is what the union is for. We also realise that in many unions, at least I have experience of one, there does not seem to be the same co-operation or understanding between the union boss and the individual worker. There is room for better understanding in that respect. It would also be fair to say that a union is a useful thing to a member and, in return for being a member of that union, the worker could expect that the union leader and the boss would give him a fair return for the subscription he pays.

It is true also that management—in factories, industries et cetera—have in the past more or less cut themselves off from the workers. I am glad to know that that position has changed immensely. It is time now for the benefit of the country as a whole that both unions and management should be able to get down and hammer out some scheme which would give a reasonable amount of security in the years ahead. It would be good for the management; they would know they had the wholehearted co-operation and dedicated service of their workers. Indeed, there are very few industries in Ireland today in which those people are not skilled workers. Management would have highly skilled personnel to manufacture their goods and help to sell them on competitive markets abroad. This would result in benefits which would accrue to our nation as a whole.

It is something that will be achieved eventually, I am sure. Anybody coming in here from outside to establish factories is very welcome. Such people get Government grants in certain areas at the moment. We would like to see more factories established here in order to keep our workers at home rather than have them seek work in foreign lands. At the moment there are 500,000 people unemployed in England and that may not be such a rosy place for our workers to go in the future. For that reason we should ensure that conditions here will be such that we will be able to attract industries from abroad. It seems to be the only way to absorb the surplus labour which may be released from the land. The workers should be treated well in this new set-up, because the worker is a responsible individual. He has to be a highly skilled man at present. A fair amount of legislation was introduced by Fianna Fáil to protect the worker from the point of view of his rights. If more is needed, it will be introduced willingly. For many reasons it is essential for him to get a fair deal and understand and be conscious of the fact that he was getting a fair deal.

The same applies to management. It is true that management should expect, in return, that the worker would give a fair reward for the money he is paid, would take an interest in the business and realise that the success of the business would ultimately reflect itself in his own success. It should be possible for union and management leaders to get together and hammer out a formula which would have those very desirable effects. If we can get those at the top to understand the worker and the worker to know he is getting his fair share of the remuneration for his work this will help enormously.

If any endorsement was needed of how the Government are doing, if any yardstick was to be used to measure the success of the various Government policies down the years, we have only to look at the results of the elections and the way the ordinary people of the country turned out to support—by their votes and their money—the policies we have been pursuing. That is a fair indication of the confidence the people have in the new Taoiseach and in the ability of the Ministers. We put our programme to them zealously and sincerely have we tried to implement it. We have let the clear light of day in on all our activities in so far as the public are concerned. We were straight with them and did not try to dangle any policies or bits of policies before them the day of an election expecting them to swallow them hook, line and sinker.

We would, naturally, like to be able to do better. We admit we are human but at least we have done a reasonably good job. The country must be satisfied we have done that. Whether or not Fine Gael claim a moral victory, that is a type of victory which does not create governments, or does it convince very many people in regard to the sincerity of their efforts.

The Appropriation Bill, as I see it, provides us in this House with one of those rare opportunities we are afforded of commenting, in general terms, on Government policy. In effect, of course, this Bill is really the instrument of implementation by which to put into effect what the Government has already put before the people in the Budget, and the implementation of the Government's financial and economic policy. I do not propose to detain the House very long on this subject because enough has been said in the last few weeks about the global subject of economic policy to give anybody sufficient food for thought and reflection. I hope, indeed, it has served to do precisely that for the Government. But, if we go back to the budget of 1966, I do not think anybody—looking at it objectively — could describe it as anything less than an abject confession of failure on the part of the Government. It was a confession of failure to carry out any of the grand promises of the Second Programme for Economic Expansion, to which so much weight was attached; it was a confession of failure to foresee any of the economic difficulties into which the country ran over the past year or 18 months. It was also a confession of their failure to give any real or positive direction to the economy, by way of any well thought out economic planning.

I do not blame the Government for endeavouring to put the blame for that failure on various external circumstances. Naturally, our economy is affected by outside circumstances, as is that of every other country that has any contact at all with the world beyond its own borders.

Is the Senator aware that the 10 per cent imposed by the British Labour Government did adversely affect the economy last year?

It was just one of the factors not foresee by the present Government. But the point I really want to make is that it is noticeable that in the good years — when the economy is running well and when we seem to be advancing side by side with the other countries in Europe on the economic plan — we hear very little about the effect of external influences. In those circumstances, we are led to believe, from time to time, that all the successes are attributed to wise government, wise policies and a far-sighted view on the part of a benevolent Fianna Fáil Government. I am submitting that the Government cannot have it both ways. They cannot claim credit when everything is going well, and repudiate responsibility or shirk the blame when things go badly.

I suggest that the Government should shoulder at least their own share of the responsibility or blame for what has gone wrong over the past year and a half. No matter how bad the circumstances are, people will be prepared to make allowances if they are told honestly what the facts are. On this aspect the Government have fallen down very badly. They have endeavoured by devious means into which I do not propose to go in detail, to shift the burden of responsibility to all sorts of other circumstances and other reasons, including the extraordinary trade difficulties which as we all know the whole of Europe has run into.

On other occasions we heard Government spokesmen attributing a lot of the responsibility to the workers for daring even to ask for their proper share of the country's prosperity — if we can call it prosperity — and for asking for a fair return for an honest day's work. We are told they are being unreasonable or unrealistic, a term which is used only too often. The Labour Party for whom I speak this afternoon, for a long number of years past have always looked to the employment situation as the surest and safest guideline by which we can attempt to assess the success or failure of Government policy from year to year.

I want to advert to one aspect of this problem this afternoon. I make no apology for applying that standard here today, because I believe this is the most critical issue facing the country. What are the facts? The facts are that the employment situation at the moment is very, very grave. Let us face it. I do not say that in any effort to score any point over the Government, but in a serious attempt to bring home to everyone concerned — and particularly to those who are charged with the direction of our economic affairs — that their failure to provide more jobs has created by far the most important problem which faces us in 1966 and, indeed, which will inevitably face us in 1967.

Over the past five or six years the overall employment has begun to grow little by little. It is true that that progress was very much slower than any of us would have wished, including the Government I am prepared to admit. It is also true to say that it concealed both a continuing and an increasing flight from the land. At least there was some small improvement in the overall situation recorded over the past five or six years. In the past year or year and a half that situation has undergone a striking change for the worse. Overall employment during 1965 decreased by 7,000. In plain words that means that 7,000 fewer men and women were in employment in 1965 than in 1964. Even the Government admit that by the end of 1966 we shall probably see a further decline in employment with somewhere in the region of another 4,000 fewer people at work.

These are the harsh realities we have to look at squarely if we are to be honest in any assessment of the present economic situation. What a contrast that is with the promises and rosy prospects held out to us from time to time in Government speeches and various Ministerial announcements. More serious still, what a contrast there is between these figures and the targets set in the Second Programme for Economic Expansion which actually visualised an increase in employment of somewhere in the region of almost 8,000 per year. We should recall — the exercise might do us some good — that that Programme was written in 1963 only. Far from there being any increase in the employment figures between 1963 and 1966, so far as I can estimate it — and I do not think the figure can be very much out — we will probably have lost another 10,000 jobs by the end of this year. I do not call that economic expansion. I do not call that any advance on the road to prosperity. It is time the Government started to talk in plain language in figures like those, and tell the people precisely how we are doing in those respects.

May I ask the Senator what the population of this country was in 1956 and in 1966?

If the Parliamentary Secretary does not mind I shall make my own speech.

Maybe the figures might be unkind.

Maybe they might, but they are there.

Unkind to the Senator, I mean.

There is one other fact which we must bear in mind also. All this has been happening over the past two or three years. All this has been happening before we have felt the first of the cold winds of competition which we all know will be facing us once we take the plunge into the Free Trade area. Lack of employment, as I see it, means far more to the ordinary man in the street than any grandiose figures of national income, balance of payments, capital formation, or what have you. If we refer back to the last Budget, as I have tried to do, I do not think we will find even one sentence in that financial statement which refers to this problem of employment — not one sentence.

That failure to provide employment is reflected again in the failure to curb emigration. Again, taking the same base, if I may call it that, the Second Programme for Economic Expansion envisaged a progressive reduction in emigration to a figure of some 10,000 per year by 1970. Here, too, we seem to be progressing backwards. In 1962 emigration stood at 21,000, and by 1964 it had risen to 26,700. In 1965 is rose still further to 27,300. I understand from the figures quoted by Senator FitzGerald that it is now running even above the 30,000 mark.

A long way from 35,000.

That may be, but the figures are there and that particular problem is a very real one. Why have the Government failed to achieve the targets they set themselves in the First or Second Programme for Economic Expansion? We in the Labour Party say that they have failed, and we have tried to point this out ever since the introduction of the Economic Programmes, because they contented themselves with setting targets and offering inducements — more often, indeed, to the wrong people — but they have not taken any positive action whatever to provide a detailed economic plan or to ensure that such a plan could or would be put into effect. They were quite happy and content to coast along blithely on the backwash of economic conditions as long as they existed in Europe when everything in the garden was then described as lovely, and they were hoping that by some freak or force of nature or otherwise they would eventually achieve, or nearly achieve, their economic targets. But we in the Labour Party say that the policy — indeed I should describe it as a lack of policy — worked just as long as the country could rely on favourable external conditions, but as soon as those conditions worsened the so-called economic plans were revealed for the sham they are.

In our view one of the most important features of economic planning should be a fair incomes policy, and we have heard an awful lot of talk about the desirability of following a fair incomes policy over the past few years. The Government themselves appointed a commission to go into this and other aspects of our economic problems some years ago, and the report of the National Industrial Economic Council sponsored by the Government actually contains not alone advice but a firm instruction, if anything, that an incomes policy was necessary, and that any workable incomes policy must be applied to all and every section of the community. We are entitled to ask have the Government accepted that advice. If they attempted to do so can they produce any evidence to show anybody that they were prepared to take that advice seriously? I do not think that the evidence is there, quite frankly. Yet this year again we have the old story from the same Government that an income policy is necessary, but while they talk in these terms they apparently consider only one section of the community in that context, and these are the workers.

Earlier on this year we were told from various Government platforms that the workers would have to be content with a three per cent adjustment in their wages this year. I do not know how many Members of the House realise precisely what three per cent means to an average worker, but can you visualise it being applied in the case of a man with £10 a week, to whom it would give 6/-, or a worker with no more than £8 a week to whom it would give 4/9d? That was the type of incomes policy our Government consider necessary and desirable to implement.

The Government's own figures show that by June, 1965, the workers were four per cent worse off in terms of the real purchasing value of their wages than in June, 1964, and yet they had the effrontery to suggest to the trade union movement earlier this year that it should limit its claims to three per cent. I shall not labour this aspect of the situation. We all know what has occurred in the past 12 months. One thing is quite clearly emerging from all this, and that is that the Government are still without an incomes policy even though the Government and all their advisers say with one voice that we need it very badly. I conclude my reference to it by asking, when are we going to get it? We seem to be a long way off it at the moment, to say the least.

We had heavy taxation imposed in the last Budget, much of it, perhaps, necessary. I do not have to tell anybody in this House that each of us and each of the thousands we represent will obviously feel the pinch of that burden. The Party which I speak for have always said and always stressed that we have no objection to the imposition of increased taxation. We would, in fact, advocate and encourage it, provided that we can be satisfied that the money it raises is being spent to good purpose. Even last year and in the early months of this year we recall that many people for whom we speak felt quite willing to pay the extra they were being taxed either for the necessaries of life or for the small pleasures they might get from time to time because they felt that the money raised through this and other sources was going at least to pay for decent increases in social welfare benefits to those who needed it most. This year, I am sorry to say, we have not quite the same consolation. Does anybody suggest that that money has, in fact, been utilised for that purpose? I do not think that can be said to be true, particularly when we look at the plight of the people who were promised 5/- a week in November this year, the majority of whom find now that they are not going to get it.

The Budget was not, of course, all taxation. It also carried some reliefs though they were not very great and I would describe them as pathetically small. The 5/- a week I referred to will only give a small fraction to pensioners. Even then we are now told that many who expected it will not receive it at all. There was nothing in the Budget for the contributory pensioners and the non-contributory pensioner, and in fact it did not apply at all to the man who has even a shilling or two a week.

How did it compare with a Labour one?

Labour have not yet had an opportunity to bring in a Budget in this country, but we hope that that will be given very, very soon. If we could do no better than the last one we might as well pack up.

You were part of the Coalition and you packed up.

We are still a long way from a fair and just social and economic policy. That is the point of my speech. There were other minor reliefs in the Budget which must be written up on the credit side. There was relief of income tax for children over 11 years of age but there was absolutely nothing to help a man on a low wage with a large family who represents the overwhelming majority of the people. The other small reliefs consisted of a belated effort to put right some of the more glaring injustices perpetrated in the Budget of the previous year and the one before that.

However, without dwelling too long on what we might call the minor aspects of the problem, the worst feature of this year's Budget was that it was totally negative. Additional taxes may solve some of our immediate problems, and apparently that is the hope of the Government, but we have been given no hope whatever that things will be better by next year and no indication that any new policy will be introduced either to increase employment and production or to increase exports; and there to my mind is where the Budget stands totally condemned because it offers no prospects whatever for our people. Unless this Government take a positive lead we may be in the same sorry mess next year if not in the year after, and I put it squarely to the Government that if ever there was a time when this country needed this lead now is the time.

If we are to take up some of the speakers on behalf of the Government who claim they have been given a mandate so to lead, I say: "Right, lead from now on". They have not been leading up to now. That is clear and definite.

I should like, if I may, to refer to one other matter. The previous speaker alluded to it and that is why I am prompted to do so. He referred to a lot of the trade union representatives and he spoke of the responsibilities which rested on them in this situation. I do not think anybody can accuse the trade union movement in this country of being at any stage in its history, recent or past, lacking in responsibility. I say this country is deeply indebted to the foresight and courage of the men and women who laid the foundations of the trade union movement here. I do not think it has ever been found lacking in leadership or responsibility when the call for leadership and responsibility was made. Something struck me from one of the references of the last speaker who spoke of trade union leaders and trade union bosses. I do not know whom he was alluding to. I am a trade union official in my private capacity but I can assure the House I do not regard myself as a boss.

That is the trouble.

I know 1,700 people who do not regard me as a boss. Perhaps that is the trouble but I am daring to hope that nobody on the Government side is thinking in terms of interfering with that situation. I should have liked in the course of the debate to refer to the legislation now pending to deal with certain aspects of the trade union movement. I shall not do so. I know my place. We have problems in the trade union movement. We are facing up to them in the only way it can be done — by normal democratic process. That is the only way by which these problems can be solved. They cannot be solved by bosses either inside or outside the trade union movement. The only bosses inside the trade union movement that I know of are the rank and file members of the movement itself. They are the bosses: they are the people who define policy and lay down the line for us every time as to how we are to go about it and achieve it.

The Government are to be commended for the step they took this year in appointing a Ministry of Labour. I have not had very much contact with the Ministry so far but I have met some of the officers and I think there is hope here that through the officers of that Ministry we shall see a better relationship emerging between the executive, the trade unions and, let us hope, through a process of education and enlightenment, the employers. We are moving in that direction. We may be moving slowly — of necessity it is bound to be a slow process — but we are moving and if we are left alone to handle the job in the only way we know it can be handled, it will be handled properly.

With that I can see hope for the future. In that sense I am glad to offer commendation to the Government on the one enlightened step they took during the past 12 months and for which they deserve every credit. I intended to welcome the Minister in his new capacity back to the House. Having said that, I urge him to throw off the lethargy and indifference of the Department which he speaks for now in the House so that something may be done about the problems to which I have referred. The Minister has brought to the Department a young and I hope a fresh and progressive mind. That should be of considerable use to him and it should provide some promise to us of a more dynamic, a more vigorous and a better approach in general to a solution of some of the problems I have alluded to. If it does it will earn the Minister the undying gratitude of the section of the people I represent.

We have been told by speakers from the other side that the Government have no policy or practically no policy. It is a very easy thing to say; it is a general statement and it takes a good deal of speaking to correct that mistaken attitude that the Opposition try to effect in a debate like this. Senator FitzGerald said we had no policy on social welfare. We have a policy and we have always had a policy on social welfare and that is to improve the standard of living. I do not think it requires any economic phraseology to speak about our knowledge of social welfare. Perhaps that is Senator FitzGerald's grievance. He would be able to tear our policy apart if it was phrased in economic phraseology.

Our aim is to improve the standard of living and to make those people better off in real terms. We have gone a long way to achieve that over the last ten years. The case of the old age pensioner is usually taken because it is a simple one and one everybody understands fairly well. In 1954 when Fianna Fáil were leading the Government the old age pensioner was getting 21/6d a week. The Coalition came in and there was a Labour Minister for Social Welfare. I am quite sure the old age pensioner looked forward to better times when that change was made. However they might have liked those parties personally they probably thought they would get more than they got from us. They got 2/6d in three years. That is actually what they got.

This means that they had 24/- in 1957 when we came along. If we had done as well as the Coalition Government, composed of Fine Gael and Labour, they would now have 31/6d. Actually, they have 52/6d, so their incomes have more than doubled during those years since the beginning of 1957. At the same time, the cost of living has gone up almost 40 per cent. It has gone up between 39 per cent and 40 per cent. Therefore, it can be claimed in economic language that the old age pensioner is 60 per cent better off than he was. He has 60 per cent to spend on items he was not able to spend money on in 1957.

What about his real income?

I am talking about his real income. It went up by 100 per cent and the cost of living went up by 40 per cent. Therefore, his real income went up by 60 per cent.

In practice that is not so.

Practice may be different from figures in the Senator's view. I am talking about the real figures that are there. I am quite sure that if a Fine Gael and Labour Coalition were back again and if they gave a 100 per cent increase and the cost of living went up by 40 per cent they would claim in real terms that the old age pensioner was 60 per cent better off. When we have figures we should accept them.

In addition to that, during those ten years a scheme of contributory old age pensions was brought in. Under that scheme the person got 60/- a week, which is better still. The old age pensioner before the contributory pension was brought in, if he had a wife under 70 years of age, got nothing as far as she was concerned. He would still be on 52/6d. A man with a wife, under the contributory scheme, gets 92/6d a week. Those are very substantial improvements in the lot of the old age pensioner at least. I do not want to go through the whole lot. The old age pensioner is better off than some of the other categories. There are also some other categories which are better off than he. He is an average case.

I now want to refer to unemployment assistance. The unemployment assistance people, as Senators are aware, are getting many more benefits than many of the other categories. At present, for instance, the unemployed man who is in receipt of unemployment assistance, gets 39/- a week. He gets 52/6d if he is drawing unemployment benefit. Admittedly, the rate is low but when we were leaving office in 1954 that person had 18/- a week.

The Coalition Government, with Fine Gael and a Labour Minister, thought he was all right. After three years in office he was still on 18/-. He got nothing at all. He was left as he was. I am quite sure the Minister considered all those cases very carefully. He may have been restricted with regard to finance but he certainly considered them all very carefully and for some reason he left the unemployed person as he was. He was left the same when the Coalition went out as he was when they took up office.

The unemployed person is now on 39/-. This, again, is more than twice as good as he was. Therefore, small as it is, he is 60 per cent better off in real terms. The case is often quoted of the person on home assistance with a wife and two children. He was getting 38/-at the time the Coalition took office and at the time they went out. He is now getting 92/6, which is a considerable improvement. In the case of children's allowances no improvement was made at all. They were left as they were when the Coalition came in. Some improvements have been made there since. The first child in a family now gets 10/- and the second one 15/6d instead of 11/6d. The third and subsequent child gets 26/6d as against 17/6d. The thing that always puzzles me about the Opposition Party is that in spite of what Fianna Fáil have done in giving more than twice as much as they gave, taking the time factor and the cost of living into account, they always criticise us for not giving more. I can only conclude that they honestly believe we can do more than they did. Of course, events have proved that. There is no doubt about that. It would also appear that the members of the Fine Gael Party and the Labour Party are much more sympathetic to those classes when they are in Opposition than when they are in Government. The social welfare classes are beginning to see that. They are beginning to say to themselves: "It is better to leave them in Opposition. They are fighting our battles better there than they would in Government." It is well to see that the social welfare classes are getting a bit of sense.

Fine Gael, of course, state that the social welfare classes want a better chance and they promise to do something. Every time there is a by-election they come out with a new policy. They do this an every such occasion. They say it will not cost money. They say it can be done out of buoyancy. The Labour Party take the same view. Although we have over the last 10 years in practically every Budget given more to the social welfare classes, the Labour Party have voted against giving us the money to pay those social welfare benefits. The Labour Party try to make it appear to those people that if they had control of the Government they could do a lot better than Fianna Fáil. They feel they know a better way.

On the question of buoyancy the Minister for Finance probably could have a glance at what the buoyancy has amounted to in the last ten years and what amount of it is due to increased taxation. There is one form of taxation in which there has been no increase, and that is income tax. The standard rate of income tax is the same as it was when we came into office in 1957. We reduced it for some time but it has gone back for the last couple of years and it is now the same as it was. We gave better allowances so if we had not given those better allowances we would have been getting more out of income tax than we got. In 1956-57, the amount received in income tax was £22 million. For one of the latter year the amount was £63 million so almost three times as much is received now as was received in 1957.

Senator FitzGerald said we were not facing up to our obligation in the social field generally. By that, I take it, he includes health and education as well as social welfare. I went down to get the figures and as far as I could make them out for these services I find that from 1956-57 up to the last year they went up from £45.3 million to £96.3 million so that we are actually providing now more than twice as much as was provided and put into the Estimate by the Coalition Government in 1956-57.

That may not be considered sufficient by some of the members of the Opposition parties but if Senator Garret FitzGerald will give it some consideration he will probably conclude that it is as much as could be done out of buoyancy during the last ten years. As Fine Gael are going to finance these matters out of buoyancy in the future they will not be able to do any better. That is all I can say. We are providing, I believe, a marginal difference in percentage for these social services as was provided ten years ago. It has gone down from 46.4 per cent to 45 per cent in the estimates on expenditure.

If we as a Government had to provide more money for another service with taxation included for that, I do not see any point in saying we should have given a percentage of that additional taxation to social welfare. For instance, in these ten years if you take the agricultural grant and the agricultural department the percentage for expenditure was increased from 12.8 to 23.8. That had to be made up somewhere. A lot of the expenditure of the Government, such as salaries, and so on, is difficult to reduce, or make savings in, and if there is a big increase in agriculture it is too much to expect that we should provide in addition to that a certain percentage for social welfare.

The agricultural grant has gone up from £5 million to £8.5 million. That is a grant, as Senators are aware, for the relief of rates on agriculture and the Vote for the Department of Agriculture, which is mostly composed of subsidies and grants for agriculture, has gone up from £7.5 million to £43 million.

The National Farmers Association are not satisfied that the Government have done enough and I would like to say that I have a suspicion, in fact, more than a suspicion; I have rather a conviction, that if this were another Government they would not be half so hard. I was in politics in Wexford in the 1940s and there was an Opposition there in 1918 which was called the UIL or AOH and as time went on we had farmers' parties in County Wexford. They were members of the Dáil. These Parties ended by becoming Fine Gael and other Parties came along and the same thing happened. The people who composed these Parties were always the same. We had the position in 1918. The Blueshirts came along and you had the same thing. Now, you have the NFA.

I was talking to people from Wexford a few days ago and I said I could name the NFA members in their particular parish. I named the people who were against us there and they are all in the NFA. We have, therefore, this problem which is certainly anti-Government. I have always been in favour of a representative farmers' association and I expressed this opinion very often when I was Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries. It would certainly make things easier for the Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries if there was a proper representative organisation to speak for farmers no matter what politics they held, especially an organisation that would try to work with the Minister rather than against him. Naturally, they would disagree with the Minister often and would be dissatisfied very often but, even so, there is no reason why they should not help their own members of any benefits were coming to them from schemes which emanate from the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries.

I was talking to a few small farmers the other day near my own place who were coming away from an auction where they had been taking land on conacre. They told me they had to pay £20 per acre for that land. They said they had to make a living out of that and they could not understand the big farmers coming out blocking the roads with combines and machinery. They had good sized farms costing them around £3 an acre taking the rates into account. It is hard for a small farmer to understand that.

There is one thing which is very reprehensible on the part of the NFA — their attempt to stop the payment of rates. They tried that before and they ended up ignominiously. They are doing it in a different way now because they have advice from members to pay merchants' bills above all. These bills should be paid but there is no reason why a farmer should be under any greater obligation to pay a merchant than to pay the county council. The merchant depends on him for a living and they are mutually dependent on each other. The county council has also to be looked after; it has to keep up health services, sanitary services, and so on, and it would be a great mistake if the county council were to fall down on its obligations because of a movement to stop the payment of rates.

The NFA profess to have a great interest in the small farmer. The small farmer of £10 or £15 valuation with 15, or 16 acres of good land is obliged to pay a rate of £3 15s. at present. They need not cry over him. He is all right. Even if he has £20 valuation his average rate would be £7 10s. That is not an awful lot. I do not think, therefore, that they need profess such great concern for the small farmer while, at the same time, trying to induce their members not to pay rates.

Senator Crowley talked about the employment question. He said that the number employed is going down. An explanation is due in that matter if there is not to be a misunderstanding. Those who are going off the list of the employed are people living in rural areas. Any of us who came from the country know that 20, 30 or 40 years ago there were any amount of men all through the rural areas who had not got constant employment. Any farmer who remembers those times will tell you that 30 years ago he had no trouble whatever in getting three or four unemployed people to help him in the busy season. That was quite common. That is not the case any longer. The people who lived in the country at that time has a very miserable existence. They are no longer there. They thought it well to look for employment elsewhere. Therefore, on the rural employment list the number is going down every year while the number of people employed in industry is going up.

I had a personal experience which is worth mentioning in this connection. Whenever I came to threshing in my place I required 20 or 21 men for the day. Up to some years ago, say 10 or 12 years ago, there were always about 30 men there I could pick from. I had a certain amount of pity for the eight or ten I could not take because they stood around for another hour or two hoping that something would happen and that I would want them also. In the end they had to go away. They had nothing to do for that day or maybe for a good while after that. That is not the case today. Not a single man comes when the threshing is on now looking for a job. I have had to resort to the expedient in the last few years of threshing on a Saturday when builders and others have their day off and can come to give me a hand at the job. So the fact that all these people are going from the countryside is not a real fall in employment. They were only partially employed and very poorly employed at the best.

There is one thing I think farmers should examine here. Farmers are not employing as many people as they did because they have labour saving machinery now. Their output is a little bit higher than it was some years ago, just a small bit higher. They work with fewer men because they have the machinery. In the most recent years that I examined the output of agriculture and the average earnings of everybody employed in agriculture, agricultural wages and so on, I found that the average wage of people employed in agriculture was actually higher than what the agricultural labourer was getting. That made me think it should pay farmers to employ more. The farmer would get a better return, more than he paid the man in return for what he pays him and production would go up. The farmer would at least have the satisfaction of employing a man or two more. Labour saving is, of course, necessary where we are looking for productivity but it can be overdone and it may become a fetish with some people. Where the employment of labour would give a better return, naturally people should be employed.

Reading the paper this morning, I saw that a firm which has got a great deal of notoriety — I think that is what I would call it — here, namely, Potez is likely to start work again. We have been severely attacked on the Potez proposition. I heard the Leader of the Fine Gael Party saying that the Government should have been more careful in their selection of people of this kind. Of course, one could be more careful. One could be so careful that nobody would be let in unless he put down a deposit of £1 million which the Government could take if anything went wrong but if you are going to encourage industry a certain amount of risk must be taken. When the First Programme for Economic Expansion was about to start, I met the members of the Industrial Credit Corporation and the members of the Agricultural Credit Corporation. In both cases I said: "You will have to adopt a liberal policy. You are not to be conservative, because if you are too conservative I would not need you at all. The ordinary commercial banks would do the job. You may make mistakes but if you do it cannot be helped." If they make a mistake in the overall percentage of money spent in this way the amount is very small and there may be nothing lost at all.

During the time of the last Coalition Government the Wicklow mines came under notice. The scheme for taking over and working the Wicklow mines was eventually published and the Government made a big fuss about it. It was supposed to be one of the biggest things that ever happened in this country. The day I read this in the paper I was making a speech down the country. I expressed some doubt about the whole proposition. I admit I had not examined it very fully. I got a lot of indignant letters and two of them were from good followers of my own who said I was political in my comment on this proposition. It went on anyway. My criticism did not stop it. Eventually I became Minister for Finance when it came into difficulties. We had to supply a great deal of money for it. I did not like to be too short with it because I had been critical of it before and it might be thought I was prejudiced. Therefore, as Minister for Finance, I probably carried on giving it money longer than I should have. It also was a mistake if you like. Any Government can make a mistake, even the Fine Gael Government, and goodness knows they were tight enough about money.

When the first Coalition Government came in in 1948 one of the things they stopped almost immediately was the grant for mineral exploration. It was supposed to be one of the Fianna Fáil extravagances. My recollection is that about £70,000 a year was spent on mineral exploration. If that grant had been allowed at that time and the exploration carried on, we might have known a bit more about the Wicklow mines than we know, but it is possible also that we would not have known an awful lot.

Senator Crowley charged that we have no planning in this Government. He said that there was no detailed economic planning. I wonder what does the Senator want. Does he want us to say we are out for a certain type of production? Does he want us to say we want production in a certain place, where there is unemployment or what does he want us to do in regard to this economic planning? We, in the Fianna Fáil Party, believe in private enterprise. We have departed from private enterprise on more than one occasion and would be prepared to depart from it again if there was an enterprise needed by the country. We believe, anyway, in private enterprise and that it should get a fair chance. Our policy was based on that for the last ten years and we met with a fair amount of success. After all, any production will need to be disposed of, to be sold on the market. The fact is that our exports are going up. They have gone up fairly well over the past ten years and, even this year, have gone up very well, so we are finding a market for the output of our factories. When I talk about exports, I mean exports of manufactured goods as well as those on the agricultural side. Therefore, that is one sign that our policy has been successful.

Senator Crowley also asked whether we had an incomes policy. He ascribed one to us all right before he asked us had we one, but he tried to prove that our incomes policy was devoted entirely to keeping wages down. I have not got the figures here, but I know that wages have gone up faster since 1957 than they did for many years before that when Coalition Governments were there to do something about it. As we pointed out again and again, there can be no increase in income — whether it is wages or any other type of income — from management, shares or anything else, unless there is an increase in production and, preferably, of course an increase in productivity. If any section were to succeed in getting a bit more than that rule would allow them, then somebody else must take less than a real income; their cash income may not be brought down, but the resulting inflation and increased prices will reduce their real income.

I spoke about increased population. As far as emigration is concerned, there has been an increase in population since 1962. That, of course, as every Senator knows, is the first time it has happened since the great famine of 1847. Senator Crowley spoke of the 7,000 in the rural areas. I shall not go back to that again because I have given my opinions on it.

That is all I have to say at the moment but I should mention that attacking the Government, as it has been attacked by those speakers—on the basis that we have no policy here or there—will not get us anywhere. It is not a very generous sort of attack and it is not easy to deal with unless by way of a long thesis.

I should be inclined to agree with a certain amount, at least, of what Senator Ryan has been saying in criticism of the inter-Party Government when they were in power. I first came into the Seanad in 1954 and found myself sitting with a Fianna Fáil Opposition, and facing a Government composed of Fine Gael and the Labour Members. I would give it as my opinion that Fine Gael have never been what I would call a progressive Party. Fianna Fáil, on the other hand, were a progressive Party—up to 1932, when they first got into power; even at that, they were more progressive up to 1927 than they were from 1927 to 1932.

The Senator has a great memory.

An awkwardly good memory. I remember, for instance, when Senator Dr. Ryan, as Minister for Finance, was here before the Seanad, and heard me accuse all the Parties as being conservative Parties. He said: "Yes, it is true we are conservative". They are all conservative Parties, and I am sometimes afraid that this applies almost as much to the Labour Party as to Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil. This, of course, is one of the troubles. The difference between two or three shades of highly conservative Party policy does not really make much difference to things like unemployment, emigration and so on. Therefore, although it is true, I think, that Fine Gael are attempting now, not merely to change their image but to change their policy and to evolve a positive and more progressive policy under the impact of some of their younger members, I think those same younger members would be astonished if they were to go back and read the Seanad Debates, for instance, in 1954 and 1955 and note the kind of things being said then in the Seanad by Fine Gael and Labour Ministers in response to Fianna Fáil Opposition criticism. If I were to quote one or two such speeches, it would be impossible to guess from what was being said in defence of any action, whether it was a Fine Gael, a Labour or a Fianna Fáil Minister who was speaking.

Senator Dr. Ryan has just referred to the Avoca Mines. I think I was the only Member of the Seanad who suggested that the way in which the inter-Party Government were setting about this and the way in which they were, in the Dáil and Seanad, fully supported by Fianna Fáil, was the wrong way. I was assured on all sides that this was the prudent way; only Canadian money was involved, et cetera. If you go back to the debates then, you will find that it was not a measure opposed by Fianna Fáil in the Dáil. I remember somebody on the Government side threw out the challenge to Deputy Seán Lemass—“do you want us to develop them in a socialist way then?” and his answer was strongly negative to that; it was apparent that the only difference he wanted was Fianna Fáil to be in power to do the lending of the money; lending of money, incidentally, which was done on the sole security of the mines, which had been rented from the Irish community, an absolutely astonishing set-up, even viewed from the totally capitalist point of view accepted so unanimously by the two big Parties and, all too often, by the Labour Party also.

I remember Deputy Gerard Sweetman, when he was Minister for Finance, saying that he regarded this debate as something of an "information please" debate. It tends to be a little heterogeneous and one can raise a number of points here and this is, in a sense, our only opportunity for so doing. It would be nicer if we had individual Estimates to deal with, but we may be forgiven, I think, for raising a number of matters not necessarily interconnected.

Senator Garret FitzGerald made a point I should like to support; that is, it is high time—and it may well be that the Government agree with him on this—the Government made a policy decision on the question of equal pay for equal work. I do not want to elaborate on that, because the arguments in favour of it were made very cogently by Senator Garret FitzGerald, but it is quite obvious that if you want a wages and salaries and incomes policy, at least in all equity, and also from the point of view of commonsence, it should be based upon equal pay for equal work. It is not always seen that to pay women less for the same work and the same qualifications is in fact to displace men workers and drive them away, with the consequences which Senator Garret FitzGerald pointed out.

On the same kind of topic, I notice that there are great complaints about a shortage of jurymen in the Irish courts. It has always seemed to me— and I made this point before here— that not merely should women be called for jury service on the same terms as men, but that prisoners in the dock and accused persons, whether they be men or women, have the right to be tried before a jury made up of men and women. This is not so much an equal right for women to serve on juries, but an equal right of men and women to be tried by balanced juries. That is a point upon which the Government might well make some small progress.

Some time ago this Government tried to abolish PR and found that the people did not want it abolished. I have a feeling that subconsciously this has had an effect upon another PR, upon their public relations, because in many instances of late their public relations have left something to be desired. I know they have just won two by-elections and they have every reason to feel rather pleased about that.

Hear, hear.

I do not say that was an easy things to do. While most people expected them to win one seat, I think that winning the two of them was something of a surprise. Consequently, they have the right to feel that perhaps their public relations are not all that bad. Nevertheless there have been unhappy instances of failure in this field. I am glad the Minister is here, because I want to refer to one in which he was concerned: his refusal as Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries to meet a depution of the NFA.

I accept the Minister's statement that he had received many deputations from the National Farmers Association during the previous year, and frequently before that. I do not accuse him of persistently refusing to meet them but when I, as a city dweller, see a well-organised group and an apparently pretty well nationwide organisation marching to Dublin in an orderly way and producing in Dublin a highly disciplined public demonstration, without a single incident of a disorderly nature, and requesting that a deputation of half a dozen be received by the Minister, I feel—and I think it is necessary to say it in the presence of the Minister—that it is extremely bad public relations not to say quite simply, as any county councillor would say, or as any ordinary hospitable Irishman would say: "Come in. Tell me what you have to say. Will you have a cup of tea? I am prepared to listen to what you have to say. We will give genuine consideration to it. Good afternoon. Thank you for calling", instead of saying: "I will not see you. You are trying to take over the whole Government", and so on, winding up with the particularly futile exercise of finally seeing them after all, seeing them with the then Taoiseach, with the Taoiseach to be, with the then Minister for Agriculture, and the future Minister for Agriculture. Would it not have been far more sensible to see them in the first place?

I do not suggest that the Government are under any obligation, because the demonstration is orderly and disciplined, to accept anything that is suggested by the farmers; because the Government may have information and may have a policy which would prevent them from agreeing, and they might well be right. I am simply suggesting that it was a clumsy piece of public relations to refuse to see them. It would have been far better to see them in the first place. In other words, the general principle of being prepared to discuss matters of policy with a responsible organisation is something which I think the Government should be very eager to accept.

It is quite possible, of course, that the small farms policy of the NFA is quite wrongheaded. It is possible that the day of the small farm in Ireland is over, like the day of the small shop. It is quite possible, under the economic pressures of our private profit system, that both will be abolished. If they are to disappear I, personally, would prefer to see the small farms being replaced by a co-operative farm movement than by a great private landowing enterprise. The Government, of course, and I think Fine Gael also, have a marked preference for private enterprise in this as well as in other matters. It would seem to me quite possible that Government policy might not legitimately permit them to accept what the farmers wanted, and what they were trying to get. If the small farms are to disappear. I should like to feel that the Government will have some community policy on this matter and not simply be content to hand over again to the growing and increasingly large landowners.

This question of public relations leads me to the very sensitive reaction on the part of the then Taoiseach to several perfectly orderly pickets on the Oireachtas, on Leinster House. I personally, as a member of Seanad Éireann, have no objection to seeing people outside the House or to being handed leaflets as I come in. I noticed that the way in which the Government reacted then seemed to suggested that we in both Houses were in some way a cut above those people and could not be picked or handed leaflets. I say, why not?

What is the purpose of a picket?

There may be quite a variety of purposes. It may be to prevent people from going in to work.

Precisely.

Or it may be for the purpose of drawing attention to a legitimate grievance. I am not averse to having my attention drawn to grievances and to judging for myself whether they are legitimate or not.

The Senator passed the picket.

Certainly. I am quite unafraid to pass a picket of this type. I talked to some of the creamery people and the telephonists.

You are totally dishonest.

It is the duty of Members of the House to be in the House. Obviously it is here that we can do something, if we can do anything.

You are totally dishonest.

No. I differ from the Minister.

You are trying to have both sides.

I do not think there is any dishonesty about it. I suggest that these pickets were there for the purpose of drawing attention to certain grievances; and to have those people arrested, fined, put in gaol, then subsequently to wipe out the fines, and so on, is not my idea of an honest policy. I am surprised that the Minister should use the word "dishonest" when it is so likely to boomerang.

You are trying to have both sides. It is typical.

In a free society if you try to slap down completely on the expression of the opposition's point of view, you are trying to have only one side, but I prefer to see both sides.

You want to support the picket and pass it at the same time.

The pickets as I saw them made no attempt to try to dissuade Members of this House or the other House from coming in here. If they had I would have rejected this request. I regard that as my free right. But my interpretation of the purpose of these pickets is not the same as the Minister's.

This question of preventing the other side from being stated and seeing only one side and being proud of the fact, and calling this an honest point of view, leads to my next point, which is the question of how much the Government have a veto on what can be said on Telefís Éireann or the sound programme. We in this Seanad passed an Act which empowered the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs to veto, by giving instructions in writing, any item or any portion of a programme if he thought fit. This power was given by us, and the Seanad may remember that I moved an amendment to delete this subsection. This was not accepted. The Minister at the time, Deputy Hilliard, assured us that he had no intention of using this power, but that it might be necessary in order to prevent a crisis with a foreign power, somehow or other to prevent an item being broadcast. Despite a lot of support for my point of view that this was a dangerous clause, it was written into the Act.

I do not contend at all that the Minister has no right to make representations to Telefís Éireann. Any Minister, and I think any citizen, has the right to make representations, and I do not suggest at all that the Minister in question in making representations acted improperly. But I do suggest that the final arbiter should be the Authority or the Director, who should have had the courage if necessary to say: "We will issue these two news items at 9 o'clock or 10 o'clock as we did at 6 o'clock, putting the point of view of the Minister first and the point of view of a responsible organisation second." In fact the Director or the Authority decided that it would be wiser to say that the initial publication of this news item was an "editorial error", and although no written veto was in fact presented, as the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs would have had a right to do, the then Taoiseach told the Dáil that he regarded the Government as having collective power and responsibility pretty well to say what shall or what shall not go out in our broadcasting system.

I need not mention other related incidents, but I feel again here that the Government's public relations are not quite as good as they might be. I have a sort of feeling that they are over touchy and a little bit too big for their boots; and it might be as well if they remembered that they should be subject to criticism and that sometimes the receiving of criticism may have a salutary effect, even though they feel in their hearts that they are completely right about everything.

On the question of Posts and Telegraphs, it has often puzzled me—and this may be due to my entire innocence about matters financial—when I noticed that Post Office savings can now get 3½ per cent interest but that a Government loan is issued at 7½ per cent. The Minister, I am sure, can defend, this dispoint of view, this difference, this discrepancy, but my question is, why should we allow people who subscribe to the loan 7½ per cent, when the ordinary man or woman in the State who puts a few pounds, or up to £500 or whatever it may be, into the post office can only be given 3½ per cent? Both are forms of loan. It is true that the post office makes the loan pretty readily available, and one might understand a difference of a half per cent or even one per cent, but this is an enormous difference. Can administrative costs really explain the difference between 3½ per cent to the small lender in the post office and 7½ per cent to the bigger lender, the subscriber to a Government loan? I may be revealing my financial ignorance——

Apart from anything else there is freedom from income tax.

In the post office?

Does this make much difference to the post office savings-account holders?

Two per cent, which brings it up to £5 8s per annum.

There remains another two per cent, however, which is hardly explainable by administrative costs.

Withdrawal.

I should like to hear the Minister later in justification of this, but I would suggest that the availability for withdrawal and the actual withdrawals do not demand such a big difference between what is paid on a Government loan and in the post office savings bank.

You can use your capital, but on the other hand if the Senator had subscribed to some earlier Government loans he would not be very happy.

Perhaps, but similarly there is the possibility that the person who deposits £100 in the post office will find that it will be worth £49 or less, due to inflationary trends.

Who are you weeping for? A man with £100 can put it into the National Loan as well as the post office.

I am not weeping at all. I am asking a question of the Minister. There are no tears in my eyes, but I shall probably come to that a bit later.

There is another matter, and again I think that the Minister for Finance is the person to do something about it, and that is this question of the pensions of State servants. In France, which I know very well, they have an equalisation system for pensioned public servants which they call péréquation, which means that when civil servants' salaries go up, pensions go up by the same proportion. I do not believe that there is any argument in equity against such a system. It is quite obvious that if the Government reach the point where they feel that it is necessary and justifiable to raise the salaries of active civil servants, of civil servants actually in function — this points is only reached, I would suggest, after it has been very fully demonstarted that it is necessary — but when it is reached, and it is deemed valid and equitable to raise the salaries of existing civil servants, then obviously the retired civil servant should have his pension similarly raised by the same proportion. It is obvious that any rise in the cost of living falls even more heavily upon a man and his wife living on a pension. I put this before, but I remember Senator Dr. Ryan, then Minister for Finance, telling us how difficult all this was and how impossible it would be. I ask the question again, why can the Government not grant parity to the former pensioners? Why are they being victimised? I realise that they cannot go on strike, and they probably cannot have pickets, and they cannot demonstrate in the streets, because most of them are elderly men and women. Many of them are dying off, and this saves money every year. It is shameful, however, that these former public servants should not be given what is transparently their due, their right in equity.

It was stated in a letter in the Irish Press today by Mr. W. Pollock, one of them, that pensions of public servants have gone up in the last seven years, if my memory is correct, by only 14 per cent while the cost of living has risen by more than 30 per cent.

In talking about the public servants and pensioners in France, the number of public servants in France, and even the proportion of public servants to others, is far greater than here, because in France every primary and secondary teacher is a public servant, and every retired teacher comes under this scheme, and consequently the number of public service pensioners is much greater than it is here.

I should like now to turn to a point with reference to the Department of Justice. This is a matter that I raised in correspondence with the Minister for Justice, and it was a case which seemed to me to warrant attention. It was a case of a Dublin taxi driver who went down to Moate for the weekend to join his family. He got himself rather drunk, made himself objectionable in a public bar and arising out of some complaints by somebody the local gardaí drove to his home in a car, arrested him in his home and walked him to the garda barracks. I do not know in what state of incapacity he was, but I suggest he was either very drunk, in which case he might have been driven in the police car, or the police car was left outside the man's home because he was not incapable of walking. I assume therefore that he was not all that drunk since they walked him to the barracks.

They walked him to the barracks without holding him, and he fell on the way, according to police evidence. This was witnessed by some people but many of the witnesses abruptly fell ill before the inquest and submitted medical certificates to prove that they were not fit to come and give evidence. After the fall, the man was brought to the barracks, attended to to some extent, and then was brought back to his home and left there to die; and he died there, and there was most distressing evidence of what took place before he died—he was crawling around, hitting his head against the furniture.

The coroner thought his death was the result of the fall and that this was entirely accidental. There were no questions as to why some of the witnesses did not appear or might not have been able to appear at a later, postponed inquest. My personal feeling is that the circumstances in which the man died have not been adequately investigated and I draw attention to this case, because I am not satisfied that an inquest should be thus conducted, in which several witnesses submit medical certificates and in which there are circumstances such as, for instance, the gardaí driving up in a car to the man's house and walking him to the barracks, which seem to me to merit public inquiry.

The next point I wish to mention arises out of something to which the Government have given their approval and their help. It is An Taisce, the Irish National Trust, and the exhibition which they held, a view of Dublin, an admirable exhibition. My only regret is that the exhibition could not be given a more permanent form. The purpose of it was to show what is being done in Dublin, what can be done and what should be done. Beautiful photographs were shown, and an excellent and carefully prepared series of maps of what is being demolished of our architectural heritage, what can be and should be preserved, and in some cases, I am glad to say, what is being preserved, and what can be developed. A good deal of attention was devoted to matters of improvement—the suggestion of a linear park along the Grand Canal, for instance. There was a question also of the future of Sandymount Strand and of Stephen's Green.

My reason for mentioning it is that I know there is Government interest in such matters, because many prominent Government representatives were at the exhibition and gave it their support. Bord Fáilte also gave it great support, and so did other organisations. However, I should like to feel that the Government are actively concerned to preserve not only Dublin but also other parts of the country, other buildings, and to prevent them from being, in the worst sense of the word, "developed" into complete architectural anonymity.

Some people blew up Nelson Pillar not so long ago. I have no brief for him and I would cheerfully have seen him replaced by somebody more intimately linked with our history, like Wolfe Tone. So he could have been, if our authorities, central and municipal, had been sufficiently interested for the last forty years. However, some people—a person or persons unknown—blew up half the Pillar and the Government blew up the other half almost before there could be any suggestion that possibly this relic of early 19th century Dublin could be preserved.

Quite a number of people say O'Connell Street is better without it, mainly because cars can travel more easily. That is a Philistine point of view: too many people in Dublin are prepared to accept the utilitarian as against the aesthetic point of view. There was a suggestion, though no official pronouncement, that certain republican elements, were determined to remove this symbol of past depotism, but what they have done is to render O'Connell Street even more like Birmingham or Nottingham than it was before. There is only the GPO left of the gracious O'Connell Street. The rest is an aesthetic horror. If one looks at the neon lights and the garish shop fronts one becomes aware that the removal of the Pillar brought us aesthetically one step nearer to the meaner cities of Britain. I am afraid, consequently, that the Philistine point of view is too prevalent, and I trust I am not over-optimistic in expressing the hope that the Government may intervene actively in other parts of Dublin against what Jonathan Swift called the "Yahoo" spirit. "Yahoo", of course, is not a foreign word: it is one invented in this city. The idea of the modern Yahoo is to wipe out anything provided you can show there will be more parking space, or greater capacity for commercial and industrial development.

I come now to the question of education and I am deeply conscious, a Leas-Chathaoirligh, of your expressed hope, which I think a reasonable one, that we do not dwell at too great length on education because we shall have an opportunity in the not too distant future of going into the whole question. There was some reference to it nevertheless during the debate, but I shall cut mine to the minimum. Senator Dolan seemed to be quite satisfied with Fianna Fáil's educational policy so far. Queen Victoria in 1900 raised the school leaving age from 13 to 14 years. So far, neither Fine Gael nor Fianna Fáil have gone ahead of that. I do not know whether Senator Dolan regarded Queen Victoria as a progressive queen for having raised the school leaving age to 14. I do not know whether he regarded that as a mark of progress, but is it a mark of progress to have kept the school leaving age at 14 through all the years of Fianna Fáil power, through all the years of the inter-Party and of Cumann na nGaedheal before that?

I do not think we can be very proud of what we have done in the field of education. I realise, and I am prepared to pay full tribute to it, that there is a genuine effort now at a new policy which we shall be debating in the not too distant future. I am prepared for the present to accept that at its face value. I am not prepared to sneer at Fine Gael either for having an educational policy which also happens to be progressive. More power to both the big Parties if they will join at last in one progressive policy for education. There is one point, however, which I want to mention, because I have a certain document relating to it. That is the question of the new comprehensive schools. My suggestion is that possibly they are not as democratically controlled as they might be. I had occasion to write to the Minister arising out of information which reached me, to ask him how the headmasters of the three new schools were appointed. The Minister's secretary had, in fact, written to an enquirer to say that the headmasters were fully qualified. He was referring to a particular school but this applied to all of them. "Fully qualified under the published conditions." Those are the words from the Minister's secretary's letter. I wrote to the Minister because I wanted to know what the published conditions were, because it had been suggested to me there were no qualifications mentioned at all. The Minister wrote back to me and said:

I have looked back into the position and find that in advertising the post of Headmaster in the three Comprehensive Schools (Cootehill, Carraroe and Shannon) it was decided to leave the field wide open and not specify any particular qualifications.

There is something a little bit odd in stating that the headmaster appointed to a particular school was "fully qualified under the published conditions", and then to find the field was so "wide open" that no qualifications of any kind were specified. I think the House will realise that in such a case it is easy to be "fully qualified under the published conditions". There were no qualifications specified. The Minister goes on and states:

There was no formal application form. Each candidate was left to write himself up. A translation of the advertisement for the Cootehill post is enclosed. The other two were on the same line. The applications were reviewed by the Board of Management of the school concerned and I understand that the practice adopted by each of the Boards was to draw up a short list of the most likely prospects among the candidates and those were then called for interview by the full Board. The Board then submitted a recommendation for the Minister's approval and the man so recommended was, in fact, appointed in all three instances.

I should like to ask whether in fact in those three cases there were any short lists for interview. I have had it said to me in the case of at least one of them that there was no short list and no interviews. The Minister was kind enough to give me the list of the names of the full board in each case. The full board in each case consist of three people. They consist of a chairman, who is a local parish priest in each case, a representative of the local vocational committee, who is the chief executive officer in each case, and in each case a representative of the Department of Education, a senior inspector and in one case a secondary school inspector. This is the full board. I would rather question the appointment under an advertisement which defines no qualification at all, which does not ask for a degree, or any kind of a certificate, but curiously enough, in relation to salary, says there will be an allowance "in respect of an honours degree". Yet, you do not have to have a degree at all to get one of those posts.

I do not want to make accusations in those cases, but I do want to suggest that there is a danger of justice not being seen to be done, if this type of method is employed for the appointment to the headmastership of those new, very important types of schools, the comprehensive school as the term is understood by the Department of Education. Accusations of favouritism, or at least of non-democratic procedures, are obviously possible in such circumstances. The Minister has in fact received a letter dated the 17th August, 1966, from a private citizen who applied for a vocational teaching post on a previous occasion. He did not apply for one of these posts, but he says in his letter to the Minister—I will quote from a copy of his letter to the Minister:

A Reverend Chairman of the Committee who knew I was a candidate for a vocational post told me the qualifications needed. When I told him I had these he stormed and said: "Mr. —— is getting the job." This he said eight days before the closing date for applications. When I pointed out that this man was not qualified he stormed: “As long as I am Chairman of the County —— Vocational Committee he will be appointed.” He was appointed and sanctioned also.

This letter has presumably been in the hands of the Minister since the 18th of August, if we can rely on the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs. I feel that the way in which this kind of post is advertised, first of all, and then filled, does not guarantee that we shall see justice to be done, whether in fact it is done. I do not want to say anything more about education. I would prefer to reserve what I wish to say for a later occasion.

Before the Senator proceeds, has he made any inquiries into the political affiliations of the person concerned?

I have not. There are some pieces of further relevant information I have been given but I have not had an opportunity of confirming them. I should prefer to reserve them for later.

Do you want to go back to the time when you had to produce a Fine Gael card before you were appointed?

We will deal with that later on.

They are both birds of passage. Let them have their say.

An Leas-Chathaoirleach

I think anything else Senator Sheehy Skeffington has to say in this regard might be left over for the motion on education. It would be more appropriate for that occasion.

I was already about to depart from this subject. The Minister mentioned birds of passage. Earlier on when I, perhaps not politely, interrupted, he said I had only got here by the skin of my teeth. In fact, in 1965 I was the first Senator declared elected to this House, and at the head of the poll.

They put you out the last time.

They did, indeed, but it is not correct to say that this time I got here by the skin of my teeth.

The Minister talks about birds of passage. He is a bird of passage. He flies from one Department to another.

The Senator is a bird of passage. He was defeated in the other House.

Charlie is our darling.

I would remind the Minister and the House that this is the Upper House, and any suggestion that a person falls in any way by rising from the Dáil to the Seanad is very much resented by all of us and has no justification.

The other point I want to mention does not arise directly from the question of education but it has a link with it. It concerns mainly the Department of Justice, and it arises out of the Mansion House meeting of the Language Freedom Movement. I do not know whether I am the only Senator who was at this meeting from start to finish. I was in the gallery and witnessed the whole event. This, of course, is linked with some of the things we will have to say later about the whole Irish language policy but we will leave that for the moment.

I thought it was I sad thing to see the way in which the opposition to the callers of the meeting was organised. It is not very easy to judge how many people were present but it is certainly true to say there were at least 1,400. It is certainly true to say that the centre aisle and both side aisles were absolutely crammed with people. When I say crammed, I mean that if somebody had fainted he could not have got out.

(Longford): It may be like the Fianna Fáil Árd Fheis.

I wonder whether the rest of my description will also fit the Fianna Fáil Árd Fheis. Like the Fianna Fáil Árd Fheis, where apparently nobody wanted to get out, because I presume nobody at the Fianna Fáil Árd Fheis would want to get out when speeches were still being made, but at the other meeting in the Mansion House if anybody had fainted or wanted to get out for any reason, there would have been a panic situation. The chairman of the meeting, Mr. Wheeler, says he went outside and asked the Gardaí to come in to help and that they refused. This I find disturbing. I noted that at the beginning of the meeting, immediately the speakers came on to the platform, there was uproarious shouting by something like three-quarters of those present. It is hard to judge this but, roughly, I would say opposition to the meeting represented 75 per cent of those present. The shouting was almost unanimous among those. It was obvious that there were some trying to control their followers. There was not only shouting but tramping of feet. If you have one thousand people tramping their feet it makes two thousand feet tramping on the floor of the Mansion House. The Minister puts on an appearance of being shocked at this situation.

What has this got to do with the Appropriation Bill?

An Leas-Chathaoirleach

The Chair is quite satisfied that it is relevant.

I am pointing out that there was a riot or a nearriot situation. I describe it because I was the only Member of the House who was actually present in the Mansion House.

No; there were three or four good Fine Gael men in the front bench.

I was in the gallery and I saw everything. If I had been downstairs I should not have been able to see it all. Donall Ó Móráin got up on the platform, seized a microphone and made a strong effort to silence the crowd. Although he shouted at the top of his voice into the "mike", it was quite a long time before he could even make himself heard. When he finally made himself heard after five, six, seven or eight minutes, and when the people who were tramping their feet realised who he was, he was heard to be shouting, "I demand silence, I demand silence". After about ten minutes he was allowed to speak, and the proposition was put that the organisers of the meeting should allow equal representation to the breakers-up of the meeting; and only when this was agreed did the meeting proceed.

I feel that these circumstances warranted a response by the representatives of the Garda Síochána when they were asked to enter the building by the chairman of the meeting. The rest of the meeting I do not want to dwell on. It was not particularly orderly but I should say that although there was a good deal of heckling after the initial outbrust, in general people got a chance, to say what they wanted to say. Some of them made better use of the opportunity than others. The meeting itself ended after Father Ó hUallacháin, who had earlier made the most counciliatory speech of the evening, had formally wound it up by thanking God for "a model meeting". After that there was a riot. People were hit on the head by something like a big wooden box, and finally somebody tried to set fire to the curtains. This was after the "model meeting" was closed.

This is relevant to Government policy I think. The Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance, Deputy Carty, said that the LFM should be proscribed, banned altogether, because they were attacking something that was already enshrined in the Constitution.

What about the attack on Article 58?

I have looked up Article 16 and I note that proportional representation is firmly enshrined in the Constitution. I do not know whether the Fianna Fáil Party are likely of being proscribed for organising a campaign to abolish it. The fact is, of course, that we have a right in this country to engage in free speech for the purpose of advocating any change we like in the Constitution provided we do not incite to or arouse violence. That we have no right to campaign for a change in the Constitution comes strangely from a Party which tried to abolish proportional representation from the Constitution. I hope, morever, that they are not going to do a deal with Fine Gael now, and come together in the teeth of the people's wishes with a fresh referendum to try again to abolish it.

I shall leave the question of the Irish language and education, but I hope to return to it on a future occasion. I want now to come to the question of the whole Government policy. The old idea of Sinn Féin is, I think, best translated by "self-reliance", I think. It means "we ourselves", though it has often been mistranslated by the British press as "ourselves alone". This old idea of self-reliance and self-sufficiency, however, has gone from Government policy. There is now, in fact, a recognition of the fact that we are in the pockets of our British neighbours economically and socially. To all intents and purposes we are moving back into the United Kingdom. There used to be a jeering Fianna Fáil slogan which said "Heads up and into the British Empire!" This is, in fact, the policy now advocated by them, and it may well be economically necessary.

I remember Dr. Vivian Mercier writing an article on the history of the Irish Press in the Bell. He said, “the Irish Press started with high ideals and a big overdraft. The two diminished side by side and now they have no overdraft.” I feel that something like this has happened to Fianna Fáil, who were once so wedded to the ideals of Sinn Féin, to relying on ourselves, and to economic self-sufficiency, and they now recognise in effect, if not in words, that we cannot stand alone. Their policy has proved unworkable. Of course, this “self-sufficient” policy, in so far as it has been tried at all, has been tried mistakenly under the guise of private enterprise in which the Government have no real power to implement their policy. Under the private enterprise system everything is based not on community benefits but on private profit motives. A “job” is something in which somebody else can make a profit from your work. The Fianna Fáil Government and the Cumann na nGaedheal Government and both the Coalition Governments have clung closely to the notion of private enterprise and private profit, rather than community planning for community needs. Under the logic of this system banks and insurance companies invest their money abroad because they must. For the sake of their shareholders, their depositors, their policy holders, they must invest in the most profitable market, and that very often is not the Irish market. Right from the start, by the very system, a Government which would genuinely be trying to implement a Sinn Féin policy would be hamstrung by their failure to interfere with private vested interest. I would charge all our Governments so far with having had a craven fear to take the powers required to plan for the community. They have been afraid to intervene or to interfere with vested interests.

We have a Bill before us at the moment concerning the ground landlords who were the great enemies at one time. Now they are not merely to be compensated for the loss of their ground rents, many of which were invented by pure creative fiction, but they are to be compensated by a payment of nearly 15 years purchase. This is an example of the great respect for the vested interest in property that is shown not only by this Government but by its predecessors.

The only vested interest which is attacked cheerfully by the Government is the trade union interest. The Government are quite prepared to apply jungle policy in economics, industry and commerce, and to allow "the best man", so-called in terms of the profit motive, to get to the top and grab the biggest slice of the cake, but the Government bitterly resent a parallel self-defence mechanism on the part of the organised working class. It would be a good thing if the Government tried to recognise that as long as that particular attitude of private interest is maintained, they need not be surprised if the worker and the trade union movement fight them back at every step. That is why the Government would be ill-advised to start legislation which would try to hamper what is also admittedly, in our system, a vested interest. But this is a vested interest of the working classes, and you cannot say you believe in the private enterprise system unless you are prepared to accept the kind of trade union self-defence mechanism that the workers quite understandably throw up to protect themselves.

I would suggest that the basic thing that should be asked is "Are there any things in this country which need doing?" Not "Can a profit be made on A, B or C?" Obviously there are things which need doing. There are schools required, houses, social amenities, clothing, food and so on. There is no shortage of jobs requiring to be done. Yet we have an unemployment figure of something like 52,000, hands and brains unemployed, and we have a steady emigration drain of some 30,000 a year. How can we in any sane system have this type of double draining away of ability, or this failure to use our working potential?

It may be true that we cannot survive as a separate unit in the modern world, but I recall a speech made by Senator Garret FitzGerald in July, 1965, when he made the point, I think very cogently, that while it was true we had to make certain sacrifices if we went into the Common Market, we should be making them to six other nations and getting reciprocal sacrifices from all of them, whereas if we are merely content to go in with our most powerful neighbour, who is our most powerful customer also, we may well find the degree of sacrifice of sovereignty required is far greater.

Even in relation to the European Common Market, we should ask ourselves, and the Government might ask themselves, whether we are going into a Common Market of cartels and trusts, basing their productive motivation upon private greed also, or whether we are really going into a genuine community which has at heart the common interests of the peoples of Europe, not the interests of the private owners of the means of production and distribution in Europe. Are we going into a Europe of egocentric private enterprise or a Europe of public spirited socialistic planning?

I am coming to the end of what I have to say. I should like to conclude with a quotation from a speech, part of which I have quoted before in this House. It is a passage from a speech made in 1932 in Geneva by Mr. Eamon de Valera. It was made in 1932, the first year of Fianna Fáil's coming to power. They have had a pretty long innings since then, with an occasional break similar to the break in my own membership of this House. Mr. de Valera said in 1932:

The whole basis of production, distribution, finance and credit requires complete overhauling... If we shirk any item in this task, if we fail to make the radical changes obviously necessary ... to organise our economic life deliberately and purposefully to provide as its first object for the fundamental needs of all our citizens, so that everyone may at least be reasonably housed, clothed and fed, we shall be failing in our duty and failing cruelly and disastrously.

And that has happened.

I would like to have seen the whole basis of production, distribution, finance and credit completely overhauled in the radical way in which Mr. de Valera, starting out on his era of political power, advocated it. Alas! I am afraid the fact is that, in his own words, we have failed. In fact today in this Republic of ours we have a class society, with a new ascendancy class which is entrenched in privilege. This owning class, this privileged class, this new ascendancy, is unwilling or afraid to take the economic powers required to plan for the community as a whole, to harness all our strength of hand and brain to our material resources for the satisfaction of the prime needs of all our people. Consequently, in view of that, I feel that in relation to the ordinary people of Ireland, so far all our successive Governments have in the words of Mr. de Valera in 1932 failed cruelly and disastrously.

I shall begin by taking up Senator Dolan on a few of his remarks earlier today. We are discussing the general financial situation of the country. I noticed that at the Árd-Fheis, which I presume was attended by Senator Dolan, the Minister for Finance was instructed by his Party and by the Árd-Fheis to impose taxation by means of the turnover tax system in future.

When Senator Dolan was speaking in relation to unemployment particularly he forgot that in fact the inter-party Government reduced the number of unemployed persons at the rate of 1,000 people per month for 38 months during their first period of office.

The Senator means they sent them abroad.

We did not send them abroad. We reduced the number. He also mentioned that the population has increased. If it has it can be assumed that it is an increase in the number of children. It will certainly be a big problem for future Governments to cater for the increased number of children from the point of view of rearing and educating them. If we are to judge by Fianna Fáil's record in the past we can assume that the rate of emigration will be accelerated very rapidly because during the years Fianna Fáil were in office over a million people emigrated.

Senator Dolan also referred to our policy in relation to wheat but he very conveniently ignored the fact that this year has seen the lowest acreage of wheat since the Emergency, and he offered no excuse for that. Then he mentioned Fianna Fáil overall majorities but conveniently forgot to mention that, until last week, Fianna Fáil were a minority Government. They were a minority Government in the period 1951 to 1954, during the coalition with the former Deputies Browne, Cogan, Cowan, ffrench-O'Carroll and others at that time.

Let me take Senator Dolan up on the unemployment figures he gave. He took the highest figure, for 1957, which was 94,648 but that was not a record because in January, 1936, there were 144,700 people registered unemployed, 133,300 in 1935, 118,000 in 1934 and, in 1938 and 1939, 105,000 each year. Then, in 1940, there were 118,000 unemployed but the inter-Party Government had reduced the number of unemployed to 38,200 in 1955. Indeed, Senator Dolan and his colleagues must try to match that figure at some future date, if they can.

Selling aeroplanes and sending people abroad.

He talked about the Shannon Development Scheme, too, but we ought to remember that he and his colleagues tried, at one time, to prevent the Shannon Scheme being implemented. These factories are, of course, working on electricity. Then again, thanks to the Industrial Development Authority mainly, those factories have been established and markets have been found for their products.

Senator Dolan then mentioned UCD, but in fact it was Deputy McGilligan who took the first steps towards acquisition of the UCD extension. Finally, he mentioned the raiding of the Road Fund by the inter-Party Government, but why did we raid it? We raided it to keep the loaf of bread down at 8d, to keep the pound of butter down at 3/- and to keep the price of sugar and flour down. What is the situation now? Housewives are paying tax on bread, butter, sugar and flour to make roads and drain ditches; that is what they are paying their turnover tax for.

Although we have a new Cabinet, a few weeks old now, we have the same old faces and we have in that Cabinet those who were a failure in their original posts and were transferred to new posts, as the Government found it convenient to remove them quietly into another sphere. The country was asked to "Let Lemass Lead On" in 1965 but he baled out a month ago and if it were for any reason except political reasons, that could be overlooked, but he baled out for political reasons, having asked the people to let him lead on.

We have witnessed a considerable amount of financial floundering during the past couple of yours, particularly since the establishment of the present Government. We have had a situation where money dried up for housing, education, agriculture and our major sectors of the economy. Even this year we have had two Budgets already and now a loan of £25 million floated to keep the ship going. Compare that with the ESB: even when times appeared to be at their worst some time ago, the ESB floated a loan and the public filled that loan in a matter of a few minutes. We can compare that with the futile efforts of the Government to secure a loan on the credit of this nation from America, when they were refused and sent home without getting what they wanted. Then they went over to London and floated a loan of £5 million which was subscribed only to the extent of 12 per cent and the underwriters were obliged to take up the remaining 88 per cent of this £5 million National Loan. Then we had the situation that they went off to Germany and secured a loan, at very favourable terms to the Germans, but for which this nation will pay dearly in the matter of repaying the funds, in addition to the high rate of interest charged. In addition, the Central Bank apparently was raided to the extent of £20 million.

In the case of the recent loan the Government took no chances. They offered, in return for that loan, the highest rate of interest ever known in a democratic nation with the most favourable terms. The people of this country are good judges and they know when they are getting a favourable deal. They got a good bargain in return for this loan, in so far as the assurances were concerned, but what about the unfortunate people who subscribed to previous National Loans and had their holdings devalued and made almost worthless? There was no guarantee assurance given to the people in the previous loans as was given in this most recent one. If we come down to figures—I have not got the exact figures but I shall give estimated ones —apparently it will cost the taxpayers £3,000 per day in the form of interest, apart from the annual servicing of this debt.

Then there is the question as to what this money will be used for, or was it already bespoken and has that money been used up already to meet allocations which were set out under the various Estimates? The Minister is boasting here that the Government are making more money available for this, that and the other and that it is more than in any previous year, but the fact remains that their policy has caused increased prices and people do not get the same return for money as they did before. Therefore, an allocation of a greater number of pounds sterling does not mean there will be a greater return for the money invested. Obviously, this last loan was floated by the Government with a view to trying to create a measure of confidence amongst the people, on seeing that it was fully subscribed. I am quite certain the Government had no doubt, before they floated that loan, it would be filled, would be filled as quickly as people could complete their applications, and that is what did happen. The previous loan of £20 million, as we know, was unfilled and that shook the confidence of investors to a considerable extent. It left us in the position in which the Government could not go for another loan, however desirable it was to ensure that national projects would be financed by this money.

Of course, it was not the only failure. We remember, somewhere around 1936, that when Fianna Fáil attempted to float their first loan of only £6 million, they got a subscription of something around £2 million. They did not attempt to float a further loan after that; they used other subventions as far as national investment was concerned. Now that the Minister has been instructed by the Fianna Fáil Party to increase the amount of the turnover tax, is it too soon to inquire whether it will be possible to take that tax off bread, butter and sugar and take it off food, clothing and shelter?

An Leas-Chathaoirleach

Whether it is too soon or not, it is out of order on this Bill to deal with individual taxes.

In recent days we have seen the Government stepping in and preventing the flour millers from increasing their prices. That is a new attitude so far as the Government are concerned, because they increased the price of flour and the price of bread considerably on previous occasions. Prices have gone up to such an extent that the proverbial penny bun now costs as much as the inter-Party small loaf did some years ago.

It is 1/- for a bun in the Dáil restaurant.

The turkey lobby is talking over there.

We now have a situation where costs have been deliberately increased to such an extent that the flour millers feel they have to seek an increase in their prices. The Prices Advisory Body is there as the referee. We well remember some years ago the attitude of the Fianna Fáil Party towards the Prices Advisory Body when they decided to abolish it. They adopted the same attitude towards the Industrial Development Authority which the former Taoiseach said he would dismantle as soon as he was back in office. At that time he was in Opposition. In the meantime, the country has seen the very valuable service which the IDA has given by helping enterprising people to secure statistics and markets which enabled them to establish factories.

You called them mushroom factories.

That must have been in Cavan.

You talked about mushroom Fianna Fáil factories.

There are still 10,000 families in Dublin city seeking housing accommodation, and the only contribution which the Fianna Fáil Party have made is to encourage foreign exploiters to come here under the umbrella of the National Building Agency. There is no doubt that there is plenty of profit there for those exploiters who come in to provide houses. They are being provided, but it is the people who will go to live in those houses, and the taxpayers, who will have to pay dearly for this subvention. It would have been better if the Government had proceeded with the provision of houses in the traditional way, instead of by the method they are now adopting.

Are you against Ballymun?

I am. I believe it is improperly financed.

The Senator called some companies exploiters and they cannot defend themselves here.

I am saying that there is exploitation which will be proved when the figures are put together. Then it will be seen what, in fact, the people have got in return for a very high investment.

We are getting 4,000 dwellings.

Does the Minister know the size of them and the accommodation in them?

Does the Senator not want them?

In any case, that scheme should have been finished by now. There is all this talk going on about the Ballymun scheme which was supposed to be finished when, in fact, only a couple of hundred houses have been made available.

The Senator does not mean that. He could not be against Ballymun.

It is not intended to repeat the experiment.

This is an example of the attitude of Fianna Fáil towards these unfortunate 10,000 families in Dublin city who are seeking houses. As a result of this departure it is expected that the rents of the Dublin Corporation houses will be increased considerably. In any event, the rents of the houses in Ballymun will be very much higher than the rents which are paid at present for ordinary Corporation houses.

People are clamouring to get them already.

Of course they are, because of the conditions they are living in. They are trying to get out of Griffith Barracks.

We accept that. At least we are providing 4,000 people with homes.

At what price? It is not intended to repeat the experiment.

An Leas-Chathaoirleach

Senator Rooney on the Appropriation Bill.

The fact is that the housing campaign which was under way when the inter-Party Government were in office in 1956 and 1957 was not continued. I defy any Senator to name any two years since the establishment of this State during which the same number of houses were built. We broke all records so far as the provision of housing is concerned in those two years.

What years?

1956 and 1957.

The inter-Party Government were not in office in 1957.

We provided the finance and the policy to build them.

Then we can claim 1956.

No, because you were put out of office in 1954.

You were put out of office in the beginning of 1957.

An Leas-Chathaoirleach

Senator Rooney on the Appropriation Bill without interruption.

In our present financial situation the Government propose to save £¼ million by cutting the old age pensions and widows' pensions. This is a saving they did not anticipate because they did not expect that persons receiving pensions from Great Britain would receive an increase in their pensions. This has come as a windfall worth £¼ million to the Government. That is the amount of money which will be saved on the old age pensioners.

We have seen that the Free Trade Agreement has not worked out as expected. It certainly did not work out in the way we were assured it would. When we were examining the Free Trade Agreement we indicated that we were being given in writing only what we actually had in practice. Now, having got an assurance in writing, we find that, in fact, the undertakings given in that Agreement are not being honoured, and the targets are not being reached. The situation has become so difficult especially in relation to the livestock trade that we are hoping to get into the Common Market, but that is not going to happen overnight. I do not believe that we will be in the Common Market for the next three or four years, possibly longer. We know very well that all the countries of the Six are not in favour of this country getting into the Common Market, certainly getting into it under favourable terms.

If we do get into the Common Market what is going to happen the industrial workers of this country? Is that the reason why the Minister for Labour is now introducing various schemes which will compensate factory employees for loss of employment? Unfortunately, the Control of Manufactures Act was kept here too long. It gave a high level of protection for too long, which resulted in factories being built up and enlarged but established on an inefficient basis compared with the efficiency that is there now in Common Market countries. The question arises now as to whether we will be able to adopt the. methods and secure the measure of efficiency that it will be necessary for us to have if our industrial workers are not to be endangered by competition from outside countries. When we are in the Common Market we will be partners and brothers there and we cannot complain about unfair competition from one nation or another. All nations will have the right to cut one another's throat in the matter of subventions and methods of protection in relation to various articles, so that there is a lot yet to happen before we can say that we will be able to get into the Common Market and can go into it with benefit to ourselves here.

If this country is prospering at present why is it that there are 163,000 people fewer earning wages now than there were in 1956? In the meantime what has happened? About 400,000 people have emigrated during the same period. Our economy is shrinking. We may see some factories prospering and expanding, but what is the net result to employment here? The net result is that the number of people going into employment and staying in employment is falling and emigration continues.

Our most important industry, agriculture, is suffering owing to many difficulties created by the policy of this Government, particularly the high prices for the goods which the farmers must purchase, even the food they must purchase. Nowadays you do not have non-dairy farmers producing milk and butter. They have to buy these things. Similarly, you have the dairy farmers having to buy other kinds of farm produce. The result of this with the increased rates payable on agricultural land and the cost of clothing and the cost of food and of machinery is that a large number of farmers are now finding it impossible to make ends meet. This is the situation which caused approximately 50,000 farmers to demonstrate in recent months. Certainly they have brought to the notice of the nation in general the situation in which the farmers are living and the average weekly earnings of farmers, which are actually lower than the average weekly earnings of any farm labourer at the present time. What is going to be done to reverse that situation where the farmers are on an income which is in my opinion below a subsistence level? They are finding it impossible to make ends meet. Apparently the trade agreement which was completed with Great Britain has been a failure.

Apparently the heifer scheme has brought a considerable amount of trouble to this country for many reasons. Let us face it, it was a very haphazard scheme which has caused to be brought into existence a large number of third rate livestock—cross bred, half bred, ill bred. All kinds of livestock have been brought into existence and they are now on our land.

Absolutely incorrect.

It is not incorrect. I should like to know if the Senator is a farmer.

I know the farmer as well as the Senator.

If you are not a farmer do not talk.

We have the best farming county in Ireland, and that statement would not stand up. It might be in Dublin, but certainly not in any farming area.

The farmers who know the situation themselves know that a very haphazard method of breeding was used and the result was that the quality of our livestock has suffered to a very great extent as a result of that. You have all kinds of breeds mixed up. You had shopkeepers and factory owners running cattle out on land with scrub bulls of all kinds. They just qualified for the grant and cut out.

Usually there are A.I. stations in most districts in this country.

He does not know what he is talking about.

We have the statement here — I suppose it is wrong to judge the man before he gets into the job properly — I suppose that is why some of the farmers were confused during the recent by-elections——

Good man.

You have the situation where the farmers have been given a Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries who proved to be an expert at talking with his tongue in his cheek, putting things on the long finger, saying he was doing something and doing nothing all. the time, which has resulted in the terrific accumulation so far as the lack of housing is concerned——

And the votes in Kerry.

—— and the financial difficulties which many county councils have. This is the Minister they have given to the farmers, a man who will talk to them and promise them and put them off and leave them there as he did as far as the homeless families of this country are concerned, particularly the people of Dublin city and county. In 1964 there were 150 houses to be built in Swords, and he strung it along until finally there was not a sod cut until six months ago. Then there was a contract for 150 houses but he turned round and said "Well, if there is a contract for 150 we will only put up 50 this year, 50 next year and 50 the year after". That is the kind of instalment plan we are getting in Swords so far as houses are concerned. I suppose that this instalment system of housing the people has been introduced in other areas too. In the meantime he could go around boasting that it was a contract for 150 houses, take it or not. I wonder what instalment system that Minister will adopt for the farmers.

He had a proud record in the Department of Local Government in water, sewerage and housing schemes. He pursued them vigorously.

What about the Dublin north regional water scheme?

Was it the county council held it up?

Nobody but the Minister.

Listen to the irresponsible lies.

There are people living within three miles of Dublin without water or sewerage.

As a member of the county council why did the Senator not do something about it?

I could not get past the Minister. Neither will the farmers. I hope the Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries will use his influence now with the Minister for Finance for the farmers. The present Minister for Finance knows all about the problems of the farmers.

That is the first time the Senator admitted it.

He knows all about them but how to solve them.

He did nothing about them.

That is not true.

The point I wish to make is that when Deputy Blaney goes to Deputy Haughey for financial favours for the farmers I hope he will get them — that he will get all the farmers have asked for.

After the victory in South Kerry I would give him anything.

Many farmers will be unable to pay their rates when they fall due at the end of March. It is all very well to give them credit facilities which will enable them to pay their rates but more credit than that will be required if farmers are to get on their feet again after such a bad year of livestock prices.

They were all right until they were stopped by Fine Gael.

Though we have what amounts to a new Government, a new Cabinet with a new Taoiseach, we are to have no change of policy: it is the same old policy which brought about the present state of stagnation. They have even devised a system of concealing the figures for unemployment. It is very difficult now to read the figures in relation to unemployment and to ascertain exactly how many people are employed and unemployed compared with previous years.

I suppose people will say that a change of Ministers may bring about changes in policy which might improve the present situation but it is obvious that there is no prospect of improvement, that things will continue to disimprove in our economy because no effort is being made to control prices and to preserve the value of money. The major mistake Fianna Fáil made years ago was to release £40 million through the wage packets of the workers in order to win a couple of by-elections, at the same time neglecting to take steps to preserve the value of money.

One aspect of the country's progress I should like to see developed more is the cultural and social aspects. In that respect, though we have made some progress, we have not done as much as we would like to have done. We are a country with a small population of some three million, approximately one-third the population of some of the larger cities and approximately the equivalent of the population of an ordinary large city. We are very proud of our independence but as a relatively poor nation we have not done all we should like to do. Further steps are necessary to provide better social benefits for the less well off among us.

One section has not been mentioned at all during the debate, possibly because they do not influence political life. There are between 7,000 and 8,000 itinerants in the country. If we inquire which section of the community has the largest death rate in early life, suffers the most throughout life, we do not have to go to the Balkan States. We can find them amongst ourselves. We ease our conscience with the plea that these people would not live in houses. The fault does not lie with the Government. It does not lie even with the local authorities. It lies in the hearts of ourselves, the individuals making up the Irish nation.

If a settlement is made for these people by a local authority, everybody in the locality objects. These people are to be treated as if they were not human beings. If a house is provided for them by a local authority they are objected to by their neighbours. We speak of ourselves as a Christian people while we deny Christianity in our hearts in our midst. I feel, therefore, that we, as a nation and as individuals, are lacking in some respects in the practical application of Christianity. I mention it not as a criticism of any local authority because local authorities in many instances have done their best. It is a criticism of our own nature as Irish people.

I shall go from that to the social progress we should like to see applied to other sections of the community— the sick, the old, the widows and orphans. We have made certain progress in that respect and perhaps the progress we have made — I do not deny it — is the best we could afford. However, it falls far short of the best we should aim at. I admit that social and cultural progress depends to a great extent, in fact completely, on economic progress, so that things must be taken in their proper order of priority.

Despite the very depressing speech which I have just heard I find the facts do not warrant depression. This little country, small as it is, from 1958 to the present time has made truly remarkable progress as compared with any period in the nation's history up to 1958. Compared with progressive European countries, between 1958 and the present we have made challenging progress. If we compare it even with the OECD countries, it is very favourable. Those countries include Japan and the United States of America which are outside Europe and which have made progress above any European country. Therefore, our general percentage comes up a bit. Compared with any European country, our progress, as the facts and figures show, has really been remarkable.

One of the signs of progress of a small country is what it is able to export. Despite the gloomy pictures we have heard, our exports for the ten months ending 31st October exceeded our exports for the same period last year by some £14 million. Our imports are some £6 million less than they were in the same period in 1965. May I say also that our exports for those ten months, again despite the gloomy picture that has been painted, have been £1 million more than the previous peak attained in 1965. Therefore, I do not think all these gloomy prognostications are at all justified.

I should say that the most hard-headed people in the world are the private investors who were decried half an hour or so ago as being people who endeavour to make money at any, cost, people who were without social conscience. Those were not the words used but it is the substance of what was said. Those people, when they come to invest their money, are particularly interested in the state of a country and in the credit of a country. I have taken seven countries and I think you will all agree they are progressive, even if you leave out Ireland. You will certainly agree that six of them are. In relation to those seven countries, I have considered the drop in the price of stock exchange securities at present as compared with the previous high.

All those countries, the same as the entire world, have had a certain credit restriction, a certain tightening of finance over the past 12 months. In West Germany, the drop has been 23.7 per cent from the previous high —I am taking the actual stock exchange index at the present time— in France, the drop has been 22.7 per cent; in Britain, 21.2 per cent; in Belgium, 20.3 per cent; on Wall Street, 17.6 per cent; in Sweden, 16.4 per cent; and in Ireland, only 12.7 per cent. That is the reputation of this country and its prospects of development among hard-headed financiers, despite the fact that this little country is particularly susceptible to outside influences. As a small country it must be. If you have foot and mouth disease in New Zealand, if you have swine fever in Denmark, if you have credit restrictions in England, if you have a change of Government in England or some of the European countries, if you have a strike in West Germany or in France — any of those factors adversely affects our economy. Despite these things, that is the opinion of hard-headed financiers of the position of this country and the progress this country has made.

Would the Senator explain how foot and mouth disease in New Zealand would affect us adversely?

Of course it would.

The Senator said it would affect us adversely.

I thank the Senator for the correction it would affect us. The last speaker spoke about national loans but before I come to that, I want to say something about Senator Garret FitzGerald's speech this morning. Unfortunately, I missed portion of it.

The Senator did not miss any of it.

I found what I heard most thought-provoking. It may be I did not agree with it but it certainly gave me food for thought. The Senator raised the question of the EEC during a previous debate and I hoped to hear him develop it further today, but he by-passed it. I therefore assume he came to the conclusion that we have done and are doing everything that is reasonably possible and practical to advance our interests in the EEC. He referred to Denmark. Perhaps the Senator has some information which I have not got, but so far as I am aware, the move which Denmark has made towards membership of the EEC has not advanced one whit farther than ours.

May I say Denmark have exported into West Germany during the year some 15,000 head of cattle? That was by virtue of an agreement which previously existed. Denmark at one time used to export 250,000 head of cattle into West Germany and in this year is to be allowed to export 15,000. I would not take, that as a particular headline. We got certain facilities in that regard this year also which compared reasonably favourably with the 15,000 exported from Denmark into West Germany. Some people speak about a national loan as if it were something to be afraid of, as if it were money taken and spent, with no return. I agree that our national loan figure has gone up but how has it gone up? How has it been applied? Do we expect a return for it? Would Senator Rooney say to the Government: "You should not float a National Loan. We are already paying far too much in National Loans"? National Loans are applied to the increase in capital expenditure. Those increases during last year were some £40 million. Of that £13 million went in housing, that is, one-third; £4½ million went to schools; some £2½ million went to hospitals; and £25 million went in various ways to agriculture. I do not say all of that money went into the farmers' pockets but it went in various ways to improve farmers' conditions.

I could go through the whole list of that capital investment but, by and large, any sensible Government will run a National Loan purely when the money is applied to capital expenditure. It is a sensible thing to do because the value of money is gradually and progressively eroded. In the case of the loan that is borrowed today and repaid in 20 years' time, the value of the money is very much less, so you get down to do more satisfactorily something which required to be done and which is essential for the growth of our economy and the benefit of our people.

Debate adjourned.
Business suspended at 6 p.m. and resumed at 7.30 p.m.
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