Seanad Éireann díospóireacht -
Thursday, 14 Dec 1978

Vol. 90 No. 9

Appropriation Bill, 1978 [Certified Money Bill]: Second Stage (Resumed).

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

Mrs. Robinson

Before the House adjourned last night, I referred to the very disappointing performance by the Government in several specific areas. For example, the disappointing performance of the Department of Justice in several important respects, the failure to adopt a position on the Pringle Report on Civil Legal Aid and Advice which was submitted to the Government a year ago today and the failure to introduce a Bill to provide for civil legal aid and advice, the failure to provide basic reform of the law relating to children and the failure to provide reform of family courts, despite the commitment contained in the manifesto. I also referred to the very disappointing performance of the Minister for Social Welfare and that he projects an image of a Minister for Health but seems to be the Minister for non-Social Welfare.

The hardship and deprivation of the 20 per cent at the bottom, those very substantially dependent on social welfare, has worsened dramatically. I referred to the continuing failure by that Minister to ensure the proper working of the Social Welfare (Supplementary Benefits) Act, 1975, which came into operation on 1 July, 1977 and which, therefore, coincides with the term of office of the Fianna Fáil Government. I also referred to the failure, particularly by the Minister for Labour but also by the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs, to ensure the good working of industrial relations and to create both the climate for co-operation and working together between the social partners which is basic to our economic progress. The attitude and the approach of the Department of Posts and Telegraphs is a positive barrier to the creation of industrial peace in that Department and has led to several very disruptive and damaging strikes already and looks as if it is going to trigger off more strikes. We have now a reputation, not only in this country but abroad, for failing to maintain the kind of telecommunications system which is a component of a modern developed State.

I would like now to turn to the area of education and to regret the fact that the implication both of the Green Paper and the attitude of the Government has been one of not delivering on the manifesto promises. We are not seeing a radical improvement in the teacher-pupil ratio in primary schools. There has been no implementation of that much promised commitment by the Minister for Education that the ratio would be reduced to one teacher to 40 pupils in the primary school. We do not see the investment in education which is absolutely vital for the particular demographic structure that we have, the young and fast growing population that we have.

Recently we had an opportunity in this House to look at the deteriorating situation at third level in the area of higher education grants. I put on the record of this House statistics which show that a lower percentage of students in our third-level institutions, in our universities and other third-level institutions, are in receipt of State grants. There is an increasing student population, but a smaller percentage of them are State aided. That in itself is a reflection of the fact that the Government are not committed to providing equality of access to third level. Even those students who are State aided cannot live on the grants available and are in great hardship, the kind of hardship which was not a feature of student life some years ago. They are particularly hit by the very high standard of living, by the fact that universities have raised their fees, and by their inability to find the range of jobs that were available before to students who had to work to supplement their education and pay for themselves.

There is a serious crisis in third level education and the possibility that a number of students may have to drop out in their second year, or after their first year. They simply cannot continue to study because of the economic deprivation which they suffer. This is a terrible tragedy in a country which must provide a very well-educated, well-trained, intelligent and adaptable young population. The challenge to them will be to create the industrial advance, to provide the kind of expertise and services which we need as a community. The Department of Education seem to be drifting, but it is a drift in the wrong direction. It is a pattern which shows a smaller percentage of students receiving State grants and the level of State grants is not keeping pace with the cost of living. It is fair to say it never has kept pace, but the situation is worsening all the time.

I should now like to turn to the economic performance of the Government in the past year. There is no doubt that one of the successes of Fianna Fáil in the last election was to put forward and to have accepted the proposition that Fianna Fáil were better at managing the economy, better at running the country economically than any other party or parties. The record over the 18 months of Fianna Fáil administration has been a very sharp disappointment to those who believed that Fianna Fáil were better at the economic management. What we have seen since Fianna Fáil took office is classic Tory policy. It is a policy of making the rich better off. This cannot be said often enough.

We had an example this afternoon in the Capital Gains Tax (Amendment) Bill. By the removal of wealth tax, by the removal of car tax, by the removal of rates in a global way, people paying the highest rates got the greatest benefit, those in the largest private dwellings benefited most. In order to pay for this largesse to the better off the Fianna Fáil administration engaged in very substantial external borrowing which has made us very vulnerable as a country. We are now pledged to the extent of 14 per cent of our GNP. That is our external borrowing deficit. This is extremely high. It is much higher than it is in the United Kingdom which is often criticised as a country with very extensive external borrowing. We are not, as yet anyway, sitting on known North Sea oil resources.

It is in this context that one has to examine what I would call the debacle of the negotiations for the European Monetary System. Since the Bremen Summit European Council on the issue there appears to have been both a false confidence and a lack of attention as to what precisely would be available to us if we were to enter into a European Monetary System with other member states of the European Community. The Government appear to have been more optimistic about what might be on offer and more optimistic about how certain vulnerable industries will survive both the disruptions and dislocations which might follow entry to the EMS without Britain and not to have related whatever kind of transfer of resources or soft loans we might get to the immediate severity of membership of the EMS to so many of our vulnerable industries which employ people and the very real danger of increasing redundancies and of greater difficulty in sustaining and increasing our employment in Ireland.

This has never been properly spelled out by the Government and I do not believe that the White Paper published last week gives a balanced and detailed view on this issue. The Government need to borrow more money and they would like some kind of framework within which to try to introduce local internal unpopular measures to pay for some of the largesse which was spread around during their first year in office. That really is what we are talking about when we are talking about the European Monetary System. It is interesting that the discussion, as one reads it in the newspapers—and many conflicting views are being expressed even by the Taoiseach and different Ministers of the Government—seems to turn on the question of how much can be obtained in soft loans and the possibility of a delay before these loans have to be repaid. This is dangerously attractive to a Government who are prepared to borrow to the extent that Fianna Fáil appear to be prepared to borrow. If you can get a three- or four- year postponement on the loan, then that is a problem for the citizens of the future but it may be a great bonus and benefit to a political party in office during that period who may be able to live on borrowed time and borrowed money to build up a very severe and crushing borrowing requirement in the future. This is a very serious situation indeed.

The problem is that the real impact of membership of the European Monetary System—and if I am to believe rumours circulating round this House I am talking about a reality rather than a possibility at this stage—has not been spelled out. The real assessment of the consequences for employment, for vulnerable export orientated industries like textiles, footwear, clothing, has not been put fairly and squarely before the people. The Government have spent a lot of time whipping up a kind of nationalist sentiment to break the link with sterling. They are striking a very understandable chord in Irish people. We all share this. Not one of us who would not wish to break the economic link with sterling. It is the responsibility of the Government to do it at the right time with the right kind of safeguards and with the right kind of prospects.

The real problem is that the Government over-heated the economy and over-borrowed externally. The prospect for 1979 is one of much more retrenchment. As well as that the Government are looking for very reasonable and responsible attitudes on the part of workers. They want very substantial wages restraint. The problem is that the Government have not created the climate for this. They have not prepared the way for the kind of social contract of consensus which would be the forerunner to a reasonable response on the wage front area.

The Government seem to be surprised at the degree of polarisation and resentment which is much sharper now than it has been in the past decade. There is more real polarisation, bitterness and potential strife on the industrial relations front than there has been in the past decade. The Government have only themselves to blame because of the one-sided approach to the economic reliefs and benefits and bonuses they have provided since taking office. They have widened the disparities between those who are better off and those who are either in low paid jobs or, worse still, in our high percentage of unemployed, or those who are dependent on social welfare.

The situation in which we find ourselves coming into 1 January 1979 is very largely of the Government's own creating. They have accentuated the polarising of the working class and the better off in our community. They have tried to adopt the classic Tory strategy. Sir Keith Joseph would be proud of the Fianna Fáil Government. Sir Keith Joseph would approve of the present policy and strategy of the Fianna Fáil Government because they have tried to put money, benefits and income into the hands of a so-called productive elite, higher up the scale, hoping that that productive elite would consume more, produce more and provide more jobs. This is the classic private enterprise approach to the management of the economy.

From the point of view of the Labour Party, it is encouraging to see Fianna Fáil do this so blatantly. They will continue to try to approach the management of the economy on classic Tory lines. It does not suit the country. It does not suit the problems we have, and it makes all the more credible the socialist alternative to the management of the economy. We have problems we have not faced since we achieved independence. We have a growing young population to absorb, feed, clothe, educate, train and provide jobs for. It is very interesting to look at the demographic statistics down the years in Ireland. Between 1926 and 1971 there was relatively no change in the overall population size to the nearest hundred thousand. From 1971 on, the graph of increase is a very dramatic one. We will have to absorb half a million people over a very short time.

This is an enormous richness, an enormous source of energy and strength. It is a great challenge to us because empirically we are an under-populated country. You cannot provide the economic strategy, the job creating strategy, the social investment necessary to feed and clothe them and achieve a social consensus in that population by the classic Tory approach of promoting the activity of the better-off in our society, promoting private enterprise and trying in some instances to dismantle State-sponsored bodies and hand all or part of their activity over to private enterprise. This will become clearer.

The Government are hoping to be rescued by the European Monetary System. The Irish people have not been impressed by the way they have negotiated and are not impressed by the terms which it appears will be offered and which it appears will be accepted by the Government. Nineteen seventy-nine will be a very interesting year. It could be the break year for the Fianna Fáil Government. Knowing that a number of Senators want to speak I will end on a note of waiting to see what the situation will be between now and when we debate the next Appropriation Bill.

Dr. Whitaker

I intend to follow the headline I set myself last year. I will speak first on a particular head of public expenditure and then on the public finances and development policy generally.

The particular head I have chosen is fisheries—policy in relation to salmon fishing. This is a matter of considerable economic and environmental significance. Our salmon stocks are a great natural asset which should be carefully exploited but which are in fact being brought to the point of extinction. The crisis in relation to the survival of salmon in our waters and certain Government decisions imposing restrictions on salmon fishing were discussed recently in Dáil Éireann. As an interested individual, and as a member of the Board of Management of the Salmon Research Trust, I would like to make a few comments now rather than wait wearily for the motion on our Order Paper to come up for debate.

While the controls imposed by the Minister for Fisheries are overdue and in themselves to be welcomed, they do not measure up to the needs of an extremely critical situation. More severe restrictions should be introduced for a time, even if this entails temporary compensation for licensed fishermen who habitually draw their main livelihood from net fishing for salmon.

The Green Paper admitted that there has been substantial over-fishing of salmon in recent years compounded by an upsurge in illegal fishing. I will give two figures to highlight the extent and reality of the crisis. At Lough Furnace, near Newport, where the Salmon Research Trust operates, a complete count is possible of the salmon coming in to spawn. One female salmon parent should produce at least two mature offspring, one male and one female, to sustain the population. This is true also of human beings. Instead however, of being two plus, as it is in the human population, the net reproduction rate for salmon is now less than one. This indicates a progressive and rapid depletion of stocks. Since the inland conditions are favourable at Lough Furnace there can be only one cause, the low survival rate of salmon in the sea. This is largely attributable to excessive drift net fishing, legal and illegal.

The second figure relates to the entry of salmon to the spawning reaches of the River Shannon, now more than ever the river on which hopes of survival of the species centre, since the salmon has virtually disappeared from the Boyne, Liffey, Lee and the Erne. There is a count of the fish passing through Thomond Weir at Limerick. For the five years 1963 to 1967 the yearly average was 17,000 odd. This year the number was only 2,000—one eighth now of the intake of 15 years ago. Again the blame lies with over-fishing at sea and in the estuaries.

It is in the light of these facts, and of the fact that three-fourths of the salmon catch is taken by driftmen, that I query the adequacy of the measures announced by the Minister. It will not affect drift fishermen very much to be prohibited from fishing before 15 March or after 20 July. Not many of them ever went out before 15 March or stayed on after 20 July because it was hardly worth their while. They will still be free to concentrate on the main run of summer fish from mid-May to mid-July. The Minister is, of course, extending the weekly close period from 48 hours to 72 hours but, as everyone knows, there has been blatant disregard of the present shorter period and the problems of enforcing the longer period will be acute.

Rod and line fishermen have been prepared to accept stringent restrictions on their own activities if only for the appearance of equity. But it is an unnecessary penance for them to be excluded altogether from September fishing. To keep a sense of proportion, it is necessary to remember that anglers take only a tiny proportion of the total catch of salmon, less than half of one per cent. This is in conformity with my personal experience. It is to be hoped that controls of fishing at sea and of fishing by anglers will not have the effect of providing greater opportunities for the greedy, organised, commercial poachers who have been plundering our rivers with impunity for years.

I conclude these remarks by urging the Minister to consider, before it is too late, the more severe measures of control and conservation which are called for in order to preserve this important natural and national resource.

Coming now to my general comments, the state of the public finances was described as "appalling" by the Tánaiste and the Minister for Finance in this House before last year's budget. The position, to say the least, has not so far improved. True, we have had a year of highly expansionary policies which will have raised the gross national product by six per cent or so in real terms for 1978 and given an even bigger boost to personal consumption. From what I heard the Minister for Economic Planning and Development say in the Dáil, the present expectation is that there will be a net increase of some 17,000 in employment in 1978—a good achievement, indeed, even if still far short of needs. The Government would be the first to recognise that the expansionary stimulus of higher public expenditure and borrowing cannot be sustained. There will have to be a move, all the more quickly if we join the EMS, towards safer and more fundamental means of ensuring continuous growth of output and employment. We have got to get away from excessive Government borrowing and balance of payments deficits. The sharp increase in Government borrowing this year has been adventitiously facilitated by the inward rush of short-term investment funds associated with the prospect of our entering the EMS without Britain.

As I pointed out last year, the ratio of total public expenditure to GNP, which is a measure of the pre-emption of the community's output by the public sector, was a reasonable 28 per cent 20 years ago but it had already reached 40 per cent before the oil crisis and now exceeds 50 per cent. The Government are committed to bringing it down to 48 per cent by 1980. The danger of allowing the present drift to continue is that the Government would be generating a form of inflation just as intolerable as price inflation—a form revealing itself in large balance of payments deficits requiring equally large foreign borrowing or reductions in reserves and a form also which would be making itself felt even more in high taxation were it not for the enormous current account deficits which are being incurred, £400 million, as you know, this year. Indeed, the particularly disquieting feature of the public finances is the continuing rapid growth of current expenditure, and of borrowing to finance it. Current expenditure for many years now has been rising much faster than national production. I do not mean just in real terms but even in money terms. The pace quickened this year. The returns for January to September show an increase in current expenditure of 23 per cent over the same period in 1977 and that compares with a budget estimate of an increase for the whole year of 21 per cent. The total borrowing still seems likely to be of the £800 million order. If there is any shortfall it seems likely to be on the capital rather than the current side. Capital expenditure was up only 13 per cent on last year in the nine months period as against an expected 28 per cent for the year as a whole in this year's budget.

In the White Paper, in the budget speeches of the Minister for Finance and the Taoiseach, in the Green Paper too, the Government committed itself to "critical review" and "containment" of current public expenditure. I do not suppose I will get an answer to the question: "Have there been any results yet?" Will we see these in the Estimates Volume and in the budget? The Green Paper mentioned "reduction or elimination" of "some expenditures". I look forward to seeing what these will be. I suspect from my own experience that economy in public expenditure is an area in which responsible parenthood, indeed judicious contraception—since there is no safe period—is likely to be more effective than belated attempts at infanticide or assassination.

The Government is also committed not only to reducing the overall ratio of borrowing to GNP but, as an essential part of that commitment, to reduce the current account deficit to minimal proportions. I have welcomed and commended this objective in debates on the White Paper and the Green Paper. I hope we will see significant progress towards it in the next budget.

Attempts have been made to weaken the Government's resolve by conjuring up the spectre of deflation if the borrowing ratio is reduced as planned. I have already suggested in this House that this argument, apart from being shortsighted and somewhat irresponsible, may also be too pessimistic, because it discounts completely the possibility, indeed necessity, of gearing ourselves in preference to world demand, that is, of gaining more than our share even of slowly growing world demand through making our goods and services more competitive. If, however, for overwhelming and valid economic reasons, total public borrowing cannot be reduced to the full extent planned and within the time period proposed in the Green Paper, I hope the Government will at least ensure that much less of the total will be for current purposes and that more will be reserved for capital purposes. To me, personally, higher taxation, better spread amongst those who can afford it, would be acceptable as one of the ways of reducing the current deficit and of freeing more of our borrowing capacity for useful employment-giving development of the national infrastructure. That jargon term includes such important things as telecommunications and roads, where grave deficiencies are acknowledged to exist, deficiencies which are impeding the growth of the economy.

As I said earlier, stimulation of the economy through deficit financing cannot go on. When I spoke briefly here on the EMS on 1 November I suggested that too much attention, perhaps understandably, was being focused on our getting appropriate external conditions of membership, appropriate financial facilities. I stressed that much greater importance attached to getting the domestic conditions right.

I listed a number of unsatisfactory features of the domestic economic scene—the prevalence of extravagant expectations of annual income increases; the weakness of internal trade union discipline; our comparatively poor industrial relations; the level of unemployment; the excessive public borrowing requirement; and the large external payments gap. Most of these are interrelated. Remedial action is urgent, all the more so if we are joining the EMS. I would again stress the primacy, as a remedial measure, of genuine moderation of money income claims. This in the end involves no sacrifice of justifiable real income improvements. Pay restraint is the most important condition, not only of tolerable co-existence with the EMS if we join but, in any case and more importantly, of progressively attaining our employment objectives. I was surprised and rather disappointed to find no direct recognition of this point in the recent White Paper on the EMS.

To sum up, therefore, I put pay restraint in the front line as the most urgent and necessary policy objective. My version of pay restraint is to reward only genuine increases in productivity. Perhaps I should call it pay realism rather than pay restraint. In my view, no claim for higher real income is justified unless and until it has been earned by a commensurate increase in output. This pay realism, fortified by economies and restraint in current services, is the key to any significant improvement in the public finances. Pay bulks very largely in public expenditure. It is the key to improvements in job creation and it is the key to our being able to make the grade in the EMS if we join.

That ends my piece of pre-budgetary advice to the Minister for Finance.

Mrs. Hussey

I welcome the opportunity for a slightly broader discussion than we normally have. I propose to touch very briefly on two areas. This debate will not be as sound or as valuable as it could be. I do not feel that there are many debates in either of these Houses which are as valuable as they could be.

This brings me to the first point which I want to discuss under the heading of Item 2 in the appropriations list as scheduled here, which is the salaries and expenses of the Houses of the Oireachtas, including grants-in-aid, and the total £3,298,000. I am well aware that when I am discussing this it might be described as fools rushing in. However, I will press on regardless. There was a time when the salaries of Senators were about three-quarters of the salaries of Deputies and they moved together upwards or downwards, usually upwards. I understand that since 1971 Senators' salaries have been losing ground steadily. I am not going to talk just about money. While the money is bad enough there are other aspects which come under the heading of this Bill, and they involve the back-up facilities, the conditions in which politicians work, the secretarial facilities and the manner in which we are expected to fill our roles. I am aware that there are various Senators who get a fraction of a secretary's time, but there are others, including myself, who are not entitled to any secretarial help.

I am aware that Senators are not supposed to be full-time politicians. We have, therefore, limited sitting hours and the rate of payment reflects our kind of part-time occupation. Despite that, we should expect the kind of assistance which any middle or junior manager in any size of firm would consider his normal right, some privacy, some place which might be comfortable to work in, telephones for private use and efficient secretarial help. The reason I said fools rush in is that I seem to be rushing in here. It seems that an extraordinary reticence affects Irish politicians when it comes to talking about the money that they pay themselves. It is not difficult to find the reason. They take terrible "stick" from the media any time they talk about money for themselves, so they continue to do their work in a Western European Parliament in 1978 with salaries and conditions which seem to me to be more suitable for 1928. It is not surprising that 50 per cent of Deputies have other jobs to keep them going. Added to the poor salary and conditions we have insecurity, which is obviously a sine qua non of political life, and poor pension facilities. All of these things add up to making politicians naturally seek some more secure financial base in their lives from which to operate.

It is beyond me why we cannot have a system, as so many other countries have, whereby the salaries of politicians are linked to certain grades of civil servants and move as those grades move. This would put an end to the spectacle of politicians cringing from the onslaught of ill-informed public opinion when they vote themselves an increase in salary. Public opinion is ill-informed about the kind of conditions which politicians in other countries enjoy because of the standards expected of them. Our system of democracy, a two-chamber system, is not general in the world. If our people expect the Oireachtas to function properly they must pay the price. We should have the kind of salary which would not attract golddiggers, or whatever term applies to people who are looking for decent wages, but which would not deter the young and the talented either. I believe the present system is a deterrent. We should be ashamed of our appallingly inadequate conditions.

A feature of this is that it discriminates against people who are not sufficiently well-off or do not come from the kind of background where there is a secretary ready to support them in their public work. It is wrong that Members who do not come from that kind of background should be less well equipped to do their parliamentary work than Members who do.

If I might briefly turn to Europe, the salaries of the Members of Parliament in other EEC countries are quite dramatic. I am not going to go through the whole list because others may not find it as interesting as I do. I am taking these figures now from the Hansard report of Question Time in Westminister on 7 March 1978, during which the Prime Minister answered questions relating to EEC salaries. Britain was the lowest with Members of Parliament getting just over £6,270. Ireland came second at £6,273 followed by Italy at £10,500. It went on until it reached the dizzy heights of West Germany where Members of Parliament are paid £22,700.

Is it a coincidence that the three lowest paid Houses of Parliament are also the three weakest members of the EEC and the poor relations when it comes to EMS? We must consider the cause. In Belgium, France and Italy Senators' salaries are almost the same as our Deputies' salaries. Every EEC country, except ourselves and Britain, links the salaries of their parliamentarians to civil service scales. We should seriously consider their system. In West Germany Members of Parliament also receive £13,500 each for their offices outside the Bundestag, which enables them to do their constituency work. Inside the Bundestag they each have a private office and secretary. They have free travel in Germany and unlimited postage facilities. Need I go on? Perhaps we are talking about cloud-cuckooland in an Irish context when we talk about that kind of figure. We must remember than the West German economy is in a healthy state; it is in a commanding position in Europe. Is it a coincidence that they treat their politicians seriously?

Recently we discussed the people who will represent Ireland in a new European Parliament after the direct elections. At first, their salaries were going to be quite high but now they are going to be equivalent to the present salaries of Deputies plus some expenses. From my limited experience of European travel on business and from talking to people who travel a great deal, it seems to be some kind of endurance test to actually get to the place where you are supposed to do your business. Once our unfortunate representatives reach wherever the Parliament happens to be sitting they will be disadvantaged in comparison with their European colleagues. They will sit beside people who are better briefed, better paid, who have assistants bring them all the right documents for different discussions, and who are serious politicians doing a serious European job with serious European salaries.

The situations we seem to be heading towards is that we are going to have 15 part-timers representing us in Europe, which we cannot afford. The 15 people who go to Europe need to make an impact out of all proportion to their numbers. We cannot afford to have our European representatives looking over their shoulders at what is going on in their local constituencies because they are depending on that salary as well to keep some kind of equilibrium. I feel that we must consider very carefully the kind of standards we are applying here. We have been penny-pinching for too long and we should put this area in order. People have complained of inadequate service and inadequate leadership from politicians. That kind of inadequate service and leadership will continue to cause a vicious circle of criticism.

The sum of £26 million is listed in the schedule for the salaries and expenses of the Revenue Commissioners. It is costing £26 million to collect the various kinds of taxes which we must remind ourselves are levied on an unwilling and resentful PAYE section to the tune of 87 per cent. I hope not to stray from the permitted areas of debate but what I have to say in this area is related to the efficiency of the people who are getting £26 million for doing it. The tax inspectors are beavering away at a most unpopular job which must be related to the figure also of £390 million for the Department of Social Welfare, which is also listed in the Schedule. I should like to mention some figures which a medium employer in a craft industry gave me recently. A man earning £90 a week paid £26.14 to the Government between income tax, insurance stamp and pay-related insurance. The company paid £5.26 for the stamp. If he was made redundant, the State would pay him £50 a week. If he were unemployed, neither he nor the company would be paying anything to the State, so the State would lose £31.40 added to the £50 that they would be paying him if he was unemployed, thus costing the State £81.40. The man is employed at the moment and he has take-home pay of £63.84 so you could say he is working 40 hours a week for a nett £13.84, or 34p an hour. That is not an incentive for anybody to work, and that kind of wage level is echoed right through the economy. It is typical profile of somebody earning that kind of money. For married couples who are working the tax burden is even higher.

PAYE and social welfare contributions between them have created a situation where there is little difference whether people are employed or unemployed. If they are unemployed the cost to the State is enormous. When people could not care less about their work and when they feel that the State could not care less whether they are working, it is a bad indication for the economy generally.

We should take a broad look at the way in which revenue is collected. The burden of taxation is going to fall upon so few productive workers that it will began to operate a disastrous law of diminishing returns. The Minister is aware, as most of us are, that there is a flourishing industry in this town of chartered accountants who are engaged in creating schemes for the avoidance of tax for their highly-paid clients. As their schemes get more and more sophisticated the Revenue Commissioners devise more sophisticated means to collect tax. It is a highly-paid and sterile sort of industry. Many of the people engaged in that work have told me that they do not like it because they feel it is unproductive and sterile. But if we take 60p in the £ from entrepreneurs what else can we expect?

The higher rates of taxation should be reduced to 50 per cent. The people who avoid the higher taxes and the chartered accountants who help them should be put in jail. We should be strict in regard to tax avoidance and we should reduce the higher rates which are causing the corruption in the first place. A fair rate of income tax would get a fair response from citizens. At the lower levels of tax PAYE penalises the middle and lower income groups to the extent that it saps their incentive. The higher levels of 60 per cent are a slap in the face for successful entrepeneurs who do not see why they should bother expanding their businesses.

Another aspect of PAYE is that it severely affects the craft industries which require a great deal of care and patience, more so than in the mass-production type of industry on which we seem to be spending a great deal of time and money without being sure that that kind of industry has a place in the economy or the environment. I can see that we are not going to be able to emulate the success story of Waterford Glass. But even if we could encourage native industry to the point where we had ten companies a quarter of the size of Waterford Glass, they would have a turnover of £250 million and provide 24,000 jobs.

Taxation does not mean tinkering with budgets. We should be talking about the manner in which revenue is collected. Removing car tax and making wealthy people wealthier by removing rates is not the way to approach taxation.

Jobs have to be important to people and I believe people have to be important to jobs. If those two factors do not operate the present industrial and social chaos will increase. There is no doubt that a person who is doing an honest and productive week's work should be financially rewarded and should find himself in happier financial circumstances than someone who is not working. It is important to look after the unemployed and to make sure that they are well treated. If everybody who was doing honest productive work was suitably rewarded it would increase their morale and we might not have the kind of disasterous figures mentioned by Senator Whitaker of 100,000 unemployed and £650 million of a trade deficit. It is an unhealthy looking score for a country with only three million people. Whether we are in or out of the EMS will not solve our difficulties. It is going to present us with far more challenges than escape routes. We could find ourselves in deep water if we do not make a great effort to solve our problems. The kind of imagination and talent that are needed will not be found in the area of politics if we go on making politics a dreary, uphill difficult job. If the Houses of the Oireachtas are falling below their potential we have no one to blame but ourselves.

Mr. Lanigan

At this time of year it is appropriate that we should have an opportunity to expand on some of the things that have been discussed throughout the year in this House. The number of jobs created this year was 17,000, the largest net increase in employment for many years. In the circumstances we should be congratulating ourselves, but many problems are still arising. A number of factors have tended to slow our progress, and these include a far from satisfactory industrial relations situation. Too many people are inclined to blame the workers in all cases of industrial chaos. Quite often the workers are not to blame. Employers and managers are too involved in projections and do not deal with the day-to-day problems that are encountered by their workers. This causes frustration amongst the workers. Sometimes delays in settling legitimate claims can exacerbate the problem. A strike can occur for a reason which is totally different from the original cause of the workers' grievance.

Our industrial relations legislation must be brought up to date to meet the needs of a modern society which is changing every day and which is a lot more complex than it was five or ten years ago. Too many of our managers were trained in industrial relations situations which are totally removed from today's industrial situations. They have not got the expertise in man management. They have not got the expertise to run the businesses as they should be run. In a sense, the worker is made a scapegoat too many times because of the employer's lack of expertise.

I have no time for the disruption that is caused by the unofficial striker who has no regard for the rights of his fellow workers, who could not care less what happens, except that he has some minor problem that can only be resolved by standing on the road and preventing other people from going about their legitimate jobs. I often wonder where these people get their sense of values. Are they getting them from the Irish or are they importing them? Where do they get the funds to stay out on unofficial strike? Are they being sponsored by international bodies which have no regard or interest in the Irish State, who do not want the Irish State to run efficiently and who might, in the main, have as objectives the doing away with the institutions of this State? A genuine appeal must be made to everybody in the industrial sector, to politicians to the business entrepreneur, whether he be public or private sector, and to the workers to look at the damage that is caused to the future prospects of our young people, and people who are not even born yet.

The biggest problem is created for the disadvantaged in our society. The more people who are out of work the bigger the burden there is on the State to provide services for the disadvantaged here—and there are many of them. It is easy for us to talk about Ireland being a country which is advancing and which is prosperous. Indeed, it is prosperous for many of us, but it is not prosperous for the person who is out of work, who is sick and who has no hope of getting off the ground. People who disrupt the normal economic running of this State are contributing to the grave problems these people have in trying to live here.

Senator Robinson highlighted many of the social problems which upset our society. I was disappointed in one regard and that was her seemingly lack of charity when she did not acknowledge the degree of involvement of the people who look after the children in Loughan House. It seems to me that she feels there is a certain breed of person who can magically arise and look after children who are mentally retarded in some manner or who have come from bad environment and never know any home life. She thinks the people who look after these children in Loughan House are insensitive. She made excuses on a number of occasions by saying that she is not against them, but in her next sentence she said they were not qualified and that basically they were insensitive.

I suggest that the body of men who look after these children are normal people who had normal training to do an abnormal job. Nobody in this country can be trained to look after children who have grown up in an area where they have never had sympathy from anybody, where their social conditions have been atrocious, and unless they are taken out of this environment, they would never have had a chance to live a normal life in this country. Hopefully Loughan House will not have to continue indefinitely, but it is a solution that had to be tried and hopefully, in the short-term, it will do a good job. By the short-term I mean that somebody might come along in the very near future, with a magic wand and wave it over Ireland and in doing so do away with the social problems which create the conditions which make the kind of people who have to be sent to Loughan House.

We must become more aware of the problems that exist in our country. We must become more involved in the solutions that have been found in other countries to similar problems. We are a young country with the youngest population of any country in Europe definitely and possibly in the world. The fact of our newness and youngness creates problems that our parents and even those in the middle age group never had to tackle. Twenty years ago Ireland was a totally rurally oriented country. Today people all over Ireland are subjected to the influence of the modern media. Whether it be television, radio or newspaper, they are subjected to influences from all over the world. It is not often that people who have lived in a quiet rural area can assimilate what they see and hear on the media. This has had an effect on the country. It has had good effects in certain areas but definitely it has had bad effects in other areas.

Senator Robinson mentioned the need for legislation in the family law area, and I agree with her wholeheartedly. As local representatives, 90 per cent of the problems we come across are problems that are created by the strains and stresses of modern living. Whether it be a couple who have taken on mortgage repayments and suddenly find they cannot meet them, or whether it be that a wife has gone away from her husband or that a husband has gone away from his wife, or bad housing, the effect is still the same. There is discord. Once there is discord there is a need for some type of legislation to ease the burden on the partner who has been disadvantaged. I do not think you can set up courts to legislate for family problems. This is an area which has to be treated very gently because the human factor is involved and you are meeting people when they are at their lowest ebb, mentally and physically. The thought of going into a court puts a lot of people off from looking for their rights. There is a need for legislation which can bring in a family type tribunal where people can be met informally and where their problems will be thrashed out and possible solutions found. If the solutions cannot be found, and if there is to be a break-up, each partner should be treated equally and there should be no blame on either side. If there are children involved they should be looked after as best the State and the separated parent can to ensure that the children of problem marriages do not end up as problems for the State in the future, or as problems in their own marriages.

Most of what I said has been in the area of family problems and worker relation problems. This country has a chance to succeed if the people have the will to allow it to succeed. At present it seems as if the will is not there to the degree that it should be. Let us hope that in the next 12 months we will not stand up here and talk about the same problems we are talking about to-day.

We are on the threshold of a new era, if we go into the EMS. What it holds for us I am not too sure, but if it gives the Irish people the realisation that they cannot drag out of anybody's coat tails, that they have got to work for what they get and that we have a country that is worth living for, at the end of next year it would be very satisfactory for me to stand here and address the House on the Appropriation Bill.

Mr. Staunton

Looking at the present state of the Irish economy, and having regard to the EMS negotiations which are still continuing, one of the main preoccupations of this country at present is the extent of the Government's indebtedness. We have lived through a period of massive spending and boosts to the consumer demand in the economy but we are reaching the point where certain chickens are coming home to roost and where a party must be paid for at a not too distant date. Entirely independent of the EMS issue and the loans which we will get, which in turn will lead to a certain subsidy, and apart altogether from an indebtedness which that may lead to if we enter, it is sobering to look at the extent of indebtedness in this country at present. Our foreign borrowing total is higher than that of any other EEC country and the extent of our foreign indebtedness presently runs at the extent of 30 per cent of our GNP. That is an alarming percentage of our GNP. I was a witness recently outside this country to some disparaging remarks made by people in other Governments about the level of Irish indebtedness and the problems that would be created for this country on entry into the EMS because of the further extent of indebtedness that is envisaged, should we enter.

The difference between the present Government and the last Government, of which I was a backbench member, is that this Government tended to be critical when the Coalition were in power. There was certainly a large level of borrowing but it was borrowing that took place during the oil crisis which hit every country in Europe, and without which the economy could not have been sustained. It was not simply borrowing for the sake of borrowing, for a false type of fuelling of the economy. Around the middle of last year we were beginning to get things right in the sense that the deficit was declining, foreign currency reserves were rising and things were coming back on an even keel. At the present time, the colossal extent of borrowing and the boost to consumer demand have set events in motion which are very alarming.

To start with, the fact that the money supply has loosened in the economy in the last 18 months has led to a massive consumer boom. One of stated aims of Irish Government policy has been the Buy Irish Campaign. We had speeches from the Minister for Industry, Commerce and Energy about a year ago with projections that we would get a 3 per cent swing over from imported goods to Irish manufactured goods, which in turn would lead to the creation of so many thousand jobs. But that is not happening. What is happening is that the consumer boom is leading to a massive amount of purchasing of imported goods. It is worth reflecting on the extent to which this is happening, and the extent to which we are running into serious financial difficulty. If we talk about our exports and imports and what is termed the import excess, meaning the numbers of millions of pounds, in a particular month or year, our imports exceed our exports, we begin to see the root of the problem. In the latest statistics for October this year, the import excess was £73.9 million, approximately £74 million. Even more alarming for the September figure the import excess was £27.7 million. This meant that in the most recent month for which we have statistics, there was an increase of £46 million. In comparison with the same month last year, there was an increase of £36.2 million. This is the clearest possible evidence of the train of events and of the extent to which the spending that is happening in this country is of benefit to jobs. To a large extent about half the spending at the present time is leading to the creation of jobs in Japan, Germany, Britain, France and the United States. This is absolutely true.

Again the import excess in the ten months from January to October this year was £672 million. For the ten months in 1977 the import excess was £523 million. That means there has been an increase in the ten months of £149 million. The total import figure in February this year was £266 million. Imports for October were £338.8 million, an increase of about £80 million.

This very grave disimprovement in the balance of payments has got to lead to a crucial decision for the Government which they must tackle by either increased taxation or reduced purchasing of foreign goods. The import figure for July 1977 was £262.5 million, an import excess of £17 million; in October 1978 the figure was £338.8, which I mentioned, and the increase in that period from July 1977 to October 1978, in terms of imports is £80 million. The increase of the excess amounts to 225 per cent. This is an alarming indication of the present trend.

While the initial reaction of the general public to the budget of last year might have been one of pleasure at the extent to which one's pocket was helped, through car tax and total relief from rates on housing and such matters, the long-term effects of that budget are implicit in the statistics which I quoted and which means that in the long-term the Government have to face up to these issues, this will result in a period of deflation that can be very much worse than the inflationary period during which these events happened.

What it means is that the tax increases which were needed were not used for productive purposes but to pay off the bills implied in the promises made before the last general election. In the Dáil last June the Taoiseach commented on the Green Paper and on the balance of payments deficits. He said that the accentuation of the consumer goods coming into this country could aggravate the balance of payments to a point where corrective measures would be necessary and that these corrective measures would affect the prospects for employment.

It would be fair comment to ask the Taoiseach what corrective measures he now suggests are necessary in view of the deficit he is talking about and to what extent does he see them as affecting the prospects for employment. In essence what I am saying is what type of policy which at first sight might have been acceptable to the general public, on a closer look by economists and people who understood what economics is about, had very alarming prospects in the longer term which were pointed to at that time. We are presently at the stage where the Government will have to face up to these issues with very hard decisions that will be anything but palatable. The Government, in agreement with the EEC, agreed to reduce over two years the extent of foreign indebtedness from 13 per cent to 8 per cent.

If we take the Government's word at face value and if we give them good faith in what their objective is, this reduction in the borrowing level from 13 per cent of GNP to 8 per cent in a two-year period means the Government will have to raise about £400 million which must come by one of two methods, either by increased taxation or reduced expenditure. We cannot have it both ways. We either run with this huge level of foreign indebtedness and allow future generations to pay for the party, or, alternatively, we come to grips with this indebtedness and attempt to reduce it. In addition the Government will also find it necessary to raise £200 million to pay for borrowing in 1978 and 1979, that is, the compiling of repayment and interest, which is a total of £600 million.

There are people without a grasp of these items who believe this country is in a very healthy state and do not realise the immense problems there are incorporated in this whole issue of indebtedness. When we go from that to the EMS we begin to realise the seriousness of the problem. While joining the EMS might well be the lesser of two evils for this country it is no panacea for the future of the country.

The first crucial fact about the EMS issue is the fact that what we have been offered by the wealthier countries of Europe has not been non-repayable cash grants; what we have been offered are loans. Reverting to the extent of the indebtedness which I have described and the Government's commitment to the reduction of that level of indebtedness, entry into the EMS would certainly help our economy in the short-term by giving us a boost of loans from other countries. But loans simply mean further indebtedness, and loans mean repayments of loans. Commentators have been talking about net cash grants to this country if we join the EMS. There has been a great deal of confusion in this regard because of the Taoiseach's initial press conference and subsequent statements. The Taoiseach said initially that this country would be getting £45 million a year in loans whereas the £45 million was not a loan but an estimate of the grant to his country through an interest subsidy. What we are getting is an offer from the EEC of a soft loan of £1,125 million over five years, which is £225 million per year. It is called a soft loan because we get an interest subsidy which amounts to about 3 per cent. A 3 per cent interest subsidy on the principle sum means a grant equivalent to about £45 million a year, but that is very different from saying it is £45 million into our pockets every year because again we are reverting to the loan situation.

The borrowing of £1,125 million over five years can of course lead to substantial developments and infrastructure which will be beneficial. In the first three or four years we will not be under any intense pressure for repayments due to the fact that there will be a moratorium. After the period of the moratorium we will run into the period of repayment of both principal and interest which, at the present level of indebtedness and before going into EMS, means that for at least the next decade successive Governments will have to come to grips with these issues. In the next few months we will have to face these problems.

As I said, EMS loans are not grants, and loans have to be repaid. That is an essential point. There was a great deal of muddling which was not the work of the Opposition but of the Government. There was an attempt by the Minister, Deputy O'Donoghue, to blame the press. They had their notes and had got it absolutely right. There were recent attempts to suggest that when Mr. Chirac came to Cork the Press were wrong when they reported what he said about the European Parliament. The journalists collectively issued a statement referring to the fact that they were absolutely correct in what they had reported as apparently was the reporter whose notes were available after the Minister's speech in Clontarf. This motion of attempting to criticise the Press for all of these issues is wearing a bit thin.

Another point that should be dealt with is a political point relating to the EMS issue, our involvement within the EEC and the links which Irish parties have there. I note from reading reports of the EMS negotiations the marked reluctance of France to help the Irish position. There may have been rapport initially when the Taoiseach visited Giscard D'Estaing in Paris, but obviously subsequently there seems to have been a great deal of reluctance and digging in of heels by the French. From the comments in the international Press I see that the principal agent at work to pressure the French Government into adopting a very hard attitude where Ireland is concerned and not to yield any concession in the regional fund area, without France getting its share—the regional fund could have been used as an instrument for what is termed the net transfer of resources—was the same Mr. Chirac, the Leader of the Gaullist Party which is a party in Government in France at present. So far as the European Parliament is concerned, and where various parties in this country have links with parties in the mainstream of Europe, the link between Fianna Fáil and the Gaullist Party becomes more and more fascinating every week.

Mr. Chirac made a speech in Cork in which he expressed the view that he was sorry European elections were taking place, and that even if they were taking place, they would be working within the Gaullist Party to limit severely the extent of its powers. This was said by the leader of a party which is aligned with the largest political party in this State. In this State there is a consensus that a strong European Parliament is in the interests of the smaller nations, and possibly detrimental to the interests of the larger nations. The link between Fianna Fáil and the Gaullists becomes less logical every day of this week. I believe that Fianna Fáil should face up to this issue by breaking loose from the Gaullist Party which is acting in a manner totally detrimental to any question of European co-operation, European unity or the type of Europe which those of us in Ireland and some other countries are keen on building.

Under the Appropriation Bill we are talking in the largest sense about the economy and the wellbeing of the country. If we are talking about the EMS issue and the negotiations that were involved in that it is relevant to talk about the French position and the attitude within France to those negotiations which, in turn, influence this.

One of the principal issues here is the level of indebtness, the commitment of the Government to reduce borrowing from 13 per cent to 8 per cent of GNP over a ten year period. This in turn means the raising of £400 million by increased taxation or reduced expenditure. In addition, there is £200 million which is necessary to pay for the borrowings related to 1978-79, and the repayment of principal and interest on that. This will lead to a crunch we have to get to grips with. It can well lead to a deflationary policy which need not have happened had policy for the past 18 months been on a more even keel with a more even type of development, without this massive boost, some of the effects of which are extremely undesirable.

The principal undesirable affect will be the extraordinary level of imports. There was an increase from £27 million in September 1978 to £74 million in October 1978. The huge proportion of the jobs being created by this consumer boom are being created in countries outside Ireland—in Japan, Germany, Britain, France and in Eastern Europe. It is a very difficult situation.

I should now like to deal with the EMS. The gross interest payable on the loan we will get will amount to more than £1 billion, which will be mitigated by the interest subsidies, the 3 per cent interest subsidies equivalent to £45 million a year, or a total of £225 million. This means that the interest outflow over the term of the EMS loan will amount to more than £800 million. That is in addition to the present enormous level of indebtness which is unacceptable.

We welcome the subvention from the EEC concerning drainage in western areas. The administrative problems being experienced at present will probably be sorted out but the subvention is welcome. However, there are areas in the west to which EEC funds could flow. That is not happening. On the question of roads Mayo has the largest proportion of untarred county roads at present and there is an enormous backlog of schemes for the tarring of roads leading to farm houses. The same could be said about counties from Donegal down to Cork. In the past few months an EEC policy has been adopted under which Italy and France are getting EEC loans for this purpose. There is a huge anomaly in that the governments of France and Italy can negotiate successfully with the EEC to get grants for their farm roads, rural electrification schemes and other schemes that have to do with farm life in underdeveloped areas such as the south of Italy. When they talk about undeveloped areas of France there are none there that could compare with the lesser developed parts of this country.

If these are schemes under which roads are being tarred in Italy and France under EEC subventions there is no reason why roads here, particularly in the west, should not be funded from the same source. I urge the Government to make immediate representation to find out why there is this anomaly and why these two countries are getting these grants for purposes for which we need money to an extraordinary extent. They should ask why this scheme cannot be extended to the west of Ireland.

There is lack of Government policy concerning parts of the west which are not in Gaeltacht areas. I regret that the Government chose to scrap the decision of the previous administration to establish a Western Development Board. I questioned the Minister for Economic Planning and Development, Deputy O'Donoghue, on this and I was pleased to learn that the Government are looking at this issue of regional development and possible decentralisation in certain areas. I am not concerned about titles of such boards and whatever the Government choose to call it is acceptable if we get the type of structures required. One of the biggest anomalies in western development is that we are seeing a policy under which there is a special type of economic plan for Gaeltacht areas. However, in those parts of the west which are equally impoverished, but which are English speaking, there is a totally different structure. We all respect our language and traditions and see the need for a special policy for the language, culture and heritage but we see this as being necessary in the cultural and educational area. However, when we see this spilling over to special incentives in the economic field, special grants in certain areas, while areas beside them that are English speaking do not get a fraction of those incentives we see positive discrimination and a lack of human rights. It is reaching the stage in some parts, such as the difference between north Connemara and south Connemara, in which there are remarkable developments in south Connemara on the fringe of Galway city which is Gaeltacht, but north Connemara is starved of the same type of development because of this problem. In Mayo we see even greater anomalies. We see part of Achill in the Gaeltacht with special benefits, parts that are not. We see Ballycroy, between there and Erris, is very badly off for developments but does not get the same level of grant. This is unacceptable.

There is an island policy under which there are special incentives for those people who live on Aran and those who live off Aranmore. We see discrimination against the people who live on Clare Island or who live on Inisturk, off the Mayo coastline, or Inisbofin, off the Galway coastline. About one year ago we were told that policies would emerge under which the islanders on Clare Island, Inisbofin and Inisturk would get the same deal. That did not happen. It has reached the stage on Clare Island where a committee there are seeking to make the case legally that under the Constitution they are entitled to similar treatment which, in fact, they are not getting. It was because of those backgrounds, and illogical and one-handed development that we sought to establish the type of structure in the west under which a board would be established with autonomy, made responsible to a Minister in Government, and responsible for all aspects of western development in agriculture, industry, commerce and tourism. It meant that in that part of the country which is uniquely different from any other part we established a special type of policy run by people in that province who understood it. In view of our involvement in the EEC and the fact that for the European Parliament there is a special constituency entitled Connacht-Ulster it would have proved to be a catalyst which could be illustrated by this State to show that part of the country in that organisational area which needed special help and assistance. I hope that the Minister, Deputy O'Donoghue, who answered me favourably some months ago when he said that the Government were investigating this sub-national need will be able to tell us that a structure similar to that which we have been talking about will emerge.

In so far as SFADCo is concerned, the Government were ill-advised in taking away the promotional facility which they had because it tended to make it much more a province of the IDA's national office in Dublin and took away the small independence which they had before that. The substituting of that for a policy in which they say that in future SFADCo will deal with small industries in a special way in that region can only be described as a gimmick. We had a very sensible policy for small industries before this under the county development team programme. I compliment the Fianna Fáil Government on establishing that county development team programme. It worked well and meant that in western counties we had a structure under which a county development officer worked in liaison with the county manager, the chairman of the county council and the various heads in the different areas of vocational education and agriculture and other areas. We had sensible development at the most local level. SFADCo, in moving into the small industries scheme in some counties are moving in to do a job that was being tackled adequately. There is no reason why they should have a function in counties in Connacht where that function is already being serviced within the county council structural unit which is a local unit for development and all that goes with that. This move was ill-advised and somewhat gimmicky.

Another western issue about which I have a view relates to the question of air services development. We had a discussion last week on air services and some Members sought cheaper travel in and out of the country. Members also referred to Aer Lingus's performance. I agree with the whole question of cheap travel because it can generate for an island country such as ours a great deal of traffic which would otherwise not happen. The experiences in Britain under Freddie Laker's plan whereby the amount of traffic across the Atlantic through cheap fares has dramatically increased should be a lesson to us. Earlier this year, those going to the United States at short notice without pre-booking tickets found it was cheaper to fly from here to London and from there to New York than it was to fly directly from Shannon to New York. That is the type of anomaly which should not be happening. It is something which should be looked into.

In so far as the west is concerned there is a serious issue which has not got much publicity but which is very important. We are in an age of subsidised transport. We have the transport services of CIE subsidised up to the hilt because we are told that it is a part of a social pattern and to an extent air travel is subsidised. In Britain there are air services going to Inverness, to the outer Hebrides, to Benbecula, to the islands of Harris and Lewis. What is happening there is that the more lucrative fares from London to Birmingham, Liverpool, Manchester and Continental routes are helping to subsidise what they term a social service which is necessary in the interests of those more outlying areas in parts of the north of England, north of Scotland and the islands off the Scottish coast.

There is a great weakness in public transport policy here in regard to air transport. While Dublin Airport is an international airport serving a certain radius and Cork Airport again serves a certain radius working around from the south-east to the south-west, and Shannon Airport, an international airport, serves a radius from Cork across to Tipperary and up to Galway city, when one gets to the north-west there is no air service. I am talking about the area which would service Mayo, Roscommon, Sligo, Donegal, West Longford and Cavan. There is no such thing as a decent airport in that area. There are severe problems because of that lack. For example, at present some of the larger manufacturing companies operating in the west when they fly their executives in they arrange that they fly from Shannon or Dublin in special small aircraft into the smaller airports. That shows the significance of air travel. If we are trying to attract a higher rate of industrial development, if we are to encourage people to establish industries in our more remote counties in the west and in the north-west, we are at a grave disadvantage if we do not have a decent airport within about an hour or an hour-and-a-half's drive.

Additionally, there is the question of the mass movements in tourism. If one looks at international air travel and international tourism one will see an enormous growth in tourism in regions which are within an hour of an international airport. One of the reasons for the high level of tourist development in Cork-Kerry at present in contrast with the level of development in the Mayo-Sligo-Roscommon-Donegal areas is the fact that this air link exists and that people from other countries can fly to within about one hour of those resorts. The remoteness of the north-west from airports is a limiting factor. It is probably not recognised as much by the public as it should be for the reason that many people do not grasp the significance of something until they have it and then lose it. They then know what they have lost.

The Government should make a study of this issue and, without being parochial, whether it is in Mayo, Sligo, Roscommon or North Galway would not worry me too much. It may require subsidy, but subsidy is, apparently, an accepted part of transport whether it is ground or air transport. There is a need for an airport development. The limitations on the small airfields are very grave. They are limited in length. They are limited by the fact that they do not have lighting systems which confines them to daylight hours. That means that they are practically out of the question in the winter months, except for a few hours. The airport in Castlebar in Mayo has the most severe limitation because it has a short runway between the main railway line and the main road from Castlebar to Dublin. The airport people have not got permission to cut that main road. In my view two things should happen: they should get permission to extend that runway, if that is feasible, or, alternatively, if that cannot happen a decent airport should be built somewhere in the broad interests of the public of these counties.

Another point has been made, that no Government have got to grips with what is loosely described as the services sector, the services sector being the type of employment provided in offices and stores. It is interesting that in many other countries where they seek to get developments going in the more outlying areas, in addition to giving grants and special incentives for the development of pure industry as we are doing they also give grants for the development of the service sector. That means that per worker employed, per unit, or per square foot, a special grant is given. There has not been any development of that type here. There is an imbalance here because we have a huge proportion of jobs in the service sector in Dublin which is outgrowing its facilities, its road structure and ability to cope with the increased population. Additionally, in this service sector socially we have a great many girls working in Dublin who could be much happier in many cases working in that part of the country from which they came initially. If there is not some special type of Government policy, and a special incentive to try to get the services sector out of Dublin and into other towns we will not see it happen to the extent it should. It would be socially and economically desirable that that should happen.

On EEC enlargement the Government need to cast a jaundiced eye. We know that within the protocol it has been established—it was put on record initially by Deputy Garrett FitzGerald and, subsequently, the Taoiseach—that Ireland welcomes EEC enlargement to include Portugal, Spain and Greece, for reasons to do with democracy and the broadening of Europe. At the same time we do not want to see the enlargement of Europe take place at the expense of Ireland's national aspiration in line with Treaty of Rome and what is implicit in that in areas such as the common agricultural policy and areas that have to do with regional policy. We have to take a fairly jaundiced look at this after the EMS negotiations in which we ran into the crudity of certain power blocs, where at the end of the day the expected commitment to us did not exist. We need to be extremely wary on this issue of enlargement. As the population expands to include those three very underdeveloped countries within the EEC and if we do not have a commitment by the governments of the EEC to increase, proportionately, the funds they are prepared to put into areas such as the common agricultural policy and regional policy, we will be in for a very rude awakening. Rather than having a situation where we would be getting an increased proportion of funds into those areas, the cake will become smaller and, proportionately, we will get much less unless we are extremely wary and diligent in tackling this issue at every stage of the enlargement debate.

Mr. Dowling

I should like to speak on this issue. Our democratic set-up is at risk on occasions if appropriate action is not taken in order to ensure that the law is upheld. Any back-down on this situation, or any disrespect for the law, means that many people will either take the law into their own hands or have little regard for the appropriate Department that deals with law and order. The whole question of law and order and the whole question of upholding of it is rather terrifying.

I should like to pay tribute to the security forces, the Garda Síochána and the Defence Forces for the manner in which they have carried out their duties. There are gun-thugs and bandits of one type or another roaming around with firearms and no regard for the lives of our people. Recently in my area a security man was shot. We have also seen gardaí being shot. Until such time as we change our attitude to these killers this situation will continue. I do not think the law is tough enough on this section of the community who take the law into their own hands, have no regard for the rights of the community or for democracy.

It is because of the soft-pedalling that goes on from time to time and the soft measures applied to these people when apprehended means that more people are taking the law into their own hands. There are many Bugsy Malones and bank bandits roaming around. From the statements made recently I understand that appropriate action is being taken to stiffen the process of apprehension. Nevertheless, there is much more at stake than that. The public have a responsibility also because in many cases they are shielding these people from the law, possibly through fear or the neglect of duty. They have a duty to the country and to their own families. It is all too sad to see people being gunned down in the manner the security guard was gunned down in the Dublin suburbs. This type of violence must cease and we must get tough.

Rape is almost like the common cold throughout this city. No matter where one goes people are afraid to report it. Horrifying cases came to our attention but the great majority of cases of rape in the city are not reported because of fear or threats. We have reached an appalling situation in this regard and we must examine our consciences. The Government must take further action to ensure that people can walk our streets without fear of any type. Violence and rape and the other things that have been happening are appalling in the extreme and the necessary measures must be taken to deal with these people. These people must be removed from society quickly. I will support the ultimate measures if they will rid the country of the rapists, the gun-thugs and the bandits who are taking the law into their own hands.

It is sad to see members of the security forces being gunned down. This has happened on many occasions. Many gardaí have given their lives to protect ours but we have scant regard for that. We say it is very sad that this is happening but what do the community do in this regard? Do they report information? Many people are withholding information. Those with information should come forward and give it to the Garda so that these bank bandits can be apprehended.

In many areas people have been intimidated and threatened. This is a serious situation. If democracy is to break down we are all at fault. I appeal to the people, in common with Members of these Houses, to toughen the law to ensure that these people are brought to justice at the earliest possible moment. I hope this disgusting situation in relation to rape in the city, where rapists are at liberty in almost every street in this city will be brought to an end. Those of us who have gone around many parts of the city know the appalling stories of girls who, after going to police stations, returned home and dropped the charges. They did so because they were told by their advisers that they might have to give evidence. I hope that the law is changed so that this situation can be highlighted and people unfortunate to be caught in this trap can have the cover of the law. Successive Governments have been guilty of disregarding many aspects of the law. We are all aware of this cover-up situation or the putting in abeyance of problems.

We are aware of a contraceptive shop that opened recently which is flouting the law. If they are wrong the shop should be closed down and the people punished. There is no substitute for justice. It must be applied. I do not think a group of people who set themselves up against the law, whether it is in Harcourt Street or on the university campus, should be allowed boast that they can freely dispose of contraceptives, to other people. Those people on the university campus, where recently the Taoiseach spoke, clearly indicated that they were using contraceptives. They will be the leaders of society tomorrow. What type of society will we have if they do not uphold the law and if they are going to encourage other people to break it?

There are many aspects of the law I do not like but I must adhere to it. There is the question of the bigamist who can sleep on the wrong side of the law for the rest of his life. But if I park my car on the wrong side of the road I get a ticket. If there is a problem we should tackle it. We should not brush it under the carpet.

Many other problems have been brushed under the carpet from time to time.

Successive Governments have been responsible for soft-peddalling in certain directions. I hope the Minister for Justice will take a hard look at the various problems, whether they are family problems or other problems, where the law is disregarded, particularly by the State. If the State fails to uphold the law and ensure that the law is maintained, then other people will have scant regard for it. I often feel, when I get a ticket on my car, like taking other action. That is the situation which has developed over a long period. Certain things are played down right under the carpet. With other people, it is applied with a vengeance.

We heard about the breathalyser. I saw on the paper an advertisement in relation to the breathalyser. That is the first I heard about it for many months since it was brought into operation. Where are all the people whose tests were found to be positive? What happened to them all? I do not read much in the papers about convictions. If these people have been apprehended the law should be applied and there should be no covering up of the situation. If there is a defect in the law, the law should be changed to meet the situation whether it is in that or any other field. Many people have lost their lives on the road through drunken drivers. I have no regard whatsoever for a drunken driver. He is as bad as the gun thug who raids a bank because he takes the lives of innocent people by taking charge of a vehicle. I hope that the law will be upheld. When it is seen to be upheld people will be encouraged to come forward with the necessary information. I do not want people to be police informers but I want them to come forward when issues in relation to the common good of the community are involved. Where people's lives are being put at risk, where families are being put at risk, where people are being intimidated then we have a duty to come forward, and that duty must be clear to everyone.

There is no doubt that a variety of problems—some of them were mentioned in relation to family law—need to be dealt with, and the quicker the better. Some laws need to be revised. I know that changing the law is a long and tedious business. When a Bill comes before either House it has sometimes a long and rough passage. The problems that existed before may well be eliminated but other problems can arise. A number of measures are necessary and desirable to bring us into focus with commonsense in the family law area, whether it is a deserted wife or indeed a deserted husband. There are many of them and, far too often, we do not hear about them. Problems concerning children, gambling or drink problems, and so on will have an effect on tomorrow's society. It has an effect on the children of today. Many of the children of those families are growing up in appalling conditions that could be remedied in a short space of time if proper legislation was available to ensure that the area was fairly and adequately covered.

The whole question of law-breaking is a very important one. We had it in the State services some time ago. We were told about sabotage within the telecommunications section. There was a positive statement that sabotage did take place. I have raised this on a number of occasions and I want to state it here again. I have no time for saboteurs. People who are employed in sheltered employment, if they are guilty of sabotage, should be disposed of in the quickest possible manner in the best way available. They should be sorted out because they too are a menace to society.

During the telecommunications dispute many small businesses went to the wall. Many people were put into serious situations by virtue of the fact that they could not communicate. People who make their living by communication find themselves disadvantaged by some section of the community sabotaging the equipment. It is all too sad. We have had this in areas other than State Departments where statements were made, from time to time, that equipment was sabotaged. We have a responsibility to ensure continuity of the essential services that should be available to every person in the State, whether in the local authority area or in the area of the public service that the Government are responsible for. Some solution must be found so that there will be a continuity of essential services. Why should the lives of people be put at risk because some person in sheltered employment, be he an engineer in a local authority or otherwise, decides he will not carry out a job that he has agreed to carry out? Where a person has a legitimate problem it should be dealt with immediately. In some cases there are grievances that go back over four, five and six years. That is not fair to the people concerned and one has a certain amount of sympathy for the person who takes action after that length of time. But, on the other hand, if essential services are affected the community is under siege. I hope that the Minister for Labour, and the other Ministers of State who have responsibility for essential services will find some formula. If the Labour Court is not effective or if the present machinery is not effective, then we must have new machinery in order to deal with the problems to ensure that nobody is put at risk.

When we switch on the television now we get a blank screen. We have seen the busmen at the drop of a hat depriving people of the opportunity to get to and from their employment. We have seen it in the ESB and in the Corporation. We had eight million gallons of water a day leaking away out of reservoirs when people were without water in this city. These are sad situations. I could go on and on in relation to essential services that have been disrupted in recent times. One time, to go on strike was an honourable thing to do. Now apparently, not alone do workers want to go on strike but they mutilate the equipment so that no-one else can repair it or so that it cannot be effectively used. The law must be applied against the saboteurs wherever they are. I do not accuse people who are on strike and who have not tampered with the equipment of being saboteurs. We want to see saboteurs apprehended. Strikes are all too frequent at a time when the nation is endeavouring to get over the many problems that confronted us with our entry into the EEC. One would think that we would stand behind whatever Government were in power to ensure that the wheels of industry would be maintained in order to penetrate the markets that are at stake, but the reverse is the situation. There are many people, motivated by influences outside the country, who would disrupt the economy and the entire industrial setup. Some trade unionists will accept less for workers abroad than they will for workers here. This puts our people in a disadvantaged position. We must have a general look at the situation where the lives, job opportunities and future of our people are concerned.

If the machinery that has been established and worked effectively over the years with a fair degree of success is not suitable to meet the requirements of the future, then we should modify it and bring it up to date so that we will have a system of dealing with sudden strikes. We have two problems. We have the long drawn out situation where the problem has to be fixed at some time. On the other hand, we have the situation where, at the drop of a hat, some person goes outside the gate. In the Liffey dockyard, we had a farcical situation where a picket was put on the dockyard by a person who was not employed. On the placard was: "I should be employed in there." The workers stopped going in and made the picket an official one. At the same time in the dockyard another group who felt that was unjust decided that they would go on unofficial strike action for a productivity allowance for a job that they had already got a productivity allowance to do. We have this farcical situation that must be dealt with. If it is not, we will have more of this type of industrial unrest and more people taking irresponsible action. More people will stop work just for the sake of stopping, and put the livelihoods of many people at stake. It is sad to think that, when we have some Departments and responsible trade unions asking us to participate in the "Buy Irish" campaign and endeavouring to ensure that the machinery of trade unionism is effectively worked, other people are not so co-operative. We must have a look at this whole area again in relation to the modern day problems.

I have a high regard for civil servants but many of them are attuned to a system that has been in operation for some time. Change is slow. We must ensure that the attitude of civil servants and Ministers is changed to meet the modern and developing problems. The problems of today will not be the problems of tomorrow. The problems of two years ago are not the problems of today. We have other problems. This is a progressive situation where we must take account progressive development. We must be prepared to meet the problems as they arrive. We have seen the cycle of violence that has to come to us after it was in other countries. We have seen the cycle of rape. There are many other cycles that will take us into their orbit. We must be prepared for them. It is no use allowing a situation to develop where people will be forced on to the dole queues or on to the unemployment registers by unscrupulous people. We must take the necessary action to ensure that we are ready to meet the problems.

Social welfare is another area where there are vampires sucking the State. There are a great many people drawing social welfare benefits who are not entitled to draw them. This is an area where we must ensure that the position is regularised. There are other people on social welfare benefit who could well do with increases to meet the increasing cost of every day life instead of having able bodied men breaking the law and drawing unemployment benefit and other benefits they are not entitled to.

A local authority, of which I am a member, last year got 22,000 sick certificates. This shows the volume of the problem that is confronting local authorities, semi-State bodies and other organisations. Some of these sick certificates are for the purpose of taking time off or for getting benefits that the people are not entitled to. The problem has reached outstanding proportions. We must ensure that the responsible people in this country get an adequate return and backup where they require it for every day life. I hope we bring this under control at the earliest possible moment. This has developed over many years and maybe we are all responsible to some degree. But, when it reaches crisis proportions we are all concerned. This has reached crisis proportions. We hear outbursts about it and then it fades away just as the breathalyser faded away. It comes back again when some problem develops. In these areas where the State is being attacked in one way or another we should take the necessary remedial action to ensure justice is done when people are apprehended. People who are prepared to suck away the finances of the State are not concerned about public property. They are not concerned about my rights or your rights or the rights of other people. They are only concerned about what they can get out of it. There must be a collective effort on our part to bring about the type of nation that we want. All responsible people should respond effectively to ensure that laws are not broken and that those who are breaking the law are apprehended and brought to justice at the earliest possible moment.

Those are the most important issues. The question of the millions of pounds has already been dealt with by other people. I am not interested in millions of pounds. The poor people who live in the flats and tenement accommodation in the city are not talking of millions of pounds. They want security. They want to be able to go their way in peace. They want to ensure that justice is done to them when they have problems. Many of these people have problems but their problems are so small that they are disregarded. To them, they are the biggest problems in the world. When people who steal £500,000 or £300,000 are apprehended they should be removed from society for all time.

While I agree with many of the things Senator Hussey said in relation to the status of Senators, I disagree with some. One would think that we were poor house politicians or cut price TDs. That is not the case. We have a constitutional position here. We are elected by the country at large. We are not in the same position as the Deputies in the lower House who are elected by a small constituency. Our constituency is the country at large and we have a responsibility to the people throughout the country. Our responsibilities are great responsibilities because they are not local responsibilities. If I want to meet my constituents, I have to travel to Donegal or to Galway or Kerry and elsewhere. The job of Senators is completely underrated. If anyone takes notice of what Devlin says in his assessment of Senators, they are on the wrong line. I hope that, in any review that takes place, nobody will take notice of what Devlin indicated in his red book on a previous occasion. Our pay and conditions are an indication of how people think of us as individuals. We have a very important constitutional responsibility. We carry it out to the best of our ability sometimes under difficult conditions and without the back-up service that is necessary and desirable. We all need a back-up service in this House quite apart from political parties. We need a Seanad back-up service that will give us the information and facilities necessary and desirable for people who are endeavouring to perform an important function.

Our function, as I said before, is an important one. If we are going to undersell ourselves or under-rate ourselves we are doing ourselves an injustice. I feel proud and honoured to be a Member of this House as I did when I was a member of the other House. As a Member of this House, I feel that some of my duties and responsibilities are greater than they were previously. Over the years, the State has tended to undervalue this House. We must perform and we must be the effective unit we are supposed to be according to the Constitution. That is the way we want to operate. If we are impeded by lack of services or by lack of respect from other politicians, that brings this House into disrespect. I hope that the views given by Senators in relation to our standing will be listened to by the appropriate Ministers and that a situation will evolve whereby services justly deserved, will be made available so that when we come to a debate such as this we will have the necessary back-up facilities and will not be making notes at a moment's notice to meet a situation. It is all too sad to think that a person who comes in here and listens for a few moments to a Minister has no one to do research work for him. We are not paid researchers. Many of the other Houses mentioned by Senator Hussey have these facilities. We are underpaid and overworked.

Senator Hussey mentioned pay. The ushers here have more pay than Senators. It depends on what job you are required to do. The job that we are required to do is an important one. I do not begrudge any section of the community getting more money for the job they do. I want to be paid for the job I do and I want to ensure that other people get adequate remuneration so that they can equip themselves to deal with debates of this nature and indeed with debates that will be coming forward in the future.

Our entry into the EEC has created problems for many people. It is a new area and there are research and development problems. The problems of the Continent are with us now each day. We have to do research and examine the situation. We must be equipped to do it. We are not equipped at the moment. I hope that in the near future we will get the respect and services we require in order to allow us to do our job in the manner in which we wish to do it in order to fulfil our constitutional position.

Mr. Connaughton

I could not allow this opportunity to go without complimenting Senator Dowling. All I can say is God help the Bugsy Malones in Dublin if he gets his way. I am only too delighted to be living as far west as I am if Dublin is as bad as what he says it is.

I want to refer to the problem of the drainage of the Dunkellin River in County Galway. Much has been made of this drainage job over the years. At every election the river in question was drained. However, a remarkable thing has happened. In Brussels we negotiated a fairly big grant for land drainage generally. When the allocation was made we found that the Dunkellin River in south Galway was not included. I want to bring home to the Minister that this is causing grave concern to several thousand farmers in that part of Galway. There are about 20,000 acres in an inferior condition because the land is seeping in water, and that at a time when land prices in that area are about £2,000 an acre. We have an invisible industry left dormant just because money is not forthcoming. We were told that there should have been a cost benefit survey done on it. I understand this was attempted, in part, some time ago but it has to be updated and we were told by the Minister's office that there is no guarantee it will be done in 1979 either. Allowing for the possibility that the cost benefit happens to be carried out in 1979, it is quite unlikely that the river will be drained for the next five or six years. It is very important that this be done at a time when there are so many people out of work, when the agricultural sector is going so well and when the Brussels authority see fit to inject so many millions of pounds into the Exchequer to help us to do the very things we want done in County Galway. I cannot understand why this cost benefit survey cannot be carried out immediately. I was informed that there was a shortage of staff in the Department. If that is the answer to it, that is even worse. Certainly, with the number of people unemployed, we should not have any problem getting personnel to carry out a cost benefit survey.

One could ask why was County Galway left out. I understand that there is a river in County Cavan to be drained. One can only assume that the Government are so delighted with their results in County Galway, with six seats out of eight, they think it is a type of county that will stay with them anyway and can be left in abeyance for a number of years. They will probably win six out of eight the next time.

Mr. O'Toole

The same victory the next time.

Mr. Connaughton

If the Dunkellin River is not drained next time, there will be no six out of eight. It is vitally important that the cost benefit study be carried out in the next couple of months. I was travelling through that area a short time ago and there was a lot of rain water and severe flooding. It is unbelievable the hardship that so many people have to put up with.

I would like to say in passing that the priority given to land drainage generally is not what I would have expected it to be. From the figures I have received it appears that there is about £30 million for field drainage and a sum of between £12 and £15 million for arterial drainage. Speaking from a farmer's point of view, that is putting the cart before the horse. There is no point in trying to drain land if there is not an outfall for it. There are several rivers like the Dunkellin that would alleviate great flooding and hardship if they were cleared first. Then field drainage could be tackled. The Government negotiated the deal even though the criteria, as far as I am concerned, are incorrect. It is vitally important that those types of rivers are drained to allow farmers to drain their land. Field drainage is very little good if the outfall is choked. We have a similar situation at the Islands River near the Galway-Roscommon border. We have more problems there. I cannot see for the life of me why the Department of Agriculture, under the EEC Scheme, could not drain that river as well. Many thousands of acres in one county are left waterlogged at a time when so much money is being pumped in. I have to ask why County Galway got such a terrible "scutching".

Once the cost benefit survey is carried out I should like the Minister to say when exactly the Dunkellin can be drained. It is in close proximity to the mining operations at Tynagh where they are on strike at the moment. In two years many people will be out of a job, perhaps 200 or 300 people. This is the catchment area of the Dunkellin. Many of the workers are part-time farmers and they could earn a better living if their land was drained. I want to take this opportunity to ask the Minister in the strongest possible way to use his influence to ensure that that river is drained as a top priority.

On land drainage I should also like to say grant-aiding for the purchase of machinery by co-ops is being mooted at the moment. I understand 25 per cent of the cost of land drainage equipment will be refunded to co-ops who buy this machinery on a co-operative basis. I welcome that. I am very co-operative-minded and I believe it is a step in the right direction. In an area where the co-operative movement is not strong, or where it cannot service an area, I cannot understand why contractors who have been there over the years, and have been giving a very good service, are not entitled to the grant as well. They perform a very useful function against all the odds over the years. Certainly no private agricultural contractor I ever met was a millionaire. Provided they give a good service, which most of them do, I cannot understand why they are not entitled to the 25 per cent grant as well.

On the question of the Office of Public Works and their responsibility towards the cleaning of certain waterways, drains, and so on, I understand that under an Act of the Oireachtas passed a few years ago, the Office of Public Works will only maintain waterways they maintained before a certain date.

In my duties as a public representative I have come across some remarkable happenings because of that legislation. I came across a farmer in a place called Abbeyknockmoy near Tuam who actually found himself in the situation that the Office of Public Works maintained a drain and cleaned it from what they call the big river to within 21 yards of his land. For some unknown reason the 21 yards were just left there. This means that 70 acres of this farmer's land could not be drained. The legislation provided that if the Office of Public Works did not clean it the last time they were maintaining the drain, they could not do it now. There are laws and laws, but when it comes down to the common good I wonder why those 70 acres could not be put into prime production because of 21 yards. I would ask the Minister to take a personal look at this matter. When legislation is being framed it should not be as tight at that because it verges on being stupid at that stage.

Another aspect to which I should like to address myself for a moment is the question of the Government's subvention to some of the rural organisations. I refer to the Irish Countrywomen's Association, Macra na Feirme, the IAOS and the Farm Apprenticeship Board. From what I understand from the accounts, the ICA get £20,000 per year, Macra na Feirme get £25,000, the IAOS get £20,000, and the Farm Apprenticeship Board get something like £37,000. Because of the type of business these organisations are doing, and the remarkably good work they have done for the State over the years, this type of figure is totally inadequate, and has not kept pace with inflation. Senator Dowling outlined the ills of society a few moments ago. In the rural areas things are not that bad. I would attribute our wellbeing at the moment to the unselfish efforts over the years of organisations like the ICA and Macra na Feirme. Any organisation who unselfishly train people to be leaders in their own community, to involve themselves in projects of a local nature, and provide leadership courses and much-needed recreation in the rural areas, should be helped by the Government to a far greater degree. There is no doubt that the organisations in question are very thankful for what they are getting but, in relation to what they got three or four years ago, and because of inflation, the figure needs to be increased. I take this opportunity to pay a warm tribute to those organisations for the wonderful efforts they have made on behalf of all the people over the years. Some months ago the Minister for Agriculture insisted on legalising the 30-day tuberculosis and brucellosis cattle tests. I work very closely with the livestock trade and I know it was necessary over the years to tighten up on disease control, but I cannot understand why the Minister did not make it a 60-day test. I believe it was pressure from the better farming areas which persuaded the Minister to do what he did. For the benefit of the House, what actually happens with a 30-day test is this: if a farmer in the west is selling his total of ten cattle in a year, he might actually have five sales. This is commonplace. That means he would have to get his vet five times extra that year and pay him five times extra. At the rate of £8 per visit plus £1.50 per animal, that can be a costly exercise. It is all right for the farmer with 20, 30 or 40 cattle to be tested at a time. He will get good value, but if the small farmer has only one animal to be tested it is likely that he will have to pay £8 for that animal.

Because of the way the bovine tuberculosis offices and the district veterinary offices are placed, to a large extent they are unable to cope with the new traffic. Several farmers I met were unable to get their brucellosis returns back from the laboratory inside two to three weeks. That meant their cattle identification cards were not in their hands for three weeks, and they had to sell in the last week of the 30 days.

Indeed, there are some people in the House who know what I am talking about. It could happen that they might be selling on the day of a bad sale and, unless they decided to take a bad price, they would have to retest after 30 days. The farmer might not be able to go to a sale again for the best part of six weeks. I would certainly recommend a 60-day test. This would stop a lot of unnecessary trafficking around in cattle. I would ask the Minister to review that situation. I compliment him on increasing the fines for people who are switching tags and generally messing. The worst enemy a farmer could have is a man who messes around in cattle and spreads disease. It should be easier to get a conviction than it is at the moment because so much proof is needed. Somebody would have to be actually watching the operator switching the tags before he could be a witness in a court of law. To cut out this malpractice some type of legislation must be enacted to enable convictions to be obtained more easily.

Having regard to the relative values of livestock at the moment, the Government's payments on reactor animals are inadequate. This has been the case over the years and, indeed, during the last year or two while the previous Government were in office the compensation was anything but good. This Government actually increased it last year. The problem is that the price of livestock has soared and certainly and a farmer who is caught with diseased animals in this herd is certainly in for a rough time financially. This is not so bad if your resources can stand it, but if medium and smaller type farmers have disease in their herds, it could mean almost ruination for them.

The farm modernisation scheme as presently constituted is not working in the best interests of all Irish farmers. There is a certain category of farmers in the transitional stage who certainly need more help than they are getting. Whatever the EEC authorities might like, I have no doubt that the greatest number of people we can keep on the land of Ireland—provided they are active farmers and are interested in production—the better. The farm modernisation scheme is not particularly helpful to part-time farmers in the west. The new drainage scheme has brought a new ray of hope there. As I understand it, irrespective of their sidelines outside of farming, anybody will be grant-aided for drainage. I suggest that in the next discussion with the Council of Ministers of Agriculture in Brussels, the Minister should seek more aid for part-time farmers and for all other aspects of farming.

I notice in the accounts that, under the dairy herd conversion scheme, the grant proposed was £185,000 and £144,000 odd was actually spent. Under that scheme farmers who are in milk production would be paid an EEC grant to switch over to beef. I am delighted that scheme has not worked, for the very good reason that no line of business is better from a farmer's point of view than the production of milk. We are in a unique position in Europe in this connection and it certainly does not suit us to go out of milk production. When that scheme was announced I was afraid many people might believe it was a good idea and go for it, but from all accounts it appears that is not the case.

Looking at the Department one cannot help thinking that the Land Commission are on the way out. The amount of money spent on actually buying land has gone to an all time low. Looking at land bonds accounts we get the real answer. All I have to say on this vital subject is that we are all awaiting the views of the Minister for Agriculture. They have been promised to us for quite some time and, while we are waiting for the news, there are many injustices under the present law as far as land sales are concerned. Unless the Minister brings in new legislation very quickly, many people who now have farms will not have them under more strict type of regulation. For the past six or eight months people have been slipping inside the regulation. People were well aware that the Land Commission had no money to buy land and that the only thing they could do was to serve what is called a section 40 order on properties for sale. What actually happened was that, if anybody within three miles was interested, irrespective of the size of the buyer, he got it, and many small farmers with farms adjoining these properties were left out in the cold because there was no Land Commission intervention. Financially they were not able to match up to the big man.

The farm retirement pension scheme is a joke. It was initiated in 1964 by the then Minister for Lands, Mr. O Moráin. It was a disaster then and it is now a disaster again. What is necessary to make the farm retirement pension scheme work? The mentality of many farmers of 60, 62, 63 or 65 years is that at that stage they are getting good. On the other hand, there are many bachelors who are old and infirm and in very bad health, and there must be some financial inducement to enable them to retire in relative comfort in their own homes with their own gardens and release the land to an up and coming young farmer.

A number of stumbling blocks have appeared over the past few years particularly in relation to social welfare. I remember saying before that if one thing is near and dear to the heart of an Irish man or woman in rural Ireland, it is the thought of getting the old age pension at the qualifying age. If anything happened to prevent them from getting the pension, they would be terribly upset. On occasions it was moreprudent financially to accept the scheme and do without the old age pension but no, the mentality embedded in their minds over the years was they had a God-given right to the pension and it was only right that they should get it. After all his years of toil if a farmer wants to retire there should be some provision in the social welfare code to allow him to draw the old age pension. Over the years all the sociologists, farm leaders and advisers have come up against that. I would ask the Government of the day and the Minister to see what can be done about it.

Whatever land policy we have, the sooner land bonds are forgotten about and scrapped, the better for all concerned. This is not a political matter. Successive Governments have had land bonds. Whether they are good or bad value, they are represented in rural Ireland as being bad value. People do not want to wind up with land bonds whether or not they have a good redemption value. They want cash in their hands. Whatever land structure comes from the Minister for Agriculture in the next couple of months, that will have to be taken into account. Whatever land policy is drawn up, I hope the Minister will take due note of the fact that the more people we have living in rural Ireland the better for Ireland.

On forestry I notice that the total wage bill has decreased somewhat. This would lead one to believe that there are fewer people involved in forestry, which would be a great problem and a great pity. The grants to private individuals for planting were far less than expected. I wonder why. Are they not attractive enough? Is it a fact that as a nation we are not tree-growing minded? There are vast areas in the more barren parts of the seaboard which could be planted. Every effort should be made to ensure that happens and whateverfinancial inducements are necessary should be provided. The Forestry Division should have a clear-cut policy on what land is suitable for planting and what is potentially good agricultural land. With our future in the EEC and withour ability to compete with our foreign colleagues most of the time, possibly some land is being planted at the moment which has a good agricultural potential.

The whole question of game development is an important factor. For the future of tourism, for recreation for our people, it is important that the Department concernedshould take due note of game development. Every effort should be made, where possible, to ensure that the game councils have sufficient technical and financial aid to keep our game reserves at as high a standard as possible.

We have the worsttelephone service this side of the Sahara desert. The telephone service in Leinster House would not be tolerated in any country in-Europe. Senator Dowling said we have a very bad back-up service here. I am not too sure what the answer is. The internal disputes would lead me to believe that no matter how much money the Department of Posts and Telegraphs spend, there is no goodwill on the part of the staff. If the labour relations problem in the Department cannot be overcome, it is time to scrap the Department and hand the responsibility over to somebody who will take it. If you pick up a telephone and get an answer from the local operator 35 minutes later, you are told the reason for the delay is that they are understaffed. This does not add up. If the Minister believes a better service would be provided if it were taken away from his Department, he should do that. It seems that fiddling around with what we have at present does not give us the service we require. There is no need to stress the importance to the industrial and commercial life of the country of a very efficient telephone service.

One of the biggest disasters in 1977-78 was the whole question of the £1,000 grant for new houses. Two years ago a county council loan of £4,500 facilitated the purchase of a house costing roughly £8,000. Now with a £9,000 loan the same house can be purchased for between £16,000 and £18,500. The purchaser is expected to do that on an income of £3,500, or £6 to £7 per week. He is asked to repay £22 a week, and that is only on the £9,000. He still has to get the bridging finance. Where will the extra £7,000 be found? I calculate that £22 per week is around 30 per cent of his gross earnings. That is the repayment on the loan. He still has to find a way of paying the bridging loan of the extra £7,000. The Government want people to build their own houses and that is laudable by any standards. If newly married couples and others have to make repayments under those conditions and, at the same time, face a wage freeze, the number of new houses built in the future will not be exciting.

In the four worst years of recession the Coalition Government built 25,000 houses per year. This was some record viewed in the light of the record in the past year-and-a-half. Under this Government, half as many local authority houses will be built this year as were built last year. House prices increased by 36 per cent. The price of housing materials increased by 10.5 per cent. Who got the profit? Not the small builder, and certainly not the house purchaser. It was the big builder, and he is on the gold rush again. The lower income group are certainly paying for the new millionaires. A certain number of the new millionaires were to the fore at the last election, and not on behalf of Fine Gael. Sites costing £1,500 to £2,000 only two years ago are now costing £5,000 to £7,500. Whatever Fianna Fáil might have, they have not a good record on housing.

There is worse news for potential house buyers. They will be paying 14½ per cent interest after the next couple of weeks. That will certainly make the £1,000 grant sound hollow, the grant which was supposed to solve the problem before the last general election. What went wrong? At the time we were told the building industry needed a boost. That was all very well but the wrong people got the boost. Of all the disasters in the manifesto the worst was the £1,000 grant. The £1,000 grant in itself might have been all right but the net cost of the houses is much higher now than it was at that time.

Only today we had a Bill before us for the abolition of rates on private houses. It is laudable in its own way but it means the end of responsible local authorities. I believe history was made in this House today. From now on county councillors will be no better than messenger boys.

As far as the general state of the nation is concerned, robberies, as Senator Dowling said, are an everyday occurrence. Our industrial relations performance was never worse. To further compound our problems they were in Europe last week negotiating our entry into the EMS. We found that we did not have too many friends there either. Whatever about the discussion today, the rumour around the House is that we will be members of the EMS tomorrow, but that is another story. It appears that our colleagues in Europe are not too happy with our housekeeping. They say that we put more than £800 million into the budget last year in an imprudent way. We put it in because Fianna Fáil had to live up to their manifesto promises which were far from beneficial.

Mr. Donnelly

We have the highest growth rate in Europe.

Mr. Connaughton

We will see what happens on budget day. If we do not get the EMS money we will have a worse budget next year. Ask the people who are looking for house loans at the moment whether things are better now than they were two years ago and you will soon get an answer. There is a big job ahead of us and the sooner Fianna Fáil forget about their manifesto promises and get down to governing the country the better.

Mr. O'Toole

I agree with what Senator Connaughton said in relation to problems in rural areas. First of all, I should like to refer to ESB services in my part of the country. It is unconstitutional that people living in remote areas will not enjoy rural electrification subsidies. In areas where the ESB have an electrification scheme they are demanding large sums of money from young couples, in some cases up to £1,000, and that is very wrong because they are unable to bear the heavy burden of mortgages. They are paying for the cost of the materials to bring the service to their homes. It would be more just if the ESB charged a service fee rather than for the materials used.

Some Senators referred to telecommunications. Most people living in rural areas endure appalling delays and bad service. The Minister for Posts and Telegraphs has injected £350 million into telecommunications in order to ensure that our system will be on a par with systems in other European countries. Some of the materials used will become obsolete in a short time and I feel that a shrewd look will have to be taken at the system and the materials used if we are to improve our services. If we use obsolete materials we may provide a service which, after five years, will not give the required standards. Now that we are in the European Community we need an efficient system in order to attract industrialists to establish businesses here.

I want to refer briefly to suggestions by various Governments in relation to the provision of life-saving equipment along our western seaboard. If any ship or aircraft is in difficulties along our western seaboard they have to await the arrival in daylight of a helicopter from Baldonnel which has to stop to refuel at either Shannon or Castlebar. In order to provide proper life-saving facilities along our western coast a helicopter should be based in the western region to service the coastline from Donegal to Cork. We must continue to appeal for this service for the western counties.

Another great problem confronting modern traffic is the huge articulated trucks that travel our roads. Money should be made available for the removal of obstacles such as railway bridges with insufficient headage for these trucks. I am sure that most people who travel to provincial towns see chaos and traffic hazards as a result of these long trucks being jammed in narrow laneways in our towns. The elimination of traffic hazards can be achieved by the removal of outdated railway bridges. Traffic fly-overs and automatic systems will have to be put into operation in order to carry these heavy trucks which are becoming more numerous. Trucks of that size have to be used to compete in the European Community. Most of these trucks carry produce to and from Europe. Our roads should be reclassified. Some few years ago the then Minister for Local Government introduced a reclassification scheme. In Mayo, Galway, Sligo and Roscommon we did not agree with the downgrading of some of our main roads. I would welcome reclassification of our primary and secondary roads in order to bring them up to a fairly high standard for the articulated traffic that has resulted from our entry into the EEC.

I compliment the Minister for Agriculture on his sheep marketing deal with the French Government. Rather than bringing the purchasers of our sheepmeat to court, he spelled out the problems of our sheep-meat industry. As a result, this year he got better lamb prices than we have enjoyed for many years. I want to mention a certain type of lamb, the mountain lamb from the high black hills of the west. Because of its conformation and grazing terrain it is not eligible for the French market. This type of lamb must be catered for. We must have a market for it if not in France then in the eastern European countries. This market must be explored in order to facilitate the small farmers living in the hills of Mayo, Donegal, Galway and Kerry, who have mixed grazing and are unable to produce a lamb with the same flesh meat as our people in some of our better areas of this country.

Recently, in the media the suggestion was made by vested interests that the real reason our meat factories are in trouble is that they have to compete with our livestock exporters. I want to warn those concerned that I will oppose vested interests who try to do away with the live export of calves, breeding heifers and steers. Over the years we have built up a market with Britain. If live exports were not competing with the meat factoris, I can tell the farmers and the Senators that the price farmers would be getting for their meat would be very low. Remember what happened in 1974 when the factories had control. It is because of poor management and outdated processing methods that we have problems in our factories. The number employed in meat factories could be doubled if we had proper processing facilities. We should be exporting our meat in a processed fashion in order to compete with the other members of the Community, and I hear rumblings from the Labour people in connection with this. There is much to be learned in this field. The only safety valve the farming community have is the retention of our live exports. The day that legislation is introduced to extinguish live exports whether sheep or cattle, the death knell will be rung for the farming community.

I congratulate the Minister on the introduction of the disease eradication scheme. We must be cruel to be kind. That is my summing up of it. There may be harassment to farmers in trying to cope with the 30-day test. I want to say to Senator Connaughton that the 30-day test was not introduced by the Minister but by the chief veterinarians of his Department. He gave them a job to do and a time limit in which to do it. A scheme was prepared with their expert advice for the eradication of both bovine TB and brucellosis by 1982. It is up to everybody to co-operate with it. The Minister should not change the views of his experts in this regard. The end product will be a disease-free herd by 1982. That will enable us to export our cattle disease free. It should also lead to a lucrative business in the export of serums for our pedigree cattle to the EEC and further afield.

In connection with the drainage scheme Senator Connaughton said that Galway was not included. His county was included as well as the 12 western counties. If there is any political implication it is that we on this side of the House provided up to £20 million over the next five years to embark on a major draining scheme for the west. I welcome it but I have reservations. I am delighted that the Minister responsible for the board and the scheme is present to hear what I have to say in connection with a portion of the west extending from Cork to Donegal, which is not part of the area because it does not come under the Arterial District Drainage Acts, 1945. There are a number of rivers with definite outlets in the sea along the coast in the 12 western counties that are not in that catchment area. As a result, the Board of Works have certain powers in regard to private fishing rights. Farmers who are outside the arterial drainage system have not got any powers.

I appeal to the Minister to extend the arterial drainage district immediately so as to ensure that the Board of Works have powers against objectors to this scheme. As Senator Connaughton said, the only effective way to drain land is to drain the outfall. The outfall and main arteries should be drained first to ensure the lowering of the water base. It would give the land project people a better look at a farmer's overall holding. I feel that the Minister knows what I am talking about and I hope he will look into this matter with a view to including it in the arterial drainage district.

In connection with FEOGA grants, which are already paid to certain co-ops the tendency is to use plum areas for the implementation of various schemes. The North Connacht Farmers' Co-operative and other big co-ops in Sligo, Roscommon and Mayo tend to give grants to farmers with 100 to 200 acres in plum areas. Where I come from some farmers have only four acres, ten acres or 12 acres. They do not want to know small farmers because it is no longer profitable for them to move in their machinery for a short time. The remuneration from this type of smallholding would not justify the movement of large machinery. The co-operatives should immediately select farmers in order to facilitate them with the 25 per cent grant that they are entitled to under the new regulation.

I am as concerned as Senator Staunton is about equal rights for islands not in the Gaeltacht areas. We have some of them off the coast of Mayo and Galway. The Government are examining the position with regard to grants for non-Gaeltacht islanders. I hope they solve the problem as quickly as possible.

I also welcome the decision of the Minister for Health that anybody who earns under £5,000 per annum will be entitled to free hospitalisation. It was necessary to bring the ceiling up to £5,000. The new scheme will include those who are unable to pay VHI premiums. Recently I put down a motion at a Mayo County Council meeting that a land bank be acquired alongside our harbours and piers. It is necessary for the future production of our fisheries and for the offshore exploration in the Porcupine and other places. It is necessary for local authorities to acquire land banks in the vicinity of our piers and harbours. If we find oil off the coast the magnates will move in fast and acquire land along our coast. People in the fish processing business will not be able to get the capital for the acquisition of land. Local authorities should ensure that they have land banks for this type of development. Week in and week out people speak about the farmers' dole.

Listening to some of the reports in the media, it would appear that the farmer's dole is handed out in a casual way. In the area I represent there are farmers with three acres, four acres, six acres, ten acres and 12 acres holdings, with valuations under £20. Under the unemployment assistance regulations they are entitled to unemployment assistance, but it is now called the small farmers' dole. Until some alternative assistance is provided, the abolition of the small farmers' dole will not be asked for in Mayo, Leitrim, Galway or in any other county where there are low valuations. They must spend a certain amount of time on their smallholdings in order to produce a few stock and rear their families. Many people speak frequently and freely about the farmer's dole. A capital injection in this field could mean the survival of this nation. Any Government that moves in this direction will be thanked by those living in the western region.

There is one type of individual who does not get any credit for his service to the nation. Since I came to this House I am getting some remuneration for my services. For 22 years I was an unpaid member of Mayo County Council. I appeal to the Minister for the Environment to consider how much time and work members of local authorities give voluntarily and unselfishly to their local community, who never get any further than an urban council or county council. As I said, they do not get any remuneration and are paid a very limited travelling and subsistance allowance. I would welcome a review of their contribution to local authorities. Some remuneration should be forthcoming for these people who have given their services diligently and unselfishly down the years.

I am not aware, as a member of a county development team, of any curtailment of the duties or services mentioned by my colleague, Senator Staunton in connection with SFADCo. We are working in the usual way, making provision and selecting applicants for small industries in Mayo, as we did in the past. I think we give and have given a great service over the years. In conjunction with the IDA we have helped many small industries which would never have got to the IDA board rooms. Indeed, some of them went abroad to acquire capital. They have returned to their own towns and set up small industries which give employment in their local area. That is a great breakthrough. Rather than the immigration we had in the past, we now have some of our sons and daughters coming back to rural Ireland, giving employment and being provided with capital grants for small industries. I do not know what the Senator means when he speaks about SFADCo and the county development teams. I would like to know more about that.

Professor Murphy

Like other Senators I am very glad to have the opportunity of making my own contribution to what is essentially a state-of-the-nation review. I hope not to go over again the ground which I have covered in the context of specific debates, nor to anticipate debates which, hopefully, will be coming up after Christmas. In that connection, though I understand, of course, that the Chamber here has to be looked after and we are all concerned at the damage which must receive urgent attention, at the same time I would hope that repair work will not be yet another reason why we should once more delay the transaction of our business. After all, if the Board of Works have to move in here for a prolonged period it should not be entirely beyond the resources of civilisation to arrange that we should meet elsewhere in this building.

I should like to begin by dealing with miscellaneous items of public interest before I move on to two or three more substantial regions of my own concern. I see Senator Cranitch here and I am sure he will be interested in discussing the implications of the arrival on the scene of RTE 2 which was one of the big events in the history of telecommunications and which was duly ushered in, in Cork at least, with a great flourish of trumpets. I have heard Senator Cranitch expressing his disappointment, indeed his outrage at the standard of the new service. I must say I have considerable sympathy for him. He and I share some views at least and I think I know what he is saying. It is true that some of the programmes on our new service are quite stupifyingly banal. On the other hand if we give RTE 2 a fair trial, not that I am particularly a television addict, I think we will find that the planners of the new service are trying to give us some programmes of excellent quality. Of these, Senator Cranitch would say, and here again I would agree with a lot of his thinking, that is all very well but that RTE 2 is essentially not our service. Perhaps a second television channel was not strictly speaking necessary: one television service is more than enough for a country of our size. It is an open secret that the reason why we had to have RTE 2 was because of the geographical freak that Dublin and the east coast already had access to other services. Hence the resultant clamour for either an extension of multichannel or at worst a second channel from RTE. Ideally we should take our standards in these matters from other small countries and not from the BBC which after all caters for a vast population and which has tremendous expertise in these matters. Nevertheless if there was to be a second channel then I think the thing to ensure was that above all we should not alienate that second channel to the control of another State. That would have been tantamount to cultural treason. That is why I did my bit at the time when the then Minister for Posts and Telegraphs was aiming to do precisely that, to alienate a national resource to another State. I did what I could to join with those who were opposed to his move. More broadly I might say that I was opposed to the wider philosophy behind his move because he made no secret of that fact that he was opposed to cultural protectionism. I hold it the solemn duty of any Government of a sovereign State to protect what is distinctive about the culture of that State. To an extent the battle was won. We stopped the move to have the proposed channel alienated to the BBC and we kept it under our own control. It was a victory of a sort. Now that we have it under our own control it is not, perhaps, what all of us would like it to be, but at least it is in the hands of the RTE Authority. For that reason I was somewhat surprised that on the night of the opening programme in the Cork Opera House, the place was picketed by Conradh na Gaeilge. I thought this was unimaginative of them because they should have recognised that, while it may not be all that we desire, we can improve it since it is our own. We have the power to improve it and let us hope that the percentage of native programmes and of Irish language programmes will be increased as resources permit.

On an allied subject, I spoke publicly earlier this year on the issue of pirate radio. I do not propose to repeat what I said then. I am convinced that the radio service, of its very nature, should be kept under public control, perhaps not necessarily under the RTE Authority. I must take the Government and the RTE Authority to task for not anticipating the quite genuine demand there is for local radio. When that demand was finally articulated, the Government were equally slow in meeting the demand.

This development should be hastened even now because the longer the pirate radio stations exist the more they acquire a customary right by their very existence. Therefore, it is important to do two things: to expedite the provision of genuine local community radio which will not be concerned with turning a fast buck but with providing a service, and at the same time to initiate quickly serious legislation against illegal broadcasting. I think Senator Dowling made an essential point in the context of other areas of our life and society, that if the law is there it must be obeyed. There can be no connivance at illegality. In the area of pirate broadcasting this is precisely what has been happening. These violators of the law have cocked a snoot at the law. They advertise their wares openly which I take it is itself illegal. I am disappointed that Members of the Oireachtas have accepted invitations to speak and comment on these illegal channels of communication.

I support everything Senator Robinson has said about the injustice in many areas of our legal system and the need for reform in these areas. I think Senator Robinson, though she may annoy the Government side from time to time, has given unstinted service to the cause of law reform. The issue of Loughan House came up in that respect and I was one of those, who after some misgiving, supported the opponents of Loughan House because I felt fundamentally that Loughan House was a simple way out of a complex situation. Senator Lanigan said that of course it was regrettable but that these children must be taken out of their environment for their own sakes. Surely what we must do ultimately is to take that environment away from these children and away from society.

One of the issues during the year has been the question of nuclear power and more particularly the controversy which has centred around the proposed erection of a nuclear plant at Carnsore. This is an issue which has generated— generated is the mot juste—as much if not more emotion than Wood Quay. In the long run, it may prove to be a socially more disruptive issue. The concern about building a nuclear plant is, of course, shared world wide and we have examples of places such as Austria where the question has brought about a political crisis. The main point I want to make is that I do not think the question has been debated seriously enough. The Government have not given the lead in a public debate. The Minister has set his face against a public inquiry. I think a public inquiry is the only way we have to discover what we want, to discover what kind of society we want because the most crucial question behind nuclear energy is not, important though it is, the question of alleged dangers, physical danger and destruction of the environment, but the kind of society we really want. Do we need this extra new power? Do we need an industrial society or are we content with some kind of pastoral arcadian society? We need to debate what kind of society we want before we can say whether we want a nuclear station or not. The Minister suggested that the matter was not a matter for public inquiry, as if people are not competent to discuss this vital question. Yet people are trusted with all kinds of important decisions such as entry into the Common Market, choosing Governments and dealing with referenda on the Constitution. There is no reason why an intelligent electorate could not be trusted to debate sensibly this highly important issue.

One of the dangers of the situation is that, by default, the Electricity Supply Board are being permitted to arrogate to themselves the field of nuclear policy. Members will know that I have spoken extremely highly of our semi-State bodies in general and of the ESB in particular. I am informed by a science colleague that the record of ESB engineers in generating maximum output with the greatest husbanding of resources, in other words avoiding waste, is second to none in Europe. The question is whether the ESB for all their expertise are the body that should be allowed to take over a nuclear policy. There is very strong case for a national energy authority not simply to direct the question of nuclear energy but the whole field of research, development and practice. There have been only token gestures in these respects.

On that energy authority we could have, of course, the ESB but also representatives from the world of commerce and from academics some of whom are doing extremely useful work on slender resources investigating the possibilities of things like solar energy and so on, and the authority should also include representatives from the Industrial Development Authority.

The danger of the present position is that the Minister's intransigent attitude will polarise debate, will put on one side those who say we must have a nuclear station and on the other those who are opposed to it at all costs. There is no need for this polarisation of debate and if the Minister modified his intransigent attitude he could defuse the situation, a situation which needs to be defused even more than Wood Quay.

Senator Hussey referred to certain aspects of the taxation question and I want to dwell on one greviously unjust area of taxation and that is the iniquity of the Pay-As-You-Earn system. It continues to be a standing reproach to this Government as to previous Governments. There is industrial unrest in the country, we are all aware of that. I do not think, by the way, that Senator Lanigan's conspiracy theory gets us very far except perhaps to divert attention from the real causes. Much of this industrial unrest is related to an unfair system of taxation. Certainly the increasing unrest in the public service seems to me to be linked with the uneven spread of taxation. Reference has been made to tax evasion and tax avoidance, and it is customary in this country over the last few years to point the finger of tax evasion or tax avoidance largely at the farming community and there is much truth in this. Urban-rural tensions have been noticeably absent in Irish history; in fact one of the great strengths of the land struggle was the identity of town and country, but urban-rural tensions have increased in recent years according as the prosperity of certain sections of the rural community is not reflected in the living standards of many urban workers, and those tensions will increase until the prosperous farming community pays its fair share of taxation and the phrase "fair share" should not mean what the farmers want it to mean. Their spokesmen are frequently on record as saying, "We will pay our fair share." The suggestion is that they should determine what is the fair share. That is not acceptable.

But we must remember that the fraud and scandal of tax dodging, whether it is evasion or avoidance, is practised by large sections of the wealthy self-employed, not simply the farmers, but many sectors of the professional classes and those in commerce and in trade. The burden thus avoided falls all the more heavily on the shoulders of those whose salaries and wages are readily accountable to the Revenue Commissioners. No one should underestimate the bitterness and the cynicism which this injustice engenders not least when appeals are frequently made, and we can take it that they will be made with more frequency in the future, for restraint and moderation in wage demands. On these occasions one would not blame the PAYE worker for saying "certainly I will moderate my demands if I am not so unjustly taxed." It has been argued that the administrative cost of catching the tax dodger, whether he is a medical consultant or a lawyer or a builder, would be enormous and would nullify the expected increase in tax revenue. This seems to me to be an absolutely defeatist attitude and implies an inbuilt resistence to any attempt to improve matters. It is an attitude which simply compounds the prevailing cynicism. I think there should be a serious attack made on, say, one particular section of tax dodgers in a given taxation year and frighten the life out of them and really punish them. If such an attack is backed up by the application of serious penalties, it would intimidate all tax dodgers into some sense of their civic responsibilities and would help to convince PAYE earners that some attempt was being made to lighten their own load.

I have referred to unease in the public service, an unease which is daily increasing and in this connection I would draw the attention of Senators to a statement published in The Irish Times on 18 November last, a statement from the Association of Telecommunication Engineers giving details of what they allege to be an alarming drift of professional engineers from the Post Office into private industry. They claim that 31 experienced engineers resigned in this year up to the date of that statement, that is to say 31 experienced engineers from January to November last, compared to a total of 28 in the previous five years. This represents a shattering collapse in morale. Basically they say the reason is that P & T engineers are 25 per cent below the salary levels of engineers in the ESB and elsewhere. They further claim that recruitment is drastically down on previous years and this at a time when the number needs to be increased to implement the present five-year capital programme for the telephone service. There is apparently the extraordinary situation where much of the capital investment earmarked for the expansion of the telephone service this year will not be spent, largely because of the shortage of professional engineers. If this is true, in view of the shambles that is our telephone services, it can only be described as a crazy state of affairs. I agree with Senators Connaughton and O'Toole that the most drastic measures are called for to deal with the sick joke of our telephone service.

At this stage I would like to go on to another area of my contribution but I would, with your consent Sir, prefer not to begin now.

Debate adjourned.

The Seanad adjourned at 9.30 p.m. until 10.30 a.m. on Friday, 15 December 1978.