Prelude
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Language Policy.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Capital Formation and Savings.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Value of Exports.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Destination of Exports.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Employment in Agriculture and Industry.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Census of Population: Language Statistics.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Boxing Dangers.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Grants for Destitute Parents.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Duty on Golf Caddy Cars.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Drainage Schemes.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Árus an Uachtaráin.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Second Garda Station in Waterford.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Prosecutions for Unlighted Cycles.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Cobh Urban District Council: Removal of Councillor.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Professional Boxing Contests.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Applications for Residence Permits.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Milk Deliveries to Creameries.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Slaughter of Horses for Export.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Kildare Farmer's Water Supply.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Re-Survey of Lands Subject to Flooding and Coast Erosion.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Waterford Forestry Operations.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Light at Bullsmouth (Achill).
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Killybegs Fishmeal Factory Project.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Rural Electrification.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Cost of Laying Roads.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Recreational Facilities in Dublin.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Equipment of Defence Forces.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Broadcasting Station in Waterford.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Broadcasting of Results of Hurling and Football Matches.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - School Text Books.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Extension of Waterford Convent Schools.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Teaching of First Aid in Primary Schools.
Order of Business.
Courts (Establishment and Constitution) Bill, 1959—First Stage.
Courts (Supplemental Provisions) Bill 1959—First Stage.
Electoral (Amendment) Bill, 1959—First Stage.
Electricity (Supply) (Amendment) Bill, 1959—First Stage.
Transport Bill, 1959—First Stage.
Petroleum and other Minerals Development Bill, 1959—First Stage.
Shannon Free Airport Development Company Limited Bill, 1959—First Stage.
Restrictive Trade Practices (Amendment) Bill, 1959—First Stage.
Courts of Justice Bill, 1959—First Stage.
Export Promotion Bill, 1959—Fifth Stage.
Estimates for Public Services 1959-60.
Committee on Finance. - Vote 56—Wireless Broadcasting (Resumed).
Committee on Finance. - Vote 3—Department of the Taoiseach (Resumed).
Committee on Finance. - Motion for Late Sitting.
Committee on Finance. - Estimates for Public Services, 1959-60.
Committee on Finance. - Vote 3—Department of the Taoiseach (Resumed).
Committee on Finance. - Estimates for Public Services (1959-60)—Report.
Committee on Finance. - Issue out of Central Fund.
Committee on Finance. - Appropriation Bill, 1959—All Stages.
Committee on Finance. - Messages from Seanad Eireann.
[1631]Do chuaigh an Ceann Comhairle i gceannas ar 3 p.m.
Paidir. Prayer.Mr. T. Lynch: asked the Taoiseach if he will state the Government's policy for the revival of the Irish language.
The Taoiseach: The policy of the Government is to continue to seek the achievement of the national aim of restoring the Irish language, by encouraging the preservation and extension of its use as a vernacular language.
We believe that to achieve this aim Irish must be given its proper place in the schools and in educational programmes, that the organs of State must assist in fostering and promoting the language and that the public generally must be encouraged to use it as far as possible.
The methods and the means to be adopted towards this end are constantly kept under review. In this connection, I may refer the Deputy especially to the appointment of a Government Commission in July, 1958, the terms of reference of which are:—
“Having regard to the position at present reached in the endeavour to secure the restoration of the Irish language, to consider and to advise as to the steps that should now be taken by the community and the State to hasten progress towards that end.”
I would also refer the Deputy to my statement to the House in this regard, on the 23rd June, in connection [1632] with the nomination of the members of the Government.
Mr. T. Lynch: Is it the Government's intention to continue the policy of what some people call compulsory Irish and what I would call essential Irish—that boys and girls applying for certain positions in this State must qualify in Irish?
The Taoiseach: It seems to me that that is the same question over again. I can only refer the Deputy to the reply I have already given.
Mr. T. Lynch: I should like the Taoiseach to qualify what he has said. Is it the Government's intention to carry on this policy of what is called compulsory Irish?
The Taoiseach: I am not quite sure what the Deputy has in mind. I can only refer him to the reply I have given.
Mr. Russell: asked the Taoiseach if he will state the sources from which the following statistics are computed each year:—gross capital formation, net capital formation, national capital formation and current savings.
Parliamentary Secretary to the Taoiseach (Donnchadh Ó Briain): The estimates of gross domestic capital formation are compiled mainly from data collected in the Censuses of Industrial Production and Distribution, the Agricultural Census and Trade Returns. Estimates of the capital expenditure on roads, obtained from the Department of Local Government, are also included. The estimates are obtained by aggregating estimates of the value of home-produced capital goods, of the value of imported capital goods ready for use and of the value of physical changes in stocks, including livestock on farms.
Net domestic capital formation differs from gross domestic capital formation by the value of the provision for depreciation. The sources used in estimating depreciation are data in the Census of Industrial Production returns and import trade [1633] statistics, the income tax wear and tear and obsolescence allowances prepared by the Revenue Commissioners, and data in Government accounts for payments to sinking funds, etc. Estimates of depreciation are necessarily not as reliable as the estimates of gross domestic capital formation and, therefore, the estimates of net domestic capital formation, which depend on the depreciation allowances taken, are less reliable than the gross figures.
Gross national capital formation differs from gross domestic capital formation by net foreign investment (or disinvestment) which is the surplus (or deficit) on the Balance of International Payments.
The total of current savings, provision for depreciation and net foreign disinvestment is equated to the value of gross domestic capital formation. Current savings is, therefore, a residual estimate and is affected by any errors of estimation in the other aggregates.
Mr. Dillon: Arising out of the Taoiseach's reply, I should like to ask is there any living creature claiming to be rational who has any clear understanding of what is meant by gross capital formation, net capital formation or national capital formation, or would I be right in believing that this is largely a phantasm of the statistician's mind?
The Taoiseach: The answer is “Yes”.
Mr. Dillon: That is a very courageous reply on the part of the Taoiseach.
Mr. Russell: asked the Taoiseach if he will state the value (base 1953= 100) of exports, for each year 1948 to 1958, inclusive, of the following:— cattle, foodstuffs, raw materials and manufactured goods (other than foodstuffs).
Donnchadh Ó Briain: I propose, with the permission of the Ceann Comhairle, to circulate in the Official Report a statement showing for each of the [1634] years 1948 to 1958 index numbers to base 1953=100 of the values of domestic exports of (a) Live Cattle, (b) Foodstuffs (including foodstuffs of animal origin, cereals and feeding stuffs and miscellaneous articles of food) and (c) Other Raw Materials and Manufactured Goods (excluding live animals, food, drink and tobacco, parcel post and temporary transactions).
INDEX numbers of values of certain domestic exports.
Base: year 1953=100.* Excluding Live Animals, Food, Drink and Tobacco, Parcel Post and Temporary Transactions.
Mr. Russell: asked the Taoiseach if he will state for each year 1948 to 1958 the principal countries to which cattle, foodstuffs, raw material, and manufactured goods (other than foodstuffs) were exported.
Donnchadh Ó Briain: I propose, with the permission of the Ceann Comhairle, to circulate in the Official Report two statements covering the years 1948 to 1958, one showing the values of domestic exports of live cattle and the other showing the values of domestic exports of foodstuffs and of other raw materials and manufactured goods, distinguishing in each case the principal countries of destination.
[1635][1636] Following is the statement:—
I. VALUE of Permanent Domestic Exports of Live Cattle to principal countries in each of the years 1948 to 1958.(a) Including foodstuffs of animal origin, cereals and feedingstuffs and miscellaneous articles of food.
(b) Excluding live animals, food, drink and tobacco parcel post and temporary transactions.
Mr. T. Lynch: asked the Taoiseach if he will state in respect of the years 1956, 1957 and 1958 the number of persons fully employed in (1) agriculture and (2) industry.
Donnchadh Ó Briain: It is not possible to give the information asked for by the Deputy if by “number of persons fully employed” is meant the number who were in full-time employment throughout each week of the year. An estimate is made each year, relating to the month of April, of the total of persons at work in the State classified according to industrial group in which principally engaged. The estimated numbers engaged in Agriculture, forestry and fishing in 1956, 1957 and 1958 were 445,000, 433,000 and 429,000, respectively. The estimated numbers engaged in Industry, comprising Mining, quarrying and turf production, manufacturing, construction and electricity, gas and water, in 1956, 1957 and 1958 were 294,000, 286,000 and 282,000, respectively.
Mr. T. Lynch: asked the Taoiseach whether in connection with the Census of Population, 1956, a special inquiry was carried out into the use and knowledge of the Irish language in all households situated in certain areas; and if he will state in relation to the areas included in the Gaeltacht Areas Order, 1956, and in respect of the relative areas in each of the counties of Galway, Donegal, Mayo, Kerry, Cork and Waterford (a) the total number of (i) households and (ii) persons in the areas, and (b) the total number of persons of three years of age and over, and of these (i) the number who can speak Irish only, (ii) the number who can speak Irish and English, and (iii) the totals of such.
Donnchadh Ó Briain: In conjunction with the Census of Population, 1956, a special inquiry was carried out into the use and knowledge of the Irish language in respect of all households situated in the Gaeltacht areas, [1638] as defined by Coimisiún na Gaeltachta, 1925. At previous Censuses of Population, where information as regards knowledge of Irish was obtained, this was got by means of a special question on the Household Schedule completed by the individual heads of households. In 1956 the basic data on use and knowledge of the language were elicited by means of a special return completed by the Enumerators after oral questioning. The Enumerators in the areas concerned were members of the Gárda Síochána.
After the completion of the 1956 Inquiry an independent check was carried out in a sample of districts by Inspectors of the Primary Education Branch of the Department of Education with a view both to assessing the general standards applied by the Census Enumerators and to ascertaining whether these standards were uniform in different areas. This investigation revealed, both as regards use and knowledge of the Irish language, very wide discrepancies between the average standards of the Census Enumerators and of the Department Inspectors and also showed that there were considerable differences between individual Census Enumerators. A comparison of the 1956 results with those of the 1946 Census also disclosed wide and inexplicable variations.
I am advised by the Central Statistics Office that in the light of these findings, the data obtained from the 1956 inquiry into the Irish language are not sufficiently reliable to merit official publication.
Gen. Mulcahy: Will the Parliamentary Secretary say, in view of what he has just stated, whether the Gaeltacht Ministry is taking any steps to get an accurate enumeration made?
The Taoiseach: First of all, I should want notice of that question. I am not quite sure what activity is in progress there at the moment. This data is available but, for the reasons which have been explained in the reply, it cannot be regarded as very reliable. For what it is worth, I would be prepared to send it privately to the Deputy. It is necessary, however, to [1639] emphasise all the qualifications that must attach to it.
Gen. Mulcahy: It is desirable that the comparative figures should be available, together with a comment made either by the Department of Education and the Statistics Office, or by both. Competent and intelligent persons on the side of both the Gárda Síochána and the Department of Education side were involved and it would be very interesting to see where the discrepancy arose from the point of view of standards. It would be interesting to see also whether there are separate figures on the Department of Education side as compared with the figures on the Statistics side.
The Taoiseach: I shall send the Deputy the return but, in view of the wide variations in the standards adopted by the enumerators, it will be obvious to him, I think, that only very limited use can be made of it.
Mr. T. Lynch: Might I suggest to the Taoiseach that the next time a check is being made, since it is obvious somebody is cooking the figures, he should ensure that the census taken is a true census?
The Taoiseach: I do not agree with that at all. Any Deputy who understands the problem will realise the difficulty in securing the services of enumerators in an inquiry of this kind, enumerators who can apply the standards necessary to secure uniformity over a wide area.
Dr. Browne: asked the Minister for Health whether in view of the fact that it has been held on reputable medical authority that boxing, and in particular professional boxing, is a potentially dangerous and damaging sport to those who take part in it, he will take such steps as are necessary to publicise this fact for the benefit of those clubs, schools, and persons who may not be aware of it.
Minister for Health (Mr. MacEntee): [1640] The dangers associated with boxing, particularly professional boxing, have been the subject of considerable publicity over a great many years. It does not seem to me that there exists such ignorance of these dangers as would justify the expense involved in again bringing them to the notice of those persons and bodies mentioned in the Deputy's question.
Mr. Dillon: If these dangers exist and are so widely, even universally known, how does the Minister reconcile that fact with the Government's decision to relieve this activity from the normal impact of entertainment tax?
Mr. Dillon: The Deputy might break his leg but not his neck, unless he dances on it.
Dr. Browne: asked the Minister for Social Welfare if in order to protect the integrity of the family unit as the basis of our society, he will take steps, if necessary by the introduction of legislation, to provide that a grant comparable to that paid to the relevant authority controlling the homes, convents and industrial schools to which children are sent will in future be paid to the destitute parents of children who are at present removed from the care of their parents in the family and sent to live a community life in such homes, convents and industrial schools.
Mr. MacEntee: In so far as I have been able to interpret the Deputy's intention, it would appear that he desires that the capitation now paid to institutions in respect of children committed to their care who may have destitute parents alive, should be paid over to these latter. I must say that I fail to see how such an arrangement would be to the advantage of the child or children concerned and, therefore, I do not contemplate action which would make it possible.
Dr. Browne: Is it not a fact that if four children are committed to an [1641] industrial school it costs the State anything between £6 and £10 per week to maintain them there? Would it not be much more beneficial and desirable if that money, or a substantial portion of it, were paid to the parents in order to allow the children to remain with their parents and avoid the necessity of breaking up the family circle?
Mr. MacEntee: First of all, there is no certainty that if the money were paid to destitute parents they would be able to maintain themselves and their children. Secondly, there is no guarantee whatever that the money paid would be devoted to the care of the children.
Mr. Haughey: asked the Minister for Finance whether the duty on golf caddy cars had been removed or altered by any recent customs order; whether there is any import duty now applicable to golf caddy cars and, if so, what is the rate of such duty.
Minister for Finance (Dr. Ryan): Golf caddy cars were liable to special Import Levy at the rate of 60% ad valorem (full rate) or 40% ad valorem (preferential rate) up to 16 April, 1959, when they were removed from the scope of the Special Import Levy. As from that date a protective Customs duty was imposed on them at the same rates.
Mr. McQuillan: Is it not a fact that the import levy on these golf caddy cars was taken off in the recent Budget?
Dr. Ryan: It was taken off and put on again.
Mr. McQuillan: The import levy was taken off and a duty was put on?
Mr. McQuillan: Would the Minister say why that was done in respect of these particular items when racing boats and equipment, about which I asked a question recently, were not treated in the same fashion? Why is there a difference?
[1642]Dr. Ryan: The Deputy said originally there was no duty on caddy cars. The same rate of duty remains, but it is under a different heading. That is all the difference it made. It was hoped these cars might be made here and, as soon as we arrive at the point when racing boats are made here, we shall remove the duty on those.
Mr. McQuillan: The Minister will agree I was correct in stating that the levy was taken off golf caddy cars. That was done evidently in the hope that firms would manufacture the cars here and would require protection. In view of the fact that no firms are making the particular type of racing boat and equipment to which I refer, would the Minister not agree now to reconsider the position and remove the levy?
An Ceann Comhairle: I do not understand how racing boats come into this question at all.
Mr. Dillon: This question was put down at the request of the Minister for Finance for the purpose of enabling him to give the Deputy “a sock in the jaw”.
Mr. McQuillan: It is an inspired question.
Mr. Donnellan: asked the Minister for Finance if he will state (1) the extra amount of flooding in the river Shannon caused by the Brosna arterial drainage scheme, (2) the total cost of the Corrib Clare arterial drainage scheme up to 1st July, 1959, and when he expects the scheme to be completed, and (3) the position as regards the Suck arterial drainage scheme.
Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance (Mr. Bartley): (1) There is no evidence that any extra flooding on the Shannon has resulted from the Brosna drainage works which were completed in 1955.
(2) The cost of the Corrib-Clare arterial drainage scheme to 1st July, 1959, is £1,870,000 approximately. The scheme is expected to be completed in 1964.
[1643] (3) The question of a drainage scheme for the Suck catchment area is closely bound up with the River Shannon flood problem which is under preliminary investigation arising out of the Rydell Report. Accordingly, I cannot say when it may be possible to carry out a drainage scheme for the Suck catchment.
Mr. Donnellan: Not so long ago, the Parliamentary Secretary made a statement that it was on account of the Rydell Report that the Suck was held up, that is, because Mr. Rydell reported that any drainage on the Suck would increase the flooding on the Shannon. Now we find out that the Brosna, when drained into the Shannon, caused no extra flooding on the Shannon. How, then, can the Parliamentary Secretary make out that any drainage on the Suck would cause extra flooding on the Shannon?
Mr. Bartley: Perhaps the Deputy will get all the detailed information in the Rydell Report and I refer him to paragraph 29. In any event, the positive decision which held up any further proceedings on the Suck was a decision by his Government when he was Parliamentary Secretary in charge of the Office.
Mr. Donnellan: That is not so. You tried that before.
Mr. Bartley: Will the Deputy permit me to tell him that when he was Parliamentary Secretary, holding the position which I now have——
Mr. Dillon: Does this correspond to the new look?
Mr. Bartley: There was a new look, in any event, as a result of the Rydell Report and directions were given to the engineers to cease their operations on the preparation of the design.
Mr. Donnellan: May I ask the Parliamentary Secretary has the present Government accepted the Rydell Report?
Mr. Donnellan: The outgoing Government did not accept it.
[1644]Mr. Bartley: They did accept it.
Mr. Donnellan: They did not accept it.
Mr. Bartley: They made decisions on it.
Mr. Donnellan: Well you know they did not, because it was all wrong and there was no heed given to it.
Mr. Bartley: The last Government made decisions on the Rydell Report and we have honoured them.
Mr. T. Lynch: asked the Minister for Finance whether there is a grand piano amongst the furnishings at Árus an Uachtaráin; and, if so, when it was purchased; and what was its cost.
Mr. Bartley: A baby grand piano was supplied to Árus an Uachtaráin in November, 1945, at a cost of £350. The supply was in replacement of a piano which had been provided for the then Governor General in 1928 and which was subsequently transferred for use in Radio Éireann.
Mr. T. Lynch: I want to ask a question arising out of this famous 1928 piano. That piano should have been kept and sent to the Museum.
Mr. Bartley: It was sent to Radio Éireann.
Mr. T. Lynch: That is the famous piano that Fianna Fáil went to the country with, to smear Mr. Cosgrave.
An Ceann Comhairle: Is the Deputy asking a question?
Mr. T. Lynch: The Deputy is making a statement this time.
An Ceann Comhairle: The Deputy is not entitled to make a statement at Question Time.
Mr. Dillon: Is that the piano on which Fianna Fáil rode into office in 1938?
General Mulcahy: And is it in the Museum?
The Taoiseach: It is in Radio Éireann.
[1645]Mr. T. Lynch: I heard a former Minister saying that Mr. Cosgrave wanted to put his top hat on it. We know whose top hat is on it now.
General Mulcahy: Will it be put in the Museum when Radio Éireann is finished with it?
The Taoiseach: I doubt if the Museum will want it.
Mr. T. Lynch: asked the Minister for Justice if he will investigate the position regarding the necessity for a second Garda station in Waterford city.
Minister for Justice (Mr. Traynor): The question of the accommodation to be provided for the Gardaí at Waterford is at present under consideration. It is not possible to indicate, at this stage, whether it will be necessary to provide a second station at that centre.
Mr. T. Lynch: asked the Minister for Justice if he will state the number of persons prosecuted for having unlighted cycles on the public highway in the years 1956, 1957 and 1958.
Mr. Traynor: The figures as compiled relate to offences by cyclists under the Lighting Regulations and consequently include prosecutions for failure to have a reflector. The figures are:
1956 : 16,678 1957 : 12,915 1958 : 12,764Mr. McAuliffe: asked the Minister for Justice whether he is aware that Councillor Miss Hartland was forcibly removed by the Superintendent of the Garda Síochána from the council chamber of the Cobh Urban District Council on two occasions; and, if so, under what authority such action was taken.
Mr. Traynor: I have informed [1646] Councillor Miss Hartland that the efforts of the Garda Síochána in this matter were directed throughout in the interests of the public peace and in preventing a threatened breach thereof. As she has indicated that she is considering the question of instituting legal proceedings against the Superintendent and as the main point at issue in such proceedings would necessarily be whether the action of the Garda Síochána was justifiable in law, I am of opinion that any further comment by me would be undesirable.
Mr. M.P. Murphy: Will the Minister indicate in what way Councillor Miss Hartland was guilty of a breach of the peace?
Mr. Traynor: I do not desire to enter into any discussion on that subject at the moment but the Deputy is fully aware himself of the reasons why the lady was removed.
Mr. M.P. Murphy: The Minister has not answered the question he was asked. Deputy McAuliffe requested information as to the authority on which the Superintendent of the Garda Síochána removed an elected representative of the people of Cobh from the council chamber of the Cobh Urban District Council. We maintain that there was no justification at all for that action and we want the Minister to answer in this House.
An Ceann Comhairle: The Minister has said that the matter will find its way into the Courts. In those circumstances, it is undesirable that the matter should be discussed.
Mr. Kyne: There are no court proceedings.
Mr. M.P. Murphy: There are no court proceedings pending and some of the people in Cobh believe that this is a conspiracy between some of the council representative and others down there to belittle the efforts of this rather formidable and forceful representative of her constituents.
An Ceann Comhairle: The Deputy may ask a question. The Deputy is making charges.
[1647]Mr. Norton: Paying tributes.
Mr. M.P. Murphy: With all due respect to your ruling, Sir, the Minister has been asked a question by Deputy McAuliffe, which he has not answered. I want to know from the Minister under what Section or subsection of any Act of Parliament the Superintendent took this action against Councillor Miss Hartland. He has no authority in law for doing so.
Dr. Browne: asked the Minister for Justice if he will consider introducing legislation to prohibit the exhibition of professional boxing contests in the State.
Mr. Traynor: I do not propose to introduce such legislation.
Dr. Browne: asked the Minister for Justice whether application for permission to reside in this country has been made by Mr. Otto Skorzeny; and, if so, whether permission has been granted, and whether any conditions have been imposed.
Mr. Traynor: No such application has been received from the person mentioned.
Dr. Browne: asked the Minister for Justice whether application for permission to reside in this country has been made by Sir Oswald Mosley; and, if so, whether permission has been granted, and whether any conditions have been imposed.
Mr. Traynor: No such application has been received from the person mentioned.
Dr. Browne: May I ask, in respect of both these people, if the Minister has the power, should they engage in anti-racial activities or anti-Semitic activities in the Republic or if they should seek to use the Republic as a base or funk hole for carrying on such activities in other countries, to expel these undesirables?
An Ceann Comhairle: That is purely hypothetical.
[1648]Mr. Traynor: It is a purely hypothetical question.
Dr. Browne: It is not a hypothetical question. Is it a fact? Has he power to expel them? May I ask the Minister is it necessary for these people to get a permit to live in this country if they wish to live in this country?
Mr. Traynor: In the case of one, yes; in the case of the other, no.
Dr. Browne: Has Mr. Otto Skorzeny applied for permission to live in the country?
Mr. Traynor: Not that I am aware.
Mr. Russell: asked the Minister for Agriculture if he will state the figures for milk deliveries to creameries for the four weeks ended 18th June, and 16th July, 1959.
Minister for Agriculture (Mr. Smith): The approximate quantities of milk delivered to creameries during the four weeks ended 18th June and 16th July, 1959, were 38,397,000 and 37,780,000 gallons, respectively.
Mr. T. Lynch: asked the Minister for Agriculture if he has received applications or granted any licences for the slaughter of horses for export; and if he will state the location of premises licensed for slaughter.
Mr. Smith: One premises, situated at Ballyclough, Castletroy, County Limerick, has been licensed for the slaughter of horses for export. This is the only premises in respect of which an application for such a licence has been received.
Mr. Dillon: May I enquire is there any record of a horse being slaughtered there or of any horse carcase being exported from this country?
Mr. Smith: I have not been asked that question.
Mr. Dillon: I am asking the Minister [1649] now and trusting to the Minister's customary courtesy for a reply.
Mr. Moher: Why put a hand on the Deputy's mouth like that?
Mr. Dillon: Because he was going to answer the Minister in the way the Minister was answering me.
To ask the Minister for Agriculture if he has received applications or granted any licences for the slaughter of horses for export; and if he will state the location of premises licensed for slaughter.
One premises, situated at Ballyclough, Castletroy, County Limerick, has been licensed for the slaughter of horses for export. This is the only premises in respect of which an application for such a licence has been received.
Mr. Dillon: I asked the Minister a supplementary question: Are there any horses being slaughtered on foot of his licence or has any horse carcase been exported in pursuit of that licence?
An Ceann Comhairle: That is a separate question.
Mr. Smith: That is a separate question.
Mr. Dillon: I know well why he will not answer. After stamping the country pleading for home slaughter of horses, not a single horse was slaughtered. And this after all the slaughtered horses ridden round Rathmines by the Minister for Health.
Mr. Smith: If the Deputy is anxious to enter into this business and presents suitable premises, we shall give him a licence.
Mr. Dillon: I am sure you would. It is like what you would do, export slaughtered horses without shipping a single carcase.
Mr. T. Lynch: We are not anxious.
[1650]Mr. Dillon: The Minister's contribution to increased agricultural production is to export slaughtered horses that are never slaughtered nor ever will be.
Mr. Norton: asked the Minister for Lands what is the present position regarding the supply of water for cattle purposes to Mr. M. Boland, Bishoplane, Ballymore-Eustace, County Kildare.
Minister for Lands (Mr. Childers): The solution of Mr. Boland's water problem now depends upon the expected consent of some other parties for a scheme for the rearrangement of boundaries which, without sacrificing any property rights, will ensure water supplies for all concerned.
He continues to obtain water supplies as indicated in my last reply to the Deputy.
Mr. Norton: It is not Mr. Boland's water problem. It is the problem of water for his cattle. I did not quite catch the full sense of the Minister's reply but I gather the direction in which the Land Commission is moving. Will the Minister tell me at this stage when is it anticipated that water will be made available for Mr. Boland's cattle? I understand that negotiations to re-draw the boundaries are in progress. Would the Minister say now when Mr. Boland's cattle will get a chance of drinking some of the water that will be available when the boundaries are properly rearranged?
Mr. Childers: I am unable to reply at this time. All I can say is that these negotiations are continuing steadily.
Mr. Norton: In the meantime is the Minister aware that Mr. Boland is suffering from drought while his colleagues in adjoining farms experience no such difficulties? Would the Minister give Mr. Boland any idea as to when these boundaries will be rearranged? When is he likely to have water for his cattle? Is it likely that he will have water this year?
[1651]Mr. Childers: I am unable to say.
Mr. Norton: Would the Minister make some effort, through a reply in this House, to give Mr. Boland some hope that he will get water for his cattle this year?
Mr. Childers: An enormous effort is being made by the Land Commission to deal with the problem.
Mr. Norton: An enormous mess is being made by the Land Commission. In fact, hundreds of pounds have been spent trying to find water where people locally know there is no water to be found.
Mr. M.P. Murphy: Would the Minister agree that if Mr. Boland's cattle were located in Meath instead of Kildare the water would be provided for them? They are in the wrong county.
Mr. Corry: asked the Minister for Lands if in view of the fact that large acreages of land on the Gaskill Estate, Garryvoe, Youghal, are now completely derelict through flooding which is not the fault of the tenants, he is prepared to have the derelict portions re-surveyed and the annuities on them reduced or wiped out.
Mr. Corry: asked the Minister for Lands whether tenants of estates of which large areas have been lost through coast erosion are entitled to have the remaining land re-surveyed and the annuities reduced accordingly; and whether tenants, large portions of whose farms are rendered completely derelict through flooding, are entitled to relief in annuities in respect to the acreage thus lost.
Mr. Childers: I propose, with the permission of the Ceann Comhairle, to take Questions Nos. 21 and 22 together.
Where land, which is charged with an advance under the Land Purchase Acts, is deemed to be permanently submerged within the meaning of Section [1652] 37, Land Act, 1933, there is power to write-off the purchase annuity (or part thereof) applicable to the permanently submerged land.
Applications conforming to the Section are dealt with by the Land Commission and annuities reduced, after survey, as appropriate.
Recent investigation of the particular estate mentioned in Question No. 21 has disclosed that this case does not come within the terms of Section 37— the flooding being periodic and arising from failure to cleanse an outfall channel to the sea.
Mr. T. Lynch: asked the Minister for Lands how many persons are employed by his Department on forestry operations in County Waterford.
Mr. Childers: The number of men employed directly by my Department on forestry work in Co. Waterford is at present 307, compared with 269 men in July, 1958 and 282 men in July, 1957.
Mr. Calleary: asked the Minister for Lands if he will make the necessary arrangements to provide light at night on Carrigeenfustha, Bullsmouth, Achill, to accommodate fishermen fishing in this area.
Mr. Childers: No representations have been received in my Department as to the need for a light at Carrigeena Posts. I shall, however, have inquiries made in the matter.
Mr. Dillon: asked the Minister for Industry and Commerce whether any grant was made to the fishmeal factory project in Killybegs; and, if so, how much, and to whom the grant was made.
Minister for Industry and Commerce (Mr. J. Lynch): The Undeveloped Areas Act, 1952 provides for the submission by an Foras Tionscal of an Annual Report to be laid on the [1653] table of each House of the Oireachtas. It is not the practice to supply information of the kind suggested by the Deputy in advance of the report.
Mr. Dillon: Would the Minister kindly tell me when will the report probably be available?
Mr. J. Lynch: The report for the year ending March last will be available very shortly.
Mr. T. Lynch: asked the Minister for Industry and Commerce if he will state the number of miles of rural electrification network erected and completed in each year from 1954 to the latest available year.
Mr. J. Lynch: As the reply is in the form of a tabular statement, I propose, with the permission of the Ceann Comhairle, to have it circulated with the Official Report.
The following is the statement:
| Year ended 31st March: | No. of miles of line strung: |
|---|---|
| 1954 | 3,769 |
| 1955 | 4,977 |
| 1956 | 6,196 |
| 1957 | 5,149 |
| 1958 | 3,332 |
| 1959 | 2,700 |
Mr. T. Lynch: asked the Minister for Industry and Commerce if he will state the names of the areas in County Waterford to which the rural electrification has not been extended; and when it is intended to have schemes put into operation for these areas.
Mr. J. Lynch: I am informed by the Electricity Supply Board that the following rural areas in Co. Waterford have not yet been selected for development under the Rural Electrification Scheme:— Kilrossanty, Melleray, Drum Hill, Glendine.
The Glendine area is situated in the Board's Cork No. 2 District while the other three areas are in the Board's Waterford District.
It is not possible at this stage to say [1654] definitely when supply will be extended to any of these areas as they will be considered for selection by the Board from time to time in competition with other areas in the Cork No. 2 and Waterford Districts and their prospects of selection will depend on how their returns compare with those of the other areas.
Mr. T. Lynch: asked the Minister for Local Government if he will state the average cost per mile of laying roads in (1) concrete and (2) tarmacadam.
Minister for Local Government (Mr. Blaney): I would refer the Deputy to the reply given on 24th October, 1956, to a similar question by Deputy O'Malley in which it was pointed out that road construction costs are dependent on so many factors (such as foundations, drainage, availability of materials) that it would be impossible to give an accurate and representative estimate of general application. Some figures taken out in the Department at that time in reference to the provision of a road with a carriageway of 18 feet carrying a reasonable amount of traffic were given as follows: (a) concrete, reinforced £9,400 per mile; (b) tar or bitumen macadam £4,000 per mile; (c) waterbound macadam surface dressed £4,000 per mile.
These figures would have changed little since and may still be used for the purpose of comparison.
General Mulcahy: Will the Minister say what width of road is referred to in each case?
Dr. Browne: asked the Minister for Local Government whether with reference to the Taoiseach's letter to local authorities encouraging expenditure on employment-creating local authority undertakings, favourable consideration will be given to the provision of at least one full size indoor swimming pool for the city of Dublin and additional play grounds and recreational [1655] facilities for children in the heavily populated areas of the city.
Mr. Blaney: The selection of projects for consideration under the terms of the Taoiseach's letter is a matter for the local authorities concerned. The types of proposals envisaged are primarily important public projects of economic merit, which will contribute to the over-all expansion of the economy, and help towards increased production.
Mr. Blowick: Would the Minister consider that the continuation of the Local Authorities (Works) Act would give useful and economic employment?
An Ceann Comhairle: That is a separate matter entirely.
Mr. Blowick: It is employment.
An Ceann Comhairle: It is a separate matter.
Mr. T. Lynch: asked the Minister for Defence how many batteries of self-propelled artillery are attached to the Defence Forces.
Minister for Defence (Mr. K. Boland): Self propelled artillery does not form part of the equipment of the Defence Forces.
Mr. T. Lynch: That means that we have none?
Mr. T. Lynch: asked the Minister for Defence how many battalions of the Defence Forces are armed with modern automatic firearms.
Mr. K. Boland: Modern automatic firearms, in substantial quantities, form part of the equipment of every battalion of the Permanent Defence Force.
Mr. T. Lynch: How many battalions have we fully armed with modern automatic firearms?
Mr. K. Boland: Every battalion.
An Ceann Comhairle: That is a separate question.
Mr. T. Lynch: asked the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs if he will consider the establishment of a broadcasting station in Waterford city.
Minister for Posts and Telegraphs (Mr. Hilliard): Present financial resources available to Broadcasting would not permit of the provision and operation of a studio in Waterford. Talent from Waterford and from the southern area as a whole is, however, well catered for by the broadcasting mobile units. The studios recently established in Cork were also intended to provide additional facilities for broadcasters throughout Munster and they are in fact doing so.
Mr. T. Lynch: I shall have something to say on the Estimate.
Mr. T. Lynch: asked the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs if he will arrange for the broadcast by Radio Éireann of the results of important hurling and football matches immediately they are available.
Mr. Hilliard: The Minister does not intervene in detailed programme arrangements which are left to the Comhairle and Director. I suggest that the Deputy would be good enough to address his inquiry to the Director of Broadcasting.
Mr. T. Lynch: asked the Minister for Education if he will ensure that there will be continuity in the principal types of school books.
Mr. Hilliard (for the Minister for Education): While it is desirable, on educational grounds, that the same text-books should not be used indefinitely in National or Secondary Schools, the unnecessary changing of texts is discouraged by my Department.
In regard to National Schools, my Department stresses, in its annual circular to managers and principal teachers regarding the list of approved [1657] text-books, that school books are not to be changed too frequently.
In Secondary Schools the same Irish texts are repeated frequently and there is a three-year or four-year rotation of texts in all other language subjects.
Mr. T. Lynch: asked the Minister for Education what is the present position regarding the proposed new extension to the Convent of Mercy Schools at Philip Street, Waterford.
Mr. Hilliard: A grant has been sanctioned by my Department towards the cost of erecting a new school for the infant and junior pupils of the Convent of Mercy National School, Philip Street, Waterford.
I am advised that tenders from building contractors are now under examination and I understand that it is hoped that a contract will be placed at an early date.
Sir Anthony Esmonde: asked the Minister for Education if he will consider introducing first aid as an optional subject in primary schools, with the possibility of subsequently making it a regular part of the curriculum.
Mr. Hilliard: It is not the intention to introduce first aid as a subject in national schools. The affording of adequate time and attention to the basic subjects of the curriculum must of necessity limit the number of other subjects which can be provided for.
I might add that Junior Red Cross activities are included in the list of extra-curriculum subjects which may be engaged in during the half-day of “free” instruction permitted weekly in national schools since 1954.
The Taoiseach: It is proposed to take business in the following order: Nos. 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 25, 26, 12, 13 and 11. It is proposed that consideration of Government business [1658] be not interrupted at the time fixed for taking business of private Members.
I should, perhaps, inform the Dáil that on the conclusion of the business of the session it is proposed to adjourn until October 21st 1959.
Mr. Norton: Would the Taoiseach say when the appointment of the new Minister will come before the House?
General Mulcahy: Do I understand it is desired to conclude the Appropriations Bill to night?
The Taoiseach: I gather there has been some discussion between the Whips and I understand it has been considered possible to complete this evening the business ordered for to-day. The Whips tell me that they have arranged to meet later to-day to consider whether that might not necessitate a motion to sit later than the usual hour.
Minister for Justice (Mr. Traynor): I move that leave be granted to introduce a Bill entitled an Act to establish. in pursuance of Article 34 of the Constitution, the Supreme Court and the High Court and Courts to be called respectively the Court of Criminal Appeal, the Circuit Court and the District Court, to specify the constitution of those Courts, to provide for the vacation of judicial offices and the filling of vacancies therein, and, in pursuance of Article 58 of the Constitution, to disestablish the several Courts of Justice mentioned in that Article and to abolish the offices of the judges and justices thereof.
Mr. Norton: The Tánaiste said yesterday there was an obvious error in the Title of this Bill. Has it since been corrected?
Mr. Traynor: I presume General Mulcahy has since informed himself of the fact that what he was referring [1659] to was actually a transitory Article which has still the force of law.
Mr. Traynor: It actually exists. Article 58 is correct as quoted in the Long Title.
General Mulcahy: Will the Minister tell us in what document it can be found because I have to admit that I have not since traced it and I am sure the House will be glad to have the help of the Minister in tracing it.
Mr. Traynor: Actually, I have a copy of the Constitution here in which it appears but being a Transitory Provision it does not appear in the later official texts of the Constitution, that is the text that is referred to in the Constitution as the official text. Nevertheless, it has the full effect of law. As stated in Article 52 of the Constitution:—
2. Every Article of this Constitution which is hereafter omitted in accordance with the foregoing provision of this Article from the official text of this Constitution shall, notwithstanding such omissions, continue to have the force of law.
It is just one of the Transitory Provisions. For instance, one of the Articles stated that within a period of three years Amendments might be made to the Constitution by the Oireachtas. The three years have long since passed. Therefore, the force of that particular Article has also passed and being a Transitory Provision it no longer appears in the official text.
Mr. McQuillan: How many Constitutions are there?
Mr. Norton: Is it the position that this Title is correct even though the Tánaiste said yesterday it was incorrect?
Mr. Traynor: It is quite correct.
Mr. Norton: No member of the Government knew that yesterday. The Tánaiste said it was wrong yesterday.
Mr. Traynor: Would it not be more [1660] correct to say that no member of the Dáil knew it yesterday, either? The Deputy himself made a very slighting——
Mr. Norton: I think the Minister is perfectly wrong. It was well known yesterday by several members of this House that the Article 58 referred to was one of the Transitory Articles but no Member of the Government Front Bench knew it except the Minister for Justice and he was not here.
Mr. Traynor: Then why did the Deputy make the statement that he made? I have not got the quotation, unfortunately, or otherwise I would give it to the Deputy.
General Mulcahy: I confess I am still in a considerable state of confusion particularly in view of the fact that we already have a Supreme Court and a High Court. I wonder would it help the House if, for technical reasons, I oppose the First Stage in order to get a short, clear statement from the Minister as to what is the intention of this Bill?
Mr. Traynor: Under Article 58——
General Mulcahy: No, dealing with the High Court and the Supreme Court.
The Taoiseach: Article 34 requires it.
Mr. Traynor: Under Article 34 we shall be constituting the Courts. The Courts as operating at present are not operating under Article 34 of the Constitution and this Bill is to bring them in under that Article. We are acting under Article 34 in establishing the new Courts and under Article 58 in disestablishing the existing Courts.
The Taoiseach: It is a tidying-up operation.
Second Stage ordered for 21st October, 1959.
[1661] Leave granted to introduce a Bill entitled an Act to provide, in relation to the Courts to be established by the Courts (Establishment and Constitution) Act, 1959, and the judges and officers of those Courts, for certain matters necessary to supplement that Act, to confer jurisdiction on the Judge of the Circuit Court assigned to the Cork circuit in admiralty causes and in bankruptcy, to repeal certain enactments, and to provide for certain other matters connected with the matters aforesaid.—(Minister for Justice.)
Mr. Dillon: Might we assume that No. 3 is to some extent consequential on No. 2?
Second Stage ordered for 21st October, 1959.
Leave granted to introduce a Bill entitled an Act to fix the number of members of Dáil Éireann and to revise their constituencies and to amend the law relating to the election of such members.—(Minister for Local Government.)
Mr. Norton: Might I ask the Minister if this measure must be passed by any particular date and, if so, what is the date?
Mr. Blaney: By the end of November.
Mr. Norton: By both Houses of the Oireachtas by the end of November.
Mr. O'Donnell: Could the Minister say when it will be published?
Mr. Blaney: It is rather difficult to say that at the moment since it has not yet been finalised. We hope to have it before that time.
Mr. O'Donnell: Will there be a map published with the Bill?
[1662]Mr. Blaney: I had not thought about that.
Mr. O'Donnell: It would be most useful.
The Taoiseach: If the map was published on the last occasion it will be done again.
Mr. O'Donnell: At least the map was made available to the members of the Dáil.
Mr. Dillon: Might I assume that the document which was circulating in the hands of Fianna Fáil Deputies purporting to be an advanced copy of this Bill has no authenticity?
The Taoiseach: I am unaware of any such document.
Mr. Blaney: This matter mentioned by Deputy Dillon has been bandied around the House on several occasions. There is no map and no document that we know of in the Government, available to anybody to circulate through this House in respect of this matter as yet.
Mr. Russell: Could the Minister say when the Bill will be circulated?
Mr. Blaney: During the Recess, we hope.
The Taoiseach: Deputies should remember that I indicated earlier that the Bill might not be introduced until after the Recess but they urged that we should take this initial step to permit its circulation. As I informed the House, the Bill has not yet been considered by the Government and it is not, therefore, possible to say when it will be circulated. The purpose of taking the First Reading now is to permit it to be printed and circulated as soon as possible.
Mr. Norton: I should like to draw the Taoiseach's attention to the time table. Apparently we are resuming on the 21st of October and this Bill must be passed before the end of November.
The Taoiseach: I do not know what happens if it is not.
[1663]Mr. Norton: That is what I want to find out. Surely we should be able to arrange things so as to have more time available for discussion of the Bill. On the last occasion the Committee Stage of a Bill of this kind took up a considerable time. Now we are hoping to get a Bill which may be contentious through both Houses of the Oireachtas in five weeks.
The Taoiseach: We shall live in hope.
Second Stage ordered for 21st October, 1959.
Leave granted to introduce a Bill entitled an Act to amend and extend the Electricity (Supply) Acts, 1927 to 1958, and the Shannon Fisheries Acts, 1935 and 1938, and to provide for the vesting in and exercise by the Minister for Lands of certain powers and functions in relation to the fisheries and fishing rights vested in the Electricity Supply Board.—(Minister for Industry and Commerce.)
Second Stage ordered for 21st October, 1959.
Leave granted to introduce a Bill entitled an Act to amend the Transport Act, 1950, in relation to the superannuation of whole-time members of Córas Iompair Éireann and to provide for the payment of compensation to a former chairman of Córas Iompair Éireann.—(Minister for Industry and Commerce.)
Second Stage ordered for 21st October, 1959.
Leave granted to introduce a Bill entitled an Act to vest in the Minister for Industry and Commerce all property in petroleum existing in its natural condition in strata, to make further and better provision for the working and development of such petroleum, to amend the Minerals [1664] Development Act, 1940, and to provide for certain other matters connected with the matters aforesaid.—(Minister for Industry and Commerce.)
Second Stage ordered for 21st October, 1959.
Leave granted to introduce a Bill entitled an Act to authorise the Minister for Finance to take up shares of the Shannon Free Airport Development Company Limited, to provide for the making of grants to that Company and to provide for other matters connected with the matters aforesaid. —(Minister for Industry and Commerce.)
Second Stage ordered for 21st October, 1959.
Leave granted to introduce a Bill entitled an Act to amend and extend the Restrictive Trade Practices Act, 1953. —(Minister for Industry and Commerce.)
Second Stage ordered for 21st October, 1959.
Minister for Justice (Mr. Traynor): I move that leave be granted to introduce a Bill entitled an Act to increase the remuneration of judges of the Supreme Court, High Court and Circuit Court and of justices of the District Court.
Dr. Browne: I should like to know if there has been any public demand for an increase of salaries for Supreme Court and High Court Judges in view of the fact that many demands have been made on behalf of more deserving persons and have been refused by the Government. I should like to go on record as opposing the introduction of the Bill.
Mr. Kyne: Can the Minister say if anything can be done to get an increase for Deputies? They have a much better case.
[1665]The Taoiseach: They have my sympathy.
Dr. Browne: There are many more deserving classes in the State than Supreme Court and High Court Judges. There are old age pensioners and widows and orphans.
Second Stage ordered for 21st October 1959.
Question: “That the Bill do now pass”, put and agreed to.
The Dáil, according to order, went into Committee on Finance and resumed consideration of Estimates for Public Services for the year ending 31st March, 1960.
Debate resumed on the following motion:—
That the Estimate be referred back for reconsideration—(Deputy Sweetman).
Mr. T. Lynch: Sir, I have always been interested in broadcasting since the inception of 2RN, as it was then, and 2LO as it was in London. I have always followed with a certain amount of interest what the powers that be in this country were doing to improve the service and what they were doing in Britain and the United States. I found that in this country there are groups of well-organised people— there are some of them in Dublin— who have been endeavouring to compel Radio Éireann to broadcast programmes to which the majority of the Irish people do not want to listen. I have seen complaints in the newspapers and read speeches made by some of these people and they nearly have apoplectic fits if some modern dance music is played over the sacred waves of Radio Éireann.
I should like to say to the Minister [1666] that he ought to play what the majority of the people like to hear and that we should not give way to these cranks. If a great many young people in Ireland and in other countries like this modern dance music that is their business. I come from a constituency where, in the last generation, if we went jazzing we were lost and, when the Charleston came in, we were supposed to be without either faith or nationality. Our generation survived and I notice that a lot of the people who took part in the modern dances of those days did all right for themselves nationally and did all right for themselves in the vocations which they followed.
Now we have great pressure being brought to bear in Radio Éireann not to broadcast modern dance music. However, when we have very reputable and fine modern dance bands such as those of our own Mick Delahunty, Joe Loss or Ralph Sylvester coming over to this country, the young people pay big sums and travel long distances to hear them. Yet if you mentioned such a thing as rock 'n' roll you would be nearly excommunicated by these people. I think that Radio Éireann should disregard the advice of such people who seem to have a very strong lobby with various Governments in this country.
I was reading some of the findings of the Television Commission and I think they could be applied to wireless broadcasting. No. 131 is very interesting. It says:
“It should be the aim of the authority to see, as far as is reasonably possible, that the language is not associated with other than first rate programme material because otherwise the language is bound to suffer from being associated with second and third rate programmes.”
I am all for that and I think it should be applied to wireless broadcasting. If we want to have the traditional music of our country sung over Radio Éireann let it be sung by people who are able to sing these songs as they should be sung. If we want to have traditional music played let us have it played by competent musicians. It [1667] does not do the Irish revival any good to hear the awful attempts at what is supposed to be traditional singing. Sometimes it seems as if they are trying to imitate bagpipes and sing through their noses.
You get the traditional fiddler. He is a fiddler in more ways than in the playing of music. He has fiddled his way into Radio Éireann with his rasping instrument because he uses an Irish name and comes from a Gaeltacht area. Such people have no right to play over Radio Éireann. Have we any authority over Radio Éireann? In any case, this is the only place in which we can bring the matter up and I think the Minister should take it up with the director of Radio Éireann.
There is a chapter in the Report headed: “National Outlook and Culture.” Then they go on to say that it is difficult to define national outlook and culture. That reminds me of the question on capital asked by Deputy Dillon this afternoon to which the Taoiseach gave him the right answer. This phrase, “National Outlook and Culture,” is merely a bit of political gunpowder. It is dragged all over the country. I heard it down in Clare at the recent election. In my constituency, not a thousand years ago, a great feast of music was organised and there was culture. I went to see could I get a definition of what I read in the Television Report. There were present Princes of the Church, Ministers of State and all the prominent people for miles around. One of the speakers, and a promoter, degraded himself by speaking in English after some time and explained to all the unfortunate uninitiated that for generations the great masters of Europe have been jealous of our music and culture.
I hope the Minister will try to eliminate that phrase from the report. It is only hypocrisy. I looked at my programme after that gentleman had told us of these great masters turning over in their graves in whatever Valhalla they are. I could see all these masters on the programme I had: Chopin, Mozart and Brahms. We had a tin whistle competition and a [1668] mouth organ competition. We should cast away all this false pride. Everything we have is supposed to be wonderful. There are many things of which we can be proud but these are sneered at by the so-called Gaels.
They sneer at the music of Tom Moore. He is merely a “shoneen” as far as they are concerned. Anything written in the English language is disgraceful. There are many things in the English language which redound to our credit and to the credit of the Irishmen who wrote them, but we do not get enough of them on Radio Éireann. If they were broadcast, more people would understand them. I mention Moore because I have heard him condemned and dismissed at these symposia, lectures and so on. I should like to remind these people that Moore's inspiration came from traditional Irish airs to which he put the words. I think of him down at his piano in Trinity College putting an air together. His friend asked him what the air was and he replied that he was rescuing an old Irish air and that he intended to put words to it. His friend declared that that was the kind of air to which a battalion could march into the teeth of cannon fire. Moore said he intended to call it “Let Erin Remember the Days of Old.” These are the things which are dismissed by Radio Éireann.
Another finding in the report says that we should instil a love of the language and our culture into the young people. You will not instil a love of the language into the young people unless you first instil a love of country. Unless they know the real history of their country and the great people in it of which they can be proud, they will not have an interest in its language and culture. The programmes on Radio Éireann should be suitable for young people. The young people like modern dance music and popular classical music. I am speaking from very great experience. I have been collecting records for a lifetime. There is a gramophone shop in the street where my office is situated and I see the young Irish boys and girls buying Elvis Presley and Rock 'n' Roll but they also buy Brahms' Hungarian [1669] Dance in F Sharp Minor as well as very fine Irish airs. They buy records of the No. 1 Army Band. These are the things that have to be borne in mind when you are putting programmes together. Do not be guided by these groups which are endeavouring to compel the broadcasting of programmes to which the majority of our people will not listen.
Deputy Corish referred to the excellent job done on “To-day in the Dáil”. To me this is something in the nature of a miracle broadcast. God knows how many thousands of words we produce for printing in these books every day. The people who make this broadcast have to condense all those thousands of words into 15 minutes. They certainly do a reasonably good job on it. I suggest that the broadcast should start at 10.30 p.m. when the news ends. More people would listen to the programme if it came immediately after the news. At the moment most people switch off after the news. I suggest to the Minister that he might consider that alteration.
The only complaint I have to make about News Roundabouts is that we do not have enough of them. It is a good thing that the people should hear more about themselves. I find it very refreshing to hear what the people are doing in Nenagh, Gort, Taghmon and in the other small towns throughout the country. I am more interested in hearing about our own people than I am in being told what Mr. Khrushchev is doing at U.N.O. Yet that is the news we are always getting. I believe the average man and the average woman are more concerned about what is happening in their own country. We should have more News Roundabouts and more time should be given to them.
In relation to the news itself, I have a complaint to make. The Minister and his officials should always remember that they are catering for the public. They should give to the public what the public want. I am a loyal Waterford supporter. I was in my car waiting for the result of the match between Waterford and Tipperary last Sunday week. I would [1670] have been at the match were it not for the fact that I was busy at the Clare by-election. Michael Ó Hehir was broadcasting from Roscommon. He gave the result of the match there. He gave the result of the match between Kilkenny and Dublin. He then said he had the half-time score from Cork but the result was so fantastic he wanted to have it confirmed. The score at half time was Waterford 8 goals 2 points to nil. He then said his time was up and he was returning to the studio. The studio informed us that they had got the half-time score too. That was all. They then gave us some programme nobody would bother about.
The announcer should have told us that he would endeavour to have the result of the Tipperary—Waterford match confirmed and that he would interrupt the programme at a suitable point and let the people who were anxious know the result—the loyal Waterford supporters all over the place and the unfortunate Tipperary supporters whose agony was prolonged. We had to wait until the news came on. Then we had to hear all about U.N.O., and everything else, I hold that important news should be broadcast at news time. It is customary in other countries to interrupt a programme to give important news items. Surely that could be done here.
On the night of the Presidential Election and the referendum, Radio Éireann announced jubilantly that the President was elected. The referendum dragged on until half past 11. It looked like a change at that point. but at 12 o'clock it was announced the station was closing down until the morning. That was not good business. There should have been a special broadcast at 1 o'clock. The whole country was interested in the result. Even people who did not vote were interested in it. Those who were able to make their own calculations knew that the referendum was lost, but the majority of the people could not do that and they had to wait until 8.20 a.m. next day to get the result. That is not good broadcasting.
Reception in parts of my constituency is not good. We were promised steps [1671] would be taken to remedy the position but so far nothing seems to have been done. I understand there is difficulty too, in parts of Wexford. Evidently there is some peculiarity in the South East which makes reception difficult at times. We were told we would get a new wave length, but that may not be the answer to it. I mention the matter now to remind the Minister again.
With regard to the Radio Éireann Symphony Orchestra and the Light Orchestra, we have a very fine music club in Waterford. The club are ardent supporters of the Radio Éireann Symphony Orchestra. We have a long tradition for good music in Waterford. That is why I put a question down today asking the Minister if he would consider setting up a sub-station in Waterford. We should be given some consideration. In Waterford, we have the De La Salle Operatic Society and the Waterford Choral Society. All over the world theatres are closing down. Even the great St James's has closed down in London. Let it be said to the credit of Waterford that the Waterford Theatre was to close down, but the citizens would not allow it to be closed. We have our theatre open. We have these very fine musical societies. The Minister should give some consideration to that and see that there would be a station in Waterford that would be the voice of the nation. It is a source of pride to me that I am associated with the people who kept the Waterford Theatre open.
Lastly, I wish to say, and I know the Minister will understand me—I think I said it before—that I regret the occasion arose that my colleague from Waterford, Deputy Seán Ormonde, for health reasons, was not able to continue as Minister for Posts and Telegraphs. At the same time, the Minister knows my feelings towards him and I want to say now, when he is introducing his first Estimate, that I wish him every success in his Department. He is a very kind-hearted and very generous man and I assure him of my sincerity in wishing him every good luck and every success.
Mr. Russell: First of all, like Deputy Lynch, I should like to congratulate [1672] the Minister on his appointment and to wish him luck in his office. I am sure he will be as painstaking in that office as he was in his previous position.
I think I am correct in saying that the radius of the new TV station is to be confined mainly to the area around Dublin and Wicklow. If that be true, what is to happen to people who wish to obtain TV reception in the West and the South West of Ireland? Are there any plans in existence to erect a second or booster station in the South or South West of the country to cater for people who have sets there? If such plans are not in course of preparation, I would suggest to the Minister that Limerick City would offer a very suitable location for a second TV station. I should like the Minister and the experts at his disposal to consider that suggestion favourably at an early date.
I should like also to ask the Minister if, when he is replying and if the information is at his disposal, he would let the House know what has happened to the proposal that was once before Dáil Éireann for the erection of a short wave station. I think I am correct in saying that we are the only country of any size or significance in the world that has not a short wave station and I include in that countries like Ghana, the Gold Coast and the newer independent countries.
I am sure the Minister would wish to give a much better service through Radio Éireann if the Dáil would place at his disposal a greater sum of money than is being made available. There are a number of aspects in respect of which broadcasting from Radio Éireann could be improved. If we could be more generous in our allocation to the national broadcasting station, I am sure the Minister would find ways and means to use the moneys.
In this country, with a small population, we should not try to aim too high. Comparisons between this country and Great Britain or Continental countries are invidious because we cannot afford the type of station that they have in these countries. Our type of broadcasting, generally, should have in mind the fact that we are a small country [1673] and that it should of necessity be more intimate and personal in its broadcasting than larger countries are. That is why I welcome such programmes as “The School Around the Corner”, which must cost very little in terms of financial outlay. The pleasure it gives certainly repays the modest cost. I should like to pay tribute to the compére of these programmes. They are excellent. I should also pay tribute to the many schools that have taken part in the programme.
Would the Minister consider reintroducing the feature, “Listen and Learn,” which has not been broadcast for some years? That would be well worth while having on the air again at some not too distant date.
Occasionally Deputies who take an interest in racing—I do not—have referred to the fact that in announcing the results, S.P. prices are not broadcast. I wonder if it could be arranged when the results of the Irish races are being broadcast at night, to give the S.P. prices? I congratulate the Minister again and hope he will take note of the comments that Deputies make in the best interests of the future of Radio Eireann.
Mr. McGilligan: There are a few aspects of the Television Commission's Report that I should like to have brought before the House for discussion. Most of the remarks I am offering in this intervention will be addressed to that topic. Before I go into it, however, I should like to refer to what the Minister sets out as the three highlights, so to speak, of the wireless broadcasting station during the year. The first was, he emphasised the production of a programme of coverage given to the illness and death of the late Holy Father, Pius XII, and the ceremonies in connection with the election of his successor, the new Holy Father. That was very well done. It is one of the few items to which I listened to hear what Radio Eireann had to say. I offer this comment. One might have expected to have heard the voice of our Minister for External Affairs on that occasion but he was otherwise engaged. He had an important [1674] engagement at U.N.O. At least, he was kept hanging around U.N.O.
An Ceann Comhairle: It is scarcely the function of the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs to deal with that matter.
Mr. McGilligan: No. I am saying that the Minister talks about the coverage of the ceremonies with regard to the death of the late Pope and the election of his successor. I am saying that there might have been added to that a comment or two by our Minister for External Affairs if he had been there, but he was not there. I gather that the Vatican had been declared what we have been calling a sort of Aiken-free zone for the occasion, and properly so.
The second matter referred to in the Minister's opening statement is that the opening of the transatlantic service of Aerlinte was featured. So it was. I wonder will the Minister think of adding to that now what we heard here the other day, that the forecast with regard to the Aerlinte service was that in the first stage they were likely to lose £800,000, and I gather they have lost it. It would be well worth while recording that as an addition to what has already been done over the wireless.
The third matter was that we heard the voice of the President on the occasion of his address to the United States Congress. Again, it was well done, but it was very much later that one learned that all that oratory, poured out in the United States by the President, had been, so to speak, made up here and carried out in cold-storage in these caskets that the Dáil has heard so much about.
The Minister speaks of the Symphony Orchestra. It is one of the few matters for which I find universal acclaim and enthusiasm. The Symphony Orchestra and the Light Orchestra are both very highly thought of and, if anything could add to the stature of Radio Eireann, undoubtedly, it is the Symphony Orchestra and the Light Orchestra.
I want to come now to the television matter. I notice that in the last stage of his speech, dealing with [1675] the television matter, the Minister uses the phrase: “The whole television question will, of course, come before the House.” I take that to mean that the Government, through the Minister, have not accepted one of the recommendations made by the Commission, which will be found on page 45 of the Report, at the foot of the page and over the page, where they say that the body to conduct the negotiations with proposals for this television service would be the authority which this report recommends to be set up. They set out, however, that it will take some time for legislation to be prepared and the authority to be established, and the Commission recommend that the Government should have the necessary negotiations undertaken and the contract entered into at the earliest possible moment.
We do know that an interim report was sent in and the suggestion there was made with regard to the site for a television service. That has been accepted but this booklet goes on to say that once the contract was signed it would be possible thereupon to commence the erection of the necessary transmitting stations and studios and the installation therein of the necessary equipment, an operation which should not, in the opinion of the Commission, have to await the enactment of legislation.
If that recommendation is confined to the taking over of the site and developing it for the station, nobody can object to it, more particularly as the report has been kept confidential, or at least it has not been given to members of this House or to the country. Possibly there was a good reason for taking these steps in advance and no objection can be taken to that but if, however, the recommendation means that proposals are to be considered in secret by the Government, and that they are to enter into contracts, or a contract, with one or other of the groups who have made proposals, I suggest it would be a breach of the ordinary Parliamentary procedure, and a step for which no reason has been given.
I am assuming that when the Minister [1676] says this matter will come before the House it will come before the House unprejudiced, and that there will be no arrangements previously made with contractors, except in regard to site development.
The report itself is quite interesting though it is a very irritating report in many respects. Twenty people were appointed more than a year ago to deal with certain terms of reference. One of the 20 resigned. Of the remaining 19, four signed a very forceful and, to me, a very persuasive minority report. Of the other 15 I think there are only two who signed without any reservations whatever. The rest either make reservations to the report itself or, what is more irritating and more confusing, they make reservations to a certain supplement which has been sent in confidentially to the Government and which, of course, has not been released for the information of the House. But, if one looks at page 50, where the signatures are given, there appear to be only two people who have signed without any reservation of any kind. The rest have reservations to the confidential supplement or to some part of the report itself.
When one turns to the minority report one finds that there also a confidential report was sent in by this minority four, and again that has not come before the House. I hope these confidential reports will come before the House when this matter comes eventually to be discussed. I cannot see why there should be any hesitation about giving them to members of this House. Nineteen or twenty members of the Commission know not merely what is in the report but also what is in the confidential parts of it. There are certain members of the Civil Service, attached to the Department of Posts and Telegraphs, who clearly must be aware of what is in these confidential parts. I should assume that most members of the Government and, at least, top civil servants in Government Departments know about these matters.
There has been no leakage of any of this information and I think that at least representative members from different Parties in the House might be [1677] allowed to have the same familarity with these confidential matters as, say, the various groups to whom I have referred. However, if the Government desire that these things should be kept over, and only released when the Government are coming to the point where they are making up their minds what proposal would be accepted, it may be too late to have a discussion on the matter and, if there is value in Parliamentary procedure, at least Deputies should be allowed to influence a State Department when they are approaching a matter of this type.
The report, if I might summarise it, has decided that there should be a television station and equipment in this country. They suggest or accept the suggestion that there should be five transmitting stations, and I would not take the same view as Deputy Russell has taken of this. I note that these transmitting stations allocated as they are to Dublin, Cork, Galway, Bally-shannon and Kilkenny, are meant to ensure that coverage would be given to the whole area, and there are paragraphs in the report where it is quite clear that the view of the Commission is that if there are new television amenities they should not be confined to this city, or to the Leinster area, but should be open to all citizens who have the money with which to buy the licences.
We are to have a television service. There are to be these links, and one of the important matters on which there is a great difference of opinion is whether the transmitting stations should be owned by the State, by a State body, and on that I want to express a strong view in favour of the first reservation to the report where, I think, three members of the Commission indicate they see no reason why the ownership should not be vested in either a State or semi-State body, or maybe a State Department.
It appears from reading, and giving some thought to the report, that members of the Commission themselves possibly felt the terms of reference were so narrow in one phrase that they were precluded from considering and reporting in the way the first reservation [1678] does report. However, we are to have a television amenity. There are to be these five transmitting stations, and the report recommends that they should be put into the hands of a contractor for operation. After that there is to be a programme. The programme at the beginning is to be for 30 hours per week of which 25 per cent. is to be “live” and the rest is to be tinned or canned stuff. That is what is being given. At least, that may be only the first step, but the report goes on to say they look to the time when there would not merely be 100,000 television sets in use but at least a couple of hundred thousand. At a particular cost there is to be 30 hours of television per week, four hours per week-day, and five hours on Saturday and Sunday, of which only 25 per cent is to be live and the rest recorded, tinned or canned.
The Commission points out that this is going to be very costly. I have seen no report which brought out the necessary costs—not the immediate costs—but the costs for the country if television is to be enjoyed. I have seen no report which brought out that price so well as this one does at paragraph 47 on page 19 and the gist of that is that costs will, in the ultimate result, be borne by the Irish people. They say they will be very heavy.
They start off with the capital cost of the television service which they put as between £1,000,000 and £1,250,000, but that will be a very relatively small part of the total costs involved. The average cost of £80 a set would mean a cost of £8,000,000 for 100,000 and it is possible that the numbers will grow to at least double that in six or seven years. If you double the number of sets to 200,000 then you double the total cost from £8,000,000 to £16,000,000, and the maintenance and replacement costs of the receiving sets will be a substantial sum each year. In addition, viewers may be expected to be charged with a licence fee, and the Irish purchasing public will bear the costs of advertising programmes. They do point out that this last point is apt to be overlooked, that advertisers on Irish television will pass on the costs to the consumers. There briefly is their estimate of the cost.
[1679] Let us take the number of sets at 100,000 and we find £8,000,000 will have to be paid by those of the population who desire to enjoy this amenity. The licence fee, it is recommended, will be £3 if it is to be a T.V. licence only, or £4 if it is to be a joint radio and T.V. licence. Let us take the £3. In addition they say that the operation and maintenance cost may be very heavy and finally whatever may be gained for the upkeep of T.V., by advertising, by rates charged for advertisements, may well eventually have to be found by the Irish public.
A contrast that immediately occurs to my mind is this. Here we are as a community and in our Health Acts we have declared that one-third of the population of the country is so badly off that that section of the population cannot be asked to bear any part of the medical expenses of that particular one-million group. We are so badly off as to one-third of the population that health services have to be, so to speak, put upon the rates or upon the taxpayers but that group of taxpayers cannot be expected to pay, and at the same time this Report asks us, with a warning as to costs, to engage in providing television at a cost which certainly at the very minimum will be somewhere about £9,000,000 or £10,000,000 and may go into the neighbourhood of £17,000,000 or £18,000,000.
Again, I want to relate that to what is given. What is supposed to be given is 30 hours television in the beginning, of which one quarter—say one hour per night or seven hours in a week—is to be “live” shows and the rest is to be something that will be recorded and sent in or given to us by some other country. One immediately asks is it worth it? Of course, in the end it will be for the viewers to say whether it is or not. In any event that is the programme that is suggested to us and, in order to carry that out, the Commission recommends that there should be a television authority, a body of nine people with a staff, the nine people to be remunerated. Naturally, no remuneration is mentioned but the suggestion is that it should be such as would be a reasonable return to a [1680] person for giving his time and attention away from his ordinary affairs to the television authority.
In addition to that it is suggested that there should be five advisory committees. Now, you have a television authority; you have a staff; a main executive officer, and payment for all these and five advisory committees on the subjects that are set out in one paragraph of the Report. That, as I say, all boils up to a few “live” shows for one hour per day and something in the nature of three hours in the week days, maybe four hours on Fridays or Sundays, coming from material that has been already recorded and held for transmission eventually. I do not know whether that is worthwhile. Only when we get the proposals will we be in any position to judge. I am all the time speaking subject to the reservation that I do not know the proposals. They are in the Supplement which is confidential. The views I express are, therefore, subject to substantial change when we get the proposals.
I am also speaking subject to this reservation. I want to draw attention to what I call the very forceful and persuasive language of the four who reported in a minority. The main point upon which the chief body of the Commission and a certain small group differ is in respect of the ownership of the transmitting station and the transmitter. There is Reservation No. 1 signed by six people and they accept the whole of the Report with one special reservation. I take it they feel that their colleagues on the Commission were really at one with them that television should be on the basis of a public service but that the main body of the Report of those who were on the Commission felt they were precluded from reporting favourably on that because of the terms of reference.
If that is so, the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs or the Government are not bound by those reservations if it does emerge to their view—and this is as I read it myself—that the Commission would have definitely reported in favour of a public service but that they were precluded from doing so by the terms of reference. There is no limitation on the Minister or the Government [1681] when they come to consider this matter.
I want to refer to what Reservation No. 1 says. In a brief one and a half pages, they say they accept the main conclusions but refer to paragraph 61. They do not agree with the conclusions in paragraph 61, that in existing circumstances an Irish television service can only be provided as a private enterprise financed mainly by revenue from advertisements. This reservation continues:
The Commission has accepted that: “If the necessary capital was available there is little or no doubt that television should, if possible, be provided on the basis of a public service.” In this conclusion we fully concur. We are of opinion that from the outset the television authority should provide and own the essential transmitting stations and links. We believe that only within such a framework can the national, cultural and industrial interests of the nation be adequately safeguarded.
They have a few more paragraphs but they are attempting to meet the difficulty which apparently their colleagues felt in regard to the terms of reference. They say they have very little doubt about the necessary capital being raised. I may quote from their paragraph 4:
The television authority should, in our opinion, have little difficulty in raising the necessary capital within the State, either from private or commercial sources or both. Moreover, the licence revenue recommended by the Commission would in itself be sufficient security to cover the interest and sinking fund of the capital required.
If one turns to paragraph 61 I feel one can see here that the majority of the Commission feel they are being pushed in a direction by the terms of reference. They say in paragraph 61:
It would be possible to establish a television service for Ireland in one or other of the following ways.
[1682] The first is as a public service financed from public funds and licence fees. The second is as a private enterprise financed mainly by revenue from advertisements, and the third is a kind of midway course, “in special circumstances as a special service financed by licence fees and advertisements but with no assistance from the Exchequer”—with the emphasis on “no assistance from the Exchequer”.
I take it to mean that they are remembering—and remembering too well—that the terms of reference given to them were that on the basis that no charge should fall on the Exchequer, either on capital or current account, they were to recommend whether a television service was practicable or not. They go on to say:
If the necessary capital was available there is little or no doubt that television should, if possible, be provided on the basis of a public service.
A television service on basis (a) above is, however, not possible within the terms of reference of the Commission.
Even though it is precluded from their consideration certainly the Minister and the Government are not precluded from considering it when they come to give it their attention.
A proposal was made to the Commission that a television service could, and should, be provided on basis (c) above within the terms of reference.
That is where they spoke of “in special circumstances, as a public service financed by licence fees and advertisements, but with no assistance from the Exchequer.” On that they say:
This proposal involved submitting information to the Commission on a confidential basis, and consequently it was decided to deal with details of this proposal in the Supplement to this Report. For the reasons therein given——
[1683]——the Commission is not satisfied that this proposal would ensure a satisfactory service. In the existing circumstance an Irish television service can, therefore, only be provided on basis (b) above.
I do not think that I am interpreting the Commission incorrectly when I say that they had thought of an approach to this matter on three lines. The first was ruled out by their terms of reference. The third was not immediately ruled out but it devolved on the receipt of confidential information from the Department to the Commission and on that information they were not satisfied that proposal C could operate and give satisfaction and for that reason they opted for proposal B. That is not very satisfactory for people who have to discuss and debate this matter. I do not know why proposal A was ruled out except that it was through a very narrow reading of the terms of reference. Why proposal C was scrapped we do not know and will not know until we see, if we ever do see, that confidential information. In any case the Commission was driven to recommend that T.V. should be on the basis of private enterprise financed widely by revenue from advertising.
They say that in paragraph 62. They say:—
“If, therefore, Ireland is to have a television service, and under the existing circumstances the Commission does not accept that Ireland can afford to be without its own television service, it follows that such a service must for the present be provided by private enterprise, notwithstanding the considerable difficulties that are attendant on the establishment of a commercial service by private enterprise.”
Immediately after coming to the conclusion that we must proceed on the basis of private enterprise the Commission give a preliminary warning when they say:
“Notwithstanding the considerable difficulties that are attendant on the establishment of a commercial service by private enterprise.”
[1684] They follow that up by saying:
“In the circumstances, created by the facts that the B.B.C. programme is received in Ireland to the extent that it is, and that in addition an I.T.A. programme will probably be broadcast from Northern Ireland by the end of the present year, it is of the utmost importance that an Irish television service of a high standard should be established as quickly as possible, and then should be operated successfully. To this end it is necessary that the operating organisations should be capable of making prompt decisions, of carrying such decisions quickly into effect, and of taking calculated business risks associated with such an enterprise.”
Paragraph 64 repeats the warning already given. It says:
“While the Commission at this stage recommends the establishment of a television service on the basis of private enterprise, it further recommends that if and when the circumstances favour a change-over to the basis of public service, this should be done unless by that time experience has shown that the present misgivings associated with a system based on private enterprise are unfounded.”
The Commission are driven to recommend something which they consider, in ordinary circumstances, would be unacceptable to them. They say: “Let us have a change over made unless experience shows that the present misgivings associated with a system based on private enterprise are proved unfounded.” They continue along that line in paragraph 65 when they say:
“In the selection of a private operating organisation to hold the Irish television concession care has to be taken to examine the character, standing and background of the individual or individuals comprising such organisation so as to ensure as far as possible, first, that such organisation is unlikely to broadcast television in any way detrimental to the best interests of the nation, the State or any of its [1685] citizens, and second, and more important, that he or they are likely to endeavour to use television to the advantage of those interests. It has also to be remembered that an Irish television service requires a special knowledge of local conditions and attitudes, and that there are many disadvantages in remote control and absentee ownership.”
I have not found in any report of any commission where anybody advised anything along certain lines that they have used so many phrases condemnatory of the thing that they have recommended. The most they can say is that we should take care to examine the character, standing and background of the people comprising the organisation so as to ensure that they are unlikely to broadcast anything that would be injurious to the best interests of the nation and that we should ensure also that they should use their powers to the best advantage of those interests.
Having read that, I do not see how anybody can come to any other conclusion but that the ownership from the start should be vested in the State, although whether it should be a State sponsored body or not is a matter which we can discuss on another occasion. We have a Commission report in which they have recommended something which they do not like and in which they are at pains to point out that they do not like what they are being forced to recommend. I hope the Minister will keep that in mind.
There are quite a number of interesting points in this report but it is not necessary to look at more than the preliminary points I have mentioned. It is quite clear that an Irish television service cannot be run on the basis of licence fees. Licence fees in that respect would be prohibitive and the amount of the fees would prevent the service ever getting started. For that reason the Commission finds it necessary to recommend that the service should be financed by advertising. The minority report refers to that in great length but there is a certain part of the recommendation of the Commission itself which is of value.
[1686] The only thing which I find inconsistent is this—at one point the Commission says that there ought to be power to take the contract from the group that has got it if experience showed that such group was not operated in the way we should like or in the best interests of the country. What is to happen? The Commission says that there should be the right to abrogate the contract. It is all very well to say that you can take the contract away from the people who have it but that is not likely to be productive of any very good results. Where would you be likely to get someone to follow on the heels of a predecessor when the predecessor has had his rights summarily and recently removed from him?
It often happens, particularly in Government contracts, where the right is given to enter on the contractor's plant if things are not being carried out properly. Anybody with experience of administration will know that that cannot be done so smoothly. At the end of the report the Commission goes on to say that in order to prevent certain things happening, and in order to ensure that certain things might arise there ought to be power to approach the High Court in order to get a person to operate in a particular way. The Commission that was wide awake enough to see that the forfeiture of a contract was not likely to produce good results and to say that there should be an approach to the Courts of Justice in certain eventualities is something of an incongruity.
I do not know what was in the confidential reports made to the Commission and I still have to speak of the minority report. Any reading I have done in this matter makes me favour the Commission's report, subject to the first reservation. In other words, let this service be established; let us have this amenity. Having first of all counted the cost, the people can decide to go ahead; but let the original station and the transmitters be owned or under the control of a Department of State from the start. I believe it has been said that that is the only way in which proper control can be maintained. I agree with every word of the first reservation.
[1687] There are a few other matters one might speak of. In regard to the Television Council, I do not know whether nine people are required. The proposal for a Council with nine people with a chief executive officer, a whole staff and five advisory committees seems to me to be getting far too complicated, particularly when at the end there is to be a service of 30 hours of television of which one hour per day per week will be “live” and the rest will be something already done somewhere else and sent over here in a can or in some other form.
Having said that, one must pay attention to this very forceful minority report. It is a lengthy report, but not a word is wasted in it. At the end they make a recommendation, which again is contained in the confidential part of this minority report and it is not possible for us to follow on that. My reading of it is that the minority say: “You will not get a television service of any value, certainly you will not get one that redounds to the credit of the nation, if you accept any of the proposals we have seen before us.” They say at the end if we must have the revenue to get a better service, it cannot be got under these proposals; and they recommend that there should be some investigation of evidence submitted to the Commission as to something called the International Commission Sound Broadcasting.
I must confess I never heard these four words together until I read this report. I am completely out of my depth and I do not know what they mean. But those who have been on the Commission had something brought before their notice. At least four of them signed a recommendation, the end of which founds upon an investigation into the possible acquisition of more revenue by this means. What they say at the end is this. It cuts to the root of the whole matter. While agreeing with the majority of the Commission that the Irish people will pay in the end for everything after the capital cost of the sets and their maintenance and the cost of equipping and maintaining a [1688] station, they say in paragraph 22, page 64 of the Report:
“A consideration of the costing for Irish programmes (excluding engineering costs) proposed by three applicant groups for the Irish television concession, who are wholly or partly engaged in British commercial television at this time, is revealing. Their proposed programme costs ranged from just under £140 per hour to £190, per hour (maximum).”
Paragraph 23 institutes a comparison:
“The cost of B.B.C. programmes per hour (exclusive of engineering and other costs) was £1,538 in 1956-57 and £1,730 per hour in 1957-58. In short, the B.B.C. expenditure on programming per hour last year was nine times the amount which those applicants proposed to spend on Irish television programmes...”
They pointed out that the cost per hour rose in one year by approximately the total amount per hour which these applicants proposed to spend on Irish television programmes. One cannot at the moment pursue that to see whether it is a proper conclusion or not. But at least they state figures which have to be answered. But if it be the case—I do not know whether these three proposals are typical and represent the average of the proposals named—and a service is founded on an estimated programme cost of the mean between £150 and £190 and if the B.B.C. runs to ten times that, the conclusion reached by the minority is coercive that we shall get a very poor service.
The phrase they use in paragraph 24 is:
The figures mentioned in paragraph 22 above suggest the conclusion that no British contractor considers Irish commercial television viable except on the basis that its programmes are second hand to a preponderant degree, and are presented by the associated British company at little or no cost to the contractor operating the Irish service.
Then they speak of an interim minority report which refers to that danger.
[1689] Their report strikes me as being very forcibly worded and is one that to me is very persuasive. They say that the Irish station will become a British regional station, and a very poor type of British regional station. Talk about running a thing on a shoestring, clearly if they are right, that will be the situation.
May I come back to what the Television Commission have reported? They say that the cost to the country will be £80 a set, for 100,000 sets. £8 million. The capital cost of the station is very small relatively, £1,000,000 to £1,500,000. In addition to the capital cost of the sets, there is a maintenance charge of £3 per set. In addition to that, whatever advertisements are put over the radio and paid for, the cost of these advertisements will eventually be charged up to the Irish public. For all that we shall get television for 30 hours a week, one hour of which is “live” and the other hours will be of programmes estimated to cost £150 to £190 while the B.B.C. costs are ten times that.
I think the minority conclusions are correct. They say Northern Ireland is a British regional station. They talk about the efforts made to get special features in Wales and Scotland, but they very definitely make the case that we shall get a very poor service and that certainly it will not be an Irish service. All the remarks they quote from their colleagues are rendered very futile—at least, they sound very futile when one considers this report.
Turning again to the minority report, paragraph 26 says:
The prospect, under these circumstances, of programmes of Irish origination which are “largely a matter of finance” becoming a large proportion of the programme material would thus appear to be entirely tenuous; so also would the sale of telerecorded Irish programmes abroad. And the prospect of supplying the first necessity, of Irish programmes “of high standard at least equal to that of the best British programmes” would be as remote as the prospect of providing [1690] good quality programmes in Irish.
Towards the end they say there is an expanding world market for T.V. film making and distribution, but they feel we would be precluded from entering into that if we have third-rate prerecorded British programmes at minimum cost to the contractor put across on the people here.
They forestall an objection by stating in Paragraph 11, having spoken about the difficulty of getting a characteristically Irish station and entertainment:
It is sometimes believed that the Television Authority can guard against such difficulties by an adequate system of controls and codes. In effect, however, the power of the television programme-contractor is all-important.
They quote the Director General of Britain's Independent Television Authority, Sir Robert Fraser, as saying:—
“You can lay down codes until you are blue in the face, but in the end it's the taste and common sense of the producer that counts.”
We are going to put ourselves at the mercy of the producer who will build his programme cost on £150 per hour —one-ninth of the B.B.C. cost. I consider that minority report devastating in a sense. The figures may be wrong. We should be told if they are wrong. Eventually, I suppose, when we see the confidential report we shall be able to consider the arguments and conclude whether or not they are sound.
They work out figures then with which I shall not weary the House. They say that the revenue to be expected from advertising and licences, or both, which the Commission estimate at about £680,000 a year, will be quite insufficient to permit programme costs of the proper type—programme costs “to which other running costs of at least £300,000 per annum must be added”. They say that:—
The only other source of revenue suggested to the Commission for the financing of high quality television [1691] programmes, which would enable an Irish television service to meet strong competition, was International Commercial Sound Broadcasting.
They say they have investigated all that. They say certain evidence put before them led them to the conclusion that, along that road, more revenue can be found and then better programmes can be given without any extra cost to the Irish advertiser or by way of any very heavy cost of a licence.
There are a few minor points. The Commission said that, when considering the Authority—that is, the nine people—it might allay possible political objections if the nine were chosen entirely by the Government. The Minister knows, as well as I do, that political objections are not merely possible but are certain to be made. I want to end on one note: I hope that when we come to discuss this matter finally we shall not find that any contract has been made and that the concession has already been given away. More particularly, I hope it will not be found to have been given to one of the proposers, a man very closely associated with the demand for subscriptions for the Fianna Fáil Party.
Sir Anthony Esmonde: One of the greatest difficulties with which the Minister will find himself faced in his new office in relation to broadcasting is that which Deputy McGilligan has so ably been discussing. I do not think I have ever heard a more competent exposition or analysis of a report as that which the House has just received from Deputy McGilligan.
One of the main disabilities under which this Commission laboured from the outset was is relation to their terms of reference. They were not asked whether or not they consider television would be good for Ireland. They were simply asked to consider and make recommendations on the establishment of a television service. From the outset, therefore, they were at a disadvantage.
This report contains a great deal of very valuable information. Right through the report, however, there is a certain suggestion of Devil's Advocate. The establishment of a television service [1692] here represents a considerable financial risk, not only for those who are concerned with it but also for the Government itself. It has been made crystal clear in the report that any Government in control will find itself faced with certain difficulties. It will find itself faced with a considerable loss of revenue on the advent of television. It has been the experience in practically every country that the advent of television has gravely interfered with the cinema industry as a profit-making concern. It is obvious that, if a television service is established here, people will sit in comfort in the “local” and watch the screen, taking their drinks as they do so, rather than frequent the local cinema. Revenue from the film industry at the moment is well over £1,000,000 a year. That revenue will be lost to the State if a television service is established.
The report also stresses the fact that there will be considerably less revenue from the newsprint tax. In the world today people are not very much addicted to reading. They are inclined to take the line of least resistance. If possible, they like to see things, they like to hear things and, above all, they like to learn things by simply looking at a television screen. That is the attitude that will be adopted here. It is an attitude which will prove detrimental to the written word. It will seriously affect our Irish newspapers and periodicals.
These are problems the Commission had to face. On the whole, I think they have dealt very well with them. They have brought them out very clearly. They were not asked for their advice as to whether or not a television service should be established. They were asked to advise on a television service. I think that is the reason why there are so many contradictory reports. Reading the entire report, one is not sure at the end what they really want. As Deputy McGilligan has pointed out, a team of 19 members—one member resigned after six months, or so, and reduced the original strength of 20 by one—have produced three or four different reports with entirely different suggestions as to the setting-up of this service.
On top of that, they have produced [1693] a confidential report, which we have not got. That probably contains the advice they gave to the Government with regard to the action the Government should take. I do not quite understand the minority report. I do understand that those who signed the minority report consider that the sum of money we would have available would make it quite impossible for us to have a competitive television service. They also stress the fact that if we obtain revenue from the International Commercial Broadcasting Company we shall be able to step up the tone of our programmes and that might put us in a competitive position. At the same time, the minority report seems to suggest that we should remain entirely independent. If we depend for our revenue on the International Broadcasting Service I fail to understand how we can remain independent.
On the report generally, one is almost led to believe that one could have a television service here which would be of considerable advantage, would be self-supporting and would leave a small margin of profit. As against that, we have to consider the loss of revenue on the other side. Deputy McGilligan dealt in his exposition with the importation and purchase of television sets. The report says the figure would run to some £8,000,000 a year. That brings another school of thought into action. If we spend £8,000,000 a year on the purchase of sets, we shall run into considerable balance of payments difficulties, over and above those already in existence.
Apart from that, the Report says that there are now 30,000 television sets in this country and that in two or three years' time, if we establish a television service here, there will be 120,000 sets in the country. I take it that that information was made available to the Commission by the numerous societies and experts whom they interviewed but I am rather sceptical that there will be as many as 120,000 television sets in the country within such a short period. It is true to say that in the bigger centres there will be a large influx of television sets. [1694] There is already a growing number of sets in and around Dublin, but it is doubtful that there will be many in other parts of Ireland. I may be wrong in that.
The programme outlined here is ambitious, in that it envisages stations for the transmission of television programmes to every part of Ireland. There will be five broadcasting centres. I cannot help feeling that there is considerable risk in setting up a television service here. As against that, in the changing circumstances of the world, are we justified in keeping out of television? All countries, even smaller countries than this, have gone in for television. This is a commercial and advertising age. We have to try to put our products before the world. We have to try, if only from a tourist point of view, to advertise ourselves as much as possible. Can we do these things unless we accept the principle of television? I am glad that I have not to take the decision. That is a headache for the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs and his Government. They have to decide. The Report of the Television Commission, having regard to its terms of reference, and so on, should be of help to the Government.
I have no doubt that a Bill will be introduced to deal with the matter in the not too distant future, if the Government intend to take action in the matter, and, of course, if the Government introduce a Bill, that means that the Bill will be passed. If they do introduce a Bill and if they establish an authority for the purpose of television in Ireland, I hope they will take into consideration the suggestions made in the Report of the Television Commission and that the appointees to that authority will be men who are qualified in regard to broadcasting and in regard to television, and not purely political appointees.
There are some things I should like to say about Radio Éireann. I think— and many people are of the same opinion—that the news broadcasts concentrate too much on world affairs. If one listens to the B.B.C. at 6 o'clock and to Radio Éireann at 6.30, the Report from Radio Éireann is a rehash of what was heard at 6 o'clock. In a [1695] small country such as this there may not be a great deal of news, but, even though we are interested in world affairs, the entire news broadcast should not be devoted to what the Foreign Ministers or the Big Four are talking about in Geneva. The people are entitled to hear other things. I listened to the news the other evening and practically the whole report was about what was happening in Geneva. Of course, that is of interest to us because we run the risk of being blown to eternity, just like the rest of the world, if a conflagration breaks out. The entire news programme should not be devoted to such matters. There are many items of news in our own country that would be of interest. Perhaps the news reporters would be able to give more Irish news. If we want world news, we can switch on to the B.B.C. or, if we have the advantage of knowing continental languages, to continental stations, whose broadcasts are much better than even the B.B.C.'s.
Radio Éireann should be congratulated on their Foreign Affairs broadcasts on Sunday evenings. They are good; they are factual; they give a good idea of events in the world as a whole. They usually deal with the troubled spots or topical matters.
In view of the fact that free trade is very much in evidence now and that, whether we like it or not, we are bound to have economic affiliations with other countries in Europe, there should be more instructive broadcasts relating to free trade. A statement made by Mr. Cahan yesterday was to the effect that we had not wakened up to our responsibilities and our potentialities. One way of instructing the people in such matters would be frequent broadcasts from such people on free trade and all its implications for this country.
Finally, I should like to say a word about the political broadcasts. Some people have complained about them from time to time. I do not think that it is justified. I think the broadcasts are absolutely fair, absolutely un-biassed and in the quarter hour allotted there is a good exposition of what has taken place in Parliament. I should like to ask, however, are we, the elected representatives of the Irish [1696] people, not entitled to more than a quarter of an hour a day? We frame the laws. We are sent here by the public. Most of us, if we are not known beyond the confines of our constituencies, are well known in our constituencies. The public should be interested in the deliberations of Deputies in Dáil Éireann and should have a larger opportunity of hearing them. I would ask the Minister to consider extending the time for those broadcasts.
Again, I wish the Minister good luck in his control of wireless broadcasting. I do not envy him his headache in regard to television.
Minister for Posts and Telegraphs (Mr. Hilliard): In my reply, I propose to deal with the Estimate before the House for Wireless Broadcasting, and to give an answer to the queries that have been raised by Deputies who dealt with that Estimate. At the outset Deputy Corish raised a question regarding the Radio Éireann Symphony Orchestra. I wish to assure him that every effort is being made, and all possible steps taken, to increase the number of Irish nationals who are members of that Orchestra. It is a fact that it was found necessary to avail of the services of a number of non-nationals but these people, some of them at least, are at present engaged teaching in the Schools of Music in the City of Dublin and are providing our own nationals with the necessary additional qualifications that will enable them to join the Orchestra.
Furthermore, the Government gave an increased grant last year to the Royal Irish Academy to show that greater use can be made of the services they provide for our own people. The grant for many years was £300 per annum. Last year it was increased to £1,500 and this year it is proposed to increase that grant to £3,000. I can assure the Deputy that this policy of seeking to accomplish a gradual increase in the number of Irish nationals in the Symphony Orchestra will be pursued and continued until we are in a position to say that we have an Irish Symphony Orchestra. That does not mean that it will not be necessary to avail of the services of people who [1697] are not Irish nationals in the orchestra. This is a thing that can happen in reverse and, as a matter of fact, an Irishman is the leader of an outstanding orchestra in the City of London.
Deputy Corish and Deputy T. Lynch raised some questions in regard to the announcement of G.A.A. results. Deputy Corish wished to have the score results announced in points, not in goals and points, but the question of time enters into this matter—the amount of time that is available to the announcer if he has to announce the results twice. I think the announcer would not be too pleased about the matter, but there would be that difficulty in connection with it at any rate. It is a matter for which I have not the exact responsibility. Deputy T. Lynch raised a separate question in this connection, that is, the announcement of G.A.A. results during the course of other programmes, whenever the results came to hand. The interrupting of programmes to give such announcements would not achieve the objective desired. Listeners in general would not hear the results, except by accident, because they would not expect them.
Mr. T. Lynch: What I actually said was that when a result was not to hand, when the announcer was closing down, he could announce that if the result came in during the next programme it would be interrupted to give it. Everybody would then be listening for it.
Mr. Moher: The Waterford result.
Mr. T. Lynch: I know Deputy Moher did not like that result in Cork.
Mr. Hilliard: There is another point involved in that. If special treatment were given to one sporting organisation, every other sporting organisation could claim special treatment.
Mr. Hilliard: The result would be patchwork with sporting results of all kinds interrupting programmes.
[1698]Mr. T. Lynch: It would only be when a result was not available in time for the usual sports results.
Mr. Hilliard: The fact is that Deputy T. Lynch was anxious to know that Waterford won.
Mr. T. Lynch: There must have been thousands of Waterford people like me.
Mr. Hilliard: I was anxious myself at one time to hear whether Meath won a match. Deputy Lynch also had lengthy complaints about the broadcasting of Irish traditional music and song. The truth is that within one programme a genuine effort is made to give a balance between Irish, Anglo-Irish and Continental music and nothing is to be gained by running down anything we have got. I think there is room even for the tin whistle he mentioned, and the mouth organ for any popular music——
Mr. Dillon: Played on the tin whistle.
Mr. Hilliard: It may be a common or garden instrument and I do not think it is necessary to deal at great length with this point. These instruments are popular with many people. I do not think I should ask the Director to have a look at that particular complaint.
In so far as the question of interference is concerned, that complaint has been made here previously. There are two classes of interference with reception of Radio Éireann programmes, one, the interference that has been complained about in Wexford and in other southern counties resulting from jamming, as it is called, from foreign stations. That is a question about which we can do very little at the moment. We shall have to have a look at the matter and see if we can get any benefit out of a conference that is being held with other people in regard to the allocation of wave lengths. We shall try to reach some understanding but I could not say at this stage whether we shall be in a position to obtain any hard and fast arrangement that would be of any material benefit to us in that regard.
All the administrations in Europe [1699] apparently are suffering from that class of interference, and a general conference of the International Telecommunications Union is being held this year to make new allocations of new wave bands. When bands of wave lengths have been allocated it is normal practice to hold a conference in Europe to allocate individual wave lengths to European stations but where the system obtains that you have too many stations working on too few wave lengths it is not clear what can be done by such a regional conference. The chief hope is that greater use will be made by broadcasting stations in Europe of short wave broadcasting transmission. It is known by another name, V.H.F., and it would solve the problem substantially, but the cost of initiating and establishing such a service here would be very great and it is a matter that would need careful consideration before a decision could be taken on the question.
In so far as the other class of interference is concerned, that is interference from electrical appliances, we do receive a large number of complaints each year in the Department but there is no legal obligation on owners of electrical apparatus to suppress it, which would eliminate interference with wireless reception. Compulsory legislation in this matter would be costly to operate and even if there was such legislation legal action would be the last thing to which we would resort. Voluntary effort would still be the main hope as it is in Britain although there are compulsory powers there. The position is that every electrical plug or piece of electrical apparat us such as a hair dryer or an iron is a potential source of interference. This applies to all classes of electrical appliances.
Deputies can see the difficulty that faces the broadcasting authorities in that regard. Every effort is being made to get the people who manufacture electrical appliances to fit suppressors before they sell the manufactured article. There is also a staff of 10 technicians and an inspector using a number of vans and equipment constantly on the road to investigate interferences in various localities: When [1700] it is possible to remedy the matter by fitting suppressors that is done. The cost per unit of suppressors is not very high and often the difficulty is solved by getting individual owners to fit suppressors. Several manufacturers in the country have already agreed to cooperate as far as they possibly can in that regard. The greatest offenders are owners of neon signs and the suppressors are costly in that case. Competition is keen in that market and it is almost impossible to get manufacturers of neon signs to fit suppressors. It is almost impossible also to get the individuals who have neon signs operating to fit suppressors.
The E.S.B. has certainly gone a long way to meet the wishes of the Department in this respect and they are cooperating fully and doing all they can to ensure that their fittings and equipment comply with the arrangements necessary to eliminate interferences.
Mr. Dillon: Before the Minister departs from that topic would he be surprised to learn that an industrial concern applied to his Department for their assistance to indicate where suppressors were required on their machinery nine months ago and to date have extracted no reaction?
Mr. Hilliard: I shall investigate that. I could not answer that straight off the cuff and I am sure the Deputy will appreciate that.
Deputy Russell wished to know the position in regard to the short wave station. A decision was taken to abandon that short wave station and to dispose of whatever equipment was on hand. That is the position. We have not now a short wave station and we shall not have such a station.
I do not think any other serious, contentious questions were raised in regard to wireless broadcasting. So far as other suggestions or complaints were made that do not warrant an answer now, I shall have them conveyed to the Director and to the Comhairle of Radio Eireann and let them have a look at them. I shall also look at them myself to see if anything can be done to meet the wishes of the Deputies if their complaints or suggestions merit action. When introducing the Estimate, it is [1701] true that I said that the whole television question would come before the House soon but I also stated that nothing was provided in the Estimate in respect of television and that being so, I do not think I am called upon to reply to the speeches made on the television report or on the general question of television in this debate. It was raised by several Deputies including Deputy Sweetman and Deputy McGilligan. No decision has yet been taken by the Government on this question and therefore I cannot offer any comment on the matter at this stage.
So far as the future is concerned, this question will come before the House. Any decision taken by the Government must be implemented by legislation and there will be ample time and opportunities for Deputies to examine the proposals when such a decision is taken. Whatever information is available to me and can be placed at the disposal of the House will certainly be given but as regards proposals or reports that were submitted to the Commission on a confidential basis, I presume that I, as Minister, must see that these reports and proposals will be kept strictly confidential. Whatever information I can usefully place before the House will certainly be given if and when the Bill is introduced.
Motion—“That the Estimate be referred back for reconsideration”— by leave, withdrawn.
Debate resumed on the following Motion:—
“That the estimate be referred back for reconsideration.”—(Deputy J.A. Costello.)
Mr. Dillon: It is customary on the occasion of the Taoiseach's Estimate to move that the Estimate be referred back to review certain urgent aspects of Government policy. The Taoiseach recently intervened in the debate on the Estimates for the Department of [1702] External Affairs to say that, while he wished to leave the merits of the issue raised to the Minister, he wanted to make it clear that the Minister in speaking and acting in the United Nations organisation faithfully reproduced the policy of the Government and that it would be erroneous to say or to imagine that the Minister had a peculiar personal responsibility that was not fully shared by the Government as a whole. Bearing that declaration in mind, I want to raise with the Taoiseach, as a part of Government policy, the very serious danger into which I believe we are drifting as a result of the Government policy as stated by him.
On the Estimate for the Department of External Affairs I suggested to the Minister that the net effect of our policy was that we were alienating, one after another, our traditional friends and, at the same time, perhaps unwittingly, but nevertheless evidently before the world, attracting to our side a whole covey of sympathisers who do not seem to me to be the kind of Government with which we have anything in common at all.
The vital interest, in my submission, of this country in external affairs, is to multiply the number of our friends. I conceive it to be fair to say that our foreign policy falls to be judged by its results rather than by its intentions, however pious. We dealt, on the occasion of the Estimate of the Minister for External Affairs, with the attitude adopted on the proposal to place the admission of Red China on the agenda of the United Nations and the attitude adopted by Ireland on that proposal which I think, was deplorable, shortsighted and gravely detrimental to our vital interests.
Then a second issue emerged. That was the intended attitude declared by the Minister for External Affairs at the next session of the United Nations in regard to nuclear disarmament. I suggested that it was very wrong for us to take the initiative in proposing that France should be excluded from possession of nuclear armaments when we knew that the present Government of France attached particular importance to a full recognition of its right to hold them. We understood the [1703] Minister for External Affairs to say that no such proposal had been advanced by him. I felt that I might have done the Minister an injustice. Since that time I have received from the Minister's own hand the weekly bulletin of the Department of External Affairs for the 6th July, 1959. In that bulletin is reproduced a protracted reference to the forthcoming meeting of the General Assembly. The heading is: “Restriction of Nuclear Armament.”
On page 6 there is a long quotation from the Manchester Guardian of the 23rd June, 1959. The title to that leading article is “Stopping the Spread” and it includes the following paragraph:
“Representatives of the Labour Party and of the T.U.C.'s national executives are meeting to-day to discuss policy in respect of the Hydrogen bomb. It is understood that the Labour Members, following a meeting yesterday of the executive's international sub-committee, will put forward before this meeting a resolution pointing towards adoption of the Non-nuclear Club policy. This is most encouraging. But it must be appreciated that there is still far to go before this becomes a substantive policy; and not much time for the journey. There are other signs that the idea is spreading in other places. The Republic of Ireland has now asked that the question of how to stop the spreading of nuclear weapons should be put on the agenda of the next session of the United Nations General Assembly. Last year, an Irish draft resolution was put forward which aimed at an international agreement to ensure that the present nuclear Powers would remain the sole possessors of such weapons. (It therefore did not touch on the question of whether Britain should renounce possession.)”
If the Manchester Guardian interpreted the action of our Minister at the last session of UNO as advocating the restriction of nuclear arms at the present time to those who at present dispose of them, surely it is not unreasonable that we in this House, reading [1704] the same reports as were available to the Manchester Guardian, should understand the Minister's proposal in the same sense.
An Leas-Cheann Comhairle: This matter was discussed at length on the Vote for the Department of External Affairs. It is not usual to have a repetition in the debate on the Vote for the Taoiseach's Department of a matter already discussed at length.
Mr. Dillon: I want to point out that it was represented to me that the contention I made was wrong. I want to put it to the Taoiseach that we cannot afford to make errors of this kind at meetings of the United Nations. Our policy requires not only to be right but to be clear. I turn now to what transpired as a result of the incident to which the Manchester Guardian makes reference. There was a division. This has not been mentioned before but in the Northern Standard of 17th July, 1959, which publishes material supplied by the Department of External Affairs, it is stated that our Government withdrew two-thirds of the substantive resolution and there was a division on the remaining third.
I ask the House to listen to what happened then. There were 44 abstentions and we were left with one-third of the resolution being carried by 37 votes to nil. Here is a list of the company that joined us in carrying the surviving one-third of the resolution: Poland, Roumania, Sudan, Sweden, Tunisia, Ukranian SSR, Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, United Arab Republic, Venezuela, Yemen, Albania, Bulgaria, Burma, Byelorussian SSR, Ceylon, Chile, Czechoslovakia, Ecuador, Ethiopia, Federation of Malaya, Finland, Ghana, Haiti, Hungary, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Ireland, Liberia, Libya, Mexico, Morocco, Nepal, Pakistan, Panama.
These are the friends whom we gather around us. Those who abstained were: Portugal, Saudi Arabia, Spain, Thailand, Turkey, Union of South Africa, United Kingdom, United States, Uruguay, Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Argentina, Austria, Belgium, Bolivia, Brazil, Cambodia, Canada, China, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, [1705] Denmark, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, France, Greece, Guatemala, Honduras, Israel, Italy, Japan, Jordan, Laos, Lebanon, Luxembourg, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Norway, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines.
If I were asked to divide the United Nations into two groups, I do not think I could do it better than this resolution succeeded in doing, except that I find Ireland in the wrong group. I believe that Ireland has found itself in what would be regarded by practically every Deputy as the wrong group. The submission I want to make to the Taoiseach is that unless there is some radical review of our foreign policy, we are doing ourselves more harm than good by attending the United Nations. I want to submit to the Taoiseach that the Government's policy should be guided by a relatively simple objective, and that is that we shall work with our friends for peace in the belief that, ordinarily, they are honestly and genuinely working for peace, but that we should look twice and three times at any proposal emanating from our traditional enemies before we offer them our co-operation in a similar cause.
Experience ought to have taught us by now that we have no reason to believe that their efforts for peace with freedom are genuine, and we should require extreme degrees of proof before we allow ourselves to be manoeuvred into the company of Soviet Russia and her satellites against the United States of America and her allies. I say that with the utmost possible deliberation— Soviet Russia and her satellites against America and her allies, because that is the fundamental distinction of which any of us who have any experience of international negotiations are only too well aware. Those of us who are related with the freedom-loving nations have always been accorded by them the status of respected allies as opposed to those who, nolens volens, are associated with Soviet Russia and who are treated with the contempt and perennial outrage applied to helpless and hopeless satellites. That much I want to say in regard to External Affairs.
[1706] I want to direct the attention of the House, and particularly that of the Taoiseach, to what I consider is a most urgent and vital matter. That is the state of our trade, of our output, of our exports and of the prospects that lie ahead of us. I am aware that the line of Mr. Cahan at the recent meeting in Dublin can be used as a pretty effective weapon wherewith to trounce the Taoiseach and all he stands for, and I think we have a duty to direct the attention of Dáil Éireann and of our people to the implications of much of what Mr. Cahan said. But I do not think I exceed the limits of propriety if I make this comment on much of what he said. I wonder is the O.E.E.C. forgetting what it was set up to do? As I read Mr. Cahan's pronouncement and Professor Hallstein's contribution, I began to wonder has the O.E.E.C. accepted the proposition that one of their functions is to collaborate with organisations designed to make the rich richer and the poor poorer in the Continent of Europe?
I understood the original intention of that Organisation was to try to spread prosperity throughout Europe, and where peculiar circumstances created difficult conditions, one of their functions was to try to remove those difficulties, as prosperity tended to flow into restricted areas, and to break down the barriers so that the flow of prosperity would spread over all. I do not think O.E.E.C. do a service by proclaiming that the future is black for this country or for that country. One of the justifications for the existence of O.E.E.C. is that they can come forward with proposals for mutual assistance to ensure that the future will not be black for any member of the organisation.
Having said that much, I think it necessary to say that the time has come to face the fact that the dream, with which I believe the Taoiseach began his public career, has come to an end. The whole illusion of national self-sufficiency has blown up. There are many of us here who have been prophesying that for years and who have received considerable adverse publicity because they took that view. It is a barren thing if you have nothing [1707] to offer people other than the prophesying of catastrophe. I often think that the commentators from outside are entirely at a loss to understand the objective we set for ourselves and tend to measure our objective in terms which we would never dream of employing. I do not believe it ought to be the objective of this country to emulate the example of the Black Country of the North of England or of the Ruhr in Germany. Nobody but a lunatic would hold out such prospects for this country or even hope to realise them.
The whole idea of economic self-sufficiency has finally broken down. I believe it has resulted—and here is the point that applies to the immediate future—in a very grave danger of the present Government making a gambler's throw, of taking all our remaining reserves and throwing them into a frantic effort to erect a superstructure of industrialisation quite oblivious of the fact that, as they do it, the foundation of agriculture, on which it must rest, is crumbling away. You can, and very easily could, create a situation here in which you pour out your resources to build factory establishments here, there and everywhere, only to arrive at the realisation too late that your resources were dissipated and you now had not the means to purchase the raw materials, without which the wheels of those factories could not turn and without which no single individual could be employed in them. You can get yourself into the position of a man of modest means who is finally allured by the picture of the perfect meerschaum pipe to spend all in acquiring that pipe, only to discover that he now has no money wherewith to purchase tobacco to put in it. And anything more useless than a meerschaum pipe for a man with no money to buy tobacco to put in it would be hard to imagine, except perhaps a “misery” of factories for a nation that has not the means of producing the raw materials wherewith to employ the factory installations purchased at great cost.
I think there are remedies for that dilemma and it is to the proposing of those remedies that I want to [1708] devote my remarks. The Minister for Agriculture, when he was concluding on his Estimate, delivered himself of the remarkable statement that he thought it quite inappropriate to our proceedings that individuals should refer to previous performances, because it did not really matter who did what; what mattered was that things were done. Now there can be no greater illusion than that superficially attractive proposition, because the only means of determining what is useful policy and what is useless policy is to judge it by its results. Unless I can turn back and ask myself what brought about the condition in Irish agriculture that I found when I first became Minister for Agriculture I have no guide as to what requires to be put right. Unless this House will look at the fact that between 1947 and 1957 we doubled the volume and trebled the value of our exports, there is no means of determining which policy is right and which policy is wrong. I am quite certain at that hour that, but for the fact that we had a revolutionary reversal of agricultural policy in 1948, the condition of this country at present would be utterly desperate.
Our total exports in 1947 were valued at £39,000,000. Our total exports in 1957 were valued at £131,000,000. Now that change was due to something. As to one-third, it was due to price changes.
The Taoiseach: It was due to the fact that in 1947 there was almost a complete failure of crops owing to bad weather. Is that not so?
Mr. Dillon: I am glad the Taoiseach intervened to say that. I am not talking of this phantasm of the statistician's imagination of gross national product and nett national product. I am talking of exports that are measured at the port. I share the Taoiseach's distrust of statisticians' calculations. The yardstick, I hold, is the actual physical exports that were tabulated.
The Taoiseach: Go back to 1946. Go back to 1948. Why pick 1947, the year there was a complete failure of crops?
[1709]Mr. Dillon: I think the Taoiseach will agree with me, if he is calm, that the failure or the success of a crop in a given year has no impact whatsoever on our exports. We do not export crops. There is nothing we grow by way of crop in this country that we export—nothing.
The Taoiseach: Why pick 1947? Why not pick 1946?
Mr. Dillon: Here is the Statistical Abstract. I will give the Taoiseach all the figures, if he wants them. Mark you, he is far too shrewd an operator as a rule to be fooled by the codology of the Minister for Lands. It was the Minister for Lands who used to cry out that wet weather reduces the cattle population. Devil-a-much the Taoiseach knows about agriculture, but he would never be such a great fool as to advance that proposition.
Let us take the figures he wants. Let us take the external trade figures. The total exports in 1945 were £35,000,000; in 1946 they were £39,000,000; in 1947 they were £39,000,000.
The Taoiseach: Prices were going up all the time. Prices were going up rapidly at that time, and therefore you had the same value for a higher volume.
Mr. Dillon: That means volume was going down?
Mr. Dillon: In these three last years of Fianna Fáil administration, volume was actually going down. In 1948 it was £49,000,000; in 1949 it was £60,000,000; in 1950 it was £72,000,000; in 1951 it was £81,000,000; in 1952 it was £101,000,000; in 1953 it was £114,000,000; in 1954 it was £115,000,000; in 1955 it was £110,000,000; in 1956 it was £108,000,000; and in 1957 it was £131,000,000.
The Taoiseach: The answer to that is that it does not make any difference what Government is in power.
Mr. Dillon: I do implore the Taoiseach. It is not the Government in power.
[1710]The Taoiseach: That is the argument.
Mr. Dillon: It is the policy in operation. This is what makes me despair. I sometimes feel Fianna Fáil are resolved to close their minds to fundamental facts, which must be faced now if this country is not to be faced with catastrophe. It is that expansion in exports that gives us the breathing space we have now. If these exports were not at present available we would be in a desperate situation. Conceive what the situation would be if our exports to-day were £39,000,000. Giving all allowance for price, the fact is that, taking the volume figure— leave prices out of it altogether; I am quoting from the Statistical Abstract, page 134, Section V, Table 113—there has been an increase in actual volume. This Table gives the annual index price of the volume of trade and that index price for that volume of our exports, taken over the same period, is as follows:— 1945, 51; 1946, 53; 1947, 51; 1948, 54; 1949, 66; 1950, 74; 1951, 73; 1952, 89; 1953, 100; 1954, 102; 1955, 95; 1956, 98——
Mr. Dillon: 1957, 116. The point I want to make to the Taoiseach, and it is a point which is to me both fundamental and urgent, is that 85 per cent. of those exports represents agricultural produce, and mainly livestock. Over the same period the number of livestock on the land of Ireland increased from the lowest figure at which it had ever stood in our history in 1947 to the highest figure ever reached, as of to-day. In that is the hope of the survival of this country.
I think the Taoiseach acknowledges that the urgent necessity is to expand exports. There is no hope, certainly in the immediate future, of materially expanding industrial exports. There may be—I think there is—a hope in the more distant future of doing so. I shall again submit to the Taoiseach the means to achieve it but, ad interim, the urgent thing is to increase exports whencesoever they are derived. It is to that end I want to make this representation.
The obvious source from which we can now expand exports, as we did [1711] during the past decade, is the agricultural industry and the question we should ask ourselves today is, how could that expeditiously be done? I think the Taoiseach will agree with me that that is the urgent present necessity. We have got to produce increased quantities of agricultural exports in categories where we can get markets for them. There are two desiderata. One is to increase output but the second one is to ensure that that increased output will occur in commodities for which we can find market outlets.
Take a commodity like eggs. You can increase eggs in the morning but, if we did, there is no existing outlet in the world where they would be saleable, in my opinion, at any price which would salvage the cost of packing and transport, and that has got to be faced. You have got resolutely to make up your mind that you might as well turn your back on the egg market. It is gone. The international egg market is dead and I can see no prospect of its being revived in our time. Modern techniques make it possible for almost every nation in the world to become self-sufficient in eggs if they can afford eggs at all and those in a position to buy eggs will not buy them from abroad. If they are in a position to buy eggs, they can produce them for themselves, and will.
I believe there is a great potential market for milk and milk products and for pig and pig products. We have the market for cattle and we have a considerable market for sheep and the by-product, wool. Our grip on the cattle market, I think, is secure provided we push forward energetically with the bovine tuberculosis eradication scheme. I urge on the Taoiseach, and I shall not go into detail in this, that he should give his personal attention to a suggestion I made to the Minister for Agriculture with regard to the expediting of the campaign for the eradication of bovine tuberculosis in the dairy counties.
I am now convinced that this is a matter of urgency and that there ought to be proceeded with, parallel with the eradication scheme in the counties already scheduled, a voluntary eradication [1712] scheme with an inducement on the lines which I submitted to the Minister for Agriculture in the discussion on his Estimate, without which I cannot see he has any hope of achieving the complete eradication of this disease before 1963, when it is so vitally urgent that we should be very close, in any case, to a clear bill of health, lest our failure to do so should prejudice our prospects in that market. If we can achieve that, we have a market of incalculable value because our store cattle constitute the raw material of the livestock industry of the British farmer and so is of special value to us.
But, in regard to increasing output in these scheduled lines of production, where we can see our way to get adequate marketing facilities to dispose of the output, I want to urge on the Taoiseach that the time is overdue for the establishment of a national agricultural advisory service. It is a source of enduring humiliation and exasperation to go through this country and to see hard-working men, with 40, 100 and up to 200 acres, who are obviously completely frustrated by their inability to know where or how to begin to extract from that land the maximum output of which it is entirely capable.
I stood recently on a farm of a man who, under the Land Project, had attempted to clear up the land, which had become too overgrown, as a result of fortuitous circumstances, into which it is not necessary to go. Here was a young man who was working like a black and who had pledged his last available shilling of credit to get the Land Project in, under the B. scheme, to remove all the undergrowth, to clear his drains and to provide a system of field drainage. He now had approximately 200 acres of land and I said to him as I walked over the land with him: “Where do you go from here?” It became abundantly clear to me immediately that the man had not got sixpence of available capital.
One might prescribe a variety of courses that would be suitable for a man in that circumstance to make his land productive but, standing as he did, alone, and with manifestly no equipment to employ the various [1713] methods by which this land might be advantageously exploited, theoretically, he had the county instructor to whom he might turn; in practice, he had nobody.
What I want to say and what I am convinced is an absolutely sine qua non of real progress on the agricultural output front, is that we should work rapidly to the point of having one agricultural adviser to every rural parish in Ireland. We have the men. We are exporting them at the present time, as I have mentioned here before. I have been approached quite frequently by graduates of our Agricultural Faculty, asking for references to go to Rhodesia, Canada, the Colonies, because there is no work for them here and, at the same time, there are hundreds of thousands of acres of land in this country which are not producing one-quarter of what they are capable of producing, simply because there is not available to the people who own the land the technical advice without which they cannot get the output.
I think of that individual on whose holding I stood and I ask myself what should I say to him. The answer is that I had nothing to say to him but, if I knew there was a parish agent working under the direction of the Minister for Agriculture in that man's parish, I would have said, and could have said to him, “If you do not know where you go from here, there is a simple answer. Go to the next village. There is a parish agent there whose job is to be with you until you are well on your way. It is a free country. After you have listened to his recommendation, you are entitled to throw him out and you are entitled as well, in this free country, to sit down on the side of the road and starve until you are dead and then someone else will come in and take your holding but you are not in a position of being utterly bereft of guidance and direction as to where you go from here. You have a right to bespeak the assistance of your parish agent and he has a duty to stick with you until you are on your way and his duty does not end by coming down to say to you, ‘Plant this, plant that and plant the other [1714] thing.’ His duty extends to bringing you in contact with the Agricultural Credit Corporation or with the Department of Agriculture itself or with any other service designed to help in directing your activity for the expansion of your output.”
If such advice is to be tendered, there are many people in this country who want the job of offering that advice. My experience of the Department of Agriculture was that, being human, it never wanted to undertake work and it had not a grave obligation to undertake. Adding to the work of the Department of Agriculture usually means that those who work have to work harder. The less work the Department of Agriculture has to do, the less work the higher civil servants in that Department have thrust upon them but I want to say that I do not think any autonomous body who is not acting under the general direction of the Government can operate a service of this kind because it is quite open to an autonomous body to say: “We have come to the conclusion that greater output by these farmers is wise, and now it is the Government's job to find a market for that output.” You may go to them and say, for instance: “There is not a market for eggs,” and they will reply: “Our interest is not in that; our interest is in increasing output.”
As soon as possible we should have a national agricultural advisory service operated under the direction of the Department of Agriculture, and it must accept the responsibility of putting available, to any farmer who asks for its services, a solution to the farmer's problem of increased output, provided the farmer is prepared to cooperate. I am as certain as I stand here, and I speak from experience, that co-operation is abundantly available if it is sought in the right way. I could be acrimonious, Sir. I do not want to be. I could note from past statements of the Minister for Agriculture what I think is the wrong approach. The right approach may be tedious, it may be trying but it would be the effective approach. It is the approach we inaugurated when I first launched [1715] the parish plan. I do not want to place the blame for the failure of the parish plan on anyone, though Deputy Moher played more than a man's part in making its operation ineffective, but there were other elements. In any case, what is past is past and does not matter a damn, but my experience taught me that when you are dealing with a rural community if you do not rush you get better results.
I remember sending the first parish agent to Bansha, quite a young technical officer in the Department of Agriculture. I remember bringing him into my office and saying: “I want you to do the most difficult job it is possible for a man to do. I want you to go and sit in Bansha and, if necessary, do nothing for 12 months. Your job will be to sit in Bansha and be available to those who ask to come and see you. If nobody comes do not go to anybody. There may be times when you will feel at the very nadir of frustration but those are the hours when you will be doing a most precious and enduring service.” It so happened that for eight months not a creature appeared before him but, by the end of eighteen months, he had been invited into every farm in Bansha. The Taoiseach can go and look at the results and, if they were repeated in every county in Ireland, I assure the Taoiseach that the results would be dramatic in expanding production.
I do not know that it is necessary to direct his attention to the pattern of our agricultural consumption. It may be necessary to direct the attention of other Members of the House to that pattern. One third is consumed on the farm, one third is consumed on the domestic market, and one third is exported. We know that at the present time the domestic market of the farmer's homestead, and in the towns and cities, is at virtually its maximum point of consumption with the result that fully 90 per cent. of increased output will go into export, so that when you get an arithmetical progression in agricultural production you get an almost geometrical progression in agricultural exports. I am quite convinced that within the next decade we could easily get an increase in output of 50 [1716] per cent., with an effective national agricultural advisory service, and that that would result in an increase in exports of nearly 200 per cent. Those may seem astronomical figures but they are not beyond our capacity to achieve. We could rapidly find ourselves in the serious difficulty of marketing that output but I believe that difficulty could be overcome. But, what causes me consternation, much more than the removal of the British duty on Danish bacon exports, is the ancillary undertaking given by the British Government to the Danish Government that no consequential action on their part will operate to interfere with the Danish share of the British market for bacon.
I know where that undertaking derived from. That undertaking was sought by the Danish Government consequent on their observation of what happened to us under our trade agreement in its relation to eggs. The Danes observed that we got a certain status on the British market for eggs but the British, by the operation of their own subsidies, became self-sufficient in eggs and became an export country, whereupon, no matter what conditions we got, our market disappeared. The Danes have succeeded in getting that astonishing undertaking.
The British Farmers' Union have jumped to that at once and have secured assurances from their Minister for agriculture that no matter what way the market goes their guaranteed prices will remain the same. The British Minister of Agriculture has given a specific guarantee yesterday that there would be no change next year in the price review, but there is no parallel guarantee to us and, what I am seriously apprehensive about— and I think it would be a very grave departure from the spirit of the trade agreements which we entered into with Great Britain—if it comes to pass that Great Britain should be tempted to freeze the pattern of trade in bacon to our detriment.
I want to suggest to the Minister that it is very well worth examining as to whether the British would not be prepared to consider accepting shipments of live pigs from us again. I do not want to go into details. It is a [1717] difficult question but, as the Taoiseach no doubt is aware, prior to the War——
Mr. T. Lynch: The Economic War.
Mr. Dillon: ——prior to 1932 there were very large exports of live pigs from this country. That export was very valuable to the country. It was very valuable for various types of pigs that were not readily convertible into the kind of bacon that was readily saleable, and a resumption of that trade might provide a solution to the problem of marketing expanded quantities of bacon production. There is a variety of other markets that could be investigated but these are technical matters into which I think it is not appropriate to go. There are markets in sausages and a lot of pork meats that could be expanded if we had the means to provide a permanent supply. I think, ad interim, we should build up a supply and look to our own resources to secure markets. You cannot get markets if you have not got supplies of pig meat. As things stand at present we have a market that could consume any supplies of pig meat that we have available.
Do not let the Taoiseach be misled by the apparently wide difference in prices realised by Irish Wiltshire bacon in Great Britain and the prices guarteed by our Government to the bacon manufacturers here. There are a lot more kinds of pig production by manufacturers here than Wiltshire side bacon. It might be of interest to the Taoiseach to enquire what bacon curers were getting for gammons in the last six months when prices seemed to be depressed, and he might be surprised to find we were getting record prices for gammons which constitute 24 per cent. of every side of bacon.
I am quite convinced that there is the key. Without it we shall not get sustained increased output and we shall not get it on the right lines. I do not want the Minister to have even the power to compel but I think he has the duty to advise and to be equipped to be advised effectively. I do not believe any farmer has a right to demand from the Department of Agriculture [1718] advice on how to maximise his production of a commodity which the Department knows perfectly well he will not be able to sell if he does produce it. I think the Department, if farmers want advice on how to maximise production can say: “We will give it to you and help you by introducing through the Department and making available credit and other facilities provided we see some prospect of being able to market the product when we get it.”
Then we come to consider marketing arrangements. I have read the report of the Commission set up by the Government, for which we voted £250,000 and as yet I have got very little light from it. I think there is scope for the development of our bacon marketing machinery and in that sphere I think we must take a leaf from the Danish book. I suspect we should have some kind of central marketing organisation in Great Britain which could offer the British wholesaler inducements comparable to those offered by Denmark at present, but of course, Denmark took the precaution of building up supplies. Perhaps the Taoiseach knows this: I do not know whether he does or not. If a British wholesaler undertakes to take 90 per cent. of his bacon from Denmark, the Danish sales organisation are prepared to guarantee him against any fall in prices. If the prices should fall in any given week they will give him the benefit of any fall if it occurs. I do not want to go into details on that; it is a complicated arrangement but it is a very material arrangement to those who enter into that 90 per cent. contract with the Danes and, of course, it give the Danes a virtual stranglehold on the British market which stranglehold it should be our concern to break. I do not believe it is possible effectively to break it if we have not some kind of central marketing organisation either to substitute for or supplement our existing market contacts in Britain.
I often wonder if politically it would not be wiser for us to confine ourselves to destructive onslaughts on the present Government. Perhaps it would, but I am so consternated by the immediate outlook that I do not believe we have time to engage in that kind of struggle [1719] at present. For that reason I want to put to the Taoiseach suggestions which I believe could be made immediately effective to achieve the common purpose which we all have at heart. I spoke of the prospects of getting industrial development but I think before I turn to that I am entitled to direct attention to the fact that as far back as the 5th December, 1957, speaking as reported at column 1559, Volume 164, No. 10 of the Official Reports I warned the Government in an Adjournment Debate of the dangers in which we then stood. I said:
I should like to know what this Government considers to be the vital interest of Ireland. I would ask them to bear in mind that under the 1948 Trade Agreement Ireland at present enjoys a link in price between cattle in Great Britain and store cattle here which could make a difference at certain times of the year of up to £20 a head in cattle; Ireland enjoys under the 1948 Trade Agreement a preference at present in respect of butter worth approximately 30/- per cwt; and in respect of bacon, a preference worth anything from——
The Taoiseach: That was not correct. There was no contract regarding bacon.
Mr. Dillon: We had a 10 per cent advantage over Denmark.
The Taoiseach: Not by contract. They were under no obligation to pay that. They broke no agreement.
Mr. Dillon: Did the Taoiseach hear what I said:
I would urge the Government very strongly that these very special considerations be borne in mind and that these very desirable assets, which we at present enjoy, will not be lightly relinquished, unless a very substantial quid pro quo is available.
I knew, and anybody who took any interest in these matters knew, that Denmark had been striving to get our preferential position in the British market negatived. It was in their interest to do so. We spent 12 months [1720] after that speech was made arguing the toss about proportional representation at the end of which time we woke up to the realisation that the advantages we had enjoyed were gone.
The Taoiseach: That was a by-election argument and it is too late now to influence the votes.
Mr. Dillon: I think it is. I assure the Taoiseach it is, but I am not really interested in that. What I am interested in is the future and the effort to get back to the position where we must be, if we are to survive as a sovereign independent nation. I think it is as grave as that and I shall resubmit to the Taoiseach certain proposals which I first adumbrated in this House on the 29th October, 1958, as reported at columns 105, 106, 107 and 108. There I made certain suggestions that we should bespeak a consortium of American or British firms who would be prepared to establish branch factories here and make available to us the marketing facilities which they had built up through which to dispose of the output of these plants.
Later in April, 1959, as reported at Columns 514, 515 and 516, I renewed those representations and later I drew attention to the fact that Mr. Gamage, who is a person of some influence in Great Britain, had published an article in the London Financial Times which appeared to me to reinforce the representations I then made and to say that from the point of view of the British manufacturer it was now sound sense for them to realise that it would be in their own interest not only to facilitate but to promote the development of suitable industries in the territory of their territorial customers because that would beget wealth and potential demand, albeit for a different type of industrial product which the British industrial arm as a whole was eminently equipped to supply.
I now see that Mr. Hallstein and Mr. Cahan announced in Dublin last Monday that the solution of the immediately urgent problems that confront [1721] us is to get foreign firms to establish branch factories here. I venture to swear that when Mr. Hallstein or Mr. Cahan say that everybody cocks his ear and gives respectful attention but if Mr. Murphy or Mr. Dillon or somebody else said it in Dáil Éireann it is all moonshine and cod and it is not believed. It may be providential that Mr. Hallstein and Mr. Cahan said this in Dublin because now somebody may do something about it. The plain fact is that I have yet to hear from the Taoiseach or any of his colleagues or from anybody else any suggestion as to how, in our circumstances, or in the circumstances of any other country similarly placed, we can get a market for our industrial exports.
We are in the traditional dilemma that to get into these markets we must have the goods to sell. Before we can produce the goods to sell we must have the markets in which to dispose of them. Even if we set up a factory in the pious hope that we shall be able to sell and send forth people to sell, and that these people successfully sell our output will not be sufficient to meet the market we have created and our failure to deliver against our initial orders will make impossible any subsequent attempt to find markets for our products.
We have had some experience of that in the overselling of commodities of which we had not sufficient supplies and of finding ourselves in the position that in the last analysis our last position was worse than our first. I had the experience of finding it impossible to get into vast markets that I knew were in existence because we did not have the selling organisation there. I have already pointed out to the Taoiseach that if we could tap one per cent of the existing world market for dried milk we would immediately precipitate a shortage of manufactured milk in this country. If we could get five per cent of the world market in condensed milk we would create a condition of domestic shortage of milk in this country. We found it impossible to get into either of those markets which are controlled by the Dutch and British manufacturers who got that control by the [1722] exercise of their colonial power in the first part of this century.
On the industrial front we have not got the supplies. Does the Taoiseach propose, or do the Government propose to take any steps to try to test the quality of the Gamage Plan? So far as I can see it is at present operating throughout the Near East through a consortium of U.S.A. business organisations. If bilateral agreements are not effective, is it not time for this country on our own behalf and on behalf of other small countries to say to OEEC or to United Nations that there are a great many small countries in this world who do not want handouts, who are not on the look out for easy money and who want nothing but the opportunity of providing employment for their people in their own country? One of the most fruitful activities in which OEEC or UNO could engage would be the promotion of that as their contribution to the effective spread of the increasing wealth of the world and the prevention of its growing concentration in the hands of the rich to the detriment of the poor.
I believe that to be part of our function and I believe that their assistance would be readily secured for the realisation of that objective. I believe that there is very little time left for us to seek increased exports because the alternative is to restrict our imports and that is a prospect which, when I was in Government, I viewed with dismay because I knew how grave the impact of such a decision would be on our economy. But there is no use closing our eyes to the fact that in the first six months of this year the import excess has been running at the rate of close on £100,000,000 per annum. That, translated into a balance of payments deficiency, means that at present rates we are facing, at the end of this year, a balance of payments deficiency somewhere between £30,000,000 and £40,000,000.
So certainly as I am standing in this House, that means some restriction of our imports if it continues. When the decision to make that restriction comes the Government must make its choice [1723] between the device we employed and they will then discover that many of those are no longer available to them because the levies which we formerly had have now been converted into permanent taxation on the revenue from which the Minister for Finance depends for the balancing of his budget and which largely contributed to the remission of income tax and the increase in the old age pensions.
The alternative is the physical control of imports. Deputies blandly assume that it is quite possible to weed out of our import list a number of items without seriously endangering the vital interests of anybody, but they will discover when they go through the lists of jewellery, cosmetics, furs and other luxuries that they make little or no contribution to the balance of payments situation. If you want to make an effective reduction in the imports of this country on a scale calculated to affect widely the balance of payments situation, almost immediately you come smack up against the raw material of the employments of thousands of people working in this country.
If you want to restrict imports you will find that you do it only at the expense of employment and the net result of that is that you secure your balance of payments by restricting imports and expanding exports of working men. That is a dialectic which, if you once get into it, becomes worse with the passage of every year. The effective domestic market continues to decrease leaving larger surpluses which can only be exported with the assistance of subsidies from a decreasing national income.
I am bound to say that this Government, now nearly three years in office, appears to have done very little to make provision against the contingencies that confront us. If I were a member of a Government three years in office and if, at the end of that time, I were told that the future was black and that we had half a century of suffering before us, and that we had no proposals to make, I would be very much consternated.
I am happy to recall that a similar period, when the Taoiseach warned us [1724] that the next five years—he was speaking in 1947 in the town of Letterkenny —would be a period of unexampled difficulty and peril for this country, through which it would take all our exertions to bring our people safely, contains the first three years of our administration; and that before ten years of that subsequent period had elapsed our policies had been put into operation and carried on and that those ten years in fact proved to be a period of the most remarkable economic progress this country has ever made. We had our up and downs, but we got over all of them and we ended up in the eminently desirable position of having treble the value and double the volume of our exports.
That is the yardstick by which the economic effort of successive Governments may really be judged. It is the accurate yardstick and the significant yardstick. I hope that our present Government, faced with the problems with which this country now has to contend, will prove as successful in solving them in the future as we did in the past. But if they do not feel equal to it, then I hope they will make way for others who do. I do not know what reshuffling the Taoiseach contemplates in his Cabinet. None of the shuffling he has done so far, or indeed his predecessor has done, stirs any sense of conviction in my mind. I cannot contemplate Fianna Fáil producing any satisfactory solution of the problems at present confronting us. I offer them certain suggestions for urgent and immediate action, which might make a contribution. If they are not prepared to act upon them or offer some better solution of our difficulties, then I hope and pray they will get out, throw in their hand and make way for some other administration that, I think, could and would resolve our difficulties.
Mr. Russell: The first impression the Taoiseach's speech made on me was that at least he appreciated the country had reached a crucial stage in its affairs. I should like to subscribe to the sentiments he expressed here during the course of our discussions last week that it was time now to look [1725] forward and stop looking back. The Taoiseach appreciates that, if we are to survive and prosper, we must take certain steps that may be, and indeed almost certainly would be difficult, particularly for the administration in power at the time of these decisions.
Whatever we may think of the contributions made at the recent symposium organised by the Irish movement for the promotion of European co-operation, we must at least respect the fact that they were neutral contributions and that the people who made them gave them in all honesty as an honest appraisal of our position as they saw it. It is also true to say that the contribution made by the Deputy Secretary of O.E.E.C. corroborates to a very large extent the sentiments expressed by the Taoiseach and other speakers in this House, particularly over recent months. There is an urgent necessity for an appraisal of our position, particularly in relation to the freer, if not free, trade on the era of which we undoubtedly stand. As previous speakers have said, we are going into this era of free trade under certain very serious disadvantages.
Some critical comment has been made of the policy of protection built up, particularly over the past 25 or 30 years, and of which the Taoiseach was largely the architect when Minister for Industry and Commerce. Of course, it is always easy to be wise after the event, event, particularly years after the event, although I must confess I feel that, looking back over the years, more discrimination might have been shown in the choice and in the type of industries selected for protection and also in the extent of the protection granted to different industries. As European free trade becomes a reality in the next five, ten or fifteen years, it is certain that some, if not many, of the small tightly protected industries of this country will not survive. It is also true to say that the larger and more efficient industries—some of them established before the era of protection —will survive and should have a better future within the wider trade area.
Therefore, I do not share the pessimism expressed in some quarters [1726] that the relaxation of tariff protection in this country must, of necessity, bring large-scale unemployment in either industry or agriculture. I would prefer to look on this new era as a challenge to our ability, to our energy and to ourselves generally as people to survive and to make the best of the situation. I believe that our people will react if they have confidence in their leadership and Government and in the integrity of whatever Government is in charge of their affairs.
During the course of his speech the Taoiseach referred to the question of departing from the basis of nondiscrimination in our trading relations with other countries apart from Great Britain. I do not think we should altogether exclude the question of departing from the basis of non-discrimination even in regard to Great Britain. After all, we are Great Britain's second best customer in Europe. Over the years, we have generally imported more from Great Britain than she has bought from us. We give very valuable trading terms to Great Britain. On the other hand, Great Britain is undoubtedly our best customer for agricultural goods of all types, particularly of cattle; but it is true to say that, over the past ten years, Britain's domestic policy of subsidising her own agriculture has largely negatived the advantages we gained in the 1938 and the 1948 trade agreements in all agricultural produce with the single exception of cattle. This form of discrimination has injured the small farmer more than it has injured any other section of the community.
The British system of subsidies on such items as dairy products, pigs, poultry and eggs has reacted more unfavourably upon the small farmer than upon any other section of our community. We are essentially a nation of small farmers and, because of that, our people have suffered severely from the policy of domestic subsidisation pursued by the British Government. That factor should not be lost sight of by the Taoiseach, and particularly not lost sight of in the forthcoming negotiations in relation to Anglo-Irish trade which he forecast recently. In saying that, I have full regard for the fact that Britain is our best customer and [1727] will continue to be so, irrespective of what other outlets we may find for our agricultural and industrial products on the Continent or in the United States of America. I believe that any trading or relationship with Britain must be built on a policy of mutual benefit and mutual satisfaction. If Great Britain's internal policy affects us to any serious extent we have every right to take cognisance of that when we come to the point of discussion with the British.
In some recent speech—I cannot recall the exact occasion—the Taoiseach referred to the ambition of himself and his Government to provide acceptable living standards for a greater number of our people. I should like to ask the Taoiseach to define what he regards as acceptable living standards. Over the years many people—not all—have enjoyed acceptable living standards, very largely at the expense of a steady decline in our population. I should like to ask the Taoiseach if his plans are intended to provide a rising living standard for an increasing population? Or shall we continue having some survive in reasonable comfort at home at the expense of a large part of the population continuing to emigrate?
It is significant that the five-year programme for economic expansion, published a few months ago, does not give any estimate of the net increase in employment the plan is intended to provide under the various headings for which large sums will be provided. It would be very helpful if we could have at reasonable intervals, say, six months, some indication of the impact this programme will have on our problems of unemployment and emigration. In answer to a recent question of mine here the Minister for Finance informed me that the figures for numbers employed would not be available until the new year. That is very unsatisfactory. It should be possible to furnish every six months the progress of the Government's policy in relation to these two indicators of the health, or otherwise, of our national economy, namely, unemployment and emigration. It is disconcerting to think that the effect of the implementation of the Government's programme in the first year will [1728] not be known to the House until the new year.
No idea of the additional cost in terms of higher charges to service the national debt, and other Government commitments, is given in this five-year programme. At the moment it costs some £16,000,000 to £18,000,000 per annum to service our almost £400,000,000 of national debt. That deadweight debt continues to grow steadily every year. The charge necessary to service it continues to grow with it. Concurrently with that increasing charge, we have a decline in population. Unless the trends can be reversed by providing more outlets for employment, it is not difficult to imagine what the position will be five or ten years hence, with a heavier load of debt around the necks of a smaller earning population.
The five-year plan pays tribute in its pages to private enterprise. It states categorically that the fundamental basis of economic activity must be through the medium of private enterprise. I wonder have we given private enterprise an opportunity of flourishing over the years? In saying that, I do not want to detract in any way from the successful ventures which the State has made into various facets of our economy. I appreciate that undertakings, such as Irish Shipping, the E.S.B., and Bord na Móna have given very remarkable results and have provided tremendous employment. Nevertheless I think that, if greater encouragement had been given to the enterpreneur over the years and he had been given an opportunity of accumulating capital to reinvest for himself, our present economic picture would not be as gloomy or as discouraging as it is. As a dynamic to economy there is no substitute for viable private enterprise. If anyone has any doubts on that he has only to look at the history of the United States and see the results achieved there under a competitive private enterprise economy.
Private enterprise has its faults. Everybody knows that. But its faults can be controlled by Government. It is the duty of Government not to displace [1729] private enterprise but to encourage it, to control it where necessary, and to create a climate in which it can expand and prosper, making the country prosperous with it. If the State continues to take a greater and greater part in the ordinary economy of the country private enterprise will correspondingly decline. The greatest possible fillip to private enterprise would be a substantial reduction in taxation. If we want to encourage both the employer and his employee to produce, to work, to save and to reinvest in productive enterprise, nothing will be more conducive to that, nothing more encouraging, and nothing will have a greater influence than a substantial reduction in taxation, both national and local. It is a sobering thought that taxation, national and local, amounts to more than £3,000,000 a week. That is a shocking burden on a small community of less than 3,000,000 people.
In any appraisal of our position and of our potentialities in relation to exports, we must have regard to our unique position. With Great Britain, whether we like it or not, we form a common labour market. Our workers are free to come and go as they like. The natural trend is for them to go where the reward is greatest. Particularly since the war they have gone in ever-increasing numbers at very short notice to Great Britain, and there they have been given opportunities of good employment at good wages.
We also have with Great Britain a common money market. We have virtually no control over our interest rates in this country. Finally, we are an island country, and, with the exception of Great Britain, far from the highly organised industrial countries of the Continent. We suffer great disadvantages in regard to transport, in regard to the high cost of almost everything we produce, not altogether due to the fact that our industries, generally, are small, but to the fact that we are a country of generally small farmers and, of necessity, production costs must be higher than they are in the case of larger units.
As I see it, there are two courses open to us. The first is to accept the [1730] standards to which our current economic position entitles us—that, to my mind, means a general lowering of standards all round—or else, to expand our economy by greater efficiency and lower costs. That, in effect, is the solution which Mr. Whitaker put forward in his recent publication and I think it is a solution also put forward by the Programme for Economic Expansion.
The only difficulty I see in achieving that very desirable end is the fact that it entails two developments not mentioned, except in a few lines, in the Programme, that is, a complete and drastic change in our educational system with a much greater emphasis on technical and scientific education. If we are to progress in this country, we must progress through the media of our people, their mental and physical ability, and we must progress at a fast rate. In order to be comparable with European countries, not only have we to make up the leeway of years but we also have to overtake the progress they are making at the present time.
This double purpose can only be achieved by a drastic overhaul of our whole educational system, by breaking away completely from the ideas, no matter how truly held, of the past, by giving our young people an opportunity to step into the highest paid technical and scientific positions that the country can offer them. That, and a general tax reduction all round, a tax reduction that would encourage outsiders to come in here to establish industries or even to live here, are the two opportunities which are the sine qua non of any material progress in this country.
During the course of his speech, the Taoiseach hinted at further possible Anglo-Irish and European developments. I assume from that that before very long further surprises are in store for us. Personally, as I said a few minutes ago, I do not mind getting shocks. I think they are good for us. They are good for us psychologically. They are good for us as a people. By and large, in the long run, our reaction to these international developments will be a measure of our capacity as a nation to expand and to prosper or, alternatively, to contract and stagnate. [1731] Whether we will go ahead or whether we will stagnate depends primarily on the leadership this country gets from its Government. In that regard the present Taoiseach has a heavy burden on his shoulders. If he reacts to that challenge, if he and his colleagues inspire the people with the confidence that they are being led by a competent, dedicated, honest team, the country will react accordingly. If the people fail to believe in them, fail to believe in their leadership, fail to believe that they know where they are going, the people will give the Government the answer at the first opportunity.
I support the sentiments which the Taoiseach expressed on the question of Partition. His remarks were sober and sensible. My only regret is that he and other members of his Party did not offer the same sentiments many years ago. If they had, the question of Partition might not be the burning question that it is today. I have always held the view that Partition will be ended by mutual goodwill. It was the previous Taoiseach, now the President, who referred to a community of wills. That is largely the basis on which Partition will be finally settled, but that does not mean that in the meanwhile we should sit still and do nothing. Even if we do get rebuffed and discouraged, it is up to us in this part of the country to extend the hand of friendship in every way we possibly can. One sensible and logical way of doing that is to offer co-operation in economic, cultural and other spheres. We already have that co-operation in several sporting spheres. I do not believe that co-operation is impossible in other and more important spheres also.
This Six Counties, although it is a part of Ireland, is regarded as an export country. It is the best customer we have. They buy far more from us than we buy from them. I do not know what the difficulties are in the way of buying more from the Six Counties but, whatever they are, I hope the Taoiseach will, as he has suggested or hinted in his speech, take an early opportunity of doing away with these difficulties.
I was particularly encouraged by his [1732] suggestion that we might have some form of co-operation in the field of cross-channel shipping. There is an old and grave disability in regard to that matter, from which both parts of the country suffer and it would offer very fruitful ground for co-operation if representatives from both parts of the country could sit down and tackle this problem together.
Another useful field of development would be atomic energy, to which the Taoiseach did not refer but which I think offers great potentialities for the island as a whole.
Lastly, I should like to make a brief reference to our political set-up. I was present some years ago when the former President, Mr. Seán T. Ó Ceallaigh, made his famous appeal in the town of Bruff, County Limerick. At that time he appealed to the members and sons of members of the old Republican movement to forget past dissensions and to come together in the interests of the country. Unfortunately, his appeal seems to have fallen on deaf ears. I do feel that, with the retiral of Mr. de Valera from the political scene and with the almost certain retiral of other prominent and controversial figures in our political life, the way will be made easier for an ending of the divisions which, in the main, are at present based on personalities, and that the opportunity will be created for the coming together of compatible elements in our political life. If such a coming together could eventuate, it would create a new impetus and give new and encouraging leadership to the country as a whole.
I hope the time will not be too long delayed when men of similar outlook, ideas and desires for the future of the country, will, irrespective of their past affiliations, find a common ground in some form of reunited movement.
Finally I would say that, in the task that lies before him, I should like to assure the Taoiseach of any possible help that I could give him. As I said at the time of his election, it will be critical help. It is the duty of every Deputy outside the Taoiseach's Party, whether he is a [1733] member of an Opposition Party or an Independent, to be alert and critical. I think that any abject support of the Government Party is possibly the greatest disservice you could pay them. I shall try to play my part in these benches by giving constructive and helpful contributions to the question at issue.
Mr. Corry: On this Estimate it is customary to have a general review of the position, more or less. Frankly, I think the country is pretty lucky in having the present Taoiseach in charge of affairs at the moment. Whatever expansion we can look forward to in the next nine or ten years I believe it will have to be mainly industrial expansion, and not agricultural. Therefore, I think we are lucky in having in charge of the Government, and in the framing of policy, a man who has been so successful as far as the industrial life of the country is concerned, a man who, frankly, has been prepared to take chances, proceeding on the ground that a man who did not make a mistake never made anything. He has achieved great successes so far as the industries of this country are concerned, which has resulted in keeping many thousands of our people at home. Whatever about politics I do think that tribute is due to him.
When we come to examine the Programme for Economic Expansion—the agricultural portion of it—and the statements made by the Minister for Lands last night, we must admit that we have to look things in the face. As far as agriculture is concerned we can say that in anything which the farmer has been assured, or in anything for which he has got a fair price, he has gone to the limit in expansion. One industry that can be selected in that respect is the sugar industry. I can remember when the former Minister for Agriculture said that beet had gone up the spout after the wheat and peat but, thank God, we are in the position to-day when we have to curtail the acreage under beet. That means that as far as that industry is concerned there is no room for expansion.
The same gentleman, who would not be found dead in a field of wheat, suddenly [1734] found himself choked with wheat. In the year in which he took over as Minister for Agriculture on the last occasion, I was one of a deputation who had an interview with him about the price of wheat. He told me that he had a headache for the previous month trying to discover what to do with the surplus. That was in 1954, I think. I did not believe it. He never said a word about it until 1957, and we never heard anything about it until 1957. That was actual fact. I stated it here in this House at the time, and I will be borne out by the records of the House. Therefore, as far as wheat and beet are concerned, we have gone to the limit.
The Minister for Lands was alluding last night to agricultural expansion, to livestock and to the credit that was being given by banks for the purchase of livestock. I take my mind back to when we got what was known as a “heifer loan,” and it broke the backs and the credit of most of the farmers in my county. We have the position to-day where the man who accepted those loans six months ago will not get what he paid for the cattle that he bought at that time.
An Leas-Cheann Comhairle: The Deputy may refer only to the broad aspect of agricultural policy. Details are not in order. They are matters for the Agricultural Estimate and not for the Estimate for the Department of the Taoiseach.
Mr. Corry: We have got an adverse balance of trade. That means we are buying more from the foreigner than the foreigner is buying from us. That is the plain way of putting it. I want to know where we are buying things that we need not buy, and what the things we are buying are for? Up to December, 1958, we imported over £1,000,000 worth of foreign barley in 12 months and, in the very self-same period, £1,813,000 worth of wheat offals, at roughly £20 a ton. You paid £20 a ton for wheat offals coming into the country and, in the same period, you exported 513,000 cwts. of Irish wheat at £20 a ton. Where is the sense in that? We are exporting the whole grain, the full grain, at £20 a ton and [1735] importing the skin of it, again paying £20 a ton for that. What is the reason for that except that we want to keep the millers and the shipping going?
In the first four months of this year, from January to April, you imported 25,000 tons of maize and you paid £500,000 for it. Again you imported 172,000 cwts. of wheat offals and paid £176,000 for it, while you exported 536,000 cwts. of wheat for £614,000, roughly about £20 a ton again. From January to December you paid £5,408,000 for animal feeding stuffs, leaving wheat imports completely aside, and I hold that there is no justification for that. By doing that you are building up an adverse trade balance that you need not build up, by buying something that should be provided at home.
That is why I say there is a market that could be met at home, a market that could be provided for at home. You are also importing each year several million pounds' worth of agricultural machinery that, in my opinion should be manufactured here and which would provide employment here for several thousand people. I have been on that subject for many years. The trouble is that if there was a world war tomorrow, in six months' time the bulk of the machinery in this country would be thrown in the ditch. We have at least 47 different makes of tractors, about 35 different makes of combine harvesters and mostly they are of American, German, Czechoslovakian or British manufacture.
An Leas-Cheann Comhairle: This matter was discussed on the Estimate for the Department of Agriculture. It does not arise on the Estimate for the Department of the Taoiseach.
Mr. Corry: It forms portion of the adverse trade balance that is being built up. To my mind employment could be given to our own people and that is why I am glad that the present Taoiseach is in charge of affairs now. I think the opening is there for him; the employment is needed and it should be very easy to get an arrangement for such an industry even by giving a monopoly to one firm to make [1736] these machines here so that a man would not have to wait for four months for a piece of machinery in the middle of the harvest. Those are things we should pay attention to.
There is no use in saying you will get more employment on the land. The difference between the £5 or £5.10.0 a week which the agricultural labourer can get—and which is more than the bulk of the farmers' sons and the small farmers earn at present—and what a man earns as an industrial worker is too big. If you offer £5.10.0 a week to anybody in my territory he would break his heart laughing at you because the minimum wage in Irish Steel is £8.10.0 a week and it goes to £15. Would they not be idiots, when they have only four bones to sell, to sell them for £5.10.0 a week producing wheat that the millers sniff at?
If we are to do what I believe is absolutely essential for this country we shall have to make an industrial drive the like of which was never made before. It must be a drive to give employment to our people. When we come to judge the progress here in 12 months' time I think it will be judged very largely on the industrial expansion in the meantime. Any man who goes to England has finished with this country unless he gets industrial employment. He will not come back to milk cows in the morning and work on Sundays for £5 or £5 10s. a week which is all the farmer can afford to pay. He would be a fool if he did.
Agricultural labourers who went from my territory or from Deputy Wycherley's territory to Whitegate to work took the first boat back to England when their employment there ended. They were not going back to work for any farmer. They would be fools if they did. We are faced with that position, so far as those people are concerned and every new industry and every new step taken in the direction of large employment of that type must be considered with that in mind. There were as many as 1,500 people working at Whitegate and today you have about 300 there who will be permanently employed and about 250 of them are foreigners. That is what you are up against. [1737] Those people taken out of their ordinary line of employment will not go back to the land. They have reached a point where at least, when 12 or 1 o'clock comes on a Saturday, they can put on their coats and say: “We need not bother again until Monday morning.” But the old fool of a farmer is still plugging away and he is now left to plug on his own. There will be a gradual decrease in employment in agriculture and from the present trend of things I can see that we will definitely have a pretty considerable reduction in tillage. It is bound to happen.
I wish the Taoiseach every success in his efforts. It we are to go ahead it must be on those lines and we must not find alone an industry for every town, but a new industry or an extension of an existing one in those towns every 10 years or so, if we want to keep the population or make any real effort to keep it here. Unless that is done, we might as well throw our hat at it.
The agricultural community are getting less to-day. They made a bargain three months ago in regard to barley for a lesser price than the price they got in 1948, while rates since 1948 have doubled. Those are burdens the farmer must carry at a time when we are asked to expand agricultural production.
We had it out with Messrs. Guinness some six months ago. We were as anxious as anybody to increase production and produce goods for export and help out those who were producing them. The firm told us that 60 per cent of their total production of stuff in this country is for export and they said they would have to get that at the price their competitor brewer gets it, not what the English farmer got for it, but what their competitor paid for it. The difference between what the English farmer got for it and the competitor brewer paid for it was 11/-. We had to provide for that and 60 per cent of our production of barley today is sold at a price 11/- a barrel under the price the British farmer gets for it. We are doing that under another difficulty which was admitted by Messrs. Guinness. The Irish farmer [1738] starts off at 87/- per acre of a disadvantage compared with his competitor in Britain. There is a howl here because an extra £1 has to be paid for wheat more than is paid for the foreign product or because there is an extra 10/- on the barley more than is paid to the foreigner for it.
An Leas-Cheann Comhairle: These details are not relevant on this Estimate.
Mr. Corry: Unfortunately, those things are building up and are the cause of our adverse trade balance. If you look at the figures, it will be seen our imports of animal feeding stuffs have gone up by £2,000,000 in two years. Those are the things we have to watch because they are the things that need not happen and in my opinion should not go on.
Mr. Blowick: I fail to understand the complete about-turn of Deputy Corry as regards agriculture. He seems to hold very gloomy views. He has warned the new Taoiseach that for the next nine or ten years if any progress is to be made here it will have to be industrial progress and not agriculture. I do not agree with that. I say what we have we should develop. We have agriculture, and it is responsible for at least 90 per cent. of our exports. It allows us to buy all the many commodities we want and which we cannot produce at home in food, machinery and many other things. I think he has given the new Taoiseach a very bad indication of how to run the country and how to formulate a policy when he told him to abandon the principal industry, or at least to give it the cold shoulder, and start off a new industrial policy.
By all means, let us expand industry. That is one of the things most needed, but we are getting our bread and butter from agriculture and we should do all in our power to expand. It is nothing but the height of foolishness to neglect the principal industry in the hope of setting up industries that will have to compete with old-established firms and meet all the other difficulties entailed in competition with big manufacturing countries such as England, Germany and the United States, to mention but a few.
[1739] I agree with Deputy Corry in saying that industry is absolutely essential if we are to stem emigration to some extent. The young people are growing up now and in years to come cannot find employment on the land and industries should be developed in order to employ as many of these as possible and to reduce the loss of 40,000 or 50,000 boys and girls that we allow to go from our shores each year.
The principal neglect in regard to agriculture, I hold, has been that we did not follow suit with our British competitors. During and after the last war England subsidised food production. The Irish farmers cannot possibly compete against that. The English farmer is able to sell his produce at prices much below world production prices and still make a profit. The Irish farmer has to compete with that and he gets no subsidies. If we want to hold the people on the land I think the Government should seriously consider a subsidy on tillage or on agricultural production. Otherwise, the trend that has taken shape in the past 12 months or more will become much sharper.
The bottom is falling completely out of agriculture. The egg trade is practically finished; the bacon trade is on the down grade; it has been for some time past. The very latest development in regard to both cattle and sheep, particularly in regard to cattle, the principal item in our exports and in our balance of trade, the bottom has fallen out of the trade. While from the point of view of weather and crops this was a wonderful year it has been a disastrous year for the farmers otherwise and while we have that state of affairs I hold we can only go from bad to worse.
I would ask the Taoiseach, even though he has industrial tendencies while not neglecting industrial development to pay more attention than his Government has paid in the past, to saving the agricultural industry. Otherwise, we shall have a small handful of factories and rural Ireland will be practically a desert with people flying from the land as they are at present.
The adverse trade balance is something that has everybody deeply concerned [1740] at present. I would ask the Taoiseach when replying to give the House and the country an outline of what steps the Government propose to take to deal with what I would describe as a pretty alarming situation. The inter-Party Government in 1956 was faced with a somewhat similar situation. It was not as bad as the present situation but we had to take some very unpopular measures at that time in order to curb what would have become a disaster in a short time. The fact that people go on a spending spree at a particular time, as has happened in the last 12 months, is something for which I do not believe any Government is responsible. Economists call it by the very nice name of inflation but it is a very serious situation to arise.
I should like the Taoiseach to tell us what exactly he proposes to do to curb this very dangerous trend. We had to take very unpopular measures in 1956 to correct the situation that was developing then. These measures had the effect of correcting that situation and by the time of the change of Government, 15 or 16 months later, things were in a very healthy condition when the present Government took office so far as the balance of trade was concerned.
Since then some of the steps that we took have been undone by the present Government and I think that has contributed to some extent at least to the present situation. On the other hand some of the import levies that we put on have since passed into permanent taxes and that stop gap at least is not available for the present Government to use. Those levies were not in existence before our time and they came as ready tools to our hand. Now, they are all bent into the line of defence and are no longer available. The Taoiseach may take it that the House and many people throughout the country are anxious to know what steps will be taken to correct the rather serious situation that has developed over the last 10 or 12 months. I do not want to go into details but I would like the Taoiseach to tell us what plans if any he has to deal with the unemployment situation. Many things have been cut out by the present Government that were [1741] giving good and fairly widespread employment in the time of the inter-Party Government. One of those was the Local Authorities (Works) Act.
An Leas-Cheann Comhairle: These are details for another Estimate.
Mr. Blowick: In dealing with unemployment I should like to bring to the notice of the Taoiseach some of the things that have had an adverse effect on such problems as unemployment and emigration. The cutting out of some of these schemes has contributed largely to unemployment and has created a certain amount of despair with the idea that the present Government is not in favour of giving employment. At the present time we have certain employers in Ireland who like a situation in which there are ten applicants for every job vacant. They get good value then for the wages they pay because, in those circumstances, there is a better output of work from the one man employed, and more attention to the work by the single man, but on the other hand, the Government have the other nine disemployed on their hands.
This is not an occasion to make a critical speech although we have the right to go back over the past 12 months. Nevertheless, the Taoiseach has been in office for only a few weeks and it is what he will do in the next 12 months that is important. I suggest that he should try to correct the unemployment and emigration problems, which are huge problems. I want to warn him in time that the agricultural industry is at a very low ebb at the moment. I am sorry to say that I have no steps to suggest which he might take, but things are very serious and money was never scarcer for the small farmers and the middle income farmers.
They were never so tight for money and it is a fact that during the past two or three months livestock has been coming home unsold from the fairs. That is a very serious situation and I cannot even guess what is the cause of it. As we know, cattle are not being shipped to any great extent to [1742] England, with serious results to many farming households. At any rate, we have the Department of Agriculture and that Department must surely keep the Taoiseach fully posted on every aspect of agriculture. The Taoiseach has only to ask the officials of the Department for the information I am giving here and I am sure he will find that it is true.
There are four big items with which we are concerned in the west of Ireland. In the south of Ireland, the creamery industry is another branch, but in the west, the area with which I am familiar, we are concerned with eggs, bacon, sheep and cattle.
An Leas-Cheann Comhairle: Those are matters for the appropriate Estimate.
Mr. Blowick: I am just bringing them to the Taoiseach's notice, so that he will be aware of the situation which exists over the whole country, and among the farming community which is three-fifths of the total population. The Taoiseach should get down to this task and do something about it. When I say that, my intention is not that he should slacken in any way in his industrial drive, but in his efforts to establish industries and all the rest, let him watch out that the principal industry of the country, agriculture, does not go on the rocks.
Progress reported: Committee to sit again.
The Taoiseach: May I intervene to move a motion which has been agreed upon, and which must be moved before 8.30? I move:—
(i) That the Dáil sit later than 11 p.m. to-day and that the hour at which business is to be interrupted be 12 midnight,
(ii) That the Taoiseach shall be called upon by the Chair not later than 10.30 p.m. to conclude the debate on the Estimate for the Department of the Taoiseach,
(iii) That the proceedings on (a) the [1743] Estimate for Public Services (1959-60) in Committee on Finance and on Report, (b) the Resolution, in Committee on Finance and on Report, for the issue out of the Central Fund of the sum necessary to make good the supply granted for the year ending 31st March, 1960, and (c) the several stages of the Appropriation Bill, if not previously brought to a conclusion shall be brought to a conclusion at 12 midnight by putting from the Chair forthwith and successively the Questions necessary to bring such proceedings to a conclusion.
The Dail, according to order, went into Committee on Finance and resumed consideration of Estimates for Public Services for the year ending 31st March, 1960.
Debate resumed on the following motion:—
“That the Estimate be referred back for reconsideration”—(Deputy J.A. Costello).
Mr. Barrett: There was a time when Deputy Corry was regarded in farming circles in East Cork as the shadow Minister for Agriculture in the Fianna Fáil Government. As his remarks tonight, in a rather doleful strain on the future of Irish agriculture, might be taken more seriously in the country than they deserve, I feel that possibly the Taoiseach in the discussion of his first Estimate as Taoiseach might say something to ease any discouragement or anxiety which might be given rise to by Deputy Corry's remarks.
Indeed, I might say—he probably knows it himself—that the Taoiseach is frankly regarded, with some suspicion by the farmers, as an industrial [1744] man and he has, from time to time, made statements in which he has suggested that agriculture has been somewhat pampered. In his first Estimate as Taoiseach, he should send some message to the farming community which would not leave them under what I suppose is a misapprehension at a time like this.
The Taoiseach is introducing his Estimate at a difficult time, in circumstances which do not allow it to be as interesting as it might be, because the House and he himself, through no fault of his own have to deal with more possibilities and things in futuro than with what has already been achieved. This is a time of flux and fluidity in economic sphere all over Europe which leaves us with problems and divided minds on various things. The Taoiseach indicated that, when he was introducing the Estimate. He wondered what we should do, whether we should depart from the undiscriminatory basis upon which our trade arrangements have been generally based, and trade with countries which might afford reasonable prospects in the future. For that reason, I feel that at some future date the Taoiseach might inform the House more fully on the problems which at the moment are in a fluid state. It appears quite likely, if not probable, that many Irish industrialists are in for a rude shock, and it might not be a bad thing at all if some of these industrialists are in for a rude shock.
Deputy Russell referred earlier to the fact that many of the industries which have been set up by successive Governments have played their part, and have been a credit to themselves, to the Governments which fostered them, and to the general industrial policy of the country, but there are many industrialists who have been growing fat behind protective walls who will now find themselves thrown into the sea and told to sink or swim. If that results in a higher standard of Irish workmanship, or a higher standard of Irish management or, I might say, a higher standard of industrial ethics in some cases, it will be a good thing, because we have many industrialists sheltering behind the protective [1745] walls and giving very bad value to the people who must buy their wares.
We have in Cork what should be a very fine public building which was built of Irish materials. It has the misfortune to be next to a building which was built of similar materials produced in England after great pressure on the Department for a long time. That building of Irish materials is an outstanding monument to the insufficiency, if not inefficiency, of Irish manufacturers and the building next to it which was built subsequently of imported brick is a standing monument to the sufficiency of the brick which was imported, so far as I remember, under licence. These are things which the Taoiseach should bear in mind. They are some of the difficulties which will arise whether he likes it or not because, to some extent, we are not our own masters, in the matter of protection from this on.
There has been a great bias on the attraction of foreign capital for industrial purposes. There is a general feeling that whilst we are attracting foreign industrialists, we are attracting precious little foregin capital. What we seem to be doing is attracting foreign industrialists who appear to be getting facilities from the Industrial Credit Corporation which indeed many Irish industrialists would feel doubtful about getting. I do not wish to speak in any way unfairly, under the privilege of this House, about any person who comes to this country to set up an industry. I speak as a Deputy in the sense that I am deputising for those who sent me to this House to tell the Taoiseach that there is a feeling of disquiet. Whether it is justified or not, there is a feeling of disquiet on the part of many thinking people as to policy in relation to the Industrial Credit Corporation.
As I say, I do not know whether that is right or wrong. It appears to be the situation at the moment that a body of this nature can do what it likes without let or hindrance from the House. With regard to what might be a very fine industry, and one of the most important industries ever [1746] founded in this country, our policy at the moment is under a cloak of suspicion, under a cloak of grave doubt, under a cloak of comment. That is a bad thing. It is unnecessary. The Taoiseach should in some way try to indicate to the public in general dealings with foreign industrialists coming into this country. It would be a good thing if the public could be assured that a foreign industrialist cannot come into this country and get an advance of a sum which would be larger than the annual sum this House would vote to the Department of Local Government by way of credit.
It is being said—I do not know whether it be true or not—that a sum of up to £5,000,000 of Irish money is being given to a foreign industrialist to start an industry not far from Cork City. It has also been said that no foreign capital is being brought in or required. Grave doubts are also being cast on the type of machinery being brought in in that——
An Leas-Cheann Comhairle: Surely that does not arise for discussion on this Estimate?
Mr. Barrett: I mention is to indicate to the Taoiseach that the present system of more or less throwing a cloak of protection or secrecy over the doings of bodies such as the Industrial Credit Corporation is not in the interests of the country at a time when even Deputy Corry is pressing for industrial expansion.
The Taoiseach might do well to follow the lead given him by the inter-Party Government when they were in power in regard to statute revision generally. There is no reason why that very important field of governmental endeavour should decrease in its output. There is a vast field there still, more particularly indeed in a country where industrial expansion is being advocated. One instance that strikes me is where manufacturers of highly technical things such as machinery, motor cars, television sets, wireless sets and various things of that nature can evade the responsibilities laid upon them by the Sale of Goods Act by avoiding warranties and various things like that.
[1747]An Leas-Cheann Comhairle: That would be a matter for another Estimate.
Mr. J.A. Costello: You cannot advocate legislation on an Estimate.
An Leas-Cheann Comhairle: The matters referred to do not relevantly arise now.
Mr. Barrett: I should like the Taoiseach to try to take a more realistic attitude on tourism. I think the bias at the moment is towards turning Ireland into a little America, giving to the Americans what they already have in their own country. They come here for a change and a rest—those of them who stay here. They are the people who spend the money. Those who go through the country on coach tours do not really leave much money. It has often struck me that it would be well worth some Government's time to discover or if necessary to create Henry Ford's birthplace and turn it into a national showplace which would attract tourists. While we are turning our hotels into very fine——
An Leas-Cheann Comhairle: The Deputy may not embark on a discussion on the tourist industry or on hotels on this Estimate.
Mr. Barrett: Finally, I welcome the advent of the Taoiseach for another reason. I understand he is no great Irish scholar himself. It has given heart to those who are anxious that the Irish language should survive that we are likely to get a more realistic attitude on the Irish language from a Taoiseach who is not a great Gaelic scholar himself.
Mr. Manley: Whatever comments or criticisms I have to offer are not meant for the Taoiseach personally. He is scarcely hot in office yet. It would be very unfair to direct any criticism towards him because he cannot be held responsible for Government policy in general. There is no doubt, though, that over the years because of his forcefulness he must have had considerable influence on the policy of the Government. He has had the unique privilege of coming into the office of Taoiseach with more years [1748] of experience in Government than any of his predecessors. For over 20 years he has been Minister of the most important Department of State in this country, a Department which brought him into contact with all our industrial problems, our trading problems. Because of that long experience, more will be expected of him as Taoiseach and in influencing his Government towards the rehabilitation of our economy, if that can ever be done under present circumstances.
The Government is now almost two and a half years in office. That is half the time given to a Government that has a hope of living out its full term of office. I do not see any great change after that two and a half years. The Taoiseach says that confidence is being restored. I do not think the recent Presidential Election and the Referendum showed there was any return of confidence. There is a deep-seated cynicism and disappointment because of the failure of the Government down the years to tackle our problems with greater earnestness or at least to bring about greater success in the field of national activity.
The cold war is still on, that war of nerves, that war that has caused such uncertainty and doubt and which has been such a nightmare and headache to all nations. We in this isolated island are always subject to every fluctuation abroad. Our whole future depends as much on external conditions as it does on our internal position. We should safeguard our internal position and build it up in such a way that it will be able to withstand any sudden repercussions or jolts that arise abroad.
Emigration is one of the tests applied to governments over the years. After 37 years it is inconceivable to find that we still have no machinery by which emigration figures can be given in an accurate way. It is the simplest form of activity to provide at the points of exit from this country, whether by sea or through the airlines, that there would be some arrangement to have a perfect recording of those exiles who leave this country for the first time in search of work. That is not impossible. Nobody likes to talk [1749] about emigration. It is a reflection on us all that after 37 years the lifeblood of this nation is still ebbing away. I think it was Pádraig Pearse who wrote in 1913 that this country under a native Government should be able to provide for a population of 20,000,000 people but the 2,850,000 persons in the 26 Counties now find it hard enough to secure a livelihood here. No matter how unpalatable the position is, we should have the machinery at our disposal to have an accurate recording from month to month of the numbers of people who leave, no matter how distasteful or unpalatable it is.
Unemployment, the Taoiseach says, has shown a gradual reduction in recent months. I accept that. Nevertheless, it is running at a high level the whole time and there are ups and downs regularly in the figures. We do not take cognisance of the fact that every year from our secondary schools and even from our primary schools and from the vocation schools there are thousands being turned out from these schools ready and equipped to take up employment. Where have they to turn? I think it was in one of the daily papers here a few weeks ago that we were told in a leading article that 24,500 boys and girls sat for public examinations, the Intermediate Certificate and Leaving Certificate, this year. All these are educated up to a standard sufficient to enable them to secure employment if such were available here.
They are never included in the unemployment figures. They are the people we should try to get after; they are the people we should try to encourage into employment at home so that their characters will be shaped and their general outlook moulded before they go abroad. It is a pity that something cannot be done for these young people. Many of them knock about for some months or for some years in search of work and eventually they are forced to emigrate. This is a reflection on our whole social pattern.
The Taoiseach laid emphasis on the fact that we have to depend on agriculture to give us that expansion necessary to rehabilitate our economy. Although we all accept that, there are [1750] not so many possibilities in agricultural expansion. As far as crops go, we have our full yield of wheat for our own requirements. We have had a surplus of wheat for some years back and if we are actually in earnest about this we should have some control in the matter of wheat. We want to grow 300,000 tons of wheat a year. It is not impossible to secure that acreage regularly to avoid these surpluses and to avoid the anomaly of putting a levy on wheat in order to sustain or maintain the price for what we have to export.
There is no reason why we should not be self-sufficient in regard to all our coarse cereals. Last year was an abnormal year. Deputy Corry said we spent £500,000 on the import of barley. That was unavoidable because of the bad harvest last year but in a normal year we should be at least self-sufficient in our production of coarse grain. There is the possibility of expansion of live stock production and bacon production provided the market is maintained. The markets have been a little uncertain recently but nevertheless that gives us the greatest possible potential in the agricultural field.
I agree entirely with the Taoiseach that we must fall back on industrial output to sustain our economy and to provide the necessary opportunities for our people. He has stated on one occasion—and I think he was fairly accurate in that—that if we are to maintain all our own people we must have around 20,000 jobs available. That is a fair assessment of our requirements as regards replacements through death or retirement and providing new positions.
There is a want of civic spirit in regard to our industrial products. There was a time, some years ago, when emphasis was laid on the fact that we should support Irish industry, that it was our duty to help our fellow Irishmen. We have become quite casual about that. There should be a return to supporting Irish goods provided they are almost up to the standard of the imported article. Our first duty is to ourselves.
In regard to industry, there are certain local activities of which we [1751] should not lose sight. Our housing activities are tapering off and within the next couple of years employment by the E.S.B. will be tapering off in the rural areas. There is a great employment potential in the expansion of forestry. Whether a market for timber can be found abroad, a good deal of timber can be absorbed in the home market and a great number of people could be employed on that work in the rural areas. We have such a high rainfall and such a multiplicity of rivers in this country that it is inconceivable that so many of our towns, villages and so many of our private houses are still without any water system.
An Leas-Cheann Comhairle: I cannot see how that matter can be discussed on this Estimate.
Mr. Manley: I am speaking in a general way on the possibility of providing employment.
An Leas-Cheann Comhairle: It is a matter for another Vote.
Mr. Manley: These matters should be tackled on a national scale and the local authorities should be encouraged to promote such activities so that our people can gain employment.
The Taoiseach mentioned savings. We must rely on savings for the capital necessary to develop our industrial potential. However, it is paradoxical to find that the Government after two-and-a-half years in office have given no indication that they intend to save at top level. A new Ministry has been created recently. The people take a poor view of that. They say the Government are spending more and more at top level instead of showing good example to the country. A new Minister means a State car and all the other expenses that go with such an office. While the creation of that Ministry may be necessary, I believe this huge expenditure at Government level is disillusioning to the people. They believe it is altogether out of proportion in our limited circumstances, that is my conviction also.
[1752] During the coming year the people are being asked to pay the highest rates ever demanded from property owners and the tendency is for that to go on increasing. The other day I asked a question about the visits of officials from the Valuation Office out in search of new revenue. I was told that in Cork City and County there were over 20,000 visits made in a five-year period ending March, 1958, and that the 20,000 visits gave an increase in valuation of £89,000. Is such an increase in valuation worth all that costs? The number of visits made by these officals must have cost a considerable sum. There is nothing more frustrating for people, when they improve their homesteads than to have the Valuation officials coming along and imposing an increased rate on them. It destroys incentive.
An Leas-Cheann Comhairle: The Taoiseach is not responsible for the administration of that Office.
Mr. Manley: Somebody will have to be responsible for it.
An Leas-Cheann Comhairle: It may arise on another Estimate, not on this one.
Mr. Manley: I sympathise with the Taoiseach in the many problems he has and I agree that it will take the concerted effort of all if we are to survive. It was he himself who stated before he took office in 1957 that the next five years would be the test as to whether we would survive as a separate entity. That challenge is still there and we have not yet shown any indication that we can meet it.
I was very pleased with the calmness and caution of the Taoiseach and with the fair appraisal he gave of the economic situation in introducing his Estimate yesterday. As Deputy Costello said there was very little in it that one could criticise. Rather could one criticise him for what he did not say. However, he gave an example of fairness and of objectivity. There was no political build-up in his statement and if that example is followed we may create the atmosphere for unity of purpose and effort in our struggles to survive economically as a nation.
[1753] During the next ten years many of those who took a leading part in the building up of this State over the past 37 years will be disappearing from the political scene. At least this can be said about those people who came in here about 37 years ago. They came in from the national ranks. They came in here because they were participants in a revolutionary movement. They did not ever have ambition to be representatives of the Irish nation. They faced their responsibilities with determination, courage and had a certain amount of success. When these men leave the political arena, we would like to leave that pattern to those who come after them so that they in turn may act up to the standards set in order that this country can advance to progress and prosperity.
Mr. Norton: If the Taoiseach's speech on this Estimate is intended to be a kind of “state of the nation” message, then I think it will provide for the House, the country and, indeed, for the Taoiseach himself a rather grim reflection of the difficulties which still surround the nation and of the still more serious difficulties which lie ahead. I think, taking the lean with the fat, that the Taoiseach's estimate was something that could be accepted as a relatively fair appraisal of the situation.
My complaint about it is that facing up, as he did, to the existence of very serious and deep-rooted problems, he does not appear to be able to tell the House what is the Government's policy or what are the Government's intentions in respect of the rectification of these problems within a measurable period of time.
After the Taoiseach had spoken yesterday, we had a contribution from the Minister for Lands, Deputy Childers. I have rarely listened in a period of 35 minutes to such a sense of complacency and self-satisfaction as Deputy Childers, the Minister for Lands, displayed on that occasion. The Minister resurrected a list of odds and ends of things done in the field of agriculture. He seemed to take great pleasure in the fact that these things were done since Fianna Fáil came into office in 1932. That is a long time ago—27 years ago. Of [1754] course, every country in the world has been doing these things since and, indeed, doing more than the things we have done here in many instances. But the Minister for Lands chirruped as if we, and only we, had done these things for agriculture. He was unable to look over his own shoulder and realise that, from the point of view of the intensification of agriculture, we are well behind other countries of Europe in the matter of exploiting to the fullest our agricultural possibilities.
The Minister for Lands last night seemed to be perfectly pleased and perfectly satisfied that everything in the agricultural garden was lovely. There were some more odds and ends which, perhaps, needed attention but, generally speaking, the Government had done all those things and all they had to do now was to sit back and see the crops coming to maturity. That, so far as he was concerned, was the desideratum.
What the Minister forgot to recognise last night was that the agricultural position is now such that in large parts of the country the small farmers is joining the towns and rural worker in emigration. Over whole areas of the country not merely have the farmer's son and daughter gone to England to look for employment but the whole family has packed up and the house is closed. The farm has now gone to weed in their absence. The family itself has forsaken agricultural employment and taken up industrial employment in England.
One has only to recall to mind the statistical information and the record of his own observations by the Bishop of Cork in which he tells the story of the manner in which rural areas in West Cork have been denuded not merely of the ordinary town and rural labourers but of small farmers who have joined the mass emigration which is becoming such a characteristic of rural areas such as West Cork and other places throughout the country. Unfortunately again for the Minister for Lands, he took no cognisance whatever of the fact that employment on the land is falling each year; that there is less and less employment available [1755] on the land in the rural areas and that there is no other source of employment of a comparable or a compensatory character starting in the rural areas to take up the sag in employment on the land, with the result that large numbers of workers, who follow agriculture as their livelihood, have been forced to emigrate to get employment elsewhere or are compelled to drift into the towns and cities to get in these places the livelihood which the land no longer offers.
One would be tempted to ask the Minister for Lands, after his speech last night, whether he is satisfied that, possessed as we are of 12,000,000 acres of arable land, we are content to use approximately 3,000,000. Is he satisfied that we are making the best use of the greatest asset we have, namely 12,000,000 acres of arable land and a climate that suits the fullest exploitation of that arable land? If the Minister for Lands spoke for the Government, I see no light whatever on the horizon which would indicate that a dynamic expansionist policy will be implemented by the Government in the near or, indeed, in the remote future.
The Minister for Lands last night said that our housing programme was coming to an end. He offered that as an explanation why so many persons were now unemployed in house-building activities. The housing problem, so far as Dublin is concerned, is not coming to an end. There are approximately 15,000 houses yet required in this city. This city is suffering from the impact of a substantial drift into it from the rural areas.
Let us look at the Government's record in respect of housing. According to the reply which I received to a Parliamentary Question on the subject on the 14th of this month, the Dublin Corporation had under construction 2,205 houses on the 31st May, 1956. They employed 2,059 persons in the erection of those houses. In May, 1959, the Corporation had under construction 465 houses on which 555 persons were employed so that here in this city the Government apparently sit calmly by and watch the housing [1756] situation deteriorate from the erection of 2,200 houses in May, 1956 to 465 in May, 1959. The position in Dublin at the moment is that there are fewer building trade workers employed now than there were in 1957, 1956 and in all the years prior to that.
The Taoiseach: The Deputy must not have read the evening papers very carefully.
Mr. Norton: All I have got to do is to ask the building trade unions here where their members are employed.
The Taoiseach: There was an announcement by the Dublin Corporation.
Mr. Norton: These figures were supplied to me by the Minister for Local Government. If the Taoiseach is referring to the Dublin position well and good.
The Taoiseach: Dublin Corporation announced that they have a number of new housing projects about to start. Present employment on the schemes, for the first time, is beginning to increase and will continue to increase.
Mr. Norton: They were employing over 2,056 in 1956. This Government came into office in 1957 and the figures dropped to 1,275 and it dropped to 578 last year and to 556 this year. So the Corporation have still got a pretty good job to pull the figure up from the figure of 556 which it was on the 31st May, 1959, to the 2,056 which it was in May, 1956. If that is progress in the housing field well, it is a kind of inverted progress.
Look at the overall figure. In May, 1956, there were under construction in the whole country 6,244 houses employing 6,631 persons. In May, 1959, there were under construction in the whole country 2,094 houses—almost one third less than employment in 1956. —employing 2,370 persons, almost one third fewer than employed in 1956 So far as house building is concerned this Government is not entitled to feel satisfied with that record, especially in the face of the urgent demands for housing in this city.
Now let us take the question of [1757] unemployment. In the last election, as the Taoiseach well knows, the Fianna Fáil Party exhibited posters throughout the country which exhorted women to come out and vote to put their husbands back in employment. The impression then given was that all you had to do was to secure the return of a Fianna Fáil Government to make sure that employment would abound and that nobody would be idle. Again, let the Government figures talk for themselves. According to the weekly statement issued by the Department of the Taoiseach the position is that there were 46,808 persons registered as unemployed in July, 1959. Of course there were very many more persons unemployed but, by the device of two Unemployment Period Orders, we knocked a large number of people off the register about the month of March and again in June, artificially bringing the figure down again during the Summer. The Government's figures for the 13th July, 1959, were 46,808 and the number for the same date in 1956 was 47,347, so that after labouring for two years to put their dynamic employment plan into operation the Government succeeded in reducing the number registered as unemployed by 500 compared with July, 1956, and that notwithstanding the fact that we had substantial emigration in the meantime.
If we look at the figure for 1955, when there was in office an inter-Party Government which, according to this Government, committed every crime on the calendar and every mistake in the economic field, we find that in July of that year there were 40,900 persons registered. Therefore the number of unemployed persons registered to-day is 46,800 and in 1955 it was 40,900, so that our unemployment figure today is approximately 6,000 more than it was in 1955. It is against a background of that kind that this Government's election promises, and its alleged activity in implementing them, must be judged.
When you read the speech made to-day by the President of the Congress of Irish Unions, in which he refers to the thousands of young persons leaving school in this city who are not able to find jobs, material for all kinds of [1758] delinquency, and with no prospect of being absorbed into employment, you get a picture of how serious is the situation in that respect. But, mind you, we were promised that that situation would disappear and would be dissipated once Fianna Fáil came into office.
In the last election the Fianna Fáil Party issued a document in the City of Cork. It was a pamphlet headed “Fianna Fáil Plans the End of Emigration.” It had this sub-title “Quick Action Needed to Avert National Disaster.” In the course of the pamphlet these words were used:
The present spate of emigration is the most serious problem now facing the nation. The recent census report has shown that the situation must be righted quickly if disaster is to be avoided.
In contrast to the inaction of the present Coalition Fianna Fáil have been preparing plans for the day when the Party will again take up the reins of Government.
The full employment proposals recently announced by Fianna Fáil show how the Party intend to deal with the problem of emigration by providing work for our own people at home.
And then in heavier type this was added:
The Fianna Fáil plan proposes an increase over five years in the number of new jobs by 100,000. This would result in full employment and the end of abnormal emigration.
There is no ambiguity about that. It is a positive declaration that Fianna Fáil, when in Opposition, had been working hard on plans and had evolved a plan which would end emigration and a plan which would create a situation in which full employment would result. That was what was uttered as Fianna Fáil policy in the opening days of 1957. That was the plan end emigration and full employment for everybody; a hundred thousand jobs over the next five years, 20,000 new jobs a year.
I take it, of course, that nobody [1759] questions that this promise was made two and a half years ago. If there was any truth, or any sincerity in that plan, and if they believed they could provide these 100,000 jobs in five years, since they are now in office for two and a half years, there should be 50,000 people working in new jobs created under the new Fianna Fáil plan, the famous “Cork Plan.” If we look at the Grey Book issued recently by the Statistics Office, under the authority of the Taoiseach's Department, we find that there are 32,000 fewer persons in employment today than there were in 1956. They promised to put an extra 20,000 per year into employment. We ought to have an instalment of 50,000 of those by now. But, far from getting any 50,000 of them in new jobs, there are 32,000 fewer employed now.
The Taoiseach: That is not in that book, anyway.
Mr. Norton: That is not in it?
The Taoiseach: In the book the Deputy is quoting from.
Mr. Norton: Of course, it is. I invite the Taoiseach to read it.
The Taoiseach: It did not give any figures for today.
Mr. Norton: Read the Grey Book.
The Taoiseach: The Deputy said these figures related to the situation today.
Mr. Norton: What I am saying is that the Fianna Fáil Party promised 100,000 new jobs when they got back into office. We are entitled to see 50,000 of those new jobs now. Let us suppose we settle for 40,000 instead of 50,000. Where are the new jobs? There are fewer people in employment by 32,000 in 1958 than there were in 1956. If the Taoiseach will perform the exercise of reading the March issue of the Irish Trade Journal and looking up the sale of insurance stamps, he will see that those sales have fallen and that they are substantially less than they were in 1956. That is the clearest possible barometer that there are fewer persons in employment and [1760] established in insurable employment in 1959 than there were in 1956.
When you contrast the fact that we now have approximately 6,000 more persons unemployed than in 1955—the mythical 20,000 jobs per year, of course, was intended only to deceive simple people in Cork and neighbouring constituencies—you get some background against which this whole serious problem of unemployment must be judged.
The complaint to be made about the Government Party is that, knowing that it could not provide 100,000 new jobs in five years, knowing that it never had any plan to do it, and knowing that it would be extremely difficult even for a totalitarian Government to provide that number of jobs even in five years, nevertheless recklessly and without regard to truth, they issued leaflets of that kind to deceive people on the eve of an election. Of course, if they sow wind of that kind, they cannot complain if they reap the whirlwind of criticism for the manner in which they have simply cheated the people out of the exercise of intelligent understanding, by the issue of leaflets of that kind at election time.
I refer just briefly to emigration and I notice that the Taoiseach in his speech endeavoured to say that there was some falling off in the number of persons emigrating. As Deputy Manley has rightly said, there is no reliable means of checking the number of people emigrating. The inward and outward sea and air services do not give us an adequate or even a reliable index. No one who complies those figures would attempt to say they do. The fact of the matter is that the British statistics are showing that they have been issuing more than 50,000 new insurance cards at British employment exchanges, for persons who came to England to work for the first time and sought social welfare cards there to enable them to work. When you take that fact with the experience of every Deputy in this House of the mass emigration which is taking place, especially from those towns and villages where there is no permanent local employment, I do not think it [1761] is realistic to take any consolation in the drop, even if it were true, of a few thousand in the emigration figures.
The fact of the matter is that we have been losing, by any test that can be applied, between 40,000 and 50,000 of our people each year, through emigration. All that occurs in a country which has fewer than 3,000,000 people. It is not the elderly people who are going; it is not the young children who are going: it is the wealth creators who are going. The result is that a Parliamentary Question established some short time ago that we are now getting an ageing population. The wealth producers are leaving, but unfortunately the worst feature of the whole emigration tragedy is that whole families are leaving and are being permanently lost to the community. Some local authorities have said that the movement of people and families to England is in itself making a contribution to the solution of the housing problem locally.
We can do either of two things. We can implement this Fianna Fáil promise made in Cork at the last election and end emigration and provide full employment, or we can allow things to drift as they are. If we continue to let things drift as they are, then ten years from now, in 1969— and the year 1949 does not seem to me to be a long time ago—400,000, or half-a-million people, who are now living in Ireland, will find themselves in England or elsewhere if the present rate of emigration continues. Again they will be the wealth creators on whom the nation must depend if the nation is to survive as a whole economic unit.
We gain nothing whatever by ignoring these facts. We gain nothing whatever by taking the self-satisfied stance that the Minister for Lands took last night when examining our economic position. It is only by realising these facts and telling the community about them that we can ever hope to brave both the Government and the people for a solution of a our problems in a manner calculated to bring about a [1762] rectification of these deep-seated social and economic abscesses.
Let us look at industrial production. A good deal of effort has been made to attempt to establish that industrial production is rising substantially; but again let the Government's publications talk for themselves. The average of industrial production last year was represented at 104.4. That was the index figure for industrial production last year. The figure for 1956 was 105.4—so that 1956, from the industrial production point of view, was better than 1958. If you look at 1955, again when the inter-Party Government was in office, committing all the sins that could possibly be manufactured for them by the Fianna Fáil Party, the industrial production figure was 107.5. Therefore, we had an industrial index figure of 107.5 in 1989—and Fianna Fáil is making such magnificent progress now that it has reached 104.4 in 1958, one point in fact below 1956 and three points below 1955. That is the Government's record in respect of production. Does that afford any consolation, does that afford any conviction that we are going to expand our industrial production and our resources of employment with such speed, as to be able to absorb 100,000 new people into jobs in five years?
Let us look at the cost of living. I congratulate the Taoiseach on the splendid use he makes of the English language. He said it was satisfactory to note that the cost of living was stable—“stable”, if you do not mind. The cost-of-living figure has increased by twelve points since February, 1957. The Taoiseach says it is now very stable, yet it is stable at twelve points higher than 1957. The Taoiseach can have the melancholy satisfaction of saying that while his Government are in office prices now appear to be stable at the highest level in living memory. If that is the kind of stability that people yearn for, then we have simple people still in the country. His Government has been responsible for pushing the cost of living up by twelve points in two and a half years. That is a higher rise than in any other two and a half years, except when Fianna Fáil were in office from 1951 to 1954 [1763] and when they abolished portion of the food subsidies and beat their own record for substantial increases in prices by doing so.
So, when you talk about the cost of living and say there is stability, it is stability at the highest price the people have ever paid for a commodity—and this by a Government which promised at the last election they would maintain the food subsidies. At the same election, the Taoiseach wanted to know how more emphatic would he have to be in order to deny the allegations which were made by me and others that if Fianna Fáil got back to office, they would slash the remainder of the food subsidies. They denied it then, but they did it, once they were snugly in office. Now after two and a half years in office, they have forgotten all they promised and they say we have reached relative stability in prices; but, as I say, it is at the highest price level ever known.
Look at the trade returns. Statistics now issued for the trade returns during the first quarter of 1959 show a resulting import excess of £24.3 million. This excess figure is despite considerably more favourable terms of trade in the current year. In the current year, when we are paying less for imports and getting a better price for exports, the figure is £7.2 million or 42 per cent. more than in the first three months of 1958. Imports for the first three months of 1959 rose by £5.8 million, from £48.7 million in the corresponding period of 1958; and exports fell by £1.4 million from £31.6 million in the 1958 period.
A comparison of the first quarter of 1959 with 1958 will show that the volume of our external trade gives an increase of 14.8 per cent. in exports. Does anybody pretend to be satisfied with these figures? If the inter-Party Government were in office, the welkin would ring as an indication that things were wrong and we were doing nothing to deal with the situation.
Now I come to what is perhaps the most serious iceberg on our passage through international trade. The situation [1764] is now developing in Europe in which we look like being caught in a pincer movements between the Common Market Six and the Scandinavian Seven. We cannot get into the Common Market Six because conditions are too onerous there. In any case Britain is not in it, and our commercial tie-up with Britain is so intimate that we could not contemplate going in there because of the fact that, if we did, whatever exports we have to Britain would be very seriously affected by our joining the Common Market and having no corresponding advantages as a result of our membership of it.
Now the Scandinavian Seven are looming large on the horizon. Here again a lot depends on what the British do in respect of the proposed entity I have described as the scandinavian Seven. It is quite unlikely, judging by the objectives that community have set before themselves, that we could ever contemplate joining that body. The total target in respect of the abandonment of tariffs by member countries is such that our adherence to it would mean the repeal of every customs duty we have ever imposed and the revocation of every quota we have imposed. And we would be expected, late as we were in the industrial race, to compete there with all those countries with a long tradion of industry and craftsmanship. Worse than that, with all our trade barriers down and all our protection lowered, they could all send goods into this country without any protection whatever for our existing industries.
Quite frankly, I do not see any light along that road. If anybody could find any satisfaction in the speeches made at the meeting promoted by the European Union Movement in the Mansion House on Monday, that person is a good economic sleeper. I heard nothing there which indicated that there was any future for us on the Common Market side, or, indeed, on the other side either, except perhaps one piece of advice by one speaker that “it may not turn out too badly for you”—a kind of recommendation to open your mouth, shut [1765] your eyes and see what God will send you.
I see no light along that road, yet, if we have the Common Market on the one hand and the Scandinavian Seven on the other, and we an island country perched out on the western seaboard of Europe, we have to live and to strive not only to maintain our existing standard of living but improve it, or else be satisfied with a standard of living substantially lower than that we have enjoyed in the past and substantially lower than the standard at once available in neighbouring countries.
In the Undeveloped Areas Act, the Government say that grants will be made in future only to people who export. That is to be the test. I do not want to discuss the merits of that Act at this stage, but one is entitled to ask: where will we export to? With the Common Market a reality and the Scandinavian Seven set-up likely to become a reality in the near future, to what country do we hope to send goods? Europe will be virtually closed to us except we can make some kind of bilateral arrangement with some of the countries of the Common Market, who will impose a community tariff themselves against all outside people, or if we can make a bilateral agreement with some of the Scandinavian Seven.
But, up to date, these agreements have been of the variety that we buy £5, £7 or £10 worth of stuff from these countries with which we have trade agreements, and they buy £1 worth of stuff from us. Trade agreements of that kind are a mockery of all equity and equality. The sooner we get rid of trade agreements of that kind, the better. To that extent, I share the views of the Taoiseach—not that we may have to do this but that indeed we should do it at once, and that we ought to apologise to our intelligence for not having done it long ago.
That brings me to the point: where are we going next? The economic pincer movements is opening its jaws against us in Europe, and what do we do? All these figures—unemployment, emigration, the fall in employment, the high level of prices, the unsatisfactory [1766] trade balance—do not tot up, in my opinion, to evidence that we have a self-supporting or a vigorous and vibrant economy. We have got to do some new thinking on this whole business. Thinking may be painful. Old notions may have to be revised, but it is cowardice not to revise thinking in the light of the problems we now see before us.
I said before—I say it again now— no country in the world owes us a living. We have got to make the living ourselves and we have got to earn it ourselves. We have got to decide in everything we do whether the course we are following is one calculated to enable us to maintain a decent living for our people, and to enable us to survive as a viable economic unit, with Europe in two large and powerful economic camps of the character I have described. I do not think we should run away from fresh thinking. I do not think we should run away from a revision of the policies to which we have adhered so rigidly in the past. Intelligence demands that if the weight of the evidence on which we base our calculations has shifted and the facts are not as they were previously we ought to have no hesitation whatever in making up our minds that a revision of our outlook and a revision of our policy are necessary.
I, for one, and I think I speak for the Party in this respect, too, am prepared to share any responsibility which arises for re-thinking and for a revision of our outlook, which is calculated to enable us to meet the dangers which beset us to-day. Surrounded, as we are, with many difficulties, we do not even display intelligence in facing up to them. At a time when these two blocs were taking shape in Europe, when unemployment, emigration, prices and the balance of trade were all precarious, instead of getting to grips with the problem and inviting the cooperation of all Parties to bury the hatchet—even temporarily, until we succeeded in chasing the economic wolves away from the Dail—this Government, last October, launched the nation into the most worthless of barren controversy it is possible to conceieve, namely, whether, in face of all our difficulties, we should adopt the [1767] British method of electing the Dáil. That appears to me as intelligent as the man deciding where he will put the piano with his house on fire.
Eight or nine months were spent in the most barren controversy in which this House has ever engaged. The Government select that time, when we have all these difficulties, to divide the nation into two—for or against P.R.—just to gratify the vanity of one man. They do that at a time when the whole nation should have been welded together to fight off the dangers which now beset us, in the knowledge that, once the danger had passed, we could resume our normal activities again without any necessity for a combined effort for the solution of our economic problems. It is vital that we should get into this House and into the country a spirit which will enable our people to recognise that economic difficulties ought not to afford one Party a source of consolation because they cause dismay to another Party. We ought to be capable now at this stage of our history of the political maturity which enables people to realise that an injury to the nation is one which will react sooner or later on every citizen in the country and on every Party in the House.
The Taoiseach, speaking at Ceanannus Mór recently, stated:
“This nation is too small to achieve worthwhile economic aims with one half pulling in one direction and the other half pulling against it.”
There is a lot of sense in that. You would not imagine, however, that the author of that statement was the Tánaiste in a Government which divided the whole nation in two by this foolish, fatuous, childish notion that the nation ought to fritter away nine months of very valuable time discussing whether we would have the British method of election to the Dáil or whether we would maintain the system of election we have known for nearly 40 years.
There is another aspect of our relations that might get some attention [1768] in the hope that it will ultimately lead to a better climate and a better atmosphere generally amongst our people. It is perfectly true that some of the political thinking here is based, not on economic thought, not on economic differences, not an social differences or differences in social policy, but largely on which side one group or other took in the Civil War. Since 1922 the Civil War—the memories of it, the things that happened in it—has bedevilled Irish politics and has carried the feud during those years into the very atmosphere of this House in the year 1959 The Civil War has paid too many dividends too generously both in hatred and in bitterness and it is time there was some cooperation between Parties here to eschew the memories of it and try to get the nation not to look back to these horrible events of the past but to look forward and in looking forward, and, above all, in cooperating to solve our present problems, give hope to the younger generation, because, without hope, fortified by employment and economic security here, many of the children of to-day will discuss the Civil War, if they ever have cause to discuss it, in other lands.
I blame the Government for not realising the magnitude of the difficulties confronting the nation and for not seeking the cooperation of other Parties for the purpose of an all-out lems. If the Taoiseach's speech last night and the speech of the Minister for Lands were any barometer of Government thought and Government action, I see nothing on the horizon calculated to solve any of the problems which are with us to-day and which, I fear, with the emergence of two powerful economic groups in Europe, will become worse as the years go on.
Mr. Lindsay: If the situation were not so serious, one might be permitted to take pleasure in destructive criticism, but the situation is serious and it is in the light of its seriousness that we must approach the problems that pose themselves for us at the moment. There is a familiar ring about the phrase that the acid test of policy is how it reflects on unemployment and emigration. I [1769] think the words were used by the Taoiseach. He would probably like to forget them now while wearing his new mantle of respectability but I do not think that he can possibly evade the ever-present ghost of his period as high priest of Fianna Fáil propaganda. He would like to forget them. We would but the circumstances that obtain at the moment, in the light of the programme that was designed and put into execution on the occasion of the last general election, must make ever present that ghost of the past.
Anybody can commit an error. Only a fool persists in error, once that error becomes known and acknowledged, but, to foist an error and to perpetuate its effects as something that was not, in fact, a mistake but represents the truth, is knavery, political knavery and it is that political knavery that is responsible for a situation in this country today that is even worse than our problems arising from emigration, falling production, unemployment and such difficulties. It is the situation that is evidenced by the appalling apathy attending the recent Presidential election and the referendum. It is the apathy begotten of a people fooled. It is the apathy that has come into the hearts of men who have set themselves against being fooled. It is the apathy that is the child of the lie, the perpetuated lie. It is from that apathy that there is widespread in this country today a magnificent disregard and an utter disrespect for public men, for public institutions and, in particular, for Parliamentary prestige and the place that Parliament should enjoy in the minds of our people.
I must say that I was particularly disappointed in the Taoiseach yesterday when, in reply to Deputy Dr. Browne, he said that he had all the cuttings in front of him in relation to speeches in which Deputy Dr. Browne complained that the President's name was used and the threat of imminent war was used by the Tánaiste, and that the word was not used. One expects a higher standard. One would expect that the Taoiseach should now at least change from the high priest of propaganda, which he has been for so long, into the personage [1770] in which guise he wants us to accept him as somebody who has set himself the task of raising the standard of debate here and the standard of approach as between individual Deputies and the relationship between Ministers and Deputies on all sides of this House.
It is not enough for the Taoiseach himself to take up such a stand. That must govern all his Cabinet, not alone in the House, but outside it. There is no use in the Taoiseach going to Ceanannus Mór and talking about the divisions and dissensions that retard us and prevent us from attaining the objectives for which we should be striving, while his Ministers and members of his Party go out on a Sunday morning to County Clare and carry on a campaign of vilification directed against Deputy Dillon and members of his family, as the Minister for the Gaeltacht did at Ruane last Sunday morning, in County Clare. How can he expect from us the cooperation which he seeks when he, obviously, is the only person prepared to ask it and to receive it? He must exercise more control. He must see that the example which he seeks to give and the example which he is seeking from us will be maintained by his own Ministers when they go down the country.
Prior to any revival of our economic situation, there must be, in my view, a renaissance of thought leading to a further renaissance of activity throughout the country as a whole, particularly in our younger people who are not saying now: “A plague on both your houses” but “a plague on all your houses”. The position of the politician in this country has been dragged down to the lowest possible level on the basis that we are all alike. We are not all alike and I do not think the Taoiseach, the leader of the biggest Party in the House, should stand for the kind of thing that one of his Senators used in Crusheen on Sunday morning last.
An Ceann Comhairle: We cannot discuss the election on this Vote.
Mr. Lindsay: We are discussing the [1771] standard of conduct which the Taoiseach has advocated.
An Ceann Comhairle: The Taoiseach is not responsible for the statements of his Ministers. He cannot be held responsible on this Vote for every election speech made.
Mr. Lindsay: Very good. If we are to have a new look, the new look must extend to every Minister. It is only when that new look is not merely apparent on the surface but evidenced in practice that we can be expected fully to give the cooperation and constructive assistance which we are willing to give in circumstances arising out of such a new look.
I agree with the Taoiseach in his attitude, economically, to Partition. In fact, I should like to think that we are ad idem in some respect in relation to its ultimate solution apropos the industrial front. Speaking on 3rd June of this year—Volume 175, No. 8, column 911, I said:
With regard to industry generally and looking for aid and even looking for local aid for the setting up of an industry, I am a firm believer that industry in this country, in so far as it can possibly be done, should be the by-product of our principal industry—agriculture. I often wonder —I do not say this to the Minister by way of complaint or anything like that, because I never said it before or brought it to the notice of anybody—if in regard to protective tariffs we are not doing a certain amount of damage to the ultimate solution of the Partition problem of our country, having regard to the traditionally industrial North and the traditionally agricultural South.
That is why I think it would be important to some extent to keep industrialisation here on the agricultural by-product line. It might not be a bad thing if there were some consultation along those lines with our industrialists in the North. After all, it is all our own country. It might be a channel through which some exploration could be made with some success. It is only a thought which I am throwing out to the Minister for what it is worth.
[1772] The Minister was the Taoiseach, then Minister for Industry and Commerce. I notice that, as reported in today's issue of the Irish Independent, in dealing with the Partition problem, the Taoiseach said:
It is sometimes stated that the economic development programme now being applied in this part of Ireland is causing, or may cause, economic difficulties in the North in some trade sectors. We should certainly be prepared to consider any suggestions or representations made to us from Northern Ireland in that regard.
I agree substantially with that statement but I do not think we should wait for any suggestions or protests from Northern Ireland. There should be set up, under some machinery which it should not be difficult to manipulate, a relationship between ourselves and the North in this regard.
While I say that it does not mean that I or any of my Party in Opposition are opposed to industrialisation as such but, from the Partition point of view, I think it would probably be a mistake to indulge in industrial expansion of a competitive nature with the people in Northern Ireland. I leave the matter at that except to say that it is from activity of that kind that the solution to this problem appears to me to be somewhat nearer. It is the natural intercourse of the rank and file —not the people at the top at either side—that will eventually restore that community of wills which we have heard quoted here to-day provided, of course, that if there is a community of wills there must be inter-Party respect for each will operating.
On the question of emigration it seems that there are no reliable figures obtainable in this country to indicate to us how many, in fact, depart or to where they depart. I am prepared to accept the figures given in the British House of Commons for our emigrants to Great Britain at any rate. We have no such figures from the United States of America but when, in a Parliamentary reply, in the House of Commons, it is indicated for the years 1957 and 1958 that around about 100,000 Irish people applied for new [1773] insurance cards I accept that figures as our figure of new emigrants for those two years. If you add those figures to the unemployment figures now showing, the whole picture makes a very sorry one indeed, particularly in the light of what Deputy Norton has just now called the Cork plan—the 100,000 jobs over a period of five years —and added to that the equally doleful picture of the decrease of persons in insurable employment of 32,000 for last year.
Our people, to be kept at home must, as I said before, undergo a certain renaissance of thought and that can only come from leadership, from hard work, from the universal application of truth. I do not think that the present Government is giving them that either by word, example, or by deed. The essential requirement for this or any other country is that the number of homesteads be maintained and, speaking as a western Deputy the drain of emigration is felt most in that area. As somebody else said, it is not that individuals are departing but that houses are being closed up.
The Minister for Industry and Commerce, visiting Roscommon on the 16th of this month, as reported in the Irish Independent of July 17th, tried to foist something that was not exactly true upon the people of that area on the occasion of the opening of a factory. He proceeded to deal with the Undeveloped Areas Bill, at that time going through this House, as part of Government policy designed to assist the West and, giving as one of his reasons, he said: “Thirdly it continued the preferential grant facilities for industrialisation in the West.”
There was one person present who was not fooled and who, I am glad to say, had the courage to say so, though not in so many words. I now quote from the speech made by Most Rev. Dr. Hanly, the Bishop of Elphin, on the same occasion, when, in dealing with the drain of emigration and the depopulation of the West generally he said, as reported in the same paper, on the same day, with the Minister present:
The rot has already set in as can be seen from the number of homesteads which have been abandoned. [1774] If the flight from the West is to be arrested this disadvantage must at least be neutralised. With a view to securing this objective the Undeveloped Areas Act was passed in 1952, but apparently it did not go far enough. It is, therefore, a matter of grave concerned to hear that it is about to be amended in such a way that it will be of no benefit to the West.
Let us hope that instead of the amendment contemplated another will be substituted which will provide further attractions sufficient to neutralise the disadvantage under which we labour and, at the same time, achieve the objective of the Act.
There is the Minister on the one hand and the Bishop on the other. I prefer the Bishop. I know that what he is saying is true.
There has been talk of the stimulation of private enterprise side by side with talk asking for further Government intervention to provide more jobs. This can be argued either way. Is it a good thing that Government intervention by way of State enterprise should be operated to the extent that private enterprise might be retarded, stultified or totally nullified, or would it be better that private enterprise would be so encouraged and given such incentive that the need for State enterprise would become less and less? I think there is a vast field where useful thought and deliberation might be engaged upon to give those incentives.
Two of those fields occur to me particularly. One is the rating system and the other is the system of income tax, sur-tax, death duties, and such like taxation. I cannot deal with these matters in detail but, at the same time, they are there. Let me say that I do not for a moment think that changing from our present system of income tax to Pay-as-you-earn is going to achieve anything worth while. It is merely altering the method by which you are going to get the same people to carry the same load.
[1775] In the field of education, the Taoiseach would do well to direct the Minister for Education to read an account of the disputations that took place in the University in Dublin during the last few days at the Summer School for teachers. There he would see that even the teachers themselves are frustrated, feel that the whole system is in need of revision, and feel that a brighter, more attractive and more useful educational system would make a contribution towards keeping our people at home.
In the smaller areas, in the congested areas, there could well be a review of the whole system of social services. I am not advocating that anything be taken away but that all that is there now remain but, even more than that, be attached to property rather than to individuals, and that payments be conditioned to decent results on the holding to which they are attached. I do not want to go into that matter in very great detail. Everybody should understand the effect of what I mean by that.
In conclusion I want to say that the Taoiseach's appraisal of the situation, as it stands in relation to Government policy, is welcome in so far as it exemplifies a change of heart merely in the matter of verbiage. It reflects nothing by way of constructive thinking for the future. It is full of pious hopes, the platitudes usually associated with undefined exhortation. We expect something more than that from the Taoiseach. We hope that in his new role as a unifier he will be successful if he is really serious in that matter. As I said in the beginning, success can only attend him in that effort if he is able to alter the attitude of his lieutenants. We, on the national question, wish him well. As I said at the beginning, the situation is too serious for anyone to take pleasure in destructive criticism. If it is realised that the situation is serious we hope that from such realisation will emerge a plan capable of implementation and not a plan designed to capture the franchise.
Mr. T. Lynch: The Taoiseach's statement was a disappointment to me. [1776] It is difficult to consider that this statement was made by the man who wanted the electorate only to give him the opportunity to get cracking and that all would be well. It is difficult for me to think that after 2½ years of office in which the Taoiseach had the important office of Tánaiste and Minister for Industry and Commerce, and in which he was the most active member of the Government, they have done nothing to implement the Fianna Fáil propaganda of the election. I have to repeat, and it is the only thing I shall repeat of what Deputy Norton said, that Fianna Fáil put out their propaganda of £100,000,000 and 100,000 jobs that would be available if Fianna Fáil were returned to power.
The Taoiseach even went further than that at a few functions and Chamber of Commerce dinners which he attended through the country when he raised the “ante” to £225,000,000. I have been consistent for the last 2½ years in urging him to make a statement about this figure and he has always ducked it. When he was Minister for Industry and Commerce he was a most unsatisfactory person to get a reply from about anything. If any constituent of mine wanted a matter raised here in this House he never answered the question. I wish to draw his attention to that and advise him that he should follow the example shown by the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs in this House yesterday who had the courtesy and competence to answer the questions of all the Deputies. The Taoiseach is not in the House now but we are quite used to that. His predecessor often left us without his presence.
An Leas-Cheann Comhairle: That scarcely arises.
Mr. T. Lynch: It is well to remind him of it.
An Leas-Cheann Comhairle: It is out of order.
Mr. T. Lynch: The statement made by the Taoiseach contained all the old clichés to which we have become so accustomed. The faith of the Irish [1777] people in their leaders has been shaken by the Taoiseach and his colleagues who have consistently given undertakings that they are in a position to do away with unemployment, to stop emigration and to keep down the cost of living. They all gave these solemn undertakings. The Taoiseach, when he was Tánaiste, came to my constituency on the Friday night before the election and gave that undertaking. His predecessor gave it on that same night in the famous speech at Belmullet. As other Deputies here have said, it is no wonder that the people doubt the politicians when they remember what they said when they were asking the people to give them a strong Government. We have been here now for months since we were told about the great advantages of having a strong Government and what has that strong Government done? It is a Government of do-nothings.
The Minister for Lands challenged us last night and said that we had failed to put up any proposals to the Government. I do not consider that that is our business at all. The Government said that they could do these things and they should do them. However, when we are challenged and asked to put up alternatives or make suggestions, I suggest that the most obvious way in which the Taoiseach could improve the Government is to get rid of about two-thirds of his Ministers and appoint new Ministers from the other members of his Party.
I might qualify that and say that only the other day a great difficulty arose after our eye was wiped by the Danes in the British market. On that occasion it would seem to be the duty of the Minister for Agriculture to go to London and see how we stood as regards our bacon market in England or, indeed, how we stood as regards any other product in England. We find that the Minister for Agriculture did go but he had to be escorted by the new Minister for Industry and Commerce and by the Taoiseach himself. That conveyed only one thing to me and the majority of the people in this country and that is that the Minister for Agriculture was not competent to go by himself.
[1778]An Leas-Cheann Comhairle: The House is not discussing the activities of the Minister for Agriculture.
Mr. T. Lynch: I want to read something to you, Sir. The Taoiseach, on the night he presented the members of his Government to this House, said:
A number of Deputies, notwithstanding the efforts of the Chair to circumscribe them, made comments on specific matters of administration and policy. I do not propose to deal with these matters now. The Estimate for the Taoiseach's Department will be before the House next month and that will be an appropriate occasion on which to deal with these matters.
I am quoting from the Dáil Debates, Column 135, of 23rd June, 1959, Volume 176, No. 1. I think that matters of policy ought to be discussed on the election of members of a Government because the Taoiseach is the man who has the power to create Ministers or to dismiss them.
I could say that it is a source of satisfaction to me, after all these years to hear what the Taoiseach said. I wrote his words down because you have to write down what members of the Government say as they have a habit of running out on what they say. It should be a source of satisfaction to me to hear what he said but rather it is a source of sorrow to me that what he said came so late. The Taoiseach said in his address last night: “Our main interest is our trade with Britain.” I would be in danger of my life for years if I said that in my constituency and so would anybody who said anything like that.
Notice taken that 20 Members were not present; House counted and 20 Members being present.
Mr. T. Lynch: As I said, Sir, I would put myself in great danger if I said that at any public meeting in this country. Fianna Fáil supporters would howl down a speaker who said anything like that but it was said last night and said at last and it was said by no less a person than the [1779] Taoiseach. I agree with what he said. He also said that we are a European country and that we are dependent for prosperity on European trade. This is a confession by no less a person than the Taoiseach, who has been Tánaiste of the Fianna Fáil Party since 1932, that the policy that Fianna Fáil have been implementing all down the years, the policy of self-sufficiency, is a failure. I do not know what the Minister will have to do with his tariff policy now.
On the question of the position in which we find ourselves with the Danes on a level position with us in the British market I do not intend to indulge in any great recriminations except to say that we have been pressing in this House for the past eight or nine months for the Government to do something about that. During all that time I heard Deputy Dillon exhorting the Government that, apart from any action that would be taken in connection with the European Free Trade Area talks, they ought to go to Great Britain and make agreements with the British Government first. That is on the records of this House. It is an appeal that was made by Deputy Dillon five or six times since the beginning of the present year.
I say here in this House to-night that that is where the policy of Fianna Fáil has been a failure. The Taoiseach, the Minister for Industry and Commerce and the Minister for Agriculture will now go to England in an endeavour to get back something they destroyed themselves by two Acts of this Dáil. They brought in two Acts of this Dáil to do away with the live pig trade. They did away with it and now they will be trying to get it back in the near future.
There was a House called for here, Sir; it would be better if some of them had remained outside. This is a matter of great merriment to the members of the Fianna Fáil Party who have not the courage to come in here to defend the policy of their leader.
An Leas-Cheann Comhairle: Such conversations are not in order.
[1780]Mr. Killilea: There are not very many behind you.
Mr. T. Lynch: I saw your leader with only one Deputy behind him to-day.
An Leas-Cheann Comhairle: That matter does not arise.
Mr. T. Lynch: I am only replying to Deputy Killilea. I have said that they will go over to Britain to try to get back the live pig trade. The reason they will do that is that that is the only advantage we shall have over the Danes in the future. The Danes cannot send live pigs into Britain. Before those Acts to which I have referred were passed by this House, we had enough pigs to keep our bacon factories going at full pressure, and often working overtime, and at the same time to send 600,000 live pigs to Britain.
An Leas-Cheann Comhairle: A detailed discussion of the pig industry is scarcely relevant on this Estimate.
Mr. T. Lynch: The pig industry will be a matter of importance in the very near future. The Taoiseach last night said that our present economic position was due to neglect in development over long periods of history. I say that it is due to the neglect of our trade with Britain during the Economic War. The Taoiseach now says that he is launching a great industrial programme and that he is inviting big industrialists to promote industry in this country. That is good but I think it should be a matter of Government policy that there should be great inducements offered to the agricultural community. We offer inducements to industrialists to help them to put up new buildings and we pay half the cost of their machinery and even State capital will be put in behind it.
That is all to the good but if a man has a good deal of land at the present time and if he has got it into fair condition so that it can carry more cattle than heretofore, he might find it difficult to stock that land because 20 cattle at £50 per head would now cost him £1,000 and 40 cattle would cost him a couple of thousand pounds. [1781] These are the things the Taoiseach should look towards. He should not only promote a policy for an increase in industrial production but he should also promote a policy for an increase in agricultural production. That is a very important thing.
I would say to the Taoiseach that it is just like the fishing industry. It is not a matter of having the markets for the fish. When the fish are caught, there will be people to buy them.
An Leas-Cheann Comhairle: Surely this is a matter for another Estimate.
Mr. T. Lynch: On our policy on external affairs, the Taoiseach should be a strong enough man to intervene and to take us a little bit away from the Russians.
The Taoiseach: I knew the Deputy would get back to that.
Mr. T. Lynch: I shall. I shall take the Taoiseach to task for months because I have some old sores here for him. It is not a good thing that the integrity of a Taoiseach or a Prime Minister should be in any doubt, and when he comes to give a Parliamentary reply, that reply should be beyond reproach. I shall not mention what happened in the House yesterday with Deputy Dr. Browne. We will just say the Taoiseach might have been a bit impetuous and said: “No, the Tanaiste did not say ‘imminent,’” but I will say that I put down a Question to the Taoiseach and asked him if he would cease issuing licences for the import of sugar from countries behind the Iron Curtain and the Taoiseach very cleverly replied that no sugar was brought in from behind the Iron Curtain. If the House wants the quotation, I shall give it from column 756, Volume 171, No. 7, of 25th November.
An Leas-Cheann Comhairle: That question was addressed to the Minister for Industry and Commerce, I take it.
An Leas-Cheann Comhairle: The matter does not then arise on this Estimate.
[1782]Mr. T. Lynch: The one which I am reading now was addressed to the Taoiseach of that day. It asked what was the amount of sugar imported from 1st January to 31st October, 1958, and the Parliamentary Secretary, Deputy Donnchadh Ó Briain, answering for the Taoiseach of that day said that the amount of sugar brought in from Poland was 50,000 cwts. and from Eastern Germany 106,000 cwts.
An Leas-Cheann Comhairle: The imports of sugar are a matter for the appropriate Estimate and do not arise.
Mr. T. Lynch: The imports of sugar did not matter two rows of pins but what does matter is—I shall not take him to task for what happened yesterday—that the Taoiseach should be more careful now that he is Taoiseach, when answering Partiamentary Questions.
The Taoiseach doubted some figures given here by Deputy Norton tonight about Dublin Corporation. I am interested in my own constituency in Waterford. Let us take the way in which employment has gone, so far as housing is concerned in Waterford. It is very illuminating. In 1955, there were 166 men employed on housing; in 1956, 137 men; in 1957, 95 men; in 1959, 51 men; and according to the reply to the last question I put down, 28 men. We still need houses in Waterford and we have put up schemes, and I think we should be allowed to get cracking with those schemes.
So far as employment in the whole country is concerned, there has been a substantial drop in that figure. There are 32,000 fewer people in jobs and I would not have repeated that but for the fact that the Taoiseach doubted it. I have that figure in answer to a question put down by me only today. I asked the Taoiseach for answer on Wednesday, 22nd July: “If he will state in respect of the years 1956, 1957 and 1958 the number of persons fully employed in (1) agriculture and (2) industry.” The figures are illuminating.
The Taoiseach: The figures relate to April, 1958. My objection to [1783] Deputy Norton's statement was that he was quoting the 1958 figures as representing the figures now. “Now” is the word he used today.
Mr. T. Lynch: 1956, he said, with all due respect.
The Taoiseach: The figure the Deputy got today related to the latest figure, April, 1958. That is what he asked for.
Mr. T. Lynch: The figure is there.
Mr. T. Lynch: The figure is there and I shall leave the Taoiseach with the figure. You have it on your own records. People often ask what is the difference between the two big Parties. The difference is that we always look to the fields of Ireland and in the Taoiseach's address last night—I pored over it just now before I rose to speak—only about five or six lines were devoted to agriculture. I would ask him—and I say this sincerely to him—to bend himself more towards agriculture. If he does, he has a better chance of getting increased production from agriculture more quickly than from industry.
With regard to the policy on social services, the Taoiseach might at least have mentioned the old age pensions and he did not. I want to ask—and I do not want to say this in any spirit of contention but I do not care whether or not there is contention about it—is it Government policy that the name of the President is to be used as part of their propaganda?
An Leas-Cheann Comhairle: That does not arise on this Estimate. The Deputy should relate his remarks to the Estimate before the House and deal with major aspects of Government policy.
Mr. T. Lynch: Is that not a very major aspect of Government policy?
An Leas-Cheann Comhairle: I do not think so. It does not arise for discussion.
Mr. T. Lynch: I submit, Sir, with all [1784] respect—I am not discussing it to its detriment—that the policy of the Government towards the high office of President should be such that the President should be above all this, and that we should not have this disgraceful——
An Leas-Cheann Comhairle: The office of the President is not open for discussion on this Estimate.
Mr. T. Lynch: Well, Sir, may I say anything about the conduct of the Ministers of the Government?
Mr. T. Lynch: It is a deplorable state of affairs—and I am grateful for being allowed to continue—that a Minister of State should so far forget himself as to use the name of the President——
An Leas-Cheann Comhairle: I have already pointed out to the Deputy that that is not relevant.
Mr. T. Lynch: Let me continue, Sir —to use that name and to say it was that that drove the Dillons out of Mayo.
An Leas-Cheann Comhairle: I think the Deputy should come back to the Estimate.
Mr. T. Lynch: I think I should be allowed to continue with the rest of what I have to say.
An Leas-Cheann Comhairle: If the Deputy does not want to come back to the Estimate or to obey the Chair I shall have to ask him to resume his seat.
Mr. T. Lynch: I asked the Chair if I could speak about the conduct of the Taoiseach's Ministers. I was speaking about the conduct of the Taoiseach's Ministers.
An Leas-Cheann Comhairle: I pointed out to the Deputy that it was not in order.
Mr. T. Lynch: May I say anything about the conduct of any of the Taoiseach's Ministers?
The Taoiseach: Say something good.
[1785]Mr. T. Lynch: It would be difficult. There are a few of them of whom I could say good things. I have always given honour where honour is due. The Chair told me I could continue and speak about the conduct of the Taoiseach's Ministers. I put that to the Chair and the Chair said he would allow me but now if the Chair says I may not then I will obey the ruling of the Chair.
An Leas-Cheann Comhairle: The Chair did not reply to that question. It has not been the practice to discuss the alleged remissness of Ministers on this Vote. I do not see why I should establish a precedent.
Mr. T. Lynch: Very well. Can you not help me? When, or on what Vote, or at what time can I raise that matter?
An Leas-Cheann Comhairle: Perhaps the Vote for that particular Department.
Mr. T. Lynch: We shall be able to say a word about it before next year. I was here when Deputy J.A. Costello was Taoiseach. I was here on each occasion when he made his statement on the Estimate for his Department. When closing his Estimate he frequently made his statement line for line with line for line interruptions from the Opposition who were then on this side of the House. I am very glad to say that my Party did not do that to the present Taoiseach.
Mrs. Lynch: They are not here.
Mr. T. Lynch: They are here and there were more of them here to-day than there were on the Fianna Fáil benches. I saw the Taoiseach with only two people behind him to-day and with only one person behind him at one stage.
An Leas-Cheann Comhairle: If the Deputy has not anything more to say on the Estimate he will have to resume his seat.
Mr. T. Lynch: I have something to say on the Estimate. The best way this Government can be improved is [1786] to get rid of three-quarters of the people in it and pick out some fresh blood from the back benches. The Taoiseach has been called a unifier. I hope he will be. I would say he would strive for a spirit of harmony. He asked for it in this House. It would be a very fine gesture if he would direct the Minister for Defence to send the Army down to the Collins Commemoration next August.
An Leas-Cheann Comhairle: That does not arise.
Dr. Browne: Listening to the Taoiseach's speech, it strikes me he does not fully seem to appreciate the deplorable threadbare heritage left to him by his predecessor in office. If he did, it seems to me he would have given us some reason to hope that at least he would try to remedy the grave defects in our social services and our economy generally which are the product of thirty or forty years of neglect by our political leaders.
It is a society in which the vast majority of our people get little or no education, where young people get little or no education beyond the age of fourteen, a society in which the unfortunate poor and the middle-income group are terrified of illness and ill health.
All the old stigma of the poor law medical services still remains although it was declared in the First Dáil 1919 Democratic Programme, which is the basic and fundamental part of the policy of the Fianna Fáil Party that that iniquitous system would be abolished. One of the aims and objectives of the First Dáil was to get rid of the poor law and the old red tape system. We have it to-day just as much ingrained in our way of life as it was then. Anybody who does not believe that has just to go around to the poor areas of the City of Dublin. If they will come to my constituency I shall be glad to show them the dreadful position there. I shall show them parts of Ringsend. Mountpleasant Buildings and other such places where mothers are terrified of ill health in their children, of doctor's bills and of sickness.
[1787] The Taoiseach has inherited a society in which the unemployed man gets a little over forty shillings a week to try to feed, clothe, bring up, pay the rent for four, five, six children or a household comprising eight persons. Those people are starving to death. I know of them. If anybody queries my statement I shall bring him to-night if necessary and show him people who are starving to death because of the society you have created here for the past forty years with people living on unemployment assistance.
In that context, we are told we are about to increase the salaries of the Supreme Court Judges who are getting £4,000 or £5,000 already or whatever it may be. It is too much in a society which gives men and women and their children a pittance of forty shillings a week on which to try to live in a so-called civilized Christian society. The Taoiseach should be ashamed of it. He should be the first to condemn it when he is in a position to do so. He should have been the first to change it when he was made Taoiseach and was put in a position in which he could do something about it immediately. No reference to the condition of those people crossed his lips in his speech last night. There are old people in Dublin starving to death on 27/- a week, when they get it—25/- a week now—another pittance which is shameful and disgraceful but which is offered to those old people by a so-called Christian Government. Poverty, want and hunger are the three instruments you used and continue to use and you intend to go on using them.
An Leas-Cheann Comhairle: The Deputy should address the Chair.
Dr. Browne: They are the instruments being used by the Taoiseach with the help of his Government and his silent back-benchers, if we are to take his speech as any indication of his policy or lack of policy for the future of this country. Is there no shame amongst our political leaders that they can go on standing for this thing year after year and then come here and treat the House to a succession [1788] of inept, fatuous platitudes such as those to which we listened from the Taoiseach last night—empty phrases meaning nothing, adding up to nothing, giving hope for nothing except for those who already have plenty and too much such as the businessman, the industrialist, the Judiciary and the all-powerful vested interests who seem to direct policy in the Government benches today, as in the past 10 or 15 years, since the Fianna Fáil Party left its great radical road in the early 1930's? They forget that the objective of the Party was the fulfilment of the Democratic Programme of 1919.
The Taoiseach is no neophyte and no newcomer to politics. I was prepared to concede that coming into office as a new Taoiseach, he could not be blamed for the failings of his predecessor but he must be blamed for the fact that he is one of the main architects of this society. It was his decision in the Thirties which created the so-called private enterprise economic structure which has left us bereft of the money to feed the hungry, to put it bluntly because it is true, As a member of this House, I am tired and ashamed watching these people and thinking it can still go on and that our political leaders can take so little interest while it goes on around us. We have said this on both sides of the House for many years and at last we have had the corroboration of this reasonably objective, I presume, Deputy Secretary General of O.E.E.C., Mr. Cahan, who bluntly told us we were on the edge of bankruptcy. That is your achievement.
An Leas-Cheann Comhairle: The Deputy should use the third person.
Dr. Browne: That is the achievement of our political leaders of the last 40 years and that must be their epitaph; continual failure on every side, in every aspect of our social life, every aspect of our economic life, failure no matter which way you look at it. There is a continual 10 per cent. unemployment figure. These men are neglected and forgotten except at election times. They are half starved getting only forty shillings to live on, a [1789] pittance which does not allow them to starve altogether but forces them, if they have any initiative in them, to get out of the country. The social and economic system our political leaders have created in the last 40 years has driven three quarters of a million of these unfortunates out of the country. Yet are they unfortunate? They are going to a society in which they will enjoy all the benefits of the welfare state created by a socialist Government. They have been driven out of holy, Catholic, Christian Ireland. It is probably the best day's work our political leaders ever did for them.
It is quite clear that the Taoiseach as Minister for Industry and Commerce made a cardinal mistake when he decided to set up private enterprise industrial organisations in the Thirties. He is now the prisoner of these private enterprise concerns, most of them subsidiaries of British companies which would not allow us to make any appreciable inroads on the export markets which they already controlled, which sought tariff protection of all kinds within the Republic and then sat down and did little or nothing to increase exports, increase the national income thereby, and create opportunities for the unemployed. Now the Taoiseach and all of us find ourselves the prisoners of these inept, futile industries, which they are in the majority of cases and which Mr. Cahan now tells us are likely to become a burden on the community in the years to come because of their relatives inefficiency compared with the industries of other European countries with whom we shall have to trade in the future.
That is the industrial arm which the Taoiseach, as Minister for Industry and Commerce has created, sheltered from outside competition by tariff protection of one type or another, sheltered in the home market by restrictive trade practices, monopolistic practices of all kinds, conspiracies designed and agreed upon between them with the consent of the successive political Parties and their leaders, conspiracies to defraud the consumer by creating artificially high prices. No real attempt has been made to expose the inefficiency of these people to expose their [1790] failure to develop their industries in a way that would allow them to compete with their European competitors by reducing their tariffs. No genuine attempt has been made to protect the consumer against these price rings and conspiracies to defraud the public by overcharging them for the products of these industries.
The Minister mentioned that emigration appeared to be falling. It would be very difficult for emigration to be doing anything else. Having exported the best part of a million people, we are now getting to the stage where you cannot get blood out of a stone. There are very few people left to emigrate now. In addition to that, because of the restriction on employment in Britain, it is becoming harder to get jobs over there. With the expansion of mechanisation and automation in Britain, it will become even harder to get jobs over there. The fact that the vast majority of people whom we send out are untrained or undertrained in anything other than how to use a pick or shovel, means that there will be less employment for the unskilled type of worker in the future.
The Taoiseach has had the best part of thirty years' experience of private enterprise and the capitalist economic system operating here. He well knows it will not increase employment to the extent of absorbing the natural increase in our population. He must know that. Any fool can see that and the Taoiseach is no fool. He appealed to our patriotism and to the patriotism of the ordinary people in our society. If he were truly interested in the national welfare, he would face this reality that this private enterprise, in which he has himself so inextricably intertwined, has failed and that the only solution to our problems is to scrap it, to face the fact that we are in an emergency situation facing national bankruptcy. When we faced an emergency before in the war-time period, he took the only logical step then open to him and established nationalised industries.
An Leas-Cheann Comhairle: The Deputy is aware that the Taoiseach, by agreement is to be called at [1791] 10.30 p.m. to conclude on this Estimate.
Dr. Browne: I was not a party to that agreement.
An Leas-Cheann Comhairle: The House has agreed.
Dr. Browne: I think I should have been consulted.
The Taoiseach: The Deputy should have been here.
Dr. Browne: I was not given notice that the matter was to be discussed. It was not discussed at Question Time.
An Leas-Cheann Comhairle: I am calling upon the Taoiseach to conclude.
Dr. Browne: I have one more matter to which I wish to refer if the Taoiseach will let me. It concerns the question out of which he tried to bluff his way in a most disgraceful way yesterday. I asked the Taoiseach a question in respect of which I gave the reference to a speech made by the Tánaiste. In reply, the Taoiseach said that the statement I referred to had not been made. As I later showed by quoting the reference in the paper, it was clear that the Taoiseach was deliberately attempting to mislead the House.
An Leas-Cheann Comhairle: The Deputy has already raised this matter in the House. It does not arise on this Estimate.
Dr. Browne: I submit to you, Sir, that it arises in this way. The Taoiseach has asked us for co-operation. He has asked for a new standard of conduct and behaviour in this House. I think it is a very poor lead he has given to the House trying in this way to bluff his way out of the Parliamentary Question.
An Leas-Cheann Comhairle: I call upon the Taoiseach to conclude.
Dr. Browne: This is a most important debate and I do not see why——
[1792]An Leas-Cheann Comhairle: The House has agreed that the Taoiseach should be called at 10.30 p.m. I am asking the Deputy to resume his seat.
Dr. Browne: I think it is scandalous that the business should be skimped in this way, and that, having spent nine months discussing proportional representation and amendments to the Constitution, the Taoiseach should now attempt to guillotine this discussion is a scandalous thing. No wonder the country is in the way it is.
Mr. Sherwin: I make a protest. I was not a party to any agreements. I have been sitting here since 8 o'clock. While I have no objection to hearing Deputy Dr. Browne, when I stood up I should have been called. I have been sitting here since 8 o'clock.
An Leas-Cheann Comhairle: I call on the Taoiseach to conclude. The Deputy will please resume his seat.
Mr. Sherwin: I still protest. I have been here since 8 o'clock.
An Leas-Cheann Comhairle: The Deputy will please leave the House.
Mr. Sherwin: I shall but I still protest. I am as good as anyone else and I have the same rights as anyone else.
The Taoiseach: With reference to the question asked by Deputy Dr. Browne yesterday regarding a speech of the Tánaiste, I trust the House will allow me to say that, since yesterday, I have had my attention brought to one report of the speech in which the word “imminent” did appear. I, therefore, was wrong in contradicting Deputy Dr. Browne in that regard and I think I should say so.
Deputy Costello in opening the debate on this Estimate for the Opposition made a statement which contained a number of observations with which I am in complete agreement and some which surprised me a great deal. He emphasised his view that a clear statement of the Government's policy was needed. Today Deputy Norton said something similar. So far as the economic aims and programme of the [1793] Government are concerned, I think it true to say that no Government in the history of this country, and few Governments in the history of any country have ever gone to greater lengths to put before the people a clear and precise statement. Deputies will have seen that the President of the European Economic Community, Dr. Hallstein, who was here on Monday, referred to the Government's White Paper on economic expansion and commended its tone and character. He went so far as to say that it had received considerable attention around Europe.
It is difficult, therefore, to understand how it can be alleged that there is not in existence a clear statement of the Government's programme in regard to economic development. Indeed, I want to say that so long as I hold the office of Taoiseach it is my intention to use all the methods available to me, the publication of Government reports, speeches in the Dáil, Press Conferences and so forth, to give the people all the information they require to enable them to understand the national economic position and the Government's plans for dealing with it.
My purpose in doing so will be to ensure that the opportunity for concerting policies amongst all sections and concentrating activities in the directions which appear to be most likely to give results will be afforded. I accept that the combination of efforts which we regard as essential in present circumstances is not likely to be forthcoming unless all that factual information about the country's economy and all the necessary explanations of Government policy in relation to it are widely disseminated.
Deputy Norton this afternoon gave us a large number of statistics and his interpretation of them. I shall not follow him into any discussion on these statistics. Over a number of years past they show this picture very clearly —that from about the second half of 1955 the economy of this country began to go downhill. Production, trade and employment began to fall. That process was not arrested until about the last quarter of 1957.
During the course of the election [1794] campaign to which many references were made here to-day I, for my part, endeavoured to make it clear to the people that I regarded it as a matter of considerable difficulty to stop the downward movement of the national economy once it had started and was tending to accelerate, but by the end of 1957 that downward movement had been stopped and the upward movement of recovery had begun—in a heartbreakingly slow manner—but begun nevertheless.
Nobody claims that the rate of recovery is as fast as we would wish to see or that it has proceeded long enough to enable the country to get back in many sectors of production to levels previously achieved. Before the last general election, when I was in Opposition, I, on a couple of occasions, endeavoured to publicise my analysis of the country's economic problems and my ideas as to the measures that might be taken to deal with them.
I never suggested that a mere change of Government would be sufficient to bring about the improvement we desired. I have read again recently the reports of the speeches I made then and while I will say that some of the assumptions upon which I based my conclusions might not have been fully correct—I certainly would not be prepared to stand over them completely in the light of the fuller information now available to me—by and large I would change very few of them. The measures which I then outlined are, in the main, the measures which the Government are now bringing into operation. Some of them have already been the subject of Bills passed here and are coming into effect. Others are embodied in Bills which are before the Dáil now or before the Seanad. I should hope that the effect of these measures will be as I forecast. It is easy enough to make the mathematical calculation, based upon our unemployment register and our annual population increase, as to what expansion in employment, what number of new jobs the country requires to end unemployment but nobody could be certain that measures adopted now will be adequate to give the tremendous impetus to the country's economy which will result in that number of [1795] new jobs being created. Deputy Norton said that he was going to do some new thinking. That is an excellent idea.
Mr. Norton: I said we must all do it.
The Taoiseach: I think so, too, but let us be clear on what we have to think about. I want to state as precisely as I can what I believe to be the key question to which all of us have to find the right answer quickly. Any examination of the country's economic prospects which is undertaken must have regard to the fact that development efforts here over many years, although they have produced quite substantial results and have, I believe, been greatly strengthened in the past two years, are still not giving us the same rate of development as other European countries are securing. Why is that so? That, I suggest, is the key question. That is the only question upon which we need to do our thinking. It is the significant question that lies at the root of all economic policy.
It is obvious that it is not merely a matter of Government action, of legislation and of aids or inducements to economic expansion either to agriculture or industry. By and large, it can be said that the aids and inducements which are being offered here are comparable with those in any other western European country. Certainly if one takes as the standard of comparison the proportion of State revenue which is appropriated for them we are doing at least as much as others. It is not, I am convinced—up to now at any rate—due to any situation arising out of our trade agreements. Here we are indeed in a situation which is, from that point of view, more favourable than that of most other European countries. We have, in the principal market to which our products are consigned, duty free entry for practically everything that we produce. We have in other countries in the world rights to preferences, and we have in many countries facilities given to us, not under trade agreements but under decisions of their administrations, which are not available to others. We [1796] cannot argue that non-access to export markets need be an impediment to our trade development. It is true that we have here handicaps by reason of the small size of our home market and because of our island situation but I do not think that they can be the complete answer, either.
We have, it is true, so far as we know, no great mineral wealth but we have other advantages particularly in the quality of our soil, which many of the more successful nations in Europe rightly envy. What then is the difficulty? Dr. Cahan, the Deputy Secretary General of the O.E.E.C. attempted to give us one answer during his speech here on Monday last. I have a very high regard for Dr. Cahan. I think he is a man of exceptional intelligence and I know him to be deeply interested in the affairs of this country and most anxious to contribute to its progress. He said that we have become accustomed here to thinking in terms of a protected home market for the products which we produced for home consumption, and a preferential position in export markets for the products which we export.
What he clearly meant to say was that we have got to get down to thinking in terms of a reduction of our net costs of production; to thinking in terms of work and efficiency which will enable us to raise the level of our economic activities without the advantages of a protected home market or a preferential position abroad. It may be that is the answer. Certainly the Capital Investment Advisory Committee, which the previous Government set up and which submitted three reports, put their finger on the same cause. They spoke of undue reliance upon subsidies as a substitute for effort, and other international experts, who from time to time have come here and surveyed our economy, have spoken somewhat similarly.
I am not sure, however, that those who have given us that interpretation of our difficulty have paid sufficient attention to the practical problems of Government. It is easy enough for Dr. Cahan to express his views. We [1797] know they were sincerely meant and I believe that their expression can do us nothing but good but when he had completed his remarks, he entered his aeroplane and flew back to Paris. The members of the Capital Investment Advisory Committee were also under no inhibitions in making their observations without having to consider the very practical problems of putting them into effect. It is no remedy for our situation to propose, as I think Deputy Dillon and some other Deputies seemed to suggest this evening, that we should dismantle our industrial tariffs and withdraw our subsidies and other aids to agriculture and industry. That might cure some of our ills but it would probably kill us in the process and the cure would never be realised.
We have to consider how we can bring about the situation that might be achieved over a long time by the application of that cure without having to adopt the drastic course recommended to us. Surely it is not impossible for us to do that by this process of new thinking that Deputy Norton referred to or by the exercise of intellectual effort, by getting an understanding of the requirements of our situation, and agreement amongst the organisations that speak for all economic sections of our people, as to what should be done. We need deliberately to promote amongst them, and ourselves, a new outlook; we need to get all the leaders of opinion, in every walk of life, to face squarely and fairly up to the need for a deliberate campaign to make our economy more efficient. If we can do that, if we can achieve the same attitude to work, the same approach to national problems as we know to exist elsewhere, then those problems of ours will soon begin to look small enough.
I had the opportunity of visiting Germany just after the end of the war, shortly after they had completed their currency reform and were setting about the task of rebuilding their economy. I was struck, as every visitor to Germany was struck, by the high morale prevailing amongst the people, by the confidence one found amongst those whom one met in every [1798] walk of life, that they were going to succeed in their task of rebuilding their shattered country.
I felt that if we could induce the same high morale, the same approach to national problems, amongst our people, then we ought to be able to achieve corresponding results. These remarks of mine apply, perhaps more to manufacturing industry than to agriculture, because in manufacturing industry the promotion of efficiency by the deliberate decision of individuals is much more feasible. In the tightly knit organisation of industry, new plans can be brought quickly into operation, certainly much more easily, than the looser organisation of agriculture.
It is axiomatic that all our hopes for economic progress depend upon agriculture. Deputy Dillon spoke here today with great force and eloquence, making a number of assertions of fact and expressing a number of opinions which are, in my view, so widely accepted and so self-evident that most Deputies would not have bothered to refer to them at all. However, it seems that, if I am to overcome his suggestion that I have less interest in agriculture than a good Taoiseach should have, I must keep on repeating my acceptance of the truth that the economy of this country rests on its agriculture and that it is through the expansion of agriculture that we will most likely get the resources we require to achieve all our economic and social aims.
It is also true that greater efficiency in industry and in transport, and in all matters which have a bearing upon agricultural production and marketing. can contribute to a situation in which agriculture can make that greater contribution to the national welfare.
Deputy Costello said, during the course of his remarks, that we had wasted time by the Constitutional referendum. Other Deputies said the same thing. I do not think any of them really believe it. So far as the Government's economic planning and action to secure the speedy implementation of courses decided upon are concerned, it is certainly entirely without foundation. Indeed, I would like to say [1799]—and this is, perhaps, a tribute to all of us—that in this session of the Dáil since last Christmas, more work has been done than in any corresponding period since the Dáil was started. More Bills were enacted, more important decisions were proposed and recorded and, indeed, the Dáil probably sat on more days, than in any other half-year since it began. I admit that meetings of the Dáil, and proposals for legislation here, are not by themselves evidence of a range of activities adequate to cope with the national situation: but I think it disposes of this suggestion that because there was a Constitutional referendum in process time was lost. It is true that we did not meet for the one week in which the voting was taking place, but there was voting in that week not merely upon a Constitutional referendum but also in a Presidential Election; and the decision not to meet in that week met, so far as I know, the approval of all Parties in the Dáil and would probably have been taken even if only a Presidential Election had been in progress.
Deputy Costello referred to a speech which the Tánaiste made during the course of the by-election campaign, in which he referred to the External Relations Act and he asked us why we do not re-enact the External Relations Act. I presume that was a rhetorical question. Certainly, nobody knows better than Deputy Costello that whatever consideration was given, at the time that the External Relations Act was repealed, to the consequences of that step and whatever in fact these consequences have proved to be, to go back to it, to reinstate the External Relations Act, is not now practical politics. I know that the suggestion has come from a very eminent and responsible quarter, that in our search for a basis of solution of Partition, the possibility of renewing in some form our association with the Commonwealth should be considered; but I am sure everybody was struck by the fact that, notwithstanding the very responsible source of the suggestion, no evidence of interest in it has since appeared.
I would like to make it clear that [1800] our economic relations with Great Britain do not rest upon Commonwealth preference; they rest on the bilateral Trade Agreement of 1938. It is true that, over a long number of years, we have enjoyed, in addition to the benefits which that Agreement assured us, the advantage of certain tariffs which the British Government maintained against European exports under their Commonwealth preference policy. If the British Government decides to modify or eventually to eliminate these tariffs in favour of some European countries, then we, like the Commonwealth countries, will lose some advantages; but we cannot claim that in so doing the British Government will have departed in any way from the letter of their bilateral Agreement with us.
It would seem that the Commonwealth preference policy is weakening now everywhere. When we suggested new trade possibilities to Britain, we had in mind a revised bilateral agreement which would have regard to all changes which have taken place since the existing Agreement was framed and to the possibility of an arrangement which might involve acceptance by us of obligations in relation to British exports more specific than any Commonwealth country might now be prepared to apply. The extent to which commercial advantage influences political viewpoints, or vice versa, is a matter upon which opinions frequently differ. For our part, we accept that our trade arrangements with Britain must be based upon mutual commercial advantage if they are to prove permanent. The aim of economic policy, as I frequently stated, is to improve social conditions; and there is no way of removing or reducing the social problems that are still acute for many sections of our people, except through economic progress.
Deputy Dr. Browne spoke here this evening in his usual rôle as the sole possessor of a social conscience. There are men in the Government who are thinking and planning for social progress all the time and who prefer to tackle those problems amongst our people in that solid way, rather than by making speeches about them. The record of social achievement of this [1801] Government, under my predecessor, stands comparison, in my view, with that of any other country in the world. We are not a rich country. We cannot afford to allocate from the available income a great deal more for the improvement of social conditions than in fact we are doing. If our national income is expanded, then we can build up still higher the barriers against destitution and want which have already been erected. We shall, I hope, proceed in the future, as in the past, to relate social policy to economic policy and ensure that the benefits of any economic expansion we may be able to accomplish will be fairly distributed so as to contribute to the welfare of all our people, particularly the weakest.
It is the intention of this Government to proceed as quickly as possible with the fulfilment of the economic programme we have announced, to endeavour to ensure that the full benefits of that programme will be realised for our people, and then to make whatever arrangements at Government level are required to see that they are, as I said, fairly distributed so as to minimise, if not eliminate, the danger of undeserved want arising from any cause among any section of our people.
Arising out of some further remarks of Deputy Dr. Browne, I want to say this: I personally am convinced that, in our circumstances, if we can stimulate private enterprise, we shall get through it a more rapid development, particularly in industry, than could be achieved in any other way. If we have to contemplate, as we do, the extension of State enterprise, it will be solely in sectors in which private enterprise has not yet shown sufficient interest or where the problems of development in this country are such that private enterprise is unable to tackle them.
I believe that, if we are to get the expansion we are striving for, we must succeed in putting life into private enterprise in sufficient degree and over a wide enough field, to give us variety in our development, because the problems of this country cannot be removed merely by one or two large-scale undertakings, no matter how [1802] successful they are. Bord na Móna was a large-scale undertaking that was immensely successful. The Irish Sugar Company was immensely successful; and other enterprises of that kind, which were financed from State resources or facilitated by legislation enacted here, have all made great contributions to our economy. But none of us could think that they alone, no matter how often we could multiply them, having regard to what is practicable, would give us the full development we need. We have to supplement any extension of State enterprise by the stimulation of private enterprise.
I think disparaging remarks about private firms that have begun to develop industrial activities in this country can only be damaging to the national interests. They cannot possibly help us in our task of getting private enterprise active in a greater degree. We are trying to induce and stimulate it by various contributions from State funds, by tax reliefs and by other aids of that kind, and I believe we shall succeed.
At present there exists certain elements of uncertainty about the future which may have a delaying effect. It is obviously in our interests that we should seek to remove any uncertainty as quickly as possible. We may not be able to do that completely by our own efforts, but we should certainly try to do it in so far as it is in our judgment possible or likely to contribute to the national welfare. I said already, in the course of an interview with the Press last week, that if we had any doubt at all about the timing of our trade discussions with Britain, it was whether we had begun them too soon and not whether we had begun them too late. It would indeed have been extremely unlikely that while any hope of the 17-nation Free Trade Agreement remained, the British Government would have been prepared to discuss bilaterally with us an extension of the preferential agreement we have with them. Everybody knows that one of the problems of the British negotiators engaged in Paris was the suggestion that, because of their position in the centre of the Commonwealth preferential system, [1803] they would have advantages in a Free Trade Area in attracting new industries into Britain which would be unfair to other countries joining the area. Clearly it would have been an unnecessary complication from the point of view of the British Government to have started to discuss with us another agreement of a preferential kind which would appear to sustain and support that argument being advanced in Paris by some of these in opposition to their view.
I felt it was desirable that we should give to the British Ministers an indication of our ideas as to how trading arrangements between us could be adjusted to our mutual advantage before they began the discussions in Stockholm. I believe we are likely to find that events will compel us in our own interests not to press these discussions to a conclusion until we and they have more knowledge of the circumstances to which our negotiations must relate. I urge Deputies not to minimise the strength of our position. As I said in the course of that interview, we as a nation buy from the world a great deal more merchandise than we sell to it. We are in a position to pay for that excess importation of merchandise by reason of our invisible earnings—our tourist revenue and other receipts. We are exactly the type of country with which any other country would wish to trade. We can avail of that situation, now or at any time in the future, in any bilateral negotiations we may undertake.
We have not, as I said, been organising our trade generally on a bilateral basis. We have indeed conformed to the general world opinion in favour of multilateral trading arrangements. While I would accept the theoretical view that for the world as a whole, a system of multilateral trading is more likely to be conducive to the growth of trade in the circumstances which look like appearing in Europe, we, as a temporary measure, assuming that these circumstances in themselves are only temporary, may have to withdraw from the position which we prevously held in that regard and deal with each country with which we [1804] desire to trade upon the basis of swopping advantages.
I concede that is not a decision that should be taken lightly. It is clear that it will involve some economic penalties. When buyers in this country have a free market and can have recourse to any country in the world for the goods they are seeking they can buy to the best advantage. If our bilateral trading arrangements confine them to limited markets, then they may not be able always to buy to the same advantage. But these are comparatively minor handicaps if, in return, we can get an opportunity of saying to our producers here: “Produce all you can; expand your production in every direction that is technically feasible in the assurance that what you produce can be sold abroad at a price which will give you a fair return.” That is, as I have already emphasised, not merely a matter of trading arrangements. It is also a matter of efficiency in our production methods and in our whole national organisation. If we can achieve both but, above all, if we can achieve production here at prices which are competitive with those of other countries in Western Europe, there is no doubt whatever that we shall find sale for our products. I see no likelihood of a situation arising in the foreseeable future in which we shall not be able, with products of the character I have described, to conclude trading arrangements which will open markets for them.
As I have said already, I have no desire to minimise the problems before the country, but I am convinced that these problems can be solved. It will not be easy to solve them and it would undoubtedly be unduly optimistic to think they can be solved quickly. That they can be solved is certain provided our effort is adequate. I believe that the signs are that the efforts required to cope with these problems are developing amongst our people. That is why we are facing the future with confidence. We cannot guarantee success but the indications are that our people will put forth the combined and concentrated effort which will ensure that they will make progress, if not to the full target in the immediate future [1805] then to that full target ultimately, thereby giving to this country the solid firm, economic foundation upon which its national independence must rest.
No country can be certain of maintaining its independence in the world in which we live today unless it is founded upon a firm and solid economic basis. We have not yet, I think, established here foundations which are solid enough or firm enough for us to be sure of their permanency in all international conditions. But we have the capacity to do it. We have the resources which will enable them to be put down. If we get ourselves organised, not merely here in the Dáil but throughout the country, I am convinced that we shall do it; and that, in time, we will be able to ensure, through our social arrangements, the benefit of an expanding national income for all sections of our people.
Question: “That the Estimate be referred back for reconsideration,” put and declared lost.
Votes 1 to 67 reported and agreed to.
Minister for Finance (Dr. Ryan): I move:—
That towards making good the supply granted for the service of the year ending on the 31st day of [1806] March, 1960, the sum of £77,619,270 be granted out of the Central Fund.
Resolution reported and agreed to.
Leave granted to introduce a Bill entitled an Act to apply a certain sum out of the Central Fund to the service of the year ending on the thirty-first day of March, one thousand nine hundred and sixty, to appropriate to the proper supply services and purposes the sums granted by the Central Fund Act, 1959, and this Act, and to make certain provision in relation to borrowing.—(Minister for Finance).
Agreed to take remaining Stages to-day.
Bill read a Second Time, put through Committee, reported without amendment, received for final consideration and passed.
An Ceann Comhairle: This is a Money Bill for the purposes of Article 22 of the Constitution.
An Ceann Comhairle: Seanad Eireann has passed the Cheques Bill, 1959, without amendment. Seanad Eireann has passed the Maritime Jurisdiction Bill, 1959, without amendment. Seanad Eireann has passed the Export Promotion Bill, 1959, without amendment.
The Dáil adjourned at 11.20 p.m. until 10.30 a.m. on Thursday, 23rd July, 1959.