This estimate for relief schemes is one of the measures adopted by the Executive Council to repair the political position of the Cumann na nGaedheal Party. When the Dáil reassembled after its five months' adjournment, the President of the Executive Council outlined four distinct proposals which the Government had been considering and decided to adopt in order to remedy that position. If any Deputy at the time had doubts concerning the political basis of the proposals, these doubts have been removed by the speeches which have been delivered by Ministers in relation to them. The proposal to impose a prohibition tariff upon imported butter was not designed to help the dairy farmers, who are not likely to be affected by it, but in the hope that the tariff would result in a rise in prices, which was, in fact, invited by the Minister for Agriculture when speaking on the matter. The Minister hopes to be able to come to the Dáil next week or the following week and point to the rise in prices, alleging that it is an inevitable result of protection and then pose as the saviour of the country in asking that the tariff be removed. The Bill —which was introduced to alter the Tariff Commission Act—was designed not to improve the machinery of the Tariff Commission, but to enable the Executive Council to refer to it certain matters relating to tariffs on agricultural produce which have been attracting public attention and thus stifle discussion upon these tariffs for the next year or two, or, at any rate, until the General Election has been negotiated. The proposal to alter the financial basis of the Unemployment Insurance scheme is designed to create an illusion of prosperity that does not exist, and the Vote of £300,000 for relief schemes is designed to provide a fund wherewith members of the Cumann na nGaedheal Party can silence the dissatisfaction amongst their own supporters.
It is rather an extraordinary thing that, in the speech in which the President indicated that the Government was going to submit these proposals to the Dáil, to deal with the present situation, he also endeavoured to show that there is, in fact, no situation to be dealt with. Having demonstrated to his own satisfaction, if not to the satisfaction of anybody else, that the country was on the crest of a wave of prosperity, he proceeded to indicate the steps which the Government would take if, in fact, the conditions were as bad as black-hearted members of the Fianna Fáil Party were continuously alleging. The speech of Deputy Sheehy last night, although much more eloquent, was of a similar type, and reminds me of a song which I heard some years ago entitled, "I wonder what it feels like to be poor?" I wonder what are the feelings of the people of every other country in the world in which unemployment and trade depression exist when they contemplate the prosperity that exists here? Those international economists who met at Geneva and voiced their astonishment at the manner in which the Executive Council of the Irish Free State had been able to prevent any of the ill-effects of the world depression being felt here, must surely have considered that the members of that Executive Council possessed more ability and better judgment than all the members of all the Executives of Europe put together.
The Executive Council appear, however, to want it both ways. Not merely are they continually reiterating that this country is prosperous, more prosperous than it has ever been before, to quote Deputy Tierney, but they expect the Dáil at the same time to agree to the enactment of emergency measures of this kind, which would not be necessary if distress did not exist. This Vote, the President stated, is a temporary expedient designed to deal with a temporary situation. There is no doubt whatever that it is a temporary expedient. The £300,000 will be spent on relief works of some kind, useful, perhaps, perhaps not, and when it is spent the situation will remain much as it was before the money was made available.
I would like to take issue with the President concerning the temporary nature of the situation that has to be dealt with. I do not think that any attempt has been made to demonstrate that there exists in this country this winter a situation in any way different to that which existed in previous winters, or that the causes of any distress or poverty that may exist are not permanent. We are, of course, handicapped by the fact that we have very little information on the matter. The Department of Industry and Commerce have seen to that. We do not know the exact extent of unemployment. We thought we would know as a result of the census of 1926, and so did the Minister for Industry and Commerce until last week. Last week he discovered that we had not, in fact, ascertained any information concerning unemployment when the census was taken, and that we will have to remain as ignorant of that subject as before until another census is made on another basis.
The figures relating to the registered unemployed are frequently produced here as an indication of the extent of unemployment in the country. They are no such indication, as I have repeatedly endeavoured to convince Ministers in the past. Our efforts appear to have been fruitless, however, because the same statements are made this year with the same audacity as ever. It may be that members of the Executive Council are, like the Bourbons, incapable of learning anything, but we hope in time to get it understood by them that the number of the registered unemployed is no indication of the extent of the unemployment existing in the country. If we work on the principle that constant dropping wears a stone we may, perhaps, get it into the heads of Ministers in due course. Examining the variations in the number of registered unemployed we find that the situation this year is similar to the situation that has existed since the Free State Government was established. There have been fluctuations in these figures from time to time. The numbers have sometimes fallen and have sometimes risen. It is, of course, impossible to compare the number this year with the number in 1922, because in 1922 there was extended benefit available under the Unemployment Insurance Act, and there was an inducement to unemployed workers to register that does not exist now.
If we compare this year with last year we find that the number registered as unemployed is increasing. The number in July, 1929, was 17,126, and in July of this year was 18,145, whilst in November of this year it was 23,990. While the number of registered unemployed has increased this year between July and November the number of persons in receipt of Unemployment Insurance benefit is not increasing at the same rate. Only 53 per cent. of the registered unemployed were in receipt of benefit in July and only 50 per cent. in November. Consequently we must assume that the position is that workers are remaining unemployed for longer periods than heretofore and that quite large numbers of those who are in casual employment are now unemployed for a sufficient length of time to deprive them of their right to their Unemployment Insurance benefit. That is one of the situations we have to deal with. There are 24,000 registered unemployed.
Again let me remind Deputies that they must not assume that 24,000 represents the number of workers idle who are willing to work and available for it. Out of a total occupied population of 1,300,000 there are only 284,000 employed in occupations insurable under the Unemployment Insurance Acts. If we compare the number of workers employed in such occupations with the total occupied population and calculate from that comparison the relation which must exist between the number of unemployed workers in insurable occupations with the number of total unemployed, we will be forced to the conclusion that there cannot be less than 50,000 workers of all kinds idle at this moment. There does not appear to have been any considerable variation in the figure for the last four or five years. When the Shannon Scheme was started a number of workers were given employment. That scheme has now terminated and those workers are back on the labour market. When the Ford tractor works in Cork were started some 7,000 hands got employment there. That number has now been reduced to 2,000. Recently, quite a number of industrial concerns have been forced to reduce the employment given by them, while some of them have closed altogether. Despite the fact that in February, 1929, we imposed a tariff upon imported woollen cloth, there has been in this year a substantial decline in the number of persons employed in the woollen industry. In fact, the number of persons now employed in that industry is almost at the lowest point reached since 1922. The same applies to the coach-building industry. The number of persons employed in that industry has decreased by 50 per cent. within the last twelve months. Only last week a flour mill closed down in Cork and another in Tipperary.
Our industries are going one by one in consequence of the failure of the Government to take adequate measures to protect them against unfair foreign competition. The unemployment and hardships created by their disappearance is not being adequately guarded against by any measures which the Executive Council have proposed to the Dáil since its re-assembly. The one desire of members of the Executive appears to be to parade a mass of figures designed to show that, in fact, unemployment does not exist, and that the Dáil need not worry about, it. I think that is very unfair to the unfortunate people concerned. If the Dáil appreciated the seriousness of the situation, and realised its power to remedy it, then I have no doubt that we could get a joint effort from all parties to hammer out a scheme for doing so. But when we find that those responsible for leading the Dáil, and responsible for giving the Dáil the necessary information upon which to base its policy, are more concerned to misrepresent the position than to present the true facts, we cannot be surprised that the Dáil is quite satisfied because a mere £300,000 is made available for relief grants in places where it can be shown by members of the Cumann na nGaedheal Party that the supporters of Cumann na nGaedheal are suffering exceptional distress.
The fall in prices which has taken place throughout the world in the last twelve months has hit this country hard. It was only to be expected that it would, because we are, in the main, primary producers, and are always the first to suffer when there is any market collapse. It has, however, hit us particularly hard, because the number of persons engaged in agriculture here is much larger than the land, as now utilised, can provide a decent livelihood for. Any Deputy who takes the agricultural statistics for this country and compares them with those for Denmark and other nations will note at once the very low value of the output per head of the different items of agriculture produced here when compared with other countries. People are being retained for work on the land for whom there is not, in fact, enough work.
The great majority of those in agriculture are, if not unemployed, underemployed. That means that when times were good and prices satisfactory it was not possible for our agriculturists to build up the same reserves against the rainy day as can be done elsewhere. When depression takes place it produces immediately a state of hardship and necessitates an immediate reduction in the standard of living of those concerned. In addition, of course, there are some 200,000 families in the Twenty-Six Counties living upon, or trying to live upon, what are described as uneconomic holdings, that is, holdings of land under fifteen acres in extent. Attempts have been made, undoubtedly, through the Land Commission, to increase the size of these holdings, but there are, nevertheless, at the present time, at least 200,000 families in this position, that unless they can get some means of earning a wage at work outside their farms they will not be able to maintain themselves upon the produce of their farms. That situation has also existed in greater or lesser degree since 1922.
A sum of £300,000 spent in the districts most concerned, which are probably Galway, Mayo and Roscommon, could not provide an adequate standard of living this winter to those persons, leaving out of account altogether the hardship and unemployment that exist in the towns, and particularly here in Dublin. There is throughout the country, I know, a general idea that Dublin is a wealthy city and that because there are a large number of persons employed here unemployment cannot be serious. There are, of course, a large number of persons employed in Dublin, and there are also a very large number unemployed, but I think that there can be no poverty so absolute as poverty in a large city like Dublin. In a rural district a person, no matter how destitute he may be, will not starve, as a rule, but in Dublin a person could be starving in one room in a tenement dwelling while people in other rooms would not even know, and if they did know, probably would not care. You have that impersonal atmosphere existing in the city, which makes poverty here a particularly severe condition to be in. The sum of £300,000 could not possibly provide work sufficient to keep all the unemployed in Dublin alone occupied over the winter.
The amount available for Dublin out of this Vote may provide two or three weeks' work in and around Christmas for a number of workers, but that would be only a mere bagatelle when taken in relation to the aggregate amount of poverty and hardship that exists. I do not wish to make any particular reference to an area in which there is a by-election at the present time, but I have had occasion to study the conditions in Ringsend. The conditions there are really appalling. They are probably worse than in any other part of the city, because in the two industries that were working there and that provided some employment, the glass bottle industry and the fishing industry, there are trade disputes, with the result that the glass bottle works are closed down, and there is every likelihood of the fishing ceasing for the same reason also.
The Dáil must face up to the fact that it cannot possibly find, out of taxation, a sum adequate to provide relief in the minimum possible measure for the unemployed and the semiunemployed. The only real cure for unemployment is the provision of work, and it is our view that in periods of depression like the present the credit of the State should be utilised to enable the Government to embark on schemes of work of national usefulness, in order to put itself in the position of being able to offer every unemployed man who is willing to work an opportunity of earning a livelihood. It may not be able to offer the workers engaged on such schemes conditions similar to those prevailing in ordinary industrial enterprises, but it can give them a much greater opportunity of being able to provide for their families and dependents than is given them at the present time. There can be no doubt but there is plenty of scope for such schemes. Reference has been made here to work of various kinds that could be undertaken. It cannot possibly be undertaken if we merely contemplate the voting of certain sums out of the Central Fund periodically for the purpose. We must be prepared to utilise the credit of the State in order to get sufficient finances to enable these schemes to be carried out. We are being continuously told that, as a result of the sound financial policy of the Government, the credit of the State stands high. I want it shown to me what advantage it is to have that sound credit position unless we propose to utilise it for our own benefit. If we are in a position to borrow money more cheaply than other countries can do it, why not do so and enable constructive schemes of work to be embarked upon? There is nothing financially unsound in that. Obviously the result of the expenditure will be to create capital assets which will be of definite and permanent value to the State.
I suppose it will be expected that we should indicate something of the nature of the schemes we have in mind. Personally I am interested in the fact that in the majority of towns in the Free State there are neither proper sewerage schemes nor adequate water supplies. I have no doubt whatever that the health and the social outlook of the people generally is being impaired by the absence of these amenities. We think that at the present time the State should embark upon the construction of such schemes in order, in the first instance, to provide employment, and, in the second instance, to remove the social consequences of their absence.
I understand that the Department of Agriculture is carrying out an afforestation programme directed towards the planting of the land now available for that purpose within twenty years. Surely it should be possible without any fundamental alteration in the plans to speed up the work and direct it so that it will be complete in five or six years and not twenty years, and thus provide immediate employment when it is wanted. Afforestation is a particularly useful kind of operation to deal with the unemployment situation, because by far the greater part of the total cost is represented by wages paid to the workers. The most obvious-method of providing work is in the construction of houses. We have had the housing problem of the Free State discussed here on many occasions, and I do not intend to go into details now. It seems to me that there is obviously something wrong when we have an outstanding need for 50,000 houses. We have most of the materials required to build these houses available, the idle men willing and able to work at building them, and yet nothing is being done. If there was, at the top, the necessary organising ability, the necessary vigorous leadership, I am quite certain means could be found to bring these idle men to work on the idle material to build the houses that are required. In the past, we have advocated the nationalisation of the business of building houses for the working classes. We think if there was established a State Housing Board, similar in constitution to the Shannon Electricity Supply Board, it could ensure, in the first place, a very considerable reduction in building costs by bulk purchase of supplies and uniform construction, and, in addition, it could encourage the manufacture of building materials within the country, and thus provide additional employment. We understand that the Government are hatching a new housing scheme. I do not know whether they will succeed in hatching it before the General Election or not, but if they do we will have an opportunity of considering their proposals.