That is a different thing. I thought the Senator was asking me to set up some huge dry goods store for goods and men's clothing and all the rest of it against some future period. The last Government decided against that type of thing for the very best of reasons, and these reasons that operated in 1938-39 are still operating.
If I take the other side of the Senator's proposal, namely, that the banks should be approached with regard to providing credit for traders, that is another matter. So far I have not heard from any of the traders who were inclined to stock pile in that way that they have been unduly hampered by banks. However, that is a matter that can be looked into in another way. The Senator will remember that it is rather incompatible to have a plea for a system of rigid price control and at the same time to ask the banks to assist traders to any great extent to stock pile goods, because the two things run counter to one another. Traders are not anxious to end all price control, and banks naturally understand what traders have in their mind. Therefore, it means relaxing price control to put into effect the programme the Senator refers to. I shall refer to general conditions about an emergency later.
Several Senators have spoken about one matter, and I must say I was surprised to find that it is a thing that has excited so much interest. I refer to this matter of motorists causing danger or injury or destruction, particularly when under the influence of drink. I think three or four Senators have spoken in regard to that matter. Well, the law is there. The law has it at the moment that if a person is found to be guilty of dangerous conduct on the road and under the influence of drink, there is automatic disqualification. Senator Colgan would have the yearly period, which is the minimum, enlarged to a greater period. That would involve a change in legislation, and I have not the facts at my disposal to give even an opinion in the matter. I would say that Senator Tunney spoke with some vehemence on this matter.
I take it that the Senators who have spoken in this connection are still interested in keeping the jury system alive in this country, particularly in regard to criminal trials. I would point out that the more severe the penalty in respect of any offence, the more difficult it is to get a jury to convict. If there were a penalty of a very severe type, involving, say, disqualification for life as far as driving is concerned, I think it might happen that juries who would now find against a drunken motorist might refrain from doing so because of the severity of the penalty. We must realise that they weigh these things up and if it was in the legislation the public would be informed about it. The Senator might then find that the remedy he is proposing would not be as effective as he thought it would be, and would not be an improvement on the situation as it exists at present. However, the particular remarks made are points that can be put before the Minister for Justice for his consideration, and, maybe, for the promotion of better legislation in that respect.
Senator Tunney, as well as speaking on that matter, mentioned sheep rearing. I thought that the owner of sheep at the moment was in the happiest possible position of all owners of live stock in this country. There are phenomenal prices going at the moment for wool and a good price is given for the sheep without the wool. I must say that I cannot understand the Senator's complaint about the matter. However, it may please him to realise that, as well as the land rehabilitation scheme, I know that the Minister for Agriculture has certain plans in regard to the areas which are suitable for sheep, and that he will probably see about that in the autumn.
Senator Tunney also referred to a concern at Westport. I hope I am not making a mistake in that connection, but if the Senator was referring to the firm I was recently reading about, let me say that he has introduced about the worst possible example of an industry from the point of view of whether it deserves protection or not. If it is the industry about which I have been reading recently—and I am sorry Senator Summerfield is not here to get this as an example of extreme feather-bedding—the directors of that concern remake their capital every two years. As far as I know, they have about £7,000 capital in that particular concern. They draw, as between dividends and other profits, something short of £4,000 a year, and they have done that for over 12 or 13 years. If they want any extra protection, when they are recouping to themselves their capital every pair of years, I cannot refrain from saying that industry has come to a pretty pass if there is a demand for increased protection in these circumstances. I hope I do not do any injustice to the firm, but I feel that that is the firm we recently had under consideration in connection for an increased tariff. I have no great respect for the business if that is the one to which the Senator refers. There is, of course, the consideration that the town of Westport, with nothing much in the way of industrial activity in the neighbourhood, would be anxious to preserve whatever spasm of industry might be there. However, sometimes the price is too high. I think most people would agree that the price demanded there is far too high.
Senator Burke referred to the vexed matter of valuations. When I heard him speak in regard to that matter, I was not surprised to see Senator Fitzsimons on his feet later, because I realised that he, too, would be bound to refer to this matter as I have had correspondence with him on that point.
I said in the Dáil recently that I had become impressed by the volume of complaints all over the country with regard to increased valuations. It seemed as if there was something more than ordinary activity with regard to the sending in of lists for revised valuation. In the Dáil, in reply to a question, I said that this matter had been constantly under review. It has been constantly under review simply because of the complaints both Deputies and Senators have brought to my notice in public debate as well as by correspondence and it is being specially examined at this moment. It has become the subject of special consideration because the absurdity of the present law has been shown up by an occurrence in Dublin. A citizen, whether well-disposed or evilly-disposed I do not know, took 400 pages out of Thom's Directory and put in a covering note saying that he required a revaluation of all these properties. That was the nearest thing to having a general revaluation taken more or less piecemeal, but in a very heavy piece. I was glad to find that the city manager decided that that was not in compliance with the law and that he did not intend to move on it. However, it revealed a weakness in the situation. As I have stated before, the initiative in this matter does not rest with the Valuation Office but with the rate collectors. They may move first and a ratepayer may move. This ratepayer, who was observant enough not to have his own property included, decided he would have as large a revaluation as he possibly could in the Clontarf area of the city. I got a return, however, that makes me feel that the clamour may be just a bit exaggerated. I asked to have a comparison made for me between pre-war and post-war revisions of valuation. Total valuation, of course, is a mixture of valuation of buildings and valuation of land. We need not bother about land now because it is not subject to increase to any great extent. I wanted to find out how the movement upwards was going in the pre-war years.
In 1939 the increase in valuation represented a 2.3 advance on the previous year. The increase in 1948 over 1947 showed a 2.2 advance. The advance in 1949 over 1948 was represented by 3.8, and that of 1950 over 1949 was 3.7. Although there is the difference between, say, an average of 3.7 and an average of 2.3 it is not so very big and in that connection one must remember that there has been great activity in the way of building in the past couple of years so that the valuation of properties all over the country would necessarily go up whether there was a drive towards revaluations or not. On those figures there certainly does not appear to be anything much of a great movement. I think the trouble that has been caused is that which has often been brought to my notice, namely, that the whole thing seems to be so haphazard that there is no principle about it. A rate collector looks at one building and sends it forward for revaluation. Once there is a revaluation asked for it is almost inevitable that the valuation will be upwards. A property immediately beside it and built at the same time, and maybe in the same state of repair, has not caught the rate collector's eye, continues to be rated at the old valuation, whereas the one sent forward by the rate collector for revision may have a very heavy increase in its valuation. I think it is the inequality that is occurring here and there that is the trouble. The individual citizens who have been hit cannot be numerous. Anyhow, the matter is under review. I was made acquainted with this matter, which is getting a special bit of attention at the moment, because of this occurrence in the area of Clontarf.
The suggestion made to me may, possibly, be the best one—it would be a sort of interim measure—and that is that a revaluation should be permitted only where there is some addition, improvement or extension of a building, and a new valuation should have regard only to the improvement, the extension, or whatever it may be. That would tend to stabilise conditions for the time being; it would be a sort of interim measure. The suggestion seems to be a good one.
Senator Miss Butler mentioned schools, as well as other things with which I shall deal later. On the question of schools, I would not approve of the idea of having the State take over the complete maintenance of schools, or of having the State take a more prominent part in the matter of building grants or maintenance. It is essential to have the local manager and the people in the locality, through the local manager, kept with a live interest in the school property and those who go there. If the State were to take on the complete maintenance of the school, the bill would grow heavy. It is not a bad thing to have a local manager who would be open to local pressure. Where a school gets into a bad state, where there are unhealthy conditions, where the lavatory accommodation is bad or unhygienic, the manager is under pressure there and it is not a bad thing to give him some help so as to be able to withstand too much pressure; it is not a bad thing to have him feel that he can get some part of the charges. They may not be very heavy in that way. The ordinary system is two-thirds by the State and one-third by the locality. When it comes to new housing areas or slum clearance areas, the State takes the whole charge—I am speaking now of building grants. As to what Senator Miss Butler says, it is not my particular concern, but I can direct the attention of the Minister for Education to it and we will see what he says about that matter.
Senator Summerfield, unfortunately, notwithstanding his experience of five or six years as a Senator, has not, apparently, got to know the difference between a Finance Bill and an Appropriation Bill. I expect he will know from this onwards. I am sorry I cannot deal with his point about obsolescent machinery, as it is out of order, but I would like to have heard his answer to what I said on the Finance Bill in regard to that matter. I do not think there is any case made by the industrialists that they should get a preferential position in regard to the machinery, plant and buildings out of which they make a profit. I want to say, in passing, that the last memorandum I saw from these people, if accepted, would have involved an extra £800,000 per annum as a gift to industrialists, and I do not think they are entitled to that in present circumstances.
It was in that connection I introduced the phrase which seems to have annoyed Senator Summerfield with regard to industry being in a rather feather-bedded condition in this country at the moment. I introduced that in the context in which a demand was made to me. The suggestion was that, if a comparison were made between our industrialists and English industrialists, our industrialists should be proportionately as well treated. In so far as what industrialists on the other side have got is concerned, that is always exaggerated. I want a realistic approach to this matter. I would like to have a comparison made with respect to what has been given to industrialists here, and other things must be weighed in the balance at the same time. For instance, the lessened taxation, the smaller taxation on corporation profits, the reduced personal tax and the way in which industries were so very handsomely treated here in the war period as compared with how they fared in England. In the claim that was made to me, it was mentioned that Irish industrialists were suffering very badly in comparison with English industrialists. I do not believe they are, everything being taken into account.
Senator O'Brien returned to his point with regard to current savings and the necessity for increasing these by every means in our power. On what he said by way of principle, I am thoroughly in agreement. He then made the suggestion that there should be certain short-dated securities and short-term borrowings. He gave three examples which he suggested would be useful in present circumstances. I am having his suggestions examined. I want to say that the State has already borrowed on a very large scale on short term. The liabilities at the moment in respect of savings certificates total £17.7 million; the liabilities in respect of the Post Office Savings Bank and the Trustee Savings Bank total £52,000,000 and ways and means advances are £18,000,000. There is £87.7 million between these three sources which are all short-term borrowings.
There were two loans floated earlier, the 3¾ Financial Agreement Loan, 1953-58, where our liability is £9,000,000 odd, and the 3¼ National Security Loan, 1956-61, where the liability would be £7.3 million at the moment. These are short-dated and can be regarded in the category of the loans the Senator spoke of. I am informed that it was not observed that these loans were any more popular than the loans issued at a longer date. Senator O'Brien would be aware, but I make the point to be kept in mind when reading what Senator O'Brien said, that we lend on an average on a 50-year basis. Housing is on a 50-year basis and the loans for electricity development are on a very long term. It is necessary in these circumstances to maintain that some proportion of the borrowings will be sufficiently long term to enable us to lend with an appreciation of proper finance.
Senator Hawkins referred to Galway Harbour. I do not know exactly what the position is with regard to Galway Harbour. I know there was a big scheme promulgated some years ago to which a Galway local authority and local authorities in Mayo and Roscommon gave certain aid. Where there is a local enterprise, one likes to help. I know, however, that the help given from the outside counties was not very popular, and I know one, if not two Deputies who lost seats in the election because they supported the idea that these outside local authorities would help Galway in bearing the loan charges of the first development.
A second project came along which was supposed to be an advance on the first, but it was a terribly expensive one, and seemed to us to go too far. It aimed at extending the whole of the inner dock so as to enable boats of a particular draught—far too big a draught—to get in on all tides. That was sent back for further consideration, and I think the last decision taken by my colleagues was that we would get into negotiation with the harbour authorities and their engineers and consultants to see if a less costly, but at the same time a valuable, scheme could be produced. This matter is under consideration at the moment. In any event, no one can say that Galway has been forgotten. I think the amount of money spent on Galway, between hospitals and sanatoria and now harbour development, ought to make it, from the point of view of expenditure of money, one of the liveliest places in the whole of Ireland—if there is not some settled mood of depression on the whole area.
I think those are all the smaller points dealt with in the debate, but there are two or three big ones. One of them is emigration. It has been said to me that, in all this appropriation of mine of vast millions, there is nothing in the Appropriation Bill or the Finance Bill about emigration. I think the same thing could be said of 15 or 16 Finance Bills introduced by Fianna Fáil. I want again to bring people back to what the last Taoiseach said with regard to emigration. It was given in a recent debate in Dáil Eireann and Deputy de Valera said I was taking one phrase out of its context. I invite people to read the whole context of the debate and I simply take what was put there as the headline. I am not putting this in the way of saying to an individual that he failed, but I say that, in the course of 15 years, Deputy de Valera has got a more realistic attitude towards emigration. In 1932, it was one of the things—as I put in, in an interjection—one of "the permitted crimes against the country, a thing that should not be allowed to go on". Unemployment and emigration were two things that he himself and Deputy Lemass, his great lieutenant, were most insistent about. Speaking in 1930, Deputy Lemass said:—
"The outstanding fact in regard to unemployment—the two things run together—is that it need not exist at all."
Later in the course of that debate I interrupted at a certain point and I said I was not sure that he was not standing for a sort of selective approach to this whole problem of unemployment and gradualness in getting rid of it. He interrupted me to say that a permanent solution to the problem could be got. One of my colleagues spoke of the 80,000 and gradualness and selectivity, and drew the immediate reply from Deputy Lemass:—
"You could find the solution to unemployment to-morrow."
He, himself, and Deputy de Valera believed that in those days, but 15 years later they had gone through the experience of seeing fifteen years with unemployment running at the figure they derided when I was previously in Government. It was running at that figure at the time when emigration, as the last census report shows, in the decade 1936 to 1946, was at the rate of 2,000 more than in the decade 1926 to 1936. In part of that period in which Deputy de Valera was Taoiseach he had an enormous number of people drafted into Army work and, therefore, not as much open to unemployment conditions or to the need for emigration as in other periods.
At the Ard-Fheis of Fianna Fáil in 1929 the phrase which Deputy de Valera used about unemployment was:—
"The more certain I feel that it is a crime against the unemployed and against the nation to leave it unsolved..."
When he was challenged about it— Deputies will remember the great advertisement of the 1931 election—he said:—
"If other nations had the remedy against unemployment that was staring us in the face, they would avail themselves of that remedy."
After 15 years, brought up against the fact of emigration still running very high, he said—I am quoting from a newspaper cutting of the 3rd July, 1947, referring to the debate on the Estimate for the Department of the Taoiseach for the day before, to be found in the Official Reports for the 2nd July, 1947:—
"The most important question is that of emigration, but when they had done the best they could, the drift from the land to the towns or abroad would continue. There was no other way for it. There had been that steady trend since the famine and perhaps it was a tendency that could not be stopped."
I do not know why Senators of the Fianna Fáil persuasion should think that emigration is a bull point to make against the present Government. After 15 years, the man who said that unemployment and emigration were two things which could be stopped overnight, and who had 15 years to try his best effort—and, no doubt, he put his best effort into the endeavour to stop emigration and solve unemployment—comes to the point where he says that "there has been a steady trend since the famine and perhaps that tendency could not be stopped."
I thought then that if that was not the end of a chapter it certainly was the end of an argument and a policy that had been based upon the proposal that emigration was something in which all that was needed was goodwill and the remedy was more or less in the people's hands. It is not so. That is the position with regard to emigration. It is going on, and has been going on. I might make this point. The drift away from the land is put by Deputy de Valera under two heads: it is the drift from the land to the towns and then the drift abroad. As far as there is a movement away from rural areas to the cities, that is not confined to this country. It is world wide. People apparently are awakening all over the world to the idea that life in rural areas does not offer the same opportunities, has not the same incentives or the same delights as appear to be around life in the cities and towns. The drift away from the land or away from the rural areas to the towns is proceeding everywhere. Where we are unfortunate is that people do not stop in coming from the country to our cities and towns, but go abroad to towns and cities in other countries.
I want to know if anyone has a solution for emigration. A solution that I thought there might be, from one angle, was if you gave better opportunities for work. If you provided better opportunities for employment at higher wages than people were getting, that might be an answer. You could make life in the countryside more comfortable, by making better provision with regard to wages. If you also gave certain of the city amenities, by the provision of electricity for light around the home and whatever use could be made of power around the farm, so as to ease certain heavy labour on the farm, that would be another thing. Also, you could try to provide that there would be amusement in the rural areas and that it would be as cheap as the country could permit. In all these lines we have tried to make an advance, as against this drift from the country, and we have not stopped it. Can anyone, tell me what has been left undone, that could be thought of? Certainly, it is not a question of money— I can speak as Minister for Finance on that and say it is not a question of money.
Senator Tunney tackled me to-night over Connacht, which he represents, and said that Connacht was being left without any man-power at all. That is the difficulty. Most people reading newspapers and engaging in debates have got used to the talk about "balance of payments" as between countries and know that, if a country cannot, by its exports or whatever it is earning, buy its imports, then it must produce more and export more and must reduce its spending by refraining from certain imports. So also the same thing may happen as between areas. If you have an area that is impoverished, the same thing will happen there as would happen between an impoverished island and a wealthy continent.
If an area is not able to produce the quantity or the quality in the way of earnings that can be got elsewhere, the people in that area must submit themselves to live on a lower standard, or else leave that part of the country and go elsewhere, where they can make more and enjoy a higher standard. The only other thing that can be done is to send certain moneys back to that impoverished area by certain Grants-in-Aid or special expenditure. We have done that, as far as we can. If we have not met with success, we have not been ill-disposed. We have been following any sane suggestion made to us with regard to helping those worse off areas.
Store Street has been brought into this debate. Really, I wonder if it is worth while paying much attention to it, as certain phrases were used. I look on Store Street in the context of the problem of housing the public servants of this State. I was also brought hard up against the Store Street matter by the fact that there was this enormous building, not completed, not paid for even so far as it had been completed, and a company in the background that had not 1/- to pay for it. At the time at which this bus station was being built the company that had authorised its erection had not even enough money to pay its rates on its other premises and, while they were drawing cheques every day, they were hiding them in the safe and hoping the safes would not have to be opened to let any of these cheques out, because the draught would be very severe.
It so happened that there seemed to me to be a good solution for both these problems. Córas Iompair Éireann could not complete Store Street. They could not pay for it, in so far as it was there uncompleted, and they asked to be relieved of it. Now it has been taken up by quite a lot of people. All the so-called æsthetes, the artists, the playwrights, and even some of the writers of books, are all outraged at the idea of this building being diverted from its proper purpose. To that particular section of our community there is added the Fianna Fáil Party, who have decided that wheat and Store Street are now the two main slogans of that Party. Why they should add Store Street to wheat I do not know. One can argue about wheat, but I cannot, for the life of me, understand why Store Street should be made almost an article of faith for that Party at the moment. It apparently has become so.
If the building cannot be completed by Córas Iompair Éireann, then it will lie there and it will deteriorate. Some use must be made of it. It can house civil servants very easily. It can provide good housing for a very big number of civil servants. If it is not utilised to house a particular lot of civil servants, then some other housing accommodation must be provided for them. The last Government had two enormous schemes; one was the £11,500,000 scheme for a new Parliament buildings and a palatial residence for civil servants entailing the acquisition of 70 acres in the Merrion Square direction; the other was the £2,000,000 scheme in Dublin Castle.
Let us leave the £11,500,000 scheme out of it. It is just what Stephen Leacock would have called "One of the moonbeams from the larger lunacy". The £2,000,000 reconstruction of the castle was a very costly scheme and I could never understand why one group of people were determined to block the city traffic by erecting a bus station in Store Street and another group were determined to make as much confusion as they could by building up the castle and letting loose a whole swarm of civil servants there, at whatever hour civil servants are let loose, on the ordinary people. £2,000,000 was a hefty sum of money to pay for that purpose.
There is the fact, too, that a number of premises are at present leased by the Government. My figures are approximate, since I have not been able to check them, but there are certainly not less than 27 buildings in which we house about 950 civil servants. The rentals we pay amount to something in the region of £18,000 per annum; again, that figure is a rough approximation. If I talk of all Government premises—not merely those that are leased, but also those that are rented we have about 90 premises in the City of Dublin in which are housed 9,500 civil servants.
In those circumstances, this big building comes upon the market. Córas Iompair Éireann want to sell it. At that point the Minister for Social Welfare informs me that he is inclined to invest the funds of the National Health Insurance Society in the building and he thinks it is as good an investment as investing them in English securities; he can get a return by way of rent which is equal to the return he is getting from the English security. That seemed to me to be a reasonable project. He will buy the building, and when he pays for it he will probably throw into the bargain Árus Brugha, which he will not afterwards need and into which I can transfer certain civil servants and take them away out of the scattered 27 premises all over the city. The Minister for Social Welfare, still keeping his funds intact and getting a proper return on his money, can buy a building and can give me a certain amount of money, part of which I will seize hold of to repay me for the debt incurred in 1949 in respect of Córas Iompair Éireann. I think the plans made met the situation in a most desirable way. The only objection was that this building had, so to speak, a soul of its own; it was to be in some way or another, as I always thought, the outward reflection of a bus station. But to my amazement I found it was nothing like that at all. It was an insane, mongrel building, with a cinema, a hairdressing saloon, a restaurant and a variety of other things beside a bus station.
Of course, it had four or five storeys on top to house all the clerks in the railway world. I was asking for some comments upon this matter the other day knowing that the matter would probably arise. It happened to be the 13th July and it so happened that the 13th July is the feast of St. Anacletus and the person who was offering me some comments told me that the Gospel of the day contained the most appropriate comment that could be made upon Store Street:—
"For which of you having a mind to build a tower doth not first sit down and reckon the charges that are necessary; whether he have the wherewithal to finish it; lest after he hath laid the foundation and is not able to finish it all that see him begin to mock him saying: This man began to build and was not able to finish."
I think that is the most appropriate comment on the whole of the Store Street business. I have got a building that will house civil servants. The change over from industrial security to investment in rent will leave the funds of the society in as good a position as they were before; Córas Iompair Eireann is relieved of a building which had become an incubus and, having sold it, they will have some money with which they can build a suitable bus station.