Dáil Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 12 Dec 1934

Vol. 54 No. 6

In Committee on Finance. - Financial Resolution No. 4—Excise.

Minister for Finance (Mr. MacEntee):

I move:—

1. That Section 11 of the Finance Act, 1930 (No. 20 of 1930), shall not apply or have effect in relation to duty under Section 13 of the Finance Act, 1920, as amended by the Finance Act, 1926 (No. 35 of 1926), paid in respect of any year or part of a year subsequent to the year 1934.

2. It is hereby declared that it is expedient in the public interest that this Resolution shall have statutory effect under the provisions of the Provisional Collection of Taxes Act, 1927 (No. 7 of 1927).

This Resolution proposes to repeal Section 11 of the Finance Act of 1930. That Act granted a rebate of 25 per cent. of the annual motor licence duty to be paid on private cars which were registered in Saorstát Eireann on the 30th April, 1930, and were, on the 1st January, 1931, five years' old and upwards. The concession was originally introduced as an experiment and was limited to cars which, at the date of the concession, were five years' old and upwards. By the terms on which it was granted, no concession was given to cars which became five years' old in the subsequent years. The concession involves a loss to the Road Fund of about £15,000 per annum. It is difficult to administer and it is quite illogical. The proportion of cars over five years' old now which are not receiving the concession is growing. As I said, this concession was originally introduced as an experiment. It is now proposed to withdraw it.

General Mulcahy:

This, apparently, is the ingenious way in which the Minister proposes to find money for the financing of operations under Financial Resolution No. 1. We discussed earlier to-day the ultimate effect on motor users of the proposals contained in Financial Resolution No. 1. We suggested that the Minister was not going to allow the revenue to suffer any loss and that motor users would be called upon to pay, over the running expenses, a sum substantially more than £300,000 a year. The first cost of the Minister's experiment is now, apparently, to be met by withdrawing certain concessions given to persons who run old cars. These are to be called upon to provide £15,000 a year as the first step in developing the Ministerial proposals under Financial Resolution No. 1.

Mr. McGilligan:

Is there any information as to the number of cars involved?

Mr. MacEntee:

7,000.

Mr. McGilligan:

7,000 cars with engines constructed before 1st January, 1926, and the amount involved is £15,000?

Mr. MacEntee:

Yes.

Mr. McGilligan:

The Minister describes this concession as illogical, though he fought for it.

Mr. MacEntee:

Not in the form in which it has been given.

Mr. McGilligan:

Let us wipe out the black past.

Mr. MacEntee:

Will the Deputy tell me when and in what terms I fought for it?

Mr. McGilligan:

In about three financial years in succession, I suppose.

Mr. MacEntee:

Do not "suppose." The Deputy very often relies on his imagination for his facts.

Mr. McGilligan:

The Minister did most of the "supposing" in those days. He "supposed" a lot about the benefit which would accrue from this concession and he wept over the misfortunes of the people who had to use cars with old engines. I should have thought that in the Fianna Fáil paradise there would not be 7,000 cars with engines as old as the 1st January, 1926. These must be near breaking-up point. Will not this particular section run itself out very soon? Is there not a possibility that there will be definite unfairness worked if the section is amended as proposed? I do not think that it was intended that these cars should only get the rebate if they remained in the hands of the same possessor. The engine had to be of a certain date and it had to be registered here, but there could have been a change in ownership. People may have bought secondhand cars of this type because of the rebate. That type of sale may have come off recently and now the purchasers are to be charged this 25 per cent. That is only one side of the question and I think the section might as well be allowed to run itself out. It is not going to do a great deal of harm. In the present circumstances, surely there is some relation between the necessity for free beef and an ancient motor car. The Minister for Agriculture boasted here the other night that the population of Dublin was now divided into classes. Whereas there used to be a certain percentage which bought beef which they ate, the percentage now getting beef free is one and a half times that which used to eat the beef which they purchased.

Surely we ought not to deprive the unfortunate owners of cars dating before 1926 of the little bit of rebate they are getting. Would the Minister answer the question as to whether this is accidentally joined to the Financial Resolution dealing with oil refining?

Mr. MacEntee:

No.

Mr. McGilligan:

It is intended then partly to finance the remission that is granted to the oil refining company which has undertaken to refine 3,000,000 gallons of oil at Haulbowline. Does he mean that that is not an accident?

Mr. MacEntee:

It is an accident that it is introduced on this particular occasion.

Mr. McGilligan:

It is an accident that it is joined with the previous motion.

Mr. MacEntee:

Yes, the Supreme Court's judgment was given in 1932.

General Mulcahy:

The Limerick Act was passed in June 1934.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle:

Has not the House decided upon that matter?

Mr. McGilligan:

But as an example it is surely relevant as an example of accident and coincidence. I am assuming that this is meant to help the financing of that amazing proposition of refining petrol at Haulbowline or has it nothing to do with that?

Mr. MacEntee:

Nothing.

Mr. McGilligan:

The Minister brought in a proposal that the unfortunate loss of £25,000 which the Minister has to make good has nothing to do with this proposal to stop the rebate on cars.

Mr. MacEntee:

They are entirely separate transactions.

Mr. McGilligan:

They are of course in character but there is a conjunction in the matter of finance.

Mr. MacEntee:

Except that they are both concerned with money there is no more conjunction between them than there is between the Deputy and myself.

Mr. McGilligan:

Surely there is a connection. The one relates to a loss of revenue of £15,000 and the other contemplates something which next year according to an up and down table that the Minister gives will cost £25,000 or something less. Would the Minister in any event, think of allowing this particular remission to run for another year?

Mr. MacEntee:

This proposal was foreshadowed in the Budget of this year.

Mr. McGilligan:

Where many other strange things were foreshadowed. But why should he stick at trifles?

Mr. MacEntee:

The Deputy's party did not stick at trifles when they gave this concession.

Mr. McGilligan:

It seems to me a very trifling matter; it was supported by the then Opposition. It may not be trivial in the sense of working wrongly from the Minister's point of view. I suggest that equity demands that some better notice should be given than to come in at this time of day with a Finance Resolution that may involve certain hardships upon people who bought second-hand cars believing that they would get this benefit. There is no great case made for taking this remission away. The Minister appears to think that the effect on the Exchequer is of no moment. If that is so is it worth while to go on with this proposal? Should the Minister not reconsider it?

Professor Thrift:

The Minister says that this remission is illogical and he wants to take it away because of its lack of logic. But could he not provide a way to make it logical other than by removing this concession. The real logic would be to charge the owners of all cars a low rate of duty, and to extend that concession to include cars that are less than five years old. Here is a proposition by the Minister which hits definitely the major part of 7,000 people who, owing to their circumstances have to run old cars. These are people less able to bear the tax which is now going to be put on them. This cancelling of the remission will have a considerable effect in a great many cases in deciding whether people will continue using their cars or whether they will have to give them up. The Minister comes along and really says they will have to give them up. A great many of these old cars will be practically unsaleable in the condition in which they are. The Minister is doing a real hardship to a great many motor owners who are unable to afford the extra taxation and who are even now running old cars at considerable expense because their running charges are higher on these old cars. These people were only partially able to stand the cost of running these cars because of the remission. It is most illogical for a member of the Government to come along and say he aims at being logical by removing this concession. If he wanted to be logical he should extend the concession to all other cars.

Mr. Dillon:

I should like to join in pointing out the extremely fallacious logic of the Minister for Finance. He desires to remove an anachronism whereby certain cars which are now nine years' old will cease to enjoy benefit that they were first scheduled to enjoy. He says it is illogical that one body of cars should enjoy this privilege on the ground that they are more than five years' old and in addition to have a further number of cars that are now five years' old having no benefit. The Minister proposes to remove that anomaly by depriving everyone of the benefit. Of course the logic would be for Oireachtas Eireann to decide that a certain privilege granted to cars manufactured before 1926 should now be enjoyed by all. I agree that the same treatment should be meted out to cars that are now five years' old as was meted out four years ago to cars that were five years' old when the general conditions of the country were much better than they are now. There is an added element in the Minister's argument which invalidates it still further and it is this that whether the Minister thinks it was well to take this course in 1930 or not the course was taken by Oireachtas Eireann attaching certain exemptions to those motor cars. Hundreds of people bought these cars in the knowledge that their upkeep would not be so expensive as modern cars because of this tax rebate that they were to enjoy. It is quite conceivable that many people paid a little more for cars of this description because they knew that they were buying cars that were to be subject to tax exemption as well. Now, without any reference to those contracts of sale which have taken place in large numbers, where the parties to the contract were probably people in straitened circumstances, we are going to withdraw that benefit arbitrarily and impose upon them what will be, for them, quite a substantial additional expenditure.

A Deputy:

What about hackney-car drivers?

Mr. Dillon:

It is only private owners.

Mr. MacEntee:

The Deputy forgets that they have already secured a reduction.

Mr. Dillon:

I am putting the case of the people who acted on the word of this House and who are now being betrayed in a way that no private individual would dare to betray them because he would render himself liable to an action for damages. We are proposing to do by legislation something that is mainly contrary to equity and contrary to common justice, because we are altering an essential and important term in a contract entered into by persons in straitened circumstances who probably went to the limit of their resources in embarking on a conflict with the law. The third case made by the Minister is absurd, because the evil he purports to correct here is not a continuing evil; it is a diminishing evil. It is an evil which will eliminate itself in a comparatively short period of time. There are at present 7,000 cars which were built prior to 1925. They are now nine years old, and I think we can safely say that with the exception of perhaps a dozen they will all be on the discard heap in another five years. Let us give them an average term of five years. So that the net effect of this Financial Resolution is this: We are going to put a tax of £12 10s. per head on 7,000 persons who are admittedly in straitened circumstances, because they could not afford a new car and had to buy or keep a very old car in order to get this concession. We are going to alter the term of their contract, which they regarded as vital when they entered into it and considering their capacity to keep it, and we are going to secure for the Exchequer a sum of about £15,000 per annum, which is going to be a diminishing asset— steadily diminishing.

Taking into consideration the advantages that are going to accrue from this course of conduct, and the serious individual hardship that this is going to give rise to, and the rotten principle that we should by legislation alter the term of a contract, I suggest to the Minister that the sensible thing and the decent thing to do is to drop this Financial Resolution. There is no question of a continuing evil. There is a fixed period to the continuation of this impost, and I urge strongly on the Minister that it would be a sensible gesture—I might even say, to tempt him, a generous gesture—if he dropped this Financial Resolution and let things go on as they are in the certainly that time will achieve his purpose far more effectively than anything that this Resolution can do.

Mr. Bennett:

There are 7,000 cars or owners of cars, the Minister said, to be affected by this Resolution. These 7,000 cars are held mainly by people who purchased second-hand cars in recent years because, obviously, they could not afford a better car. Some of them, perhaps, are held by men who originally were in a position to buy some sort of a motor-car but who, very probably, are in the position latterly that once the car they now possess disappears they never will own another. Conceivably, some of them might have been purchased by farmers. There were a few farmers in 1926 who were in a position to buy a motor-car. I should think that none of them is in a position to buy one now. But there are a few of them that are held up by farmers and driven once or twice a year and kept in some sort of condition in case a possible purchaser might come for them.

Mr. MacEntee:

If they are only keeping them in that way they do not have to pay the duty at all.

Mr. Bennett:

The value of that car has absolutely disappeared. Even the sheriff will not take these cars.

Mr. MacEntee:

The Deputy is a good judge of what the sheriff would take.

Mr. Bennett:

There are very few farmers who possess any sort of car, even one of those old bone-shakers. However, there are a few. There are, conceivably, some members of the working classes also who possess some of these old cars and take out their friends for a drive on a Sunday. Conceivably, they might even take for a drive the class referred to by Deputy McGilligan—the recipients of free beef. I daresay that an odd jolt in a motor car of this description would be very good for the livers of these people and I think it would be a shame to deprive them of it. Mainly, I want to convey to the Minister that the real reason for the introduction of this motion is that he hopes to get £15,000. It is a very vain hope. I warn him that if he passes this, although the life of these 7,000 cars may possibly be prolonged for a few years, the date of the conveyance of most of these motor cars to the scrap heap will be considerably advanced; most of them will reach the pit within the coming year and the Minister's chance of getting a very small part of his £15,000 will have vanished.

I would seriously advise the Minister that, for his own sake and for the sake of the Treasury, he should drop this Resolution because I, for one, believe that if this motion is passed a great deal of the revenue from these old cars will disappear. That is, I think, the best argument one can offer against this motion, outside of the sentimental argument that poor people who chanced to come into possession of one of these bone-shakers should not be the people for the Minister to select in order to deprive them of some of the advantages that previous legislation gave them.

General Mulcahy:

One of the first type of cars referred to in Section 6 of the Third Schedule is:—

Any vehicle in respect of which it is shown to the satisfaction of the Minister for Local Government and Public Health that 75 per cent. of the cost of producing the vehicle or the engine of the vehicle is attributable to manufacturing operations performed thereon and in relation thereto in Saorstát Eireann.

Why does the Minister for Finance select this particular moment for taking away advantages from persons who were running cars, 75 per cent. of the cost of the making of which cars, or of putting together the engines, is attributable to a manufacturing process performed in Saorstát Eireann? Why does he select this particular time for hitting that particular class of persons, and how many persons were involved in that?

Mr. MacEntee:

I did not quite catch the Deputy. I understood him to refer to Section 11 of the Act of 1931.

General Mulcahy:

I am referring to Section 11 of the Finance Act of 1930, where a certain rebate of duty was given in certain circumstances, and to the Minister's Resolution which now takes it away. Section 11 of the Act of 1930 applied to every mechanical vehicle which is a mechanically-propelled vehicle to which paragraph 6 of the Third Schedule of the Finance Act, 1926, referred, excepting hackneys which had the life that is referred to there. The first type of vehicle mentioned in Section 6 of the Third Schedule to the Finance Act, 1926, is the type of vehicle to which I referred, that is:—

Any vehicle in respect of which it is shown to the satisfaction of the Minister for Local Government and Public Health that 75 per cent. of the cost of producing the vehicle or the engine of the vehicle is attributable to manufacturing operations performed thereon and in relation thereto in Saorstát Eireann.

Why does the Minister hit in this way the type of person driving a car of that kind?

Mr. MacEntee:

Can the Deputy get one?

General Mulcahy:

How many such cars are involved in the Minister's proposal?

Mr. MacEntee:

Can the Deputy produce a person who is driving a car of that sort?

General Mulcahy:

The Minister puts a proposal here before us, and part of the proposal is to take away certain advantages possessed by a person who is mentioned here in Section 6. I asked the Minister why he selects this particular moment for hitting that particular class of person, and how many such persons will be dealt with under the proposal that he has put before us to-day.

Mr. MacEntee:

If the Deputy wishes to put down an amendment dealing with that particular type of person he can do so when the Bill comes along.

General Mulcahy:

The Minister has complained of our discussing his financial resolutions in the way in which we have discussed them. Can the Minister tell us the answer to the question that is put to him now? He has come in here to make a definite proposal. He proposes to deal with three particular classes of vehicle. That is one of them; it is the first type mentioned in the Schedule. Can he tell us anything about it? If not, can he tell us anything about the rest of the vehicles mentioned in the Schedule?

Mr. Dillon:

The answer to the three questions is: "No, no, no." He cannot tell you anything about any of them.

Mr. MacEntee:

He does not desire to do so at this moment.

Mr. Dillon:

For the simple reason that he does not know.

Mr. MacEntee:

He knows more about it than the Deputy.

Mr. McGilligan:

Can the Minister give us an indication of the wastage in those cars? What was the biggest number they rose to?

Mr. MacEntee:

About 8,000.

Mr. McGilligan:

So since 1930 there is only 1,000 gone.

Mr. MacEntee:

That is about all.

Mr. Dillon:

The Minister will agree that if there is 1,000 wastage in the first three years the tendency will be for the wastage to accelerate later on?

Mr. MacEntee:

It would depend on the amount of usage given to the cars.

Mr. Dillon:

But the Minister knows in fact that the wastage will accelerate greatly, so we can give the whole 7,000 a five years' average life from to-day.

Mr. McGilligan:

That is very heavy; say three, unless they are preserving them as some sort of heirlooms.

Mr. Dillon:

And for that we are going to impose taxation on those 7,000 individuals, for no earthly reason except to collect a miserable little bit of revenue into the Minister's exchequer.

Mr. MacEntee:

The Deputy was at great pains to prove that this concession was entirely illogical, and, I think, that it should not have been given in the first instance. I do not propose to controvert the Deputy in that.

Mr. Dillon:

I do not follow the Minister. I was not in the House when it was done. The Minister was, and was clamouring that it should be done.

Mr. MacEntee:

I have asked the Deputy to refresh my recollection on the matter.

Mr. Dillon:

The Minister has performed so many somersaults that it must be extremely difficult for him to remember whether at any period he was standing on his head or on his heels.

Mr. MacEntee:

The Deputy attributed to me a statement which I did not make.

Mr. Dillon:

What was that? We do not mind the Minister for Finance. He gets a bit excited every now and again. The fact remains that he was clamouring for this concession. Having got it, he now tries to shove the baby to me, to defend what he clamoured for. Mind you, I think it could be defended; I think the Minister was on his feet four years ago and is on his head now. I can only hope that he will turn another somersault and land on his feet.

Mr. MacEntee:

The Deputy took twenty minutes to say the concession was illogical.

Mr. Dillon:

I am urging the Minister now to drop the Financial Resolution, and if he has any sense he will do so.

Mr. MacEntee:

I am being logical.

Question put.

The Committee divided: Tá, 68; Níl, 47.

Tá

• Aiken, Frank.
• Bartley, Gerald.
• Beegan, Patrick.
• Blaney, Neal.
• Boland, Gerald.
• Bourke, Daniel.
• Brady, Brian.
• Brady, Seán.
• Breathnach, Cormac.
• Breen, Daniel.
• Briscoe, Robert.
• Carty, Frank.
• Cleary, Mícheál.
• Concannon, Helena.
• Cooney, Eamonn.
• Corish, Richard.
• Corkery, Daniel.
• Crowley, Fred. Hugh.
• Crowley, Timothy.
• Davin, William.
• Derrig, Thomas.
• De Valera, Eamon.
• Doherty, Hugh.
• Donnelly, Eamon.
• Flinn, Hugo V.
• Flynn, John.
• Flynn, Stephen.
• Gibbons, Seán.
• Goulding, John.
• Hales, Thomas.
• Harris, Thomas.
• Hayes, Seán.
• Houlihan, Patrick.
• Keely, Séamus P.
• Kehoe, Patrick.
• Kelly, James Patrick.
• Kelly, Thomas.
• Kennedy, Michael Joseph.
• Kilroy, Michael.
• Kissane, Eamonn.
• Lemass, Seán F.
• Little, Patrick John.
• Lynch, James B.
• McEllistrim, Thomas.
• MacEntee, Seán.
• Maguire, Ben.
• Maguire, Conor Alexander.
• Moore, Séamus.
• Moylan, Seán.
• Murphy, Patrick Stephen.
• O Briain, Donnchadh.
• O'Doherty, Joseph.
• O'Dowd, Patrick.
• O'Grady, Seán.
• O Ceallaigh, Seán T.
• O'Reilly, Matthew.
• Pearse, Margaret Mary.
• Rice, Edward.
• Ruttledge, Patrick Joseph.
• Ryan, James.
• Ryan, Martin.
• Ryan, Robert.
• Sheridan, Michael.
• Smith, Patrick.
• Traynor, Oscar.
• Victory, James.
• Walsh, Richard.
• Ward, Francis C.

Níl.

• Beckett, James Walter.
• Bennett, George Cecil.
• Brennan, Michael.
• Broderick, William Joseph.
• Burke, James Michael.
• Burke, Patrick.
• Cosgrave, William T.
• Costello, John Aloysius.
• Curran, Richard.
• Daly, Patrick.
• Desmond, William.
• Dillon, James M.
• Dolan, James Nicholas.
• Doyle, Peadar S.
• Esmonde, Osmond Grattan.
• Fagan, Charles.
• Finlay, John.
• Fitzgerald, Desmond.
• Fitzgerald-Kenney, James.
• Good, John.
• Haslett, Alexander.
• Holohan, Richard.
• Keating, John.
• Lynch, Finian.
• MacDermot, Frank.
• McFadden, Michael Og.
• McGilligan, Patrick.
• McGovern, Patrick.
• McGuire, James Ivan.
• McMenamin, Daniel.
• Minch, Sydney B.
• Morrisroe, James.
• Mulcahy, Richard.
• Murphy, James Edward.
• Nally, Martin.
• O'Donovan, Timothy Joseph.
• O'Higgins, Thomas Francis.
• O'Mahony, The.
• O'Neill, Eamonn.
• O'Reilly, John Joseph.
• O'Sullivan, Gearóid.
• O'Sullivan, John Marcus.
• Rice, Vincent.
• Rogers, Patrick James.
• Rowlette, Robert James.
• Thrift, William Edward.
• Wall, Nicholas.

Tellers:—Tá: Deputies Little and Traynor: Níl: Deputies P.S. Doyle and Bennett.

Motion declared carried.