I wonder has the Minister considered whether he will make a statement on this proposal to put a tax of 5/- per cwt. on roofing slates. We have repeatedly pointed out to the Minister that there are a large number of items here which are imposing a very considerable burden on house building, thereby increasing the cost of house building and increasing rents. There was some sort of a suggestion last night that the development of slate quarrying in the country was going on satisfactorily and that therefore the amount of slates imported into the country fell last year considerably as compared with the year before, and fell the year before as compared with the previous year. That being so we want to know why this tax should now be put on? It is a tax that will inevitably increase the cost of the home-produced slates as well as increase the price of the imported slate.
Finance Bill, 1935—Committee Stage (Resumed).
I would like to ask the Minister whether this is a revenue tax or a protective tax?
I have already indicated that it is a revenue tax.
If it is a revenue tax I think it is a great pity to mix up revenue producing items with a whole lot of duties or tariffs for which the home manufacturer may be blamed. For instance, there are types of slates imported into this country that are not produced in any slate quarry here. I refer to ton slates and other special sizes and types. I have already pointed out to the Minister that this is another item which is putting up the cost of building. It is a customs item. I think the collection of this money bulks very large in comparison with the revenue that is to be derived from the tax. I would ask the Minister if he can see his way to do so, to do away with a number of these small taxes. They are only producing confusion. One bad result may be that Irish manufacturers may be blamed or may get the credit for the imposition of these taxes and the consequent raising of prices.
The Minister has just replied to Deputy Mulcahy that this is a revenue tax.
I beg the Deputy's pardon. I replied to Deputy Dockrell.
There are people to whom the Minister will not reply.
I replied to Deputy Dockrell because Deputy Dockrell made that pertinent remark. That is why I replied to him.
Some of the remarks are too pertinent for the Minister.
I am concerned only with the nature of the reply. I do not care to whom the reply was made. The Minister has conveyed the information to the House that this is a revenue tax. There is a complete change of attitude on this tax. I am sure it is immaterial to the Minister but I want to tell him that the Minister and his Government have gone down in my estimation when I find them prostituting the machinery they have at their disposal to help Irish industry. They are using that machinery to tax the people. Along with being a revenue tax this is a hypocritical tax. It is a tax that requires some investigation. I dare say the Minister's knowledge of industrial possibilities in this country is limited. I have it on an authority that I consider is one of the best in this country that from Nenagh to Killaloe and around that area, there are richer slate deposits than in Wales. The best English slate, "Westmoreland Green," is surpassed by Irish slates in the opinion of this technical expert to whom I am referring. I refer to slate which is found in large quantities down around Nenagh and Killaloe. This expert also said that the quarrying there is scamped, for the real good slate is left at the bottom. I know from first-hand information that it is impossible to get Irish slate. No man who is venturing on speculative building can afford to take the risk, even if he had the wish to do so, of roofing his house with slate, because he might be held up in the midst of the work through not being able to get Irish slate. I am speaking now with first-hand information. When I look at this new tax I am beginning to wonder whether the Government have some method in the madness. As in the case of coal, apparently the Government want to get in English slate on which they can collect a tax of £5 a ton. Under the circumstances is it any wonder that the slate deposits in this country are not being worked? What is more, I venture to say that the most of the output is exported. Glasgow has booked orders in Killaloe months ahead. Could any Dublin builder book an order for Killaloe slates? Will it not pay the Minister to export these over to Glasgow? If a person wants to import slates they will be let in, but the Minister for Finance will get £5 per ton on them. So that slates are left in the bottom and doles and free beef are going around.
The Minister and his colleague, the Minister for Local Government, in their generosity, are giving grants for the building of houses. By the time this Bill is in full working order far more than the grants of £50 or £60 now given out of the Exchequer for each new house built will be more than paid back through the operation of this Bill. Slates, copper tubing, sewer pipes, and surface drain pipes are taxed and there is 5/- on cement. The little bit of profit that builders were making out of ground rents was capitalised and almost one-fourth of that has to be paid down. When all those things are taken into account where is the margin of profit unless the price goes up? Of course, there is the inevitable remedy that building will stop. Not only that, but if a man buys a house the oil cloth that he puts on his floors is taxed. The fresh air that he gets in that new house in the suburbs of Dublin is about all that is left untaxed by the Minister. If the Minister is there next year he will have a good try to tax that. Of course, indirectly he is taxing it, because he is compelling unsuitable pipes to be used for drainage.
We must keep on the roof now.
I wanted to bring the Minister to earth and put him near the earth pipe and the tax he is getting out of that. An inferior article is being put in which will pollute the air and even the people.
Notice taken that 20 Deputies were not present. House counted and 20 Deputies being present,
We will be better able to get on now with all the experts in.
Do not drive us out again.
We will have a little discussion on Mayo slates. I am sure the men of the West will not be easily driven out when we are discussing such a subject. Unfortunately, these Mayo slates are small slates, but they are well able to compete with the imported small slates. If the Minister had shown a little intelligence he could inadvertently help an Irish industry. Just as in dealing with other matters he has used a unit that is not known in the trade. Anybody who asked a merchant for a ton of slates would be promptly told that they are not sold by the ton. The Minister did not deal in the units known to the trade; nor did he give us the percentage of the tariff that he proposes to impose. He simply puts down £5 per ton. Quite obviously the big slates will be better able to bear that tariff than the small ones. In the matter of small slates, the Irish industry, without any tariff, was more than able to hold its own, but in the big, good class slates it was not able to hold its own. Good class slates which are thin, consistent with quality and durability, will be able to bear this tariff. Of course, the question of tariffs does not matter now. It is a tax we want—tax, tax, and more tax. All these presents that we were given were by way of encouraging house-building. Now we are on the down-grade and pursuing a course to discourage house-building, and we shall easily succeed as everybody will see as soon as this Bill is in operation. There is no need to pursue the argument about it on industrial grounds as it is purely a revenue tax, as was admitted by the Minister. Does the Parliamentary Secretary suggest that it is not?
Go ahead.
I know where I am going. I would like to be bringing the Parliamentary Secretary into strange land.
Certainly not into that land.
He would be a bit far from his base if he came this way.
Let us keep to the slates.
All the criticism that may be offered on this is that once more a necessary article of building construction is being taxed for revenue purposes and nothing else. If that tax were put on for industrial purposes I would vote for it, but as it is put on for revenue purposes purely and, therefore, will make industrial protection stink in the nostrils of the ordinary man in the street, for the sake of industrial protection I will vote against a revenue tax on slates.
The truth apparently lies very deep down in the Minister for Finance. His silence during the last few days has perhaps kept it even further down. But he has coughed it up. We were led to believe, as far as my recollection goes, by the discussion which took place on slates yesterday that we were stifling the development of the slate industry here by opposing this tariff on slates. Now we are told that it is for the purpose of getting money. It just emphasises what is perfectly clear to everybody, that this Budget is introduced more in a spirit of gold-digging for the purpose of filling the coffers of the Ministry than for the purposes of assisting Irish industrial development in any way, or making the conditions in the country such that the people can better bear the enormous burden of taxation put upon them. It has been pointed out to me that there is a considerable amount of housebuilding going on and a considerable amount of money spent and that a considerable amount more remains to be done. Having regard to the amount of money spent on housing, taken in relation to the number of houses built, and the achievement in the past, the cost is rather unsatisfactory. The Minister for Local Government and Public Health feels it unsatisfactory, and he was driven, a month or two ago, to state more explicitly the facts in that regard. He was seeking to include in the number of new houses every case in which he gave a grant of £20, £25, or £30 to persons in a rural area who put new roofs on. The figures were being swelled in order to excuse, in some way, the enormous amount of money spent. On top of all that there is the proposal to take at least £30,000 out of the pockets of people in the country who have house property at the present time.
I would like to ask why the Ministry approaches the slate industry in this country in connection with the Budget in this particular kind of way. There has been expressed, in this House, and throughout the country, a general complaint that we are not able to get sufficient Irish slates to meet our present requirements. So far from turning their attention to seeing what could be done the better to assist in the organisation of the Irish slate industry, the Government ignored that altogether. They are content to scrape out of the pockets of people pursuing this very useful work, additional moneys. The Department of Industry and Commerce has a research council. Is it doing anything to assist those controlling the slate industry the better to direct and organise their work? It seems to me that it would be much better that they should do something like that than concerning themselves with trying to turn turf into silk stockings and whiskey.
We are concerned with slates here.
An attempt was made yesterday to persuade the House that this tax was for the purpose of assisting the slate industry. We now find it is not, but is for the purpose of getting money. We think that the tax resources of this country would be better able to bear their burdens if the Government would direct its attention to assisting those controlling industry to organise their business better, and to get slates perfectly suitable for house building where they are available.
That is a matter for the Minister for Industry and Commerce.
When work like that needs to be done it is simply scandalous that instead of doing it the Government should impose an additional burden on the industry. When we take into consideration the imported slates, goodness knows what it will add, and, also, when we take into consideration the rise that will take place in the price of Irish slates inside that tariff. It is a great crime, when the cost of housebuilding is so great as it is, and when houses are so badly wanted by the people, and when there is so little money to pay for them, that this additional burden should be imposed.
When this matter is being considered in regard to slates, we should bear in mind this fact: that the slate industry in this country is not asking for protection against the importation of slates from outside. There was a statement made in the last few months by the manager of a firm engaged in the production of slates, that they need not concern themselves whether any of their slates were put up on Irish houses, because they were not able to produce enough slates to meet the demands of the outside market. So far from any need of protection, the slate industry in this country, because of the high quality of the slates, were in a position not only to meet competition here but to secure a very valuable export market. The trouble is not outside competition. The trouble is that those engaged in the industry have not available the capital necessary for the full development of the slate industry. The gentleman who made that statement referred to the Killaloe Slate Quarry, which is the largest in this country, and he said recently that if he had the necessary capital to enable him to develop his slate resources along the proper lines, he could produce three times the number of slates he is turning out at present, and employ three times the number of men he has engaged at present.
This tax means only one thing. It means that, because of the failure of the Government to help the slate industry to be properly organised, so as to be able to meet the demands of the home and export market, those people who either purchased or rent houses in this country will be saddled with £30,000 or £40,000 extra in order to provide revenue for the Government. That seems to be absolutely inconsistent with the Government's policy of providing houses for the people and providing them at the cheapest possible rent. It must be remembered that the vast majority of the houses being built are to be occupied by the poorest people who have been brought out from the slums. The latest schemes are slum clearances schemes, and surely, so far from doing anything that would add to the rent of the people who have to be rehoused, everything should be done to make them cheaper still. Deputies in this House, who are members of local authorities, know perfectly well that those people who are brought from the slums and have to be put into new houses are, many of them, in receipt of unemployment relief or home assistance and have no weekly wages. In such cases an extra 6d. or even 2d. added to the rent is a very material consideration for these people.
But a very small number of these houses are roofed with slate.
The Deputy is wrong. There are 111 houses in my own town on the point of completion. Every one of them will be roofed with slate. We were enabled to roof them with slate because of the special plea which was made to the manager of the Killaloe slate quarry and because of the proximity of the town to the slate quarry. It was only by going to a certain amount of trouble and by up setting, to a certain extent, the orders which he had from across the water, he was able to oblige the council. I submit to the Deputy and to the House that if the slate industry was properly organised, every house in the country would be roofed with slate without in any way impairing the outside market. It seems to me that less can be said for this imposition than for any other tax in this Budget. I think the Government will find it almost impossible to make a case for it, because the industry is an industry which is able to stand on its own feet. It has not looked for protection and does not need it. All it needs is sufficient capital to organise itself to meet the home and the export markets and to employ three times the number of men employed to-day.
I put it to the Parliamentary Secretary that, as this is a purely revenue tax, it will have the effect of killing the use of slates. Deputy Moore has just said that the houses which are being roofed throughout the country are being roofed with tiles.
Fortunately.
Why? Because they will not get the grant if they do not use Irish roofing material, and if they want Irish slate they find that they cannot get it. Therefore, in order to get the grant, they are putting on inferior material. This is a tax of £5 per ton on slate for revenue purposes and it does not require a genius to see that that is going to discourage the use of slate. It is not helping Irish slate at home, because we cannot get it. If it were helping Irish slate and if the imported slate was displacing Irish slate, I could vote for the tax if it were £10 a ton. But it is not. It is for revenue, and the effect of it will be less use of slate which is imported —the only slate we can get—and the less imported slate you have, the less houses will be roofed with slate and the less revenue you will have. This tax is going to be a suicidal tax and nobody with common sense would vote for it.
Are we not going to hear the Parliamentary Secretary on this?
Would you like to?
On this occasion, yes.
If he knows anything about it.
Charmed. For some extraordinary reason, Deputy Belton has decided to speak ex cathedra on the subject of this tax. He does not agree with the other popes in the House on the matter, but he seems to be absolutely sure that the sole purpose of this tax is revenue.
That is right.
The Deputy says that is right.
Your boss, the Minister for Finance, said so before you came in.
He did not say it was for revenue. It is a mixed tax, like most of these taxes.
Like most taxes.
Like most taxes, yes. It is a mixed tax of protection and of revenue.
There is no protection.
The Deputy says there is no protection.
The Minister for Finance said there is none.
Not a bit of it and even if the Minister were to tell me that it had no protective effect, it would not have the slightest effect upon the facts, as I know them. It has a protective effect, both on Irish slates and Irish alternative roofing material and no amount of ex cathedra stuff from Deputy Belton will alter that fact. I would certainly like to see a great deal more development of Irish slates, and it has been my job to find money for a considerable number of development schemes in an attempt to get more slate, but the idea that everybody who can get Irish slate is prepared to use it, even on the quality which is specified in the contracts into which they have entered, is a wild illusion. I have one case within my knowledge of a school in respect of which a contract was entered into, and in respect of which Irish slates of particular size and so on from three quarries were specified. Everything that was humanly possible to be done by those who had made that contract to avoid carrying it out was done. At a critical moment, I was told that they could not get the slates and I went to the trouble of finding the slates for them as specified in the contract, and I told them where to get them, and then they would not use them. They put in another objection, and I again found another slate right in the very town in which they were building this school. They were told that “slate of such and such a quality as specified in your contract can be found in such a business place in your own town,” and the answer was that I was denounced with bell, book and candle for attempting to enforce the use of Irish slate which they had entered into a contract to use. That illustration should certainly put a slightly different complexion on the thing. Some day or other, I may tell the whole of this very extraordinary tale——
Tell it to us now.
No, I will tell it later. I am only introducing enough of it to show that there is no basis for this beautiful ex cathedra stuff we have been getting from Deputy Belton. The industry may require protection and to the extent to which this particular tax does give that protection, it is to the good, but not merely is it a protection of Irish slates, a protection which, as I tell you, they need to the extent of the legal enforcement of contracts to make people carry out their obligations——
The law will do that without any tariffs.
The Deputy may be taking the narrow line that tariffs as such are of no use whatever and that putting 5/- a cwt. is a purely irrelevant thing and does not matter. If the Deputy likes to contend that he can, but he cannot go on contending that while saying, at the same time, that if this was put on for the purpose of a tariff, he would vote for it if it were £10 a ton. He cannot have it both ways, and it does not matter a damn which way he takes it. This has been put on for revenue and for protection.
No, revenue only.
Ex cathedra. Pope Belton the first and the last.
Not the last while you are about.
He is the last pope, anyway. The Deputy is like the agriculturists who went into the zoo and saw a giraffe and said: "There ain't no such animal." He saw it, but it was not there because he said it was not there. There is no tariff quality in this particular tax because Pope Belton says there is not.
Deputy Belton.
That is like the Fianna Fáil farmer who says there is no war.
Or like the Deputy who wants to get away from this House to some other business which he invented to-day for the purpose of excusing himself from doing his job here. Deputy Mulcahy says that the progress of housing is unsatisfactory. I am taking this only as an example of the degree of strict relevancy which the Opposition desire to introduce. They want all the time possible to discuss this Bill and on a 5/- tariff on slates, they would like to discuss the whole building programme. A lot more building is going on than went on under Deputy Mulcahy and a lot better building; building better distributed, building which goes into the places in which it is more required and building more directed to the purpose of removing from the slums and from the one-roomed dwellings the people who are living in them.
All the more reason why you should not have this tax.
We shall take that now. The Deputy agrees with me. Well and good. That wipes out Deputy Mulcahy.
I say all the more reason why you should not have this tax.
All the more reason why we should not have any tax of any kind or description, a tax on anything we want developed.
This tax?
I am taking the second case.
You are out of order.
You want to choose your own ground.
Of course I am choosing my own ground, with the aid and assistance of the Deputies opposite. Whenever they speak on any subject they give me sufficient variety of range to choose any ground I like. If one comes in with Arabia the other will come in with South America. All I have got to do at any time is to read two or three speeches by the Opposition and I can deliver any speech I like on any subject I like.
Hear, hear!
I could not do that without the aid and assistance of the Opposition.
The Deputy has a speech for every occasion.
And a number of others.
I came in here to get from Deputy Mulcahy precisely the interruption which I answered. I have come into this House, having written down before I came in seven or eight particular interruptions which I expected to receive, and I have got every one of them—usually from the men whose names I have written behind them.
A Deputy
You are a fortune teller.
I am not a fortune teller but I have that sort of intelligence which enables me to know what I have to face. The next thing Deputy Mulcahy said was that £30,000 was going to be taken out of certain pockets by this tax. He cannot say that without saying that at the same time there is being created a £30,000 inducement for the trade to go into channels other than the channels which are represented by the importation of slates.
I said nothing about profits. I spoke about costs.
The Deputy said that £30,000 more was going to be taken out of the pockets——
Yes, the pockets.
That is exactly what I said before. The Deputy for once is right; he agrees with me. The Deputy said that £30,000 more is going to be taken out of the pockets of the people who are interested in house building by this tax on slates. That £30,000 can only be taken out of these pockets if the imported slates are used to that extent, and therefore the Deputy has said that a £30,000 inducement has been given to those who are engaged in building houses for the purpose of forcing them over to Irish slates or alternative Irish building materials.
They cannot get Irish slates.
Oh dear! I have given to the House a particular case where a man was building and where I found Irish slates for him and he said: "I will not take them." The fact remains that Deputy Mulcahy has given the Minister for Finance in this House to-day a certificate that an inducement to the extent of £30,000 a year is being provided under this tax, for the purpose of transferring the custom from English slates to Irish slates or alternative Irish roofing material.
We have heard extraordinary arguments brought forward in support of taxes but I think this is the first time that we heard the head of a Department bringing forward as an excuse for a tax of 5/- per cwt. on slates, that he is incompetent to enforce the law. He had a legal contract according to which Irish slates were to be used and, apparently, this extraordinary Department and this extraordinary Parliamentary Secretary could not enforce that legal contract because he had not an extra tax of 5/- per cwt. on slates. Assuming for the moment and purely for the purposes of the debate—I confess I am using it for no other purpose — that there were some difficulties as he suggested, it was an extraordinary argument to use. I enter into a contract with a certain school manager to utilise Irish slates and he does not do it. He is legally bound to do it, but I cannot enforce the contract, yet I can do it if you put 5/- of a tax on imported slates. That is the argument that has been used.
That is not the argument.
That is what he said.
It is not what he said.
Order!
I listened to the Parliamentary Secretary stating that this would enable him to enforce the contract.
That is nonsense.
It is nonsense. It is absolute nonsense, but we listened to him here deputising for the Minister and using that statement. I quite admit one thing about the business of this House—that when the Minister is in the House he devotes just so much attention to Culbertson that he knows as much of what occurs as when he is out of the House.
On a point of order; I was sitting nearer to Deputy Flinn than Deputy Professor O'Sullivan was and the inference which the Deputy takes from his remarks could not be read into them.
That is not a point of order.
I understand quite well that Deputy Corry mistakes himself for the moment as the Minister for Finance. I was not accusing Deputy Corry of studying Culbertson while the business of the House is in progress. I do not think for a moment that he could hope to get any enlightenment in finance from that particular volume. I know that Gevernment Deputies were let loose to-day. They were kept in leash all the week; they are now let loose. The Parliamentary Secretary told us about the manager of a particular school, if it existed at all, who complained of difficulty in getting Irish slates, but I gathered that it was not merely the manager of that school but builders of all kinds who experienced that difficulty. I have not the slightest doubt that if the head of any Government Department goes to a certain quarry and asks for slates he will get them. The owner of the quarry would be very foolish to refuse to give slates to the head of a Department when he puts that request up to him but to say that the ordinary person in the country, who is carrying out a building contract, can get them on demand is an entirely different matter. That is the situation.
We heard from various Deputies that the lack of development in the case of the biggest slate quarry in the country is not due to the lack of protection but is due to lack of capital. There is a sufficient demand for slates; I gathered from the various speakers we have heard in this House that there is plenty of demand for Irish slates, a greater demand than can be supplied at the moment. Therefore when we are asked to choose for the moment as between the statements of the Minister for Finance and those of his understudy as to the purpose of the tax, we shall take those of the Minister for Finance and regard this as a revenue tax. The Minister's deputy here to-day pretended that this was a protective tariff but in reality as we gathered from the Minister himself this tax is meant to be a purely revenue-raising tax. I put it to Deputies, is it anything extraordinary that this Government having gone into every nook and cranny in the House to get money should start at the roof and finish at the drains? In this particular schedule we have it that the Government are putting a tax on every bit of a house and on every house, so that when a man is sleeping he is sleeping under a roof that pays a tax. If that man has not a ceiling in his house, the first thing he sees in the morning are the slates, and he has to pay a tax on them. Again, there is the usual example of the Government alleging that its business is to promote a certain kind of activity—industry—in this case house-building. But in every part of this schedule we find plenty of evidence that its activity is in the opposite direction. How the putting up of the price of building material in various ways, slates in this particular case, is expected not to have an effect on the price of a house, and, ultimately on the production of houses, passes the imagination of the ordinary man. But, apparently, this is one of the methods by which the Minister for Finance thinks he can best help the policy of the Minister for Local Government and Public Health. This, we must take it, is a revenue tax. It was not from an ex cathedra pronouncement, as the ecclesiastically-inclined Parliamentary Secretary would seem to suggest, between popes—about his being excommunicated by bell, book and candle by a school manager and his ex cathedra statement—that we got the idea that this was a mere revenue tax from Deputy Belton. We got it from the tax itself, and from the statement of the man who is supposed to be responsible for this particular Bill.
Very definite attempts have been made by Deputy O'Sullivan to misrepresent what Deputy Flinn said. We have only to look at the manner in which he has twisted Deputy Flinn's statement on one item alone to see that. Deputy Flinn gave the case of a contractor, and Deputy O'Sullivan immediately changed him into a school manager. We know his reason for doing it.
It was not a contractor.
A contractor was referred to in the statement made by Deputy Flinn. Of course, we know Deputy O'Sullivan's reason for doing that.
Not at all.
That was followed up by a further statement. Deputy Flinn showed how this would be a protective tariff. He gave the example of the contractor who was bound to use Irish slates and who would not either get them or use them. The one thing to be learned from the arguments of the Opposition is this: that they are out to see that the Government's housing schemes will give as little employment as possible to the Irish people.
Bosh.
That is it. The Government are determined to see that if the people of this country are going to finance housing schemes, then those schemes are going to give all the employment possible here. They are going to see that Irish slates and Irish tiles will be used in the construction of houses and that all the employment possible is given to the Irish people. All the arguments of the Opposition are directed against that policy. Because we are endeavouring to protect those employed in the production of Irish slates and tiles, the Opposition are speaking against this proposal and arguing against it. If the 5/- tax brings in £30,000, as Deputy Mulcahy says it will, may I ask him this question: how much Irish money at 5/- per cwt. on slates is going to be paid for those slates if they are purchased from abroad? Our answer is that all that money should be kept here for the production of slates and tiles to roof houses for the Irish people.
This is a 50 per cent. tax.
It should be 100 per cent. During the ten years that he was in office Deputy Mulcahy did not build a house for the Irish people, and now he is endeavouring to get back on his old game again. The Deputy complains because the Irish people are going to get employment in producing slates and tiles for our housing schemes. He wants all that money to go to some other country for slates to roof our houses. We had enough of that game during the time Deputy Mulcahy was in office, and I am very glad that it is being put an end to now.
During the past few days the criticism directed against the Finance Bill has come mainly from these benches. Those on the Government side of the House did not intervene very often. I am glad to see that even at this late hour some of the Deputies opposite are showing a desire to intervene. They were careful to refrain from making any intervention when the provisions imposing taxes on the food of the people were being discussed. Perhaps they did not think it wise to intervene then. Now we have Deputy Corry, with the indiscretion of a bantam fighter challenging a heavyweight, intervening. I do not know whether this is a revenue tax or a protective tax, or whether it has a touch of both. The Minister for Finance says that it is a revenue tax. The Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance said that it was not—that it was mainly protective, but that there might be a touch of revenue about it. The Parliamentary Secretary tried to prove that it would help and protect some industry. He did not mention slates. I think he did refer to some subsidiary form of slate production. What strikes me about this particular tariff is that it is going to increase the price of building materials. It is well known that Irish slates cannot be got by many builders. That cannot be contradicted, and yet we have the principal manufacturer of Irish slates exporting slates. It is reasonable to suppose that his reason for doing that is that he is able to get a better price for his slates. He is hardly doing it for fun. It must also be assumed that when there is an export market for Irish slates they must be regarded as a better article than the slate produced in the country to which they are being exported. Another reason may be that by exporting Irish slates the manufacturer is attempting to force the Minister to give him a monopoly of the trade here such as manufacturers in other lines got before. It may not be necessary at all for certain manufacturers to export the goods they produce here, but as I have suggested their reason for doing so may be to endeavour to force the Minister to give them a monopoly so that they may be able to force up prices on the home market. That may be the reason here. I do not believe that we are at all near the day when we will be able to produce sufficient slates to meet the home demand. Therefore, this tariff is going to result in an increased price for slates. The Parliamentary Secretary said that our attitude was to prevent people using Irish materials. That is ridiculous. If people want to use the best materials, then they are entitled to get them and if Irish slates are the best they should be entitled to get them. If people cannot get Irish slates then they ought to be able to get the slate that, in their opinion, is the next best. When people want to get the best material to roof their houses, they ought to be entitled to get it. If they want to have their houses roofed with slates instead of some other material they ought to be able to get them. If people who initiate housing schemes believe that a slate roof is the best roof, surely they are entitled to have slates. There are people who believe that even a slate inferior to the best Irish slate is a better roof than some of the best substitute roofs which are being used. This tax is going to force people to use substitute roofing at, possibly, the price of slates. It is going to increase the cost of building to that extent. We may get an inferior roof at the price the slates would cost. This tariff will have the same effect as all other tariffs. There are cases in which a tariff does not fall on the consuming country. The people in these circumstances can get the goods elsewhere or substitute goods. But, in practically all cases, a tariff will have the effect of raising prices at home. I do not think that there is one tariff which we imposed——
On a point of order, we are not discussing the general policy of tariffs. We are discussing a particular item on which I take a certain line and I want to be consistent in the taking of that line.
The Deputy is correct in saying that there is only one item before the Committee.
This tariff, in my opinion and in the opinion of many others, will add to the cost of a certain building material, to wit, slates. If it has the effect of making the manufacturers retain at home what they at present export, it will mean that they will put the 5/- on the amount they keep at home. That might be all to the good, but we must realise that this tax is going to add to the cost of building. Whether that is wise or not, is another question. For my part, I think building costs are high enough.
It does not seem to me to be by any means clear how a tariff on an article in respect of which the supply does not equal the demand will raise the price of that article. Surely the opportunity for raising the price is already present, to a large extent. Deputy Belton says that Irish slates cannot be obtained. Several other Deputies said that the supply was not equal to the demand. Why, in these circumstances, should a tariff be required to enable the manufacturers to raise prices?
Is not the price raised on the imported article?
Surely if the demand is far greater than the supply, the oppor tunity to raise prices is already there.
Agreed.
A 5/- tariff is of no advantage to a firm in those circumstances.
Who said it was?
Therefore, the whole case about raising prices seems to be absurd. If it is not, then the case has not been put clearly. If I were in possession of an article for which there were people clamouring, I should be inclined to take full advantage of the clamour and raise the price. A tariff of 5/- per cwt. would not be of much importance to me. I think that the point about raising prices has not been proven. Another point arises. Deputies opposite profess a great desire to see the industries of the country developed. They admit that there are slate quarries in the country. They say that, under present conditions, the slate quarries are not being developed. Deputy Belton referred to the manner —I thought this was very inconsistent from the point of view of his argument—in which slate development was being scamped. There was, he said, no attempt to penetrate deeply into the quarry; development was merely superficial. If all that has happened and if the argument be correct, that capital fails to go where there is a demand for it, how can there be any objection to the Government trying some further stimulus? If this tariff gives a stimulus to proper slate development, I do not think that any Deputy interested in industry should regret it.
But it is a revenue tax.
A rose by any other name would smell as sweet. It ought to have some effect, at least, on the further development, which the Deputy says is required, of the slate quarries. Very few of the slate quarries are being efficiently worked.
If the Deputy said "fully worked," he might be nearer the point. He does not know much about the question.
I have that information on a much better authority than Deputy Morrissey.
I should be interested to hear that statement from the Minister.
There is a quarry in my own constituency awaiting exploitation and, in the present circumstances of the country, it is very desirable that whatever resources of that kind we have should be fully developed. Deputy Belton made a wonderful case for this tariff when he said that there were no better slates in the world than the slates obtainable here and when he said that development was being scamped—that there was no attempt at deep exploration of the quarries for the purpose of getting the best slates. In those circumstances, the further stimulus which this tariff will give should make it worth while.
We can now understand why the Minister for Finance has, for the last two days, been engaged in an attempt to prevent Deputy Corry and other members of his Party from speaking. Having listened to Deputy Corry, Deputy Moore and, to a lesser extent, to the Parliamentary Secretary, I have a good deal of sympathy with the Minister. I quite understand why he wanted to keep them silent. Deputy Corry got up in absolute and complete ignorance of the subject and blazed out with the statement that the Government were going to see that employment on housing would be given. A very profound statement, that! If Deputy Moore proved anything at all, it was that he was ignorant of the whole question.
That is the Deputy's idea.
Will the Deputy get this into his head—that the slate quarry owners have not asked for this tariff and do not want it; further, that the manager of the best slate quarry in this country, a man also interested in other slate quarries, has said, at full production at present, he is not able to meet export orders not to speak about the home market at all.
I said that.
The only pronouncement of the Deputy was that the Irish slate quarries were not being efficiently worked.
And I stick to that.
I happen to know a little about these quarries, because I live adjacent, and I know that they are being efficiently worked within the limits imposed on the owners.
That is not the opinion of people directly concerned.
Let the Deputy get this into his mind—that they do not require protection. Irish slates are able to get sufficient demand on the home and export markets on merit alone. I think it is an insult to those engaged in the Irish slate industry that a tax of 5/- must be imposed to help it. Is Deputy Moore aware that the City of Glasgow would take the whole of the present production of the Killaloe slate quarries?
For the next three years.
When the Deputy talks about £30,000 or about a 5/- tariff, let him get this into his mind —that there is only one way to help the Irish slate industry, and that is if the money was handed over for the further development of the quarries and to give additional employment. The manager of the Killaloe slate quarries appeared before the Commission on Prices recently, and stated that if he had sufficient capital he could produce three times as much slates and find demand for them. This is not a question of assisting a weak and a struggling industry. The position is, perhaps, unique, because we have an industry that cannot produce enough slates to meet the demand. I suggest that it is a reflection on the industry to say that the 5/- is being imposed to help it. Of course, it is not. No one knows that better than the Parliamentary Secretary, who talked around this question very glibly. He talked about everything except the question under discussion. He mentioned a contractor who was legally bound to put Irish slates on the roof of some building, and that he could not get him to do so. He said there was no method of getting that done, except by having a tax on slates.
I said nothing of the kind. I compelled the contractor to use Irish slates in spite of himself. I am going to continue doing that.
The Parliamentary Secretary could have done that if the 5/- tax was never mentioned. He will have the same power to-morrow.
No.
If Irish slates are specified in the contract, whatever may be the prejudice of the contractor, he must put Irish slates on the roof. Apart from this section, the law is there to compel him to do so. I say it is unfair to make use of the Irish slate industry on which to hang this tax. It is not required. The position is that the City of Glasgow alone could take the whole production of the Killaloe slate quarries, and they are the biggest quarries in this country.
Deputy Moore, and other speakers, want, apparently, to repair the damage that the Minister for Finance did, by his frank admission, perhaps in an unguarded moment, that this is purely a revenue tax. Deputy Moore asked me if the tariff would not help the production of Irish slates. My answer is, not in the least. The trouble is that we are not looking for a market but want to get Irish slates. If I was building a house to live in and wanted Irish slates and could not get them, I would have to import slates. Apart from the price, I would buy Irish slates. I cannot get them. Deputy Moore's argument is that we should not be allowed to get any slates if we could not get Irish slates. The Parliamentary Secretary was looking for an excuse, and he drew on his imagination about a contractor for a school and the trouble there was to get him to carry out the terms of the contract. Does anybody believe that the Parliamentary Secretary did that? Of course not. I am not a Parliamentary Secretary, but if I was in a position to give a contract, I would enforce it by going to a solicitor to have it carried out. That is what the Parliamentary Secretary would do if there was any substance in what he said. I will give another instance, where I was building 24 houses in two terraces. Before I started I decided to arrange about the slates. A traveller from one of the biggest firms in Dublin assured me that he could get Irish slates. I had trouble before about finishing houses with Killaloe slates, 16 by 8, and in the end, after searching Dublin, I had to buy job lots. I had to buy slates 22 by 10 and to pay a man to cut them back to 16 by 8 in order to finish the job. I was unable to get Killaloe slates 16 by 8. It was essential for the development of the place that the 24 houses should be slated. I told the traveller that I had got a "sickener" before and that I should have the slates on the ground before I started. He came next day and assured me that he could get small slates 11 by 7. I consulted the architect who said that the best thing to do was to lath and board the roofs. I went to the trouble of having that done but could not get small slates. The firm wrote and wired to the quarries and they could not get an answer. I will give the name of the firm to anyone who is curious to know it. Finally, I had to abandon Irish slates and to order Blue Bangor, which were delivered in an hour. When I asked if it would be safe to put Blue Bangor slates on boarded roofs, I was told that it would not, and that I would have either to take off the boards and laths or to put on felt. I had then to go to the expense of putting on felt for use with Blue Bangor slates. Deputies say that our opposition to this tariff is because we do not want to help Irish industry. Deputies are going to vote for this tax as a revenue tax. They are afraid and ashamed to admit that they are going to tax slates in order to produce revenue.
Bosh!
Let the House have some explanation of your attitude. You cannot give it. I repeat that if a tax of £10 a ton on slates would help Irish industry, I would support it. I will not support a tariff of ten farthings a ton to help production when we have not enough slates for our own development. The Minister said that this was revenue tax and he cannot get away from it. When the Minister went out the Parliamentary Secretary came in. Perhaps the Minister saw that he put his foot in it. Possibly, he may have suggested to the Parliamentary Secretary that he should take him out of the hole that he had got into. The Parliamentary Secretary failed miserably to do so. Now the back benchers want to support this tax on slates that we have not got. Deputy Moore said that the tax would help industry. If a tariff of £1,000 was put on imported slates it would not help, because there is a greater demand for Irish slates than can be supplied. It is for those responsible for the development of the country to help the Irish slate quarries. It will not be necessary to put a penny tax on slates if they can be produced in sufficient quantities here. It is not that help is wanted for Irish slates but to have them made available when required.
We have listened to the most peculiar and amazing arguments I ever heard. First, we had it stated that Glasgow was buying all the Irish slates. Evidently the charge is that the Killaloe people are so unpatriotic that they will not supply Irish builders, but would rather export the slates to Glasgow. If sufficient slates are not being produced, how is it that they are being exported? As the Parliamentary Secretary said, people here have either a bee in their bonnets, or they are not prepared to use Irish slates, unless they are made do so. Surely to goodness the Killaloe Slate Quarries are prepared to supply the Irish people with slates first before they export them. Apparently, the whole thing is that they must be exported, and then we have Deputy Morrissey trying to camouflage it by saying that the whole object of the people over there is to create all the unemployment they can. There is enough roofing material being made in this country to roof every house that is being built. If it would give employment to our own people, I would vote not alone for 50 per cent. but for 100 per cent. I would like to know how the Killaloe people are exporting to Glasgow and will not supply the Irish people with Irish slates and, on the other hand, why you are so anxious to import foreign slates here.
I wonder where the idea sprang up that this was a tariff. The Minister for Finance, in that remarkably long speech he contributed, said that it was a revenue tax. It is. The purpose of a tariff is quite clear, and that is to secure the home market for the slates, but it is quite obvious that there is a sufficient home market for the slates produced in this country. There is no necessity, therefore, for the tariff.
Why, then, are they being exported?
I always knew that it was unpatriotic to export cattle, according to the Deputies opposite, but now I understand it is unpatriotic to get even Scottish money, not to speak of English money, for Irish slates. The whole thing is absurd and ridiculous. We cannot get money for the goods we export, and, according to Deputy Corry, it is unpatriotic of the Killaloe Quarries to sell Irish produce outside the country. That is the latest Fianna Fáil doctrine or policy of self-containedness. Not merely are we to take nothing from other countries, but apparently we are not to export to other countries. We dare not sell abroad. We are unpatriotic if we do. This is purely a revenue tax and nothing else. I am not relying now on the Minister's own statement to that effect, but on the actual facts of the situation. This is not a case of protecting or securing the home market for Irish produce. That market is already secured and more than secured. There is a much greater demand for the Irish produce in this case than there is a supply. The difficulty is, not to find a market for the Irish slates in Ireland; the difficulty is to find Irish slates for the market that is in Ireland. To speak of protecting that market in this connection is simply a complete misconception of the whole purpose of protection. The idea of protection is that, when the home-produced goods are being driven out of the home market by foreign competition, you try to keep out the foreign article, but emphatically, that is not the case here.
That is all very interesting.
We have heard it so often.
At any rate, the Deputy who spoke last does not seem to be attending to the business of the House. He seems to be reading letters, instead of attending to it. We had then the extraordinary statement that there can be no increase in prices because there was a greater demand than supply in the home market. That was Deputy Moore's argument. Apparently, the 5/- a cwt. on slates, which amounts to 50 per cent. of an increase, is paid by nobody. It is just given away with the slates. Surely, it means an increase in price and in building costs. I suggest, however, that the whole debate has been most interesting in so far as it allowed us to see the extraordinarily muddled point of view of the people opposite on the question of finance, protection, tariffs and taxes. We cannot wonder at the state the country is in when such matters are in the control of a Party such as that. They speak of protection without knowing what it is for. When a mere revenue tax is imposed, they speak of it as a protective tariff. This tariff is not a protective tariff. It is nothing of the kind. It is a tariff purely and simply for revenue purposes.
If I were Pope!
Tá
- Aiken, Frank.
- Bartley, Gerald.
- Beegan, Patrick.
- Boland, Gerald.
- Boland, Patrick
- Bourke, Daniel.
- Breen, Daniel.
- Briscoe, Robert.
- Cleary, Mícheál.
- Concannon, Helena.
- Corbett, Edmond.
- Kehoe, Patrick.
- Kelly, James Patrick.
- Killilea, Mark.
- Lemass, Seán F.
- Little, Patrick John.
- MacEntee, Seán.
- Maguire, Conor Alexander.
- Moane, Edward.
- Moore, Séamus.
- Murphy, Patrick Stephen.
- O Briain, Donnchadh.
- Crowley, Timothy.
- Derrig, Thomas.
- De Valera, Eamon.
- Doherty, Hugh.
- Flinn, Hugo. V.
- Fogarty, Andrew.
- Goulding, John.
- Harris, Thomas.
- Hogan, Patrick (Clare).
- Houlihan, Patrick.
- Keely, Séamus P.
- O'Grady, Seán.
- O'Reilly, Matthew.
- Pearse, Margaret Mary.
- Rice, Edward.
- Ruttledge, Patrick Joseph.
- Ryan, James.
- Ryan, Martin.
- Ryan, Robert.
- Smith, Patrick
- Traynor, Oscar.
- Walsh, Richard.
Níl
- Belton, Patrick.
- Bennett, George Cecil.
- Burke, James Michael.
- Cosgrave, William T.
- Desmond, William.
- Doyle, Peadar S.
- Fitzgerald, Desmond.
- Keating, John.
- McFadden, Michael Og.
- McMenamin, Daniel.
- Morrissey, Daniel.
- Mulcahy, Richard.
- O'Leary, Daniel.
- O'Neill, Eamonn.
- O'Sullivan, Gearóid.
- O'Sullivan, John Marcus
- Redmond, Bridget Mary.
- Reidy, James.
- Rogers, Patrick James.
- Rowlette, Robert James.
- Wall, Nicholas.
I move amendment No. 42:—
In Part I, to delete reference No. 10, including relevant references in columns 2 and 3.
Under reference No. 10 the Minister proposes a tax of 9d. per cwt. on glazed pipes made wholly or mainly of clay or earthenware, and glazed connections, for pipes of any kind, made wholly or mainly of clay or earthenware. The Minister for Finance told us, when dealing with the Resolution on the Second Schedule on Report, that he knew those were not made here, but this was mainly a revenue-producing tax; there was just this aspect of it, that there were purposes for which glazed pipes were being used at the present time, and for which perhaps glazed pipes need not be used, and he proposed to some extent by this tax to force people to use unglazed pipes where at present they were using glazed ones. He said that this tax, however, was mainly imposed for revenue purposes. It is not easy to see how much this is going to impose, but it may impose anything between £8,000 and £10,000, another of the many burdens upon house building costs which the Minister is imposing under the various proposals in this Finance Bill. Again, the House has to consider whether it is going to stand for the elaborate policy that is being pursued in those regulations of raising every single halfpenny which the Minister can raise by means of import duties on materials which are absolute necessities in connection with the building of houses. There is a considerable amount of housebuilding going on here. A lot of it is more than necessary. There is a considerable amount more to be done, which is even more necessary still. The Parliamentary Secretary has drawn attention to the type of person for whom houses are being provided at the present time——
But not on this Bill.
——the type of person who is not able to pay anything like an economic rent for the houses that are being built, and who day by day is becoming less able to pay the rent that is being charged. This tax must inevitably force higher rents out of those people, or impose higher rates on the ratepayers who are subsidising the building of houses. The Minister for Finance is making his side of the question safe. He is taking back some of the money which he is pretending to spend on houses. Ultimately he is taking this money at the expense of the very poorest class of the community, who will have to pay increased rent.
Notice taken that 20 Deputies were not present. House counted and 20 Deputies being present,
I had just concluded the remarks which I desired to make.
I would like to draw attention to the fact that the Minister is imposing a tariff on a material the trade in connection with which he knows nothing of. As Deputy Briscoe probably is aware, nobody would go into a business house in Dublin and ask for a cwt. or a ton weight of glazed pipes, because he would be laughed at. It is not by weight that these things are dealt with; they are dealt with from the point of view of design and description—bore, glazed or unglazed. On a rough estimate, judging from the items proposed to be taxed by this Bill for revenue purposes, I would say a £700 or £800 house would be increased by £100. Of course, houses of different costings will be put up proportionately. I observe the antics of the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance. His little tricks will not deceive anybody and will not draw anybody. It is a very serious matter for people who have to live in this country, have all their interests in this country and have even their banking accounts in this country; it is a very important thing for them to consider where we are drifting.
It is a nice thing to have a bank account, no matter in what country.
When we have one it is time to protect it and not when we have merely a debit there. Perhaps some people have their debits here and their credits elsewhere. So far as I am aware, those articles specified in the Bill are not manufactured here. I would like to know if, when an attempt was made to make those here and to divert the attention of people to the use of substitutes, the architectural profession was consulted. Anyone who knows anything about drainage is aware that the best type of sewer is one with the smallest possible fall that will move. The glazed pipe was not an accident nor is it to be regarded as a superior pipe to do a neat job or anything like that. It was produced definitely to bring about this result, to keep a move on the load with the smallest possible fall. As Deputies can easily appreciate, the smallest fall that can be produced and that will be efficient, the better, and it lightens the cost because every sewer must have a fall from beginning to end or otherwise it must move into some depot where an elaborate and expensive pumping station has to be erected.
An attempt has been made to produce alternatives here in the form of concrete pipes. These concrete pipes, I understand, will require a greater fall and it is questionable if the efficiency will be as good. However, that is immaterial for the men out recklessly looking for money. I do not suggest that the Minister for Finance would do anything reckless, but there are people who, when they are hard up for money, break a bank and get it. I do not suggest the Minister does anything as reckless as that. But this differs from breaking a bank only in degree. The Minister taxes a commodity that is not made here and that is absolutely essential for the public health. It puts up the cost considerably and I have not seen any case made for it. It would be interesting if somebody could make a case for it now. If we have suitable clay here, and I believe we have, it ought to be exploited and the industry should be developed. That should be done by way of bounty until we see if the proper article can be produced.
This is a very serious thing for the sewerage systems that are being installed throughout the country now at a cost of hundreds of thousands of pounds. It is a serious point that we should be rushing out to experiment on those systems, using concrete pipes instead of the earthen pipes that have been used heretofore. All this work is being completed at a great cost with an article that is at present only in its experimental stage. It is a matter for very serious consideration. There are some members of the Corporation here and they are probably aware that the concrete pipe recommended to bring water from the proposed waterworks in the Upper Liffey to Belgarde Reservoir in Clondalkin is not manufactured in this country and the process, I understand, is unknown to engineering in this country except through books. How much more careful must we be when carrying out sewerage systems with concrete pipes that are only in their experimental stage? Four years ago you would not see one of them and now they are dumped everywhere.
We are taxing glazed pipes that have done the job efficiently up to now and we are not making any definite effort to produce pipes here as a substitute for the foreign glazed pipes. As to whether the concrete pipes are durable enough, I am not in a position to say. I am referring now to concrete pipes forming a main deep down under the ground. There is no question, however, that every architect in Ireland will tell you there is only one pipe that will give satisfaction and that is the glazed earthen pipe used for house connections to the main. This is the proposition, to tax that without making provision for Irish glazed pipes.
The Minister told us he knows a lot about pipes but that he was not going to tell us all he knew. I would like if the Minister would tell us if there are sewerage mains being put down in the country at the present time with unglazed pipes?
That query should be addressed in the form of a Parliamentary question to the Minister for Local Government and Public Health.
Is it not a matter of great public importance if sums of money are being spent either from the rates or from the Exchequer in the putting down of sewerage, and is it not important to know whether that is being put down with unglazed pipes? I do not believe for a moment that they are. I believe that the position is as the Minister has indicated—that he is scraping in all the revenue he can and that these taxes are for the purpose of providing revenue. This means taking money off the ratepayers every day of the week. The Government are doing so not only in the matters of household necessaries but in matters of their water schemes and sewerage schemes.
Tá
- Bartley, Gerald.
- Beegan, Patrick.
- Boland, Gerald.
- Boland, Patrick.
- Bourke, Daniel.
- Breen, Daniel.
- Briscoe, Robert.
- Cleary, Mícheál.
- Concannon, Helena.
- Corbett, Edmond.
- Crowley, Timothy.
- Derrig, Thomas.
- De Valera, Eamon.
- Doherty, Hugh.
- Flinn, Hugo, V.
- Fogarty, Andrew.
- O Briain, Donnchadh.
- O'Grady, Seán.
- O'Reilly, Matthew.
- Pearse, Margaret Mary.
- Rice, Edward.
- Ruttledge, Patrick Joseph.
- Goulding, John.
- Harris, Thomas.
- Hogan, Patrick (Clare).
- Keely, Séamus P.
- Kehoe, Patrick.
- Kelly, James Patrick.
- Killilea, Mark.
- Lemass, Seán F.
- Little, Patrick John.
- MacEntee, Seán.
- Maguire, Conor Alexander.
- Moane, Edward.
- Moore, Séamus.
- Moylan, Seán.
- Murphy, Patrick Stephen.
- Norton, William.
- Ryan, James.
- Ryan, Martin.
- Ryan, Robert.
- Smith, Patrick.
- Traynor, Oscar.
- Walsh, Richard.
Níl
- Belton, Patrick.
- Bennett, George Cecil.
- Bourke, Séamus.
- Burke, James Michael.
- Burke, Patrick.
- Byrne, Alfred.
- Cosgrave, William T
- Costello, John Aloysius.
- Desmond, William.
- Doyle, Peadar S.
- Fitzgerald, Desmond.
- McFadden, Michael Og.
- McGilligan, Patrick.
- McMenamin, Daniel.
- Morrissey, Daniel.
- Mulcahy, Richard.
- O'Leary, Daniel.
- O'Neill, Eamonn.
- O'Sullivan, Gearóid.
- O'Sullivan, John Marcus.
- Redmond, Bridget Mary.
- Reidy, James.
- Rogers, Patrick James.
- Wall, Nicholas.
I move amendment No. 43:—
In Part II to delete reference No. 13 including relevant references in columns 2 and 3.
Another few halfpence have been collected here in increased rents because we are dealing with another imposition on housing. Reference No. 13 imposes a tariff of 10 per cent. on glass of all kinds imported in sheets or strips whether flat or bent or otherwise shaped. The Minister for Finance—he has subsided again into silence—told us when dealing with the Report Stage of the Resolutions embodying the taxes in this Schedule that the imposition of the duty in this Bill is due entirely to revenue considerations. But the Minister has not told us how much he expects to raise the general rents in the country by the imposition of these taxes. I suggest it will be anything from £7,000 to £10,000. The Minister has sat silent while tax after tax has been imposed which increased the cost of house building at a time when both rates and the ordinary revenue are being utilised in a big housing campaign to house the poorer sections of the people. Here again he dips further into the pockets of the ratepayers, who are contributing substantial amounts towards this housing campaign, to help to keep going the miserable and disastrous war policy that is being kept going at present. We have the people becoming less and less able to bear the burden of rents and taxes being saddled with this tax this year with every prospect of its being continued.
We are gradually coming nearer to the end of the litany of the Minister's folly. It is strange how silent an important member of the Dublin Corporation, who sits behind the Minister, is on this important matter. It is putting up the cost of building construction in the aggregate by from 10 to 20 per cent. Whatever opinion I had of the Minister, I never thought he was so reckless. It shows the desperate straits to which he must be reduced when he proposes to tax the light. He has taxed the air, I might say, by making us use inferior sewer pipes, inasmuch as the good air will be polluted by bad drainage. Now he is going to tax the light. It is extraordinary how the Minister thinks he can get away with such reckless taxation. When he, of all men in this country, knows the financial condition with regard to housing, he is putting another load on it. The Minister heard of the Dublin Corporation's housing programme which, as Deputy Briscoe is aware, was enunciated one night in this way: "Why stop at 1,000, why stop at 2,000; why not 10,000 houses per year?" That was before the Deputy and his senior, the Minister for Local Government, thought of supporting a tax on light. The Minister for Finance knows as well as anybody how he has put up the costs by these taxes. He knows what the general public does not know, that all this talk about 5,000 or 10,000 houses per year to be built by the Dublin Corporation has now ended in smoke. I would rather I had not to say this, but it is time that the public should know that there is not a bob now for any new houses, and the Minister knows it.
We must keep to glass.
We cannot have houses without glass. I want to relate it in this way. The position is as I have stated and is known to the Minister, because there has been a request from the Dublin Corporation to receive a deputation as to how we will get money to go on.
The Deputy must not continue on that line.
In face of these circumstances, with no money to go on with, the Minister says: "Building will cost more; I will tax roofing material, drainage material, and cement that is used in the construction of houses."
A Deputy
And putty and copper tubing.
Yes, everything used in the construction of houses. Judging by the way things are going, there will soon be nothing to tax, because the building trade will just sit down. I do not see many of the Government Deputies from the City of Dublin here. We should remember that 2,000 people are earning their living on the Dublin Corporation housing schemes, and there is nothing staring them in the face except the sack in a couple of months. Another 1,000 people are working on housing schemes which are being carried out by private speculators, and they are dribbling out gradually. The Minister knows that, apart from this taxation, they would dribble out because of financial stringency. There is no money to purchase houses. The sources are being dried up.
The relevancy of this is rather obscure to me.
That is because glass is being taxed.
I relate it in this way. We produce articles for sale in a market where there is money. If there is no money in that market and the cost of production is increased we very soon come to the end of our tether. There is no money in the house market now and the Minister knows it. A lot of people are employed in the building trade in Dublin—more than are employed in any other one trade in Dublin. The market for the houses is dwindling because of money stringency, and the cost of constructing houses is going up because of the Minister for Finance poking his nose into that dying trade in order to get revenue out of it. This is nearly the last word in absurdity —to tax glass. Then, of course, he is going to tax the tumbler after that and the glass jug.
A Deputy
And the mugs.
He has all the mugs taxed already. The mug may turn out to be a jug the next time the Minister comes to drink out of it. The proposal on the face of it carries with it its own condemnation, and I do not think it is necessary to add any more except to say that I shall gladly vote against it.
I have often expressed the view, in the course of these discussions, that if the Minister would indulge, as from time to time, in blocks of the Finance Bill, and tell us what was the motive that induced him to bring forward these items for discussion it would save time. We have dealt with most of the big taxes of the savage type upon the articles and necessaries of life that always have, and always will bring in, without any doubt, a certain yield of taxation. Whether they will continue to so yield is a matter for speculation. Apart from these, it is not surprising that the Government should find that they are coming to the end of their resources. But it is surprising that the Minister should scatter through his Budget a series of taxes that will prevent the only industry found here as elsewhere in which the Government can properly intervene, where private enterprise has failed, namely of housing making progress. Governments are endeavouring everywhere in the serious state of unemployment, due mainly to economic barriers and national frontiers, to enter into the project of house building from which private enterprise has just marched out. Private enterprise did not so much march out as that it was thrown out because in the war period people were taken off the building of houses and put on to munitions work. Then there was a dearth of houses; rents had to be raised and Governments had to come to the rescue of those suffering from the rent raising. Private enterprise not being able to assist, Governments in various countries in the world, decided to take a hand. Economists noted this fact that in the building industry private enterprise had handed over the work to the State. In that enterprise the State has worked and successfully worked in most countries. It is the only enterprise in which the State has worked even with a degree of success, in this country.
I need not go into the figures, but the position is, according to the Minister for Industry and Commerce, that out of 21,000 persons employed in May, 1934, it is clear that the house building industry has found employment for 15,000 out of the 17,000 that got new employment in three years. That particular enterprise has been placed beside road-making, one in which State intervention has been attended with success. It should therefore be the duty of the Government, agitated about unemployment, to see that that particular branch of employment would not be blocked or impeded in any way. Yet it is impeded in this Budget. Everything in connection with house building is picked out for taxation. It does seem as if Deputy Corry's philosophy is permeating the whole of the Government financial problem. If you are in a bad way and your main sources are dried up you must go to what the people must of necessity get in order to get assistance. Then you have the other surprise, that the State that wants to give certain subsidies towards house building, with one hand, are collecting with the other hand, and abstracting through taxation, a certain amount of the grant they are giving. This tax can clearly be regarded as one of the impediments to house building. Again I say that point is clear. If you put a big weight of taxation on a particular industry the yield in the long run is bound to disappear. It gives a red light, a sure indication and pointer towards danger. The Minister believes that by abstracting 1d. here and 3d. and 6d. in another place he will be able to hide his failure. But he must realise that the accumulation of the pennies and the threepences put on at one end on particular items are likely to have a pronounced effect in the long run. I do not think the Minister has any other method of relieving unemployment in this country or any method of finding alternative employment for the 15,000 persons out of the 17,000 that the Government has been able to find occupations for in the building trade in the last three years.
The result of this taxation will be that the building industry will display a downward tendency like everything else; it is somewhat peculiar and I think requires an answer. We have a method here where the very lowest level—articles that most communities regard as sacred—are taxed to the fullest. Foodstuffs, necessaries, and things which sustain life are all taxed. Now we get to the shelter for the people which is only one step up and these are taxed. People may live in the open if they get enough food. Even the story books talk of people landed on desert islands and tell us that those people know that if they are able to find food they will be able to do some rough job of housing. We have got to this second step by attaching taxes to what, according to the idea of Deputy Corry, the people must have. The accumulation of these taxes on glass, on pipes, on slates and the rest of it represents the Minister's most facile way of getting himself the amount of money he wants for the coming year. The accumulation of these taxes will have a fatal result and much earlier than he thinks.
Apart from all that, I should think that glass as a subject for taxation would be the last thing that the Minister would tackle. I thought it would be recognised as a national monument. I think it was behind a wall of glass that President de Valera sat when he wanted to do nothing. He wanted to display himself as a man who saw clearly but could do nothing. Is that the position that the Minister for Finance wishes to take up? Glass dulls sound as well as prevents action.
There is a further point. We are going to tax this glass whether in sheets or strips or whether bent or otherwise shaped. Is this clearly for revenue also? A more promising Minister at one time wanted to tax flat sheets of corrugated iron, and announced that he was going to get employment for people in bending this material. I do not know whether the Minister for Finance is going to engage people in bending glass and putting it into shapes other than those in which it was brought in. The Minister has not at all told us what his object is. The calculation is made that about £7,000 will be the yield of this tax. A small mining concession, if the State handled it properly, would bring in at least as much. Indeed, if it was properly handled it might bring in three times that amount. Perhaps the Minister is going to put forward an idea of properly handling this matter. We have got the idea that by abstracting pennies in the form of taxation from breadstuffs, butter, tea, sugar and everything else the multiplication of these pennies will get the Government that promised everything out of its difficulties. And now we have come down to this, that we have to try to stop the rot from going on for another year in order to prevent a spectacular collapse.
There is one point I want to bring out very briefly. It is regarded as one of the signs of a progressive Government that they look after the housing conditions of the poor, and it has been the aim of all Governments in recent times to provide better housing accommodation for the poor. This tax is a retrograde tax. It brings the position back to the position that existed over a century ago when there was a tax on windows. It was regarded as a sign of progressive times when that tax was removed. We are now going to put a tax on windows and thereby reduce the entrances of the light and the air into houses, by means of that tax, so that we are going back, or endeavouring to go back, or leading the way, by this tax to the position that existed some century, or so, ago. It may be that there is another reason for this tax. The Opposition Party have certain premises in this city, and elsewhere, and it is the habit of some of their opponents, supporters of the Government, to throw bricks at these windows as they pass by. We have to buy glass to replace them and we will increase the revenue of the State by that means. That may be the real reason for this tax.
It will cost us £1 a year in North City.
Tá
- Aiken, Frank.
- Bartley, Gerald.
- Beegan, Patrick.
- Boland, Gerald.
- Boland, Patrick.
- Bourke, Daniel.
- Breen, Daniel.
- Donnelly, Eamon.
- Flinn, Hugo. V.
- Fogarty, Andrew.
- Goulding, John.
- Harris, Thomas
- Keely, Séamus P.
- Kehoe, Patrick.
- Kelly, James Patrick.
- Killilea, Mark.
- Lemass, Seán F.
- Little, Patrick John.
- MacEntee, Seán.
- Maguire, Conor Alexander.
- Moane, Edward.
- Moore, Séamus.
- Moylan, Seán.
- Cleary, Mícheál.
- Concannon, Helena.
- Corbett, Edmond.
- Daly, Denis.
- Derrig, Thomas.
- De Valera, Eamon.
- Doherty, Hugh.
- Murphy, Patrick Stephen.
- O Briain, Donnchadh.
- O'Dowd, Patrick.
- O'Grady, Seán.
- O'Reilly, Matthew.
- Pattison, James P.
- Pearse, Margaret Mary.
- Rice, Edward
- Ruttledge, Patrick Joseph.
- Ryan, James.
- Ryan, Martin.
- Ryan, Robert.
- Sheridan, Michael.
- Smith, Patrick.
- Traynor, Oscar.
- Walsh, Richard.
Níl
- Belton, Patrick.
- Bennett, George Cecil.
- Bourke, Séamus.
- Burke, James Michael.
- Burke, Patrick.
- Byrne, Alfred.
- Cosgrave, William T.
- Costello, John Aloysius.
- Desmond, William.
- Doyle, Peadar S.
- Fitzgerald, Desmond
- Keating, John.
- Lynch, Finian.
- McFadden, Michael Og.
- McGilligan, Patrick.
- McMenamin, Daniel.
- Morrissey, Daniel.
- Mulcahy, Richard.
- O'Leary, Daniel.
- O'Neill, Eamonn.
- O'Sullivan, Gearóid.
- O'Sullivan, John Marcus.
- Redmond, Bridget Mary.
- Reidy, James.
- Rogers, Patrick James.
- Wall, Nicholas.
I move amendment No. 44:—
In Part II to delete reference No. 14, including relevant references in columns 2 and 3.
We have seen quite a string of cases in which the Minister proposes to tax nearly everything he could think of which goes into the make-up of houses for the working class. We have seen a string of things, upon which he imposes a tax, which the working man will have to get when he goes into a new home. If the resident in a tenement area in Dublin, about whom the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance spoke so feelingly a short time ago, is transferred to a new Corporation house, and, if reviewing the family chattels, the woman of the house finds that she requires a little bit of new linoleum or a little bit of oilcloth, she will, when she goes to purchase them, find that the Minister for Finance has levied a tax on them. Now, if she wants a few glass runners or a few glass vases, the tax gatherer meets her at the door and says: "You cannot go in here; you cannot make your home the kind of place you think it should be, from the point of view of equipment or furnishing, without paying every tax that has been imposed in the Finance Bill this year. I must get my hand into your pocket again before you can buy a couple of new runners to put on your tables." This is the proposal that is made in this reference under which the Minister proposes to put a tax of 10 per cent. on
"glassware not otherwise liable to duty and not containing any goods at importation which, in the opinion of the Revenue Commissioners, is suitable for domestic or household use or ornament."
The house cannot have that little bit of new equipment that the woman of the house requires if she wishes to make the new home the home of her desires, without the Minister's agents waiting at her door to pilfer her pockets of a few pounds or a few shillings.
The Minister still continues his weary way. There are still a few more steps to take. He has now got from the roof through the drainage, and through the windows, to the linoleum and the oilcloth, and he has arrived at the few little articles of glass furniture. The Minister must know how all these enter into the housekeeper's budget if he has a little experience. I shall try to give him some idea of how people in need of houses are circumstanced. A few years ago, the Dublin Corporation had about 500 houses completed for house purchase. Advertisements were inserted in the papers for applicants and there were somewhere about 12,000 applicants. There was some trouble about paying the rents, or the instalments on the house-purchase schemes, and calculations were made which showed that to liquidate the loss to the corporation it would be necessary to clear out those who were not paying and then order a flat rate for new tenement purchasers of £45 per house. The applicants then amounted to 3,000 or 4,000. That was a rough census of people who wanted houses and who were in a financial position to take houses. From experience, we know that there are some thousands of people in and around the city who can afford to put about £100 cash down; but in every case, when you come to close quarters with them, they say: "Well we do not want to get a house and keep it as an empty house. When we go into a new house we want to get some new articles of furniture." One would have thought that these people must have gone round, whispered into the ear of the Minister, and that the Minister must have taken note of their remarks. Of course, he preserved that stoical silence he preserves here. He did not tell them what he was doing it for, but he selected these things to tax. He is now taxing the tumblers and a few odds and ends of ornaments, thus increasing the tenant's outlay by 10 or 20 per cent. It is extraordinary that, when a matter of importance like this is being discussed—the taxation of the household requirements of the people— there is not a solitary Labour Deputy present. With the present trend of things, no power on earth can prevent 2,000 or 3,000 building operatives being thrown out of work in the City of Dublin in the next two or three months. The Minister goes on his weary way taxing building materials from top to bottom of the house, taxing the bit of oilcloth——
We are now dealing with domestic glassware.
He is now taxing glassware. That is as far as we have got yet. Of course the next step will be the wallpaper whether or not it is designed. I think the best comment I can make here is just to stop and let all these things sink in. I hope they will sink in to the vacant Labour Benches.
I would like if, for once, the Minister would break silence and let us know if he is going to appoint an æsthetic adviser to the Revenue Commissioners. It appears to me that will be necessary if he is going to enforce this tax. The Minister is putting a tax on glassware "which is suitable for domestic or household use or ornament." I want to know who is to decide whether the glassware is an ornament or whether it is not. Suppose, for instance, a certain bit of glass comes from Venice, the great glass-blowing centre to-day. So far as I know, no rival is going to be set up to it here. Who is going to decide whether that bit of Venetian glass is ornamental or ugly? Who is going to be the adviser to the Revenue Commissioners in order to decide whether a thing is pretty enough to carry a 10 per cent. tax or ugly enough to be exempt from all duty? That seems to me to be a rather heavy burden to put on the Revenue Commissioners. The Minister, no doubt, considers himself extraordinarily æsthetic. Of course, we all know that he cultivated the mount of Pegasus in the days of his youth, and I suppose he is pursuing the other arts in his more mature years. Will he inform us if he himself is going to give assistance to the Revenue Commissioners, and is to be the infallible judge as to whether a thing is ugly or beautiful. If it is ugly it will be exempt from duty, but if it is beautiful a 10 per cent. tax goes on.
I understand that there is rather the view at the present moment that artistic beauty should be considered in this country; that we do not consider quite sufficiently, or value highly enough, artistic effort and artistic output, but if we are going to tax what is beautiful and let in what is ugly that surely is suggesting that the Minister for Finance will be putting a premium on ugliness and undoing all the work which the æsthetic members of the community are endeavouring to carry out. There seems to me to be another difficulty. This speaks of glass suitable for domestic use or ornament. We discover a little later in the Schedule that amongst the things that are not considered to be of domestic use are glass bottles. No one in an ordinary household is to be allowed to have for domestic purposes any glass bottle, because these come in under reference No. 17. I am very anxious to know what is meant by "domestic or household use or ornament." A rather necessary thing in a household, one would imagine, is a cruet stand which contains bottles. Is not that to be regarded of domestic use?
I am in disagreement with two things that have been said by Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney. He reads this reference number as calling for some aesthetic judgement on the part of the Revenue Commissioners. I do not agree. The Deputy founded his phrase on the definition: glassware suitable for domestic or household use to which is attached a bit of an ornament. I understand that such things as gargoyles, not remarkable for beauty, are considered to be ornamental, and here we find one of these ornaments on the front bench. Someone spoke of the Minister's stoic silence, but anyone who has read a little history or philosophy must know that the stoics were a rather brave type of people. This is cowardly silence from a man who cannot defend anything. Neither can he get any of his back-benchers to defend this, and so we have these orphan taxes running through. No one in the House will give them their benediction or stand for them.
Would it make any difference if we did?
There has not been a particle of argument for them. The point is that the Deputy cannot speak in this House. The Minister spoke once to-day, and three other members of the House had to come to his assistance because he said the wrong thing.
A vote is more substantial.
And any blockhead can vote. Why glassware, whether ornamental or suitable for domestic use, should be taxed in preference to something else requires some explanation. One would like to hear why these things have been chosen. I thought Deputy Smith was going to break silence again. I am sure he has heard of the heroic type of sentimental novel where the hero and the heroine get lost in the great wide spaces. Nearly all around is silence, and after a bit they think that they alone are alive in a world that is otherwise dead.
And there is one man on the ice floe.
The Minister says that I am the one man on the ice floe. He would not sit so quietly on the ice floe. It might be too uncomfortable. Has the Minister any reasons he can give for these taxes? Why, as Deputy Belton has asked, has he decided to batter in on the whole scheme of house construction? This hits not merely the people engaged in moving into new houses who have to consider such things as the replacement of ordinary domestic ware. It hits particularly the people who are house-hunting, those who are going to set up house for the first time. It is going to eat in on the little, in the way of resources that the activities of the tax-gatherer have left them to spend on equipment. To come back to the definition, it is simply another way of saying that whatever articles the Revenue Commissioners decide to be glass are to be taxed. The phrase used is very comprehensive — any glassware which is not otherwise liable to duty. If otherwise liable to duty, the Revenue Commissioners will have to bring their judgment to bear on it. Something that is a little bit transparent and that anyone recognises as glass will be subject to duty. Something that the Revenue Commissioners will pass as glass, something that one can see directly through, will be subject to this tax. As long as there is some idea of transparency or some possibility of opacity the thing will be classed as glass.
Then clearly it is brass.
The brass Minister is absent, but we have got the dumb one instead to-day. Surely there should be some consideration before piling up this ten per cent. tax on all these items. No doubt, as far as ordinary commodities are concerned, the Budget is a pickpocket Budget, but one would have thought that the Minister would not have been so vigilant in scrounging around small households to see what he could get his hands on. No doubt this Budget was largely inspired by back benchers on the Government side. In preparing his Budget the Minister must have relied very much on them. It is not the Budget of a man living in a middle class way in Dublin. It seems to be inspired rather by someone who knows the interior of the ordinary two-roomed house. Someone who had got a fairly good picture of everything in it, of everything used on the walls and floors, in the rooms and on the dresser in the kitchen. The Corry mind is distinctly evident here again. There is this very comprehensive view: "We will take in everything." Remember, there is no idea of protection in respect of this item. In the speech to which Deputy Mulcahy referred, made here on the 23rd May of this year, we were told that these were revenue tariffs. The idea is that we must get in these pennies, twopences and threepences which we are to pay back to certain people in a certain way, and then we are to describe ourselves as brave fellows, tender-hearted people, for giving these benefits to certain folk. There is an O. Henry story, to which I referred before, of a man who was refused admission to heaven. He saw other people passing. One other person was held up and he excused himself, saying he only took the pennies out of a blind man's tin. He got in as against the other man who had been held up. If the Minister for Finance and the man who took the pennies out of the blind man's tin were running neck for neck for heaven, I believe the fellow who took the pennies out of the blind man's tin would get in.
I move the adjournment of the House for lack of a quorum.
I cannot take that Motion.
The Deputy should look up the Standing Orders.
Tá
- Aiken, Frank.
- Bartley, Gerald.
- Beegan, Patrick.
- Boland, Gerald.
- Boland, Patrick.
- Bourke, Daniel.
- Breen, Daniel.
- Cleary, Micheál.
- Concannon, Helena.
- Corbett, Edmond.
- Crowley, Timothy.
- Kehoe, Patrick.
- Kelly, James Patrick.
- Killilea, Mark.
- Lemass, Seán F.
- Little, Patrick John.
- MacEntee, Seán.
- Maguire, Conor Alexander.
- Moane, Edward.
- Moore, Séamus.
- Moylan, Seán.
- Murphy, Patrick Stephen.
- O Briain, Donnchadh.
- O'Dowd, Fatrick.
- Daly, Denis.
- Derrig, Thomas.
- De Valera, Eamon.
- Doherty, Hugh.
- Donnelly, Eamon.
- Flinn, Hugo. V.
- Fogarty, Andrew.
- Goulding, John.
- Harris, Thomas.
- Houlihan, Patrick.
- Keely, Séamus P.
- O'Grady, Seán.
- O'Reilly, Matthew.
- Pattison, James P.
- Pearse, Margaret Mary
- Ruttledge, Patrick Joseph.
- Ryan, James.
- Ryan, Martin
- Ryan, Robert.
- Sheridan, Michael.
- Smith, Patrick.
- Traynor, Oscar.
- Walsh, Richard.
Níl
- Belton, Patrick.
- Bennett, George Cecil.
- Burke, James Michael.
- Burke, Patrick.
- Byrne, Alfred.
- Cosgrave, William T.
- Costello, John Aloysius.
- Desmond, William.
- Dockrell, Henry Morgan.
- Doyle, Peadar S.
- Fitzgerald, Desmond.
- Fitzgerald-Kenney, James.
- Keating, John.
- Lynch, Finian.
- McFadden, Michael Og.
- McGilligan, Patrick.
- McMenamin, Daniel.
- Morrissey, Daniel.
- Mulcahy, Richard.
- O'Leary, Daniel.
- O'Neill, Eamonn.
- O'Sullivan, John Marcus.
- Redmond, Bridget Mary.
- Reidy, James.
- Rice, Vincent.
- Rogers, Fatrick James.
- Wall, Nicholas.
I move amendment No. 45:—
In Part II, to delete reference No. 15, including relevant references in columns 2 and 3.
The Minister proposes to impose a 50 per cent. tax on paper, without any matter or design printed thereon. To go no further than the paper used by newspapers, this tax is going to impose a very heavy burden upon them. How much does the Minister for Finance expect to get out of this tax? Does he understand that it can have no other result than the reorganisation of overhead expenses by newspapers and the creation of a considerable amount of unemployment? Has the Minister examined the position with regard to any of the big daily newspapers or any of the weekly newspapers? Has he examined the position as far as the daily newspapers are concerned and what the effect of this tax will be? Does he not understand that it will inevitably bring about a reduction of overhead costs, by way of a reduction in employment? The Government and the rank and file of the Fianna Fáil Party have been attacking newspapers for a long time. In some parts, resolutions have been passed calling for the suppression of some of the local Press. Repeatedly, Ministerial statements and the Government organ have indicated that, but for the anti-national nature of all the daily Press in this country, except the Government organ, there would be an end to the economic war.
That has no relation to a tax on paper.
When the Ministry set out to impose a tax of this particular kind, they declared that it was a revenue tax. There are certain attacks on the newspapers. This is a financial attack. It follows a long drawn-out period—I do not know what it would be called—of political attacks.
Neither political attacks on, nor the Government attitude towards newspapers, arise on this amendment.
I should like to hear how much the Minister expects to raise by this tax as a whole, and what part of the money will be raised from newspapers. Does the Minister realise that this is going to bring about a certain amount of unemployment in connection with newspapers?
This is, no doubt, a revenue producing tax, for this reason, that we have a certain amount of paper produced here, and if a tax had been put on paper which is competing with the home-made article there would be sympathy with it. I protested here before, and I protest now, against putting a revenue tax on the raw materials of certain industries. Amongst other things, paper is the raw material for manufacturing stationers. We have got protective tariffs running as high as 75 per cent., and if we are going to go on increasing the cost of everything that a manufacturer has to deal with, we are going to find very soon that protective taxes of 75 per cent. are of no assistance to local manufacturers. I have seen instances where a tax or a tariff as high as 50 per cent. was put on raw material. It will not be very long until that will bring about its own Nemesis. Take the case of a professional photographer who gets an order to execute some postcards. The postcards would be his raw material, and there is no manufacturer of sensitised paper in this country. He imports sensitised postcards from the Continent which bear the one word "postcard," rendering them liable to a duty of 50 per cent. as stationery. How can we go on imposing a tax of 50 per cent. on certain peoples' raw material, without affecting the amount of money that is spent in that industry, and the employment given by it? Is it any wonder that a number of people in this country are wondering why it is that it seems as if we had a back door and a front door and that the Government were putting people into employment through the front door and, as a result of a great many of these tariffs not being properly used, that people are being disemployed through the back door as fast as they are being ushered into employment through the front door?
This tax, I think, includes newsprint. I should like to ask the Minister if he is aware that, as a result of the policy pursued by the Government for the last two or three years, many—I think I may say nearly all—of the newspapers and, particularly, the provincial newspapers, have suffered very material losses. I have been told that some provincial newspapers with a small circulation have suffered a loss in valuable advertisements of anything from £5,000 upwards per year. Even the lower sum of £5,000 is a considerable matter to small concerns. A considerable amount of employment, and very well paid employment, is given by these provincial newspapers. It seems to me that the Minister, in his efforts to get revenue, has imposed these taxes without any regard to what the effects may be on employment in this country. This is, of course, clearly a revenue tax. It does not even purport to be a tax to give revenue to any industrial work. It is merely a revenue tax and is just adding another burden to an industry which has suffered very heavily owing to the actions of the Government in the last two or three years. I know of one or two cases where they have just about managed to carry on with the same staff, in the hope that things might get better, but this impost will mean that they cannot carry on with the same staff. If it means the dismissal of only one man on a small newspaper, that would be a very serious matter. Unfortunately, we do not know what the Minister's hopes or views are in the matter.
This appears to me to be one of the most unpleasant taxes, put on for purely revenue purposes, that we have had. It seems to me that this shows a very considerable ignorance on the part of the Minister as to what is actually happening in this country at the present moment; or else it shows a very deliberate design on the part of the Minister to impede the cultural development of this country. Everybody who knows anything about present conditions in Dublin knows that there are many people who have endeavoured from time to time to establish magazines here which would have a really literary and artistic value, and they have known how desperately hard it is to keep alive in Ireland any magazine with a good literary tone. We know that one paper, which was noted for its extreme literary value, died from want of circulation a few years ago— want of circulation combined with a libel action the expense of which it could not stand.
It must have printed some remarks of Deputy McGilligan.
If the Minister is talking about libel actions, I can assure him there are some coming on.
There is a magazine, The Dublin Magazine, which is of the highest literary quality but which, owing to its purely literary appeal, has a very limited circulation —so limited that, I daresay, it is unknown to my friend Deputy Smith, and to my friend Deputy Corry, because of its literary value. I made that remark because I saw the Deputy looking around. I apologise. I forgot. Now, what the Minister wants to do is to make the production of high-class literary magazines more difficult than it is at the present moment, or to make the production of any paper that appeals to a small, if select, circulation, more difficult than it is at the present moment, because he will make the production of that class of paper much more expensive when he has put this particular tax upon its raw material.
There is another angle from which I should like to approach this tax on paper. There is a publishing industry in this country which many persons had hoped would develop. A great number of persons, myself included, had hoped that it would develop, because there is a great deal of literary ability in Ireland and it had been hoped at one time that a publishing industry would ultimately develop considerably in this State. That hope of a publishing industry in this State is being put back and possibly destroyed by the Minister's tax upon the raw material. What chance has a Dublin publisher to compete against an English publisher if the Dublin publisher cannot turn out his book at the same cost of production as an English or American publisher? We know that, at the present moment, books written by Irishmen, books with an enormous circulation, which might have been published in Dublin, are being published at the present moment by English and American publishing firms. Evidently, it is in order to prevent Irish publishing firms from having a fair opportunity of competing with English publishing firms that the Minister is going to tie this mill-stone around their necks and say to them: "You will have to pay duty on the paper which you import—the raw material of the books which you turn out—whereas your English rival, who is able to get Irish writers to publish through him, will be unduly helped by the attitude I am taking up." I wonder if, even amongst his own supporters in Fianna Fáil, there is support for the attitude the Minister is taking up here. I wonder whether this tax, which will have the effect of sending the literary output of Irish writers to the City of London rather than to the City of Dublin for publication, is a policy of which the Fianna Fáil Party entirely approve, or if all members of the Fianna Fáil Party entirely approve of it. If some disapprove of it, I wonder if they disapprove to such an extent that their disapprobation will carry them, dumbly silent, into the lobby to vote against the Minister. I do not ask them to take away the cold chain of silence which has been hanging over them so long. I do not suggest that any single one of them should get up and attack this tax. I do not ask them to do that. After all, in a great moment of prophetic oratory, in a magnificent burst of sublime oratory, a Fianna Fáil Deputy once declared: "Our Party are 77 dumb tombstones." I thought, at that time, that Deputy Beegan was a little extravagant in his imaginative oratory, but I see now that he was not extravagant, but only prophetic. He knew that this discussion upon this Finance Bill would come on, and he knew that the tombstones would all be dumb, even if we have one smiling tombstone opposite. It is a lovely thing to see a tombstone smiling.
What about the kicking cow?
There is another aspect of this matter which also seems to me to be a very serious one. Can certain persons get in stuff under licence which other persons can not? Has the Minister got power to select certain newspapers, let me say, and let the paper that they are going to use come in under licence free of tax——
Before the Deputy goes any further——
With great respect, I am in possession, and I object to the Minister's interruption. I am in possession, and the Minister can only rise to a point of order.
If the Minister rises to a point of order, the Chair must hear it.
Yes. If the Deputy will refer to the Schedule, he will find that there is no licensing provision.
That is not a point of order. If the Minister wants to speak, if the Minister can speak, if the loud bassoon of the Fianna Fáil band can make a little noise and is not unduly punctured, he can speak after I have finished. If he can speak, I should like to know from him if there is power in the Minister to issue licences.
The Minister quite properly directed the Chair as to the significance of this duty or tax, and to the fact that no licences are involved. The Chair has to be guided by the Minister in such matters.
And the Deputy can see that if he reads the Bill.
If the Chair says there is no licensing power——
The Chair simply accepted the Minister's statement that there is no licensing power.
It is clear from the Bill itself that there is no licensing power.
It is not a bit clear.
Read your brief.
Everything is made entirely clear but the numerous inexplicable statements which we hear from Fianna Fáil. Therefore, I wish to know from the Minister, when he replies, upon what arguments he bases his statement that there is no power to issue licences. This is an extremely bad tax. It is a tax like his other taxes which we had the other night, on prayer books and religious works, when he and his Party were endeavouring as far as they could to prevent the dissemination of religious knowledge in this country. They cannot succeed; they can only make the effort. In this particular tax they are endeavouring to prevent the spread of secular learning in this country also. It seems to me that the effort of the Minister and of the Fianna Fáil Party generally is to lower the whole State to their own intellectual level, so that nobody in this State will be any better or any wiser than the Fianna Fáil Party. If they succeed in that, God help the country.
Write the story of the kicking cow.
Order.
What is the story?
The story of the kicking cow.
That disorderly remark should not have been repeated.
I am sorry I brought the Deputy into disorder. The tax we are speaking about here is a tax on paper without any matter or design printed thereon. I should have thought that the Minister for Finance would have preferred that, if the Fianna Fáil Party should read anything—which God forbid—they should read paper which has nothing printed on it. After all, Sir, that is the raw material of all the silence we have had here for the last couple of days. I cannot imagine the Minister, out of any feelings of humanity or sympathy for his back benchers, deciding that he would prohibit this particular type of paper. However, there is no doubt about it that the questing mind is at work here again, whether the inquisitive mind of Deputy Corry, hunting into all the little kitchens, and deciding to tax everything, or whether that of somebody else with another view, I do not know. Look at the philosophy behind this—get away from the foodstuffs—they are gone. The ordinary houses and the things that go to equip those houses are gone. The Minister is still totting up feverishly, and, after their foolish borrowing and everything else in this Budget, they have not got sufficient to make even a pretence of balancing the Budget. Then the bright idea strikes somebody about breviaries and missals, and there is the bright idea, "we are taxing secular reading; what about taxing non-secular reading?" From that, there flows this idea of taxing paper that has nothing on it. It is a terrible thing to see paper that has nothing on it coming into the country! So paper that has nothing on it, a little sheet of white paper, upon which each of us may write a little line or two—Deputy Corry even included—is not going to be allowed in. Education is bad for certain people, and so we will just have 6d. on it.
You are a living example of it.
A living example of it, and while alive and well I hope I will always be held up to the odious comparison of Deputy Corry—odious from my point of view. We are to have 5 per cent. on paper that has nothing on it. We are going to prevent the dissemination of news. We do not want to appear too completely Boeotian. We do not want to appear thick-witted. We do not want to appear before the world as thick-witted people who do not want to see any print. It is a scandalous thing not to want reading matter, and so we will get a whack at this just as we dipped into the sugar and tea, had a stab at the butter and the loaf, glassware, tumblers and everything else. Last night we said we had put people into the position of not being able to remain in their homes through anxiety on account of the taxes that are walking around them. You drive them out to the taxed pictures. Having driven them back from the taxed pictures, you will not even allow them to have their little bit of reading matter without a tax on it. Paper comes from rags, and that Party has gone to rags.
I asked the Minister if he will tell us how much money he expects to get by this tax, and the Minister is, apparently, prepared to tell us nothing but what is in the Schedule. If any reliance can be placed upon the statisties recently published with regard to the imports of this particular class of paper into the country, the Minister expects to raise about £16,000 on paper brought in here for printing purposes. Does the Minister think that he can take £16,000 out of the newspaper business and out of the publishing business in this country without its bringing about a reduction in the number of persons employed in the country? Does he think that any review of overhead expenses, in the way in which both publishers and newspaper printers will have to review their overhead expenses, is likely to bring about economies to that extent in any other way than by a reduction in staff? If the Minister knows anything about the matter he must realise that a reduction of staff will inevitably follow the imposition of this tax on paper used for printing. The tax that will be raised under the proposal will be considerably greater than that; there is a tax on paper other than printing paper. I wonder has the Minister considered that there are in this country publishers and printers who are competing successfully with printers outside, and has he considered in what way those people are going to find themselves when they have to pay part of this additional tax on paper coming into the country. Are those people going to be allowed any relief? Will they be repaid the taxation where duty has been paid on paper coming into the country, and books upon which printing has taken place are exported out of the country? Will there be a rebate to such firms, and can the Minister assure us that the printers in this country who are competing successfully outside will not be prejudiced by bearing their particular share of this burden? That might involve possible loss of employment, but perhaps the Minister can give us an assurance in that respect. The principal thing that stands out is the fact that there is bound to be a reduction of staff in the printing trade, particularly in the printing of newspapers, if this tax is persisted in. Are we going to get any information?
I have already pointed out that there is a method of procedure in this House for getting information of that sort. There is the method of the parliamentary question.
That means that debates should collapse into parliamentary questions? I take it that is the principle that is asserted.
The House has sufficient experience of what can be done in a matter of parliamentary questions when it refers to industries and when it refers to seizures. The Minister will not choke up this House.
Tá
- Aiken, Frank.
- Bartley, Gerald.
- Beegan, Patrick.
- Boland, Gerald.
- Boland, Patrick.
- Bourke, Daniel.
- Cleary, Mícheál.
- Concannon, Helena.
- Corbett, Edmond.
- Crowley, Timothy.
- Daly, Denis.
- Derrig, Thomas.
- De Valera, Eamon.
- Doherty, Hugh.
- Donnelly, Eamon.
- Flinn, Hugo V.
- Fogarty, Andrew.
- Goulding, John.
- Harris, Thomas.
- Houlihan, Patrick.
- Kehoe, Patrick.
- Kelly, James Patrick.
- Killilea, Mark.
- Lemass, Seán F.
- Little, Patrick John.
- MacEntee, Seán.
- Maguire, Conor Alexander.
- Moane, Edward.
- Moore, Séamus.
- Moylan, Seán.
- Murphy, Patrick Stephen.
- O Briain, Donnchadh.
- O'Dowd, Patrick.
- O'Grady, Seán.
- O'Reilly, Matthew.
- Pearse, Margaret Mary.
- Ruttledge, Patrick Joseph.
- Ryan, James.
- Ryan, Martin.
- Ryan, Robert.
- Sheridan, Michael.
- Smith, Patrick.
- Traynor, Oscar.
- Walsh, Richard.
Níl
- Belton, Patrick.
- Bennett, George Cecil.
- Burke, James Michael.
- Burke, Patrick.
- Byrne, Alfred.
- Cosgrave, William T.
- Costello, John Aloysius.
- Dockrell, Henry Morgan.
- Doyle, Peadar S.
- Fitzgerald, Desmond.
- Fitzgerald-Kenney, James.
- Redmond, Bridget Mary.
- Reidy, James.
- Rice, Vincent.
- Keating, John.
- Lynch, Finian.
- McFadden, Michael Og.
- McGilligan, Patrick.
- McMenamin, Daniel.
- Morrissey, Daniel.
- Mulcahy, Richard.
- O'Leary, Daniel.
- O'Neill, Eamonn.
- O'Sullivan, Gearóid.
- O'Sullivan, John Marcus.
- Rogers, Patrick James.
- Rowlette, Robert James.
- Wall, Nicholas.
I move amendment No. 46 and——
Before you pass from item 15. I want to give notice——
Is the Minister moving on a point of order?
We are discussing this schedule; am I entitled——
There is another amendment to the schedule.
It is only that I want to give notice that on Report Stage I will have an amendment to item 15.
I move amendment No. 46:—
In Part II, to delete reference No. 16, including relevant references in columns 2 and 3.
As the Minister went along with his Budget statement we were able to check off one, two, three, four, five, six, down to 14 or 15 jokes. We have now passed a fairly long litany of jokes put upon the House and taxes to be put upon various things that people entering new houses will have to pay. I do not know whether there is a sufficient number of jokes to have each of these jokes covered by a laugh. I do not think there were sufficient laughs for the Minister's jokes which ran to 14 or 15. It would require a big laugh to cover item 16, which reads:—
Paper which has a design or pattern printed thereon, and is, in the opinion of the Revenue Commissioners, primarily suitable for use as wallpaper.
That paper is being taxed at 5 per cent. A person leaving a tenement area in the City of Dublin comes to a new house or a new flat on which there has been a considerable subvention granted both by the rates and by the State. That person is going to walk in and see the white walls of the new flat or the new house as if a notice was written on them saying: "You cannot put wallpaper on these walls until you pay a tax to the Minister for Finance." The people who are going to read these notices in future are the people who are most hit by the general circumstances that, in the first place, makes the Minister search every corner of their pockets to take money out of them to keep this Government going. In the second place, these are the class of people who are most hit by the kind of policy the Minister is pursuing. In the matter of housing, and in relation to the people going into the new houses, we have described some of these taxes as brutal and some of them as mean. I do not know how to describe the tax imposed by the Minister in this way except, as I say, by posting up a notice in the new houses to say: "You cannot put wall-paper on these walls until you pay a tax to the Minister for Finance." Will the Minister say how much money he intends to squeeze out of the pockets of these people before he is going to allow them to paper their new walls?
The tax in this item is on "paper which has a design or pattern printed thereon and is, in the opinion of the Revenue Commissioners, primarily suited for use as wall-paper." How is this to prevent Fianna Fáil Deputies running around with this wall-paper, and trying to read it? After all, are you prohibiting them getting blank stuff and making pot hooks and things like that on it? Otherwise they might have this paper scattered around the country covered over with the economies they promised; or they might be driven to the further amusement of trying to work out cross-word puzzles with that wall-paper. Deputy Mulcahy has opened up with a speculation about the walls of the new houses. Perhaps they would be driven to write up on the walls "Up the Republic." I suppose reading these things on the walls would satisfy some of them. I have no doubt "Up the Republic" would satisfy some of them even if they did not get it. There are people who are in the future to go around in hair-shirts; these people will not want wall papers. They will have amusement enough sitting on the floor trying to conceal their irritation with the garments to which they are not accustomed. The irritation produced in that way would not tone in very well with the inspiration produced by the English wall-paper. Again, we might inquire and look around and ask what else is to be taxed? Something that the people want. That is a new way of searching for new taxes.
You always have to tax what the people want.
Yes, tax what they want and the more they want it the more you tax it. That is Deputy Corry's philosophy. I notice that Deputy Donnelly is now joining in that school. Tax the things the people want and the more they want these things the more you are likely to get in the way of a yield from the tax.
What is the alternative?
"Fianna Fáil has scrutinised the Estimates with minute care and they are satisfied that £2,000,000 can be saved without doing injury to any service." Give us the £2,000,000 and then get wall-paper anywhere you like. That is my alternative to Deputy Donnelly. There might be some other way of getting taxes on gold mining, but that is neither here nor there at the moment. There is a desperate philosophy behind Deputy Donnelly's inquiry: "What is the alternative?" The philosophy of the ordinary community is different from that. The ordinary Government says: "We will tax luxuries; we will tax the things that the well-off people will buy." But when you find that the people whom you think have money are not buying certain things and that ordinary revenue is falling, you have to get away from what used to be the strong back to the backs of the multitude. Of course, the more people you have buying certain things, the smaller the tax can be. That gets down to the subsistence level, to the things that people must eat and drink and have about them; the ordinary items of a sort of primitive life—food, drink, and something in the way of shelter. Everybody must have these. They are the things covered by the subsistence allowance in the income tax. Their position is: "We have given a subsistence allowance in the income tax; we have to break that down, but we do not like to say it; we will tax everything, even the man getting two or three pounds a week, and the way to do that is to tax the things on which a man will be spending the subsistence part of his income—bread, butter, sugar, etc."
You get your tax.
I wonder do you in the end. The Deputy approves of that. It is not the civilised theory. It is a theory that most Governments try to get away from. The only Governments brought down to that are Governments that are on the rocks. Eventually, when a Government goes on the rocks the people go on the rocks. Because if you do tax the subsistence level you are trying to wring money out of people who have not got it. You are trying to stop them paying for the things they live on, and trying to make them pay into the Government instead. That breaks down eventually. The ordinary source of revenue that the community used to be able to support itself out of is gone. Deputy Donnelly, apparently, has not merely accepted that, but has deluded himself into believing that this system of taxation is the ideal one—to get after the things the people must buy. Undoubtedly, that is a certain way of getting taxation up to a point, but only up to a point. It breaks down also.
You get the money.
We are getting the money. That is the point. Surely the Deputy has some idea of the way taxation is apportioned. Generally speaking, Governments who are in any way human try to apportion it against the people who are getting most, make them bear the brunt of the taxation. You only move away from that when that source of revenue is gone. Income tax is not yielding what it used to. Ordinary excise duties are not yielding what they used to. People have not money to spend. Therefore, you are going to dig down under the subsistence point, you are getting down to the bread and butter line, or below it; at any rate into it. I am glad the Deputy is trying to make up his mind. I suppose it is the cheeriest thing to do in the circumstances—to say that it is the best thing and not make any apology; not to say, "We would do something else, if it were there to be taxed" but just, "This is the way to get it." In connection with the tax on bread I said I did not know if history showed an example of a tax on this type of ordinarily used article.
That tax has been passed.
Deputy Donnelly drew me into that.
An interruption by Deputy Donnelly does not put a thing in order.
It is generally the other way about. I consider wall paper to be one of the things ordinarily used. I do not know whether Deputy Donnelly will put me out of order by denying that. Nobody would ordinarily invite a person into a room which had not wall paper on the walls, unless you are going to have some mural decorations to adorn the bare walls. I suppose if we all fly to that there will be a tax on home decoration, and you will not be allowed to draw pictures on the walls of your own residence. At any rate, the Minister will get after it by taxing the wherewithal of the trade. We have got to the point of taxing wall paper—a thing which is ordinarily used. History does not hold any example of the taxation of things ordinarily used except in a period which has been shown to be a prelude to revolution, and revolution caused by the fact that the people have been battered down below the ordinary level of subsistence and there is nothing else to do except in despair to kick over the traces. I do not know whether Deputy Donnelly will regard that as a sign; whether he thinks the old theories of taxation are wrong and that this new one should be accepted.
It is simply a case of what Deputy Donnelly says, "We are going to get the money." We have flying squads belting into the kitchen, grabbing the stuff on the walls, the things on the table and the things on the dresser; the foodstuffs and the things around the people. Everything that goes to raise life from the primitive a little bit, that is what we are going to tax, because that is what the people have to get. But the end is in sight. It is the same as if the Government were forced to bring in an income tax on incomes say of £50, as was done in some countries. But it was only done in countries where they were in desperation. Some countries in the post-war period, suffering from inflation, as a last resort decided to have direct taxation on incomes even of £1 per week, or at any rate £2 per week. If we decided to do that the people would have no difficulty in recognising it as a sign of, "All hands to the pumps." Instead of that they take 10 per cent. here and 5 per cent. somewhere else, in the hope that the people will forget. But the cumulative effect of these will lead in the end to a break down by its own weight and we will be in a worse condition in a year than we are in now.
I think Deputy Donnelly has gone back to his school days. I think that he sat there just considering the days in which, I hope not too painfully, he was compelled to read the Satires of Horace. He might remember, and evidently does remember, the advice which a bad father gave to his son: Make money; make it honestly if you can, but make money. That is precisely the philosophy of Deputy Donnelly and the whole Fianna Fáil Party. Of course, we do not get it in the continuous spoken word, but we get it in the interjections from the courageous men who venture to interject: "Let us tax anyway we like provided we get the money; let it be a just tax or an unjust tax." Justice or injustice has nothing to do with the Fianna Fáil system of taxation.
I do not think the Deputy was here when I said that a remark or interjection by Deputy Donnelly, who has not interfered otherwise in this debate, on one specific tax, does not put a debate on the taxation system of this Government in order.
If I might say so, I respectfully venture to agree in that ruling. But my argument is completely and entirely relevant, because I say that this tax is an unjust tax, and that the Government have not got a right to impose any unjust taxation.
The Chair was waiting for the Deputy to come to the matter under discussion.
I thought I was relevant the whole time because I submitted this was an unjust tax. The policy of taking money, wherever you can get it, is the policy of the Government. It is a policy of taking it wherever you can get it by just means or unjust means. What is a just tax? It is a tax which does not weigh with undue harshness on any member of the community. An unjust tax is one which weighs with undue harshness upon a class of the community which is least able to bear it. The Government has no right, not merely to impose a tax which weighs with undue harshness upon a section of the community; but it is an immoral action on the part of the Government to impose such a tax. I venture to say that when a tax is in itself obviously, and palpably, unjust it is a matter which must affect the consciences of persons, whether Ministers or otherwise, who introduce unjust taxation or whether members of the Party who vote for it. I say it is a matter of conscience, and they are bound in conscience to make restitution for the amount they raised in unjust taxation.
These are plain, simply unanswerable doctrines of Christian ethics. This is not a doctrine which anybody with elementary knowledge of Christian ethics, or of the doctrine of the Catholic Church, could for one moment venture to contradict.
What has this to do with wallpaper?
This tax is one of the series of taxes that press upon the poorer members of the community and is obviously and patently a tax which is unjust. It is a tax which presses unduly upon the very poor. Everybody is entitled to live in reasonable comfort with the little luxury that their particular state in life provides for them. Every person, whether labouring man or woman, in Dublin or in Cork, or whether agricultural labourer or small farmer, in our country districts is entitled, as of right, to the ordinary means of subsistence and the ordinary decencies of life. These people are entitled to a home which in itself will be pleasant to them and into which they can introduce their friends and visitors. You cannot take a tax like this, segregate it, and say there is to be an extra tax on wall paper and on nothing else. You must take the Budget as a whole. And every particular little straw that you put on is coming nearer and nearer to the fatal straw that will break the camel's back in the shape of the Irish people. This is a tax which will not hit people who are well off to the same extent as it will the working classes. That is patent. But wallpaper is a necessity to one as to the other. You may talk about it from a high æsthetic point of view. Some people may distemper their walls in order that their pictures may be shown off, but the ordinary person with one living-room wants to keep it dry and well-papered, not merely from the artistic sense, but also because he likes his room comfortable and warm. I leave it to the sense of the House, if there is any sense of right in Deputies opposite, and I leave it to the sense of justice of the House, if there is any sense of justice in Deputies opposite, as to whether an accumulated system of taxation of this nature is a just system for the Government to adopt in order to get money. Their policy seems to be to get the money by fair means or by foul, by fair taxes or foul taxes. If that policy is to receive the approbation of the Party opposite I am sorry for the state of consciousness that obtains in that Party.
Notice taken that 20 Deputies were not present; House counted and 20 Deputies being present,
After the Minister has taxed every raw material used in the construction of a house, he follows it up when that house has changed hands. Generally, when a new house changes hands, the walls are bare. The Minister, presumably, knew that a woman's taste will not put up with bare walls. She must have them decorated at any cost and, in her enthusiasm in going into a new house she does not mind spending a little more money on it. The Minister, therefore, thought he would put a little more on. I wonder is there any pretence at helping an Irish industry in this? Deputy Dockrell might, perhaps, enlighten the House—he is a more reliable source of information than the Front Bench—as to whether there is any wallpaper made in this country, or is it likely to be a business proposition, in the near or distant future, to manufacture wall-paper here in view of the limited market and the numerous designs of wall-paper there must be. I fancy this is purely a revenue tax and nothing else, just like all the taxes on raw materials used in the construction of houses, and I hope that when the Minister boasts again of all he has done, is doing and will do, for house-building, he will couple with that all he has done, is doing, and will do to soak the people who build houses, buy new houses, or repair old houses, by way of taxation.
Tá
- Aiken, Frank
- Bartley, Gerald.
- Beegan, Patrick.
- Boland, Gerald.
- Boland, Patrick.
- Bourke, Daniel.
- Breen, Daniel.
- Cleary, Mícheál.
- Concannon, Helena.
- Corbett, Edmond.
- Crowley, Timothy.
- Daly, Denis.
- Derrig, Thomas.
- De Valera, Eamon.
- Doherty, Hugh.
- Donnelly, Eamon.
- Flinn, Hugo. V.
- Fogarty, Andrew.
- Gibbons, Seán
- Goulding, John.
- Harris, Thomas.
- Houlihan, Patrick.
- Keely, Séamus P.
- Killilea, Mark.
- Lemass, Seán F.
- Little, Patrick John.
- MacEntee, Seán.
- Maguire, Conor Alexander.
- Moane, Edward.
- Moore, Séamus.
- Moylan, Seán.
- Murphy, Patrick Stephen.
- O Briain, Donnchadh.
- O'Dowd, Patrick.
- O'Grady, Seán.
- O'Reilly, Matthew.
- Pearse, Margaret Mary.
- Ruttledge, Patrick Joseph
- Ryan, James.
- Ryan, Martin.
- Ryan, Robert.
- Sheridan, Michael.
- Smith, Patrick.
- Traynor, Oscar.
- Walsh, Richard.
Níl
- Belton, Patrick.
- Bennett, George Cecil.
- Burke, James Michael.
- Burke, Patrick.
- Byrne, Alfred.
- Cosgrave, William T.
- Costello, John Aloysius.
- Dockrell, Henry Morgan.
- Doyle, Peadar S.
- Fitzgerald, Desmond.
- Fitzgerald-Kenney, James.
- Lynch, Finian.
- McFadden, Michael Og.
- McGilligan, Patrick.
- McMenamin, Daniel.
- Morrissey, Daniel.
- Mulcahy, Richard.
- O'Leary, Daniel.
- O'Neill, Eamonn.
- O'Sullivan, Gearóid.
- O'Sullivan, John Marcus.
- Redmond, Bridget Mary.
- Reidy, James.
- Rice, Vincent.
- Rowlette, Robert James.
- Wall, Nicholas.
The Minister emphasised with a certain amount of heat that there was no licensing provision that would enable paper to be brought in without the payment of this tariff of 5 per cent. I would ask him whether that statement refers to the whole of the 17 various items that are covered here and if so, has he given any special consideration to reference No. 1, in respect to asphalt and bitumen, and reference No. 5 with regard to starch? Are we to understand that local authorities, in connection with their work on road making, are not to be allowed to import asphalt and bitumen free of this tax and that, therefore, the tax will fall as an additional burden on the rates throughout the country? In the case of reference No. 5, I should like to know if he has given any consideration to the position of the linen industry in the country and if he has taken into consideration the amount of tax on the linen industry that this duty of 3/- per cwt. on starch involves, if the persons who are conducting the linen industry are not going to be allowed to import starch free of duty.
If reference No. 5 relating to starch, has any bearing on the starch factory that is being established, we should like to know it. We are not told if it is a protective duty. If so, it would be interesting and understandable. Some of us would now like to know if there is likely to be any outlet, as a compensation for this tax, for the rapidly accumulating quantities of small potatoes we have or has all this talk of our starch factory been no more than a prelude to a tariff on imported starch? Of course the tax on bitumen and tar of 3d. per cwt., as the previous speaker pointed out, is fairly substantial. It is the thin edge of the wedge and is adopting a very bad principle, the principle of taxing something we want and that is produced here only in very limited quantities. All the trunk roads of the country and the link roads—in fact every road except the very small by-roads—are now being tarred and this is a serious consideration for local authorities. It seems to me that such taxes will gradually bring back to the Exchequer the grants that are being given by the Exchequer and which, it was claimed, have been so generously given by the Exchequer.
I fail to understand also why there should be a tax of 1d. per lb. on grapes. Is that going to be a national crop in this country? Grapes are used in hospitals very largely for invalids. Many healthy people also like grapes but I presume there will be no discrimination as to the people who use them. They are a delicacy used largely by invalids. Very often they are recommended for use by invalids when no other solid food can be recommended. Still 1d. per lb. is going to be put on them. I am not aware of any discrimination as to the value of the grapes. Sometimes grapes are sold at 4d. or 5d. per lb. and the import wholesale price of such grapes must be very small when they can be retailed at that price. 1d. per lb. on such grapes is a very large tariff, especially when we consider that we cannot produce this tariffed product here except more or less as a luxury product in glasshouses. They are certainly never going to be a commercial product in this country. I suppose like all the other commodities that have been taxed they are taxed for revenue purposes and nothing else.
I do not know what principle has been followed in the division of these tariffed commodities into the different Schedules, but I think that this is a Schedule that we can describe as the house Schedule. I do not say that taxes in other Schedules do not fall on houses as well but the variety of taxes embraced in this Schedule are chiefly aimed against houses, against the people in their homes, against the adornment of their homes, against articles that they will have to purchase for simple adornment and practical use. There are, outside these, one or two matters that have been referred to. Deputy Mulcahy and Deputy Belton pointed out that the tax on asphalt and bitumen will mean that the Government are going to get something back out of the grants which they have given to local authorities. Similarly, that portion of the Schedule embracing what I call house taxes, will enable you to withdraw what has been given in the way of subsidy, the subsidy, of course, to be paid eventually by the ratepayer.
It withdraws more than the subsidy.
I have often heard of a dog being fed on its own tail but I never saw a Minister for Finance trying to pull more tail out of the dog in order to give it more feeding stuff. That is what this comes to. It is a ghastly picture. That is what is happening. It is only when one goes through a schedule of this kind, sees the variety of articles that are covered by it, and tries to find the mentality behind it, that the realisation dawns upon one of how completely down at heel the Ministry are. Just now there was a reference to the tax on grapes. I suppose the one place where one sees grapes most frequently is the sick room, the invalid's room. They are regarded as a luxury by some people, but they are not a luxury that most people enjoy. They are a sort of ordinary accompaniment for the sick bedside, the invalid's table. We are going to get our 1d. per lb. off them— 1d. per lb. off the invalid's bedside table. That is what the Minister does.
Most moving!
So the Minister can open his mouth.
The Minister says "Most moving." It is not anything like so full of crocodile tears as the Minister would have bedewed his speech, if he were in opposition. The fact of the matter is that the Minister has been driven to silence. There is not a Deputy of his Party who can stand over any of these taxes. Not even one of them can tell us why it was necessary to delve into the household in the way in which he has done. Are the other taxes so really badly exhausted as to make it necessary to have a grab at the bedside grapes? I do not call that moving at all. I think it is a degrading business—1d. a lb. I do not suppose a national budget was ever so completely composed of scrounging as this. There is the example of the poor man who had to live on the crumbs that dropped from the rich man's table, but here the community is reduced to the position of being asked to give social services on the scrapings of the invalid's room. It is no wonder that a discreet silence is much the best thing. The only justification for that was the justification given by Deputy Donnelly and Deputy Corry—sheer, acute necessity, the fact that we want money despite all that was promised about more and more money. Why should it ever stop flowing? The economies have not come off. They are, therefore, driven to tax these things. Grapes is an item that is full of woe. It is a small thing. It is not going to bring in very much in the way of taxation. It just shows how wide the net is being flung and how desperate the need is of the people who flung it so widely. It is a big thing because it hits socially and, as such, is a retrograde thing.
In connection with housing, the Government are now trying to fill up the gap created by their own activities previously. They say that they are going to give subsidies, but they are going to get some part of the subsidy back. They are spreading the net in such a way that they hope that their activities in that connection will not be noticed. Sometimes there is a certain amount of admiration in the world for the big thief, the gigantic embezzler, the man who indulges in company promotion and wrecks thousands of homes. But for the man who robs a sacristy or takes money out of the blind man's tin, there is nothing but contempt, and it is appalling to think that the Government of a country should be reduced to that level of meanness.
It is strange that the Minister should have remained mute of malice this afternoon.
Not mute of malice. That is a plea of not guilty and he will not make that plea.
It is a pity that the Minister should have left it to Deputy Donnelly to make the admission that the idea underlying these taxes is to get money, to scrape it in any way he can. Of course, that might be all right for a footpad or a burglar, but one would expect that a national Budget would be framed on better principles and with greater consideration for the sources from which money is got and the sufferings that these impositions are going to cause the very poor. The plea has not even been put forward that this money is to be used as a protective tax for industry. In connection with starch, at the moment we have no starch factory in the country. Not many years ago we had a couple. It has been stated that it is proposed to start a factory here soon. The raw material for starch is rice, so that if this factory is ever established there will be a tax of 2/- per cwt. on the raw material required for it. Rice is also an important article of food. Starch is also used largely in other manufacturing industries, in the linen industry, for instance. Rice flour is used largely in the bakery trade. The tax on rice is, therefore, going to add further to the cost of the production of bread. The tax on wallpaper has been referred to. It will hit the poorer classes of the community very severely. They use wallpaper to a much greater extent than the better off people. I know myself that the little cottiers down by the seaboard paper their houses very often.
On a point of order. Has not the House already come to a decision on that?
We are now discussing the schedule.
I protest against this tax on wallpaper, and indeed against all the taxes in this schedule. They will all press very heavily on the poorer classes.
Can we get any reply from the Minister on the question of licences? We pointed out that there is likely to be a reduction of staffs arising out of these impositions.
May I point out that the Deputy is merely wasting time. I have already indicated that there is no licensing provision in this schedule.
The tax on asphalt, bitumen and starch are likely to mean the paying off of persons employed by local authorities on roads, and may seriously prejudice employment in the linen industry in this country.
There is no foundation for that.
Tá
- Aiken, Frank.
- Bartley, Gerald.
- Beegan, Patrick.
- Boland, Gerald.
- Bourke, Daniel.
- Breen, Daniel.
- Concannon, Helena.
- Corbett, Edmond.
- Crowley, Timothy.
- Daly, Denis.
- Derrig, Thomas.
- De Valera, Eamon.
- Doherty, Hugh.
- Donnelly, Eamon.
- Flinn, Hugo V.
- Fogarty, Andrew.
- Gibbons, Seán.
- Goulding, John.
- Harris, Thomas.
- Houlihan, Patrick.
- Keely, Séamus P.
- Killilea, Mark.
- Lemass, Seán F.
- Little, Patrick John.
- MacEntee, Seán.
- Maguire, Conor Alexander.
- Moane, Edward.
- Moore, Séamus.
- Moylan, Seán.
- Murphy, Patrick Stephen.
- O Briain, Donnchadh.
- O'Grady, Seán.
- O'Reilly, Matthew.
- Pearse, Margaret Mary.
- Ruttledge, Patrick Joseph.
- Ryan, James.
- Ryan, Martin.
- Ryan, Robert.
- Sheridan, Michael.
- Smith, Patrick.
- Traynor, Oscar.
- Walsh, Richard.
Níl
- Belton, Patrick.
- Bennett, George Cecil.
- Burke, James Michael.
- Burke, Patrick.
- Byrne, Alfred.
- Cosgrave, William T.
- Dockrell, Henry Morgan.
- Doyle, Peadar S.
- Fitzgerald, Desmond.
- Fitzgerald-Kenney, James.
- Lynch, Finian.
- McFadden, Michael Og.
- McGilligan, Patrick.
- McMenamin, Daniel.
- Morrissey, Daniel.
- Mulcahy, Richard.
- O'Leary, Daniel.
- O'Neill, Eamonn.
- O'Sullivan, Gearóid.
- O'Sullivan, John Marcus.
- Redmond, Bridget Mary.
- Reidy, James.
- Rice, Vincent.
- Wall, Nicholas.
On the Third Schedule, one would imagine after the items which have been brought forward that it would be utterly impossible to require moneys——
On a point of order, has not this question been disposed of on Section 12?
I want to hear what the Deputy has to say.
I consider that this schedule should not be passed because of the burden it imposes on the buyer of sugar. It puts the final touch to an attack on the purchaser of sugar which began in February, 1934.
I desire to elucidate the position relative to this schedule. If Deputies look at page 1 of the Bill, they will observe that Sections 10 and 11 refer to the imposition of duties in the First Schedule and Second Schedule respectively. These duties are not there specified. Consequently a detailed discussion of these two schedules was quite in order; more particularly owing to the fact that numerous amendments were tabled. If Deputies now turn to Section 12, it will be observed that Section 12 deals specifically with the alteration of the various duties on sugar. The House has decided that Section 12 should stand. Section 12 sets out that the duties shall be as prescribed in Schedule 3. The House has, therefore, decided and in some detail the principle of Schedule 3. The House cannot now canvass that decision without stultifying itself. Therefore, no discussion of the principle arrived at on Section 12 could now arise unless by way of amendment. No amendment has been tabled. That is the position.
If that be so, I shall await an opportunity when we can discuss the schedule with amendments. I shall simply content myself now with voting against the section.
We should be able to discuss all these degrees of polarisation on the schedule.
Discussion on the principle would arise by way of amendment. The House decided that Section 12 and the schedule mentioned should stand, unless Deputies tabled amendments. Explanation of items may, of course, be asked for.
I suggest that it has been the practice of the House, where there has been a lengthy Schedule to discuss details, irrespective of the section passed, in order to get clarification of the details of the Schedule. No one knows the tax when Sugar is of certain degrees of polarisation.
Deputies are not precluded from demanding any explanation or elucidation of that character, but, the principle agreed should not be re-discussed.
A lot of the discussion that has gone on could have been obviated if answers were given, in place of having a completely dumb Minister. I suggest, in order to have the proper point of view, a Deputy has to run over a variety of explanations that might possibly occur, in the hope possibly that he will eventually get light on them. There is no use in asking questions as the debate is conducted.
It seems to the Chair that much of the matter referred to would come within the province of the Minister for Industry and Commerce.
From a certain amount of experience, I suggest that discrimination as to polarisation and the special taxes attached are entirely matters for the Revenue Commissioners, and would also be matters for the Minister for Finance. The Minister for Industry and Commerce would not have anything to do with that. The sugar question was debated before when different rates were attached. Certainly, in my experience, it is a matter for the Revenue Commissioners to put up a recommendation, which went to the Minister for Finance, and then the Minister for Industry and Commerce was asked about it.
The Deputy's query is in order.
The Deputy's contention is all trash. He knows that there is a basic rate for sugar and that the rest of the Schedule is dependent upon that. The House decided the basic rate and the rest follows.
That is the first attempt at explanation since 10 o'clock. I knew nothing of the sort. Whether I knew it or not this House is the place for giving information. It is not enough that So-and-so knows it. Whether I know it or not, the House does not know it. I did not know that the basic rate determined the matter. I certainly do not know what is the reason for discrimination in the molasses and glucose section. An explanation is required and I would like to have it. I will ask again for information with regard to sugar polarisation.
Apart from the drawbacks, there is a matter of some importance that I wish to refer to. I presume we are dealing with the whole Schedule. Section B deals with the drawback on sugar and molasses in bonded warehouses and which were made exclusively in Saorstát Eireann. If sugar is made from beet, with the bounty, it is much more expensive than imported sugar. It is obvious when imported sugar can be bought for something under £6 a ton, while sugar made here costs £21, that an undue charge will be made in respect of imported sugar for use as ships' stores. It is particularly desirable that we should have an arrangement to get as much goods as possible for that purpose bought in this country. The drawback in that case should amount to the export duty charged upon sugar. No loss will be occasioned the Revenue if such an allowance was made. In connection with the sugar problem it could be arranged that at a particular time, when sugar is available from the beet factories, and when supplies of imported sugar are stopped that the transfer of the sale from one to the other would be immaterial. The point to be noted is that the goods should be bought in this country for ships' stores. At first sight it would seem as if there would be a loss by giving the full Customs duty, rather than the Excise duty, but in practice no loss whatever would occur. It simply means a transfer from imported sugar in bulk to sugar made here. In other words if the Customs duty were allowed, no loss is sustained. We consume all the sugar manufactured here, and whatever sugar is imported comes in at a smaller price. The duty would be charged on that. If the full Customs duty was allowed, that would ensure that purchases would be made here. Purchases in respect of vessels trading from here, as anyone who has been on these vessels knows, are of some importance. It is particularly desirable that ships' stores should be purchased here as largely as possible. If it is known that when ships require sugar, and none is available but sugar made from the beet grown here, if imported sugar was available there would be no loss in doing what I suggest. There will be a gain if they can be persuaded that they will not have to pay £15 as against £6 a ton. There will be a gain to general business as well as in the sale of ships' stores generally. If a bias is likely to arise against purchasing goods at Irish ports then we may lose a great deal more than these regulations would gain.
On the Schedules, I ask the Minister to say how much it adds to the price of sugar to the consumer, over what the cost was in February, 1934. Up to the present, the Minister has done nothing but shake his head when it was pointed out that £980,000 had been added to the sugar bill, by his action in imposing a duty on sugar, since February, 1934.
May I call attention to the fact as you, Sir, have already ruled that the principle of the section cannot be discussed.
No one is discussing it. Will the Minister say what the effect of the Schedule will be, and what interpretation is to be put down for a shake of his head, when Deputies say that £980,000 has been added annually to the cost of sugar bought by consumers over the figures for February, 1934?
The Deputy is one of those who overloads the Order Paper of this House with Parliamentary Questions. He should understand the procedure and appreciate what a Parliamentary Question is intended to do, namely, to elicit information of the sort that he is asking for now. If the Deputy puts down a Parliamentary Question I will provide him with the information.
It is not necessary to put down a Parliamentary Question to know that the increase in the price of sugar, to the extent of a penny a lb., on the amount consumed in this country, means that the people have to pay £980,000 more than they paid a year age. It is a new theory that the Parliamentary Question paper——
I submit, Sir, that this does not arise.
——is intended to stifle discussion of important matters in the House.
The Deputy took great advantage of it, at any rate.
That may be, but the Deputy may not get the advantage of the precise type of answer that should be given to the type of Parliamentary Question put down. If the proper type of answer had been given in the first place, so many questions might not have to be put down.
You get the answer in tabulated form.
The tabulated form gives no information of the type required.
You get the information.
That is what the Parliamentary Question was intended for; but take the number of questions that have been asked about duties, factories, workmen, licences, and so on. No information has been given. Can the Deputy tell me of any occasion upon which information about a licence was given?
Have a look at the Report.
What is the Deputy discussing now? I submit, Sir, that the question of licences is out of order.
I was discussing Parliamentary procedure with Deputy Donnelly who, apparently, was backing what appeared to be a relevant remark by the Minister for Finance.
Again, I submit, Sir, that the Deputy is entirely out of order.
I am glad, at any rate, that the Minister for Education is submitting that matter to the Chair, because up to now you have been parading yourselves as the judges of order and good manners in the House. If it were a question of bad manners, the Deputies opposite would certainly qualify.
Ill manners consort more with what the Deputy is familiar with.
More than often I have kept the Minister for Finance in his place by keeping after him on account of his bad manners. At any rate, if the Minister for Education is rather tired of this, I suggest that he should return to the slumber from which he has been, rather unaccountably and, apparently, too early, aroused. In any case, his Department is not under consideration at the moment and he has slumbered on that so long that he might as well continue to slumber on it. With regard to the relevant matters in this schedule, Deputy Mulcahy has asserted here on many occasions—and has got no intelligent reply denying the facts—that since 1934 there is a sum of £980,000 to be collected from sugar. With regard to that sum of £980,000, I want to know how much of it will come from sugar under the different polarisations, from molasses, glucose, and saccharine. Surely, the Minister ought to be able to reply to that without exciting the annoyance of his colleagues.
The answer is "None," because it is all coming from the purchaser.
That is the answer. It is the consumer who will pay, and that is why all this parade of customs duties is so much nonsense, because, in fact, these customs duties, as far as sugar is concerned, are only a farce, since the situation is—and the Minister knows it well—that the way the consumer is going to be fleeced in this matter is a simple enough performance. When there is no competition, the factories or the company can charge what they please, and polarisations and polariscopes are all nonsense, and all this long business, which we are told is founded upon some basic figure, is not worth wasting the paper over which the printing extends, because, in the end, the whole thing relates to taxation of the consumer, on what is a vital necessity, because of the price he will be charged; and that price will be whatever the company decides to make it since there is no competition. I have referred previously to the pennies in the blind man's box. The Minister for Finance used that phrase himself previously in relation to a duty.
I knew the Deputy was not original.
No, I sometimes follow a simple lead. When the Simple Simon of the Party was talking on the occasion to which I have referred, he said that it was like dropping a penny into a blind man's tin in order to make it rattle. The circumstance in which that remark was made was where some benefit was being given to the farming community and it was being taken from another source. In fact, it was in relation to old age pensions. Think of what is happening now. We have now a drop in old age pensions and a tax on practically every necessity of life. If the other was a case of dropping a penny in the tin in order to make it rattle, this is giving the tin a kick, not to make it rattle, but to knock the coppers out.
Tá
- Aiken, Frank.
- Bartley, Gerald.
- Beegan, Patrick.
- Boland, Gerald.
- Bourke, Daniel.
- Breen, Daniel.
- Cleary, Mícheál.
- Concannon, Helena.
- Corbett, Edmond.
- Crowley, Timothy.
- Daly, Denis.
- Derrig, Thomas.
- De Valera, Eamon.
- Doherty, Hugh.
- Donnelly, Eamon.
- Flinn, Hugo. V.
- Fogarty, Andrew.
- Gibbons, Seán.
- Goulding, John.
- Harris, Thomas.
- Keely, Séamus P.
- Killilea, Mark.
- Lemass, Seán F.
- Little, Patrick John.
- MacEntee, Seán.
- Moane, Edward.
- Moore, Séamus.
- Moylan, Seán.
- Murphy, Patrick Stephen.
- O Briain, Donnchadh.
- O'Dowd, Patrick.
- O'Grady, Seán.
- O'Reilly, Matthew.
- Pearse, Margaret Mary.
- Ruttledge, Patrick Joseph.
- Ryan, James.
- Ryan, Martin.
- Ryan, Robert.
- Sheridan, Michael.
- Smith, Patrick.
- Traynor, Oscar.
- Walsh, Richard.
Níl
- Belton, Patrick.
- Bennett, George Cecil.
- Burke, James Michael.
- Burke, Patrick.
- Byrne, Alfred.
- Cosgrave, William T.
- Dockrell, Henry Morgan.
- Doyle, Peadar S
- Fitzgerald, Desmond.
- Fitzgerald-Kenney, James.
- Lynch, Finian.
- McFadden, Michael Og.
- McGilligan, Patrick.
- McMenamin, Daniel.
- Morrissey, Daniel.
- Mulcahy, Richard.
- O'Leary, Daniel.
- O'Neill, Eamonn.
- O'Sullivan, Gearóid.
- O'Sullivan, John Marcus.
- Redmond, Bridget Mary.
- Reidy, James.
- Rice, Vincent.
- Rowlette, Robert James.
- Wall, Nicholas.
On the Fourth Schedule, when the section dealing with this schedule was under discussion, it was understood that the tariff proposed on these raw fruit, apples, pears, plums, cherries, strawberries, raspberries, currants and gooseberries, was for the purpose of helping Irish fruit growers, on the one hand, and Irish farmers, on the other; Irish fruit growers, by protecting a certain type of fruit and Irish farmers——
What is the point of this?
I am looking for information. It was understood that Irish farmers would be helped by putting a tariff on certain fruit——
On a point of order, the relevant section to this schedule is Section 14. That section was before the House, and any information which was wanted could have been asked for then.
It was asked for.
Information is available to us now that was not available then.
The House has already decided that this schedule should stand.
I quite agree that the House has decided that the tax should be imposed, but I am waiting to see what line Deputy Mulcahy is taking.
Are we to be allowed to vote on the Fourth Schedule?
That is for the House to decide—not for me.
If there is a division challenged will there be a vote taken? Does it not seem illogical that a vote should be taken on a matter which cannot be discussed?
Oh, no.
I see.
Has the Deputy ever heard of a closure?
I have heard of a close person. You have been a very close one lately.
I wish to give reasons why I rather change my mind with regard to this duty on fruit. As I say, we understood that the tariff here was imposed for the purpose of assisting the fruit growers and farmers here—the fruit growers, by putting a tariff on the fruit that they were actually growing here, and the farmers by putting a tariff on particular fruits, giving a preference to oranges. We were anxious to assist the farmers by——
The Deputy is getting into the realms of the rights and wrongs of what has already been decided on the section.
I want to draw attention to the fact that information is available to us now which, if the Minister for Finance has not some comment to make on it, will mean that we will have to vote against this schedule whereas we allowed the section to pass. It is announced in the Irish Press of this morning that Spanish oranges are quite out of season, and have no juice in them; that the season for Spanish oranges lasts from December to March, inclusive, and do not let anybody sell them to you after that.
Is not this a question of whether we are putting a tax on imported fruit?
No; but why are not oranges in this schedule?
The House has decided that only articles which are in the schedule will be taxed.
Not at all. It has not. Surely, there could have been amendments put down?
A Deputy
But there were not.
But the Minister says that the House has already passed it as it is. I am arguing against that. Clearly it did not.
The House has passed the relevant section.
But the section does not rule that that schedule should be the schedule to the Bill.
The schedule, as passed by the House——
But the Minister's suggestion that the House has precluded all discussion of this by passing the section is absurd.
It would save a lot of time if the Minister would listen to my point, which will not entail a long speech. When we passed the section with reference to this Schedule we understood that what we were doing was protecting home industries. By means of a tariff on other fruit, and a preference to oranges, particularly Spanish oranges, we understood that we were helping the farmers and fruit growers. We are told to-day that you should not let anyone sell you a Spanish orange.
Let me point out to the Deputy that what is in the Irish Press does not affect the Bill, does not affect the discussions in this House.
If we are not going to have the possible advantage of an alternative fruit that we expected to have, then I oppose taxes at this particular rate on the fruits that are there.
Deputy Mulcahy realises that it is the principle of the tariff he is discussing.
I suggest that the House might easily have passed the section, referring to a Schedule which did not include oranges, but it might now wish to have oranges included.
But there is no amendment of that character.
There will be. But I am not on oranges at the moment; I am not dieting. I want to ask a few questions and I will direct them to the second dome of silence who has crept into the House. Why are plums, which include damsons, prunes and greengages, to be taxed at 2d. per lb. between certain dates and only 1d. per lb. on other dates? Do plums always include damsons, prunes and greengages, or is it only in the opinion of the Revenue Commissioners that damsons, prunes and greengages are plums? Are we not going to allow anything off for prunes, because they have a certain elocutionary effect when joined with prisms, or will that only be in the season when the 1d. per lb. is on, so that people who are dumb ordinarily will get the use of these articles to enable them to be more vocal and perhaps more intelligible?
I do not know why the delectable cherry should be picked out for the terrible slap of 3d. per lb. when damsons, prunes and greengages are charged only 2d. and, in their best season, go as low as 1d. The same thing will apply to raspberries. Raspberries, I observe, are to include loganberries. It might have saved paper and probably would have been quite as intelligible if cherries, strawberries, raspberries, loganberries and gooseberries were put together instead of being placed in different categories. Is there any real discrimination relating to the dates upon which these particular fruits mature, or is there any particular discrimination based on the time when a competitive article here would come on the market, or is it just again Deputy Donnelly's idea that we want the stuff and here are the goods that will give it to us? Oranges are not on this, and oranges, I think, should be counted. My main appreciation of oranges is derived from attending football matches, and certainly there one would gather that they are the fruit of the democracy. Yet, we will not tax them. We give people something they can apparently wash their faces with instead of eating. It is a sort of dry pulp at this time of the year and it is given as a——
Solace?
It is not a solace; it is an irritation. You get people at football matches in the autumn and oranges will be hawked around amongst them and they will be sold, these Spanish dried-up skins with really no juice, or the matter that the people like, inside them. There is not a word of explanation given to us about the Schedule. We are not told what is aimed at, how the taxes have been selected, how even the fruits for the taxes have been selected. We are just presented with this on the take-it-or-leave-it principle. Deputy Donnelly's idea is that you cannot leave it, so that you have to take it. It is all getting at what the people enjoy.
What about a duty on crab apples?
Crab apples would certainly be the sort of thing to attract the present Minister for Finance, because it is the fruit young people enjoy and generally get free. Crab apples may not be very good for them. The whole idea of the Budget is to get down as far as you can to what the people commonly use. The Minister has got after those things and imposed harsh taxes. We have an example here again in fruit. All the time we have to leave out the special item of oranges because of our glorious arrangement with Spain. The Spanish Treaty is, apparently, going to rank with the Belgian and German Treaties, and even the Coal-Cattle Pact is going hard to be on the top line—and mind you, it is a hot class when you think of the Coal-Cattle Pact, for rottenness.
I would like to ask if there is any discrimination in connection with these duties on the raw fruit as to what countries they are brought from. In regard to some fruits that we are not permitted to mention, I understand, in view of the ruling of the Chair, it occurs to me that the same situation might arise as has arisen in relation to other fruits, namely, that we might allot certain portions of the year to certain fruits and, having split up the year amongst certain countries, we might then find that a war had broken out in the fruit trade and we would be compelled to buy from each of the combatants in turn fruit at the highest prices, and we might not be able to take advantage of what I might call the world war which might be going on in the fruit trade. I would like to urge upon the Minister not to tie his hands in any way in connection with the fruits that are scheduled here, and to take warning from what has occurred in other sections of the fruit trade, namely, that we may be delivered over to each of the combatants in turn to be charged the highest market prices instead of the world price.
Tá
- Aiken, Frank.
- Bartley, Gerald
- Beegan, Patrick.
- Boland, Gerald.
- Bourke, Daniel.
- Breen, Daniel.
- Cleary, Mícheál.
- Concannon, Helena.
- Corbett, Edmond.
- Crowley, Timothy.
- Daly, Denis.
- Derrig, Thomas.
- De Valera, Eamon.
- Doherty, Hugh.
- Donnelly, Eamon.
- Flinn, Hugo. V.
- Fogarty, Andrew.
- Gibbons, Seán.
- Goulding, John.
- Harris, Thomas.
- Houlihan, Patrick.
- Keely, Séamus P.
- Killilea, Mark.
- Lemass, Seán F.
- Little, Patrick John.
- MacEntee, Seán.
- Moane, Edward.
- Moore, Séamus.
- Moylan, Seán.
- Murphy, Patrick Stephen.
- O Briain, Donnchadh.
- O'Dowd, Patrick.
- O'Grády, Seán.
- O'Reilly, Matthew.
- Pearse, Margaret Mary.
- Ruttledge, Patrick Joseph.
- Ryan, James.
- Ryan, Martin.
- Ryan, Robert.
- Sheridan, Michael.
- Smith, Patrick.
- Traynor, Oscar.
- Walsh, Richard.
Níl
- Bennett, George Cecil.
- Burke, James Michael.
- Burke, Patrick.
- Cosgrave, William T.
- Costello, John Aloysius.
- Dockrell, Henry Morgan.
- Doyle, Peadar S.
- Fitzgerald, Desmond.
- Lynch, Finian.
- McFadden, Michael Og.
- McGilligan, Patrick.
- McMenamin, Daniel.
- Morrissey, Daniel.
- Mulcahy, Richard.
- O'Leary, Daniel.
- O'Neill, Eamonn.
- O'Sullivan, Gearóid.
- O'Sullivan, John Marcus.
- Redmond, Bridget Mary.
- Reidy, James.
- Rice, Vincent.
- Rowlette, Robert James.
- Wall, Nicholas.
On the Fifth Schedule I would like to ask the Minister what is the amount of increased duty which the tobacco tax is going to bring him in this year?
That is a question that ought to have been asked on the section, Sir.
The Minister gave no explanation of the matter when we were dealing with the section. In view of the enormous duties that have been disclosed since on the poor, particularly on the workingman and on the less well-off section of the community, will the Minister say whether he contemplates modifying this section in any way?
It is not the Minister who could modify it. The House has already decided on a certain section of the Bill and that cannot be altered at this stage.
It is only just now that the Minister has advised us that in connection with other sections he proposes to introduce amendments on Report Stage. I would now like to ask the Minister if he proposes to introduce amendments which would reduce taxation on tobacco when he comes to the Fifth Schedule.
Wait and see.
We want before it is too late to get some explanation of this particular matter. I understand that there is nobody precluded from bringing in an amendment, on the Report Stage, to reduce taxation. I am aware that it is only the Minister could bring in an amendment on the Report Stage to increase it, but any Deputy can bring in an amendment to reduce it. There is nothing to preclude him from doing so.
No amendment will be brought in to reduce the amount.
Deputy Mulcahy's question was asked with a view to getting a statement from the Minister as to whether he would bring in an amendment to reduce this taxation. I understood you, Sir, to say that since the House had taken a decision on the question that it could not now be altered. I would like to submit that on the Report Stage——
I did not say what the Deputy says he understood me to say. I did not say that an amendment could not be brought in and have the thing altered on Report Stage.
Well, therefore, the question as to whether an amendment could be proposed on Report Stage was in order.
I have given the House due notice of any amendments I propose to introduce.
I cannot discuss whether an amendment can be introduced now or on the Report Stage. I am only on the matter of order in connection with what is being discussed at present.
It is clear from what you said that, as we are at this moment, an amendment can be introduced on the Report Stage for increasing or decreasing. The Minister tells us now, as a sort of third removed answer to what Deputy Mulcahy asked, that he has already given full indication to the House. That bright moment in which he gave full indication of anything to the House should be remembered. The Minister also makes the excuse when asked about the amount of extra money to be derived from the people through this, that that should have been asked on the section. I suggest that that should have been mentioned by the Minister as an appropriate matter on the section. Again, we have this peculiar viewpoint, that what the Minister has to do is to come in here slapping on tariffs, duties and taxes, and not even saying what the aim is, in the sense of protection or benefit to the community, or what the effect is. The Minister apparently thinks that all these matters should have been got out of him by the laborious process of parliamentary question or that he is entitled to sing dumb until he is asked.
All the information that has been asked for from me on this stage of the Bill was given in my Budget statement and is available to any Deputy.
I am afraid the Minister has begun to recognise a point of order when he sees one. But I suggest that that type of thing never was a point of order. It is not either cute or anything else to deal with this matter in this way. There is this very vital matter of the tax upon tobacco, which has come to be regarded by economists as a sort of necessity in certain walks of life, and the Minister simply sits here and will not indicate what he means by it. The Minister I know did tell us generally in his Budget speech that he was driven to desperation and simply had to get money. This is Deputy Donnelly's advice again. Here was something the people were going to use and to continue using and he would get a bit extra. As he is not putting it on bread, we ought, I suppose, to feel some way relieved. The Minister, at any rate, did interfere with the tobacco business early, with disastrous results. He is now interfering later, with still more disastrous results, and the intelligent Deputies in the background are asked to vote on this without knowing what the impact of it means.
Is this in order?
It is finished anyway.
Tá
- Aiken, Frank.
- Bartley, Gerald.
- Boland, Gerald.
- Bourke, Daniel.
- Breen, Daniel.
- Cleary, Mícheál.
- Concannon, Helena.
- Corbett, Edmond.
- Crowley, Timothy.
- Daly, Denis.
- Derrig, Thomas.
- De Valera, Eamon.
- Doherty, Hugh.
- Donnelly, Eamon.
- Fogarty, Andrew.
- Gibbons, Seán.
- Harris, Thomas.
- Houlihan, Patrick.
- Killilea, Mark.
- Lemass, Seán F.
- Little, Patrick John.
- MacEntee, Seán.
- Moane, Edward.
- Moore, Séamus.
- Moylan, Seán.
- Murphy, Patrick Stephen.
- O Briain, Donnchadh.
- O'Dowd, Patrick.
- O'Grady, Seán.
- O'Reilly, Matthew.
- Pearse, Margaret Mary.
- Ruttledge, Patrick Joseph.
- Ryan, James.
- Ryan, Martin.
- Ryan, Robert.
- Sheridan, Michael.
- Smith, Patrick.
- Traynor, Oscar.
- Walsh, Richard.
Níl
- Bennett, George Cecil.
- Burke, James Michael.
- Burke, Patrick.
- Bryne, Alfred.
- Cosgrave, William T.
- Costello, John Aloysius.
- Doyle, Peadar S.
- Fitzgerald, Desmond.
- Fitzgerald-Kenney, James.
- Lynch, Finian.
- McFadden, Michael Og.
- McGilligan, Patrick.
- Morrissey, Daniel.
- Mulcahy, Richard.
- O'Leary, Daniel.
- O'Sullivan, Gearóid.
- O'Sullivan, John Marcus.
- Redmond, Bridget Mary.
- Reidy, James.
- Rice, Vincent.
- Rowlette, Robert James.
- Wall, Nicholas.
What does it mean?
The only alteration it effects in the duty on boots and shoes is to include children's boots and shoes. It was done by Emergency Order some time ago, and this Bill confirms the Emergency Order, extending the duty on boots and shoes to children's boots and shoes.
And I suppose the reasons given then operate now?
Oh, yes.
What were they?
That sufficient children's boots and shoes were manufactured in the country.
Are they made here?
Yes.
Would the Minister tell us in connection with reference No. 5:
Boots made wholly or mainly of rubber, rubber-proofed material, rubber-coated material, or a combination of two or more of those materials.
whether any of these boots are being manufactured here at the present moment?
Not at the present moment. They will be manufactured here about October.
Is the purpose of this simply to keep out supplies and to prevent forestalling or is the Minister satisfied that the new factory will be able to compete on the basis of this tax of 2/- per boot or 4/- per pair?
The duty upon rubber boots and plimsolls was imposed in order to discourage their importation. They were coming in in huge quantities in 1932-33, to the detriment of our existing boot industry, and the duty was imposed to discourage that importation. They are also subject to quota restriction, and the quota restriction is in operation at the present time.
Could the Minister give us any information as to what is likely to be the difference in price between boots manufactured here, when they are manufactured here, and the imported article? This tax amounts, if I mistake not, to 2/- per boot on a boot the overall length of which is nine inches. As a rule, I think taxation imposed on boots and shoes is imposed on the pair and that represents 4/- in this case. Surely it is not likely that that——
May I interrupt the Deputy? A corresponding duty of exactly the same amount was imposed in Great Britain in 1933 in order to keep out the Japanese footwear which was coming in to Great Britain in large quantities at that time. It was feared, and rightly feared, that a large consignment of boots and shoes, which had been printed in England, with English lettering and descriptions on the boxes and intended for the British market, would be diverted into this country and, in fact, a considerable quantity was so diverted, before we imposed a duty corresponding to the British duty.
The Japanese are exceptional in that respect. Their prices are lower. There is no preferential duty in this case for British manufactured goods?
No.
I presume that some English manufacturer of rubber boots will come in here, and it is in respect of those that I should like the Minister to tell us what is the figure necessary in order to compete with the boots which he expects to have manufactured here.
We anticipate that rubber boots and plimsolls, that is, canvas and rubber shoes, will be manufactured here at prices which will be slightly higher than the corresponding British prices, but not substantially higher.
The main reason for the increase is the larger output in the British factories as compared with the smaller output here?
Yes.
Is he satisfied that, so far as the rubber boots to be manufactured here are concerned, the quality will be as good as the quality of the British shoes, allowing for the small increase in price?
I am quite satisfied on that point.
Where will they be manufactured?
They will be manufactured by Dunlops in Cork.
This is protection, I gather, not for rubber boots, but for boots in general?
It effects no change in the duty on rubber boots.
This putting of a tax of 4/- a pair on rubber boots is not a protection for rubber boots, but primarily intended as protection for boots?
Yes.
This tax of 2/- per boot or 4/- per pair will probably operate similarly to the 6d. tax we had last night on the other alleged Japanese products coming in here. In that case the Minister had a choice of 50 per cent., or 3d. or 6d., as the case might be. Here it is a mere lump sum. Has he any indication of what that comes to on an average rubber boot coming, not from Japan, but from England? Last night we got a figure of 2/- per dozen in the case of knives, and 50 per cent. on that, from the Minister's point of view, would be no use. Therefore, he adopted, in that particular case, the full tax of 1/- to get over that particular very low product. At the same time he had the 50 per cent. What does this 4/- a pair amount to?
It has stopped imports of rubber boots entirely. The rubber boot which was being imported was one which competed particularly with the type of boot being made in the early stages here—the heavy farmer's boot intended for heavy wear. The imported boot was somewhat similar in character and was in competition with that particular type of boot. The 2/- per boot tax has stopped the importation of them.
Why was that particular boot being used by the farmer? Has the Minister any idea?
They were being sold at 2/6 per pair.
Because the farmer found it cheaper?
They were remarkably cheap, and they could not possibly be produced here.
His view would not be taken into account, quite naturally.
This is an interesting sidelight on the tariff business, that when you tax an article you have to watch that you also tax anything which an unfortunate man might be driven to as a substitute for the tariffed article. You have to go down the long chain of possible substitutes.
Except that we propose to get the substitute made here now.
I am sure, and if we pressed the Minister hard enough he would tell us that arrangements were being made to export some of them from here.
The Deputy might be surprised.
The Minister's speeches on tariffs are like an ordinary Greek chorus in a play—everyone will fit any tariff——
Cheaper and better.
They are cheaper now than in 1932.
They are being made so cheap here that we have to put this tariff on.
Rubber boots are not being made here at all.
When they are made here in October, we will find them being given away with a calf-skin or something like that. At any rate, the situation is that you tax something and you raise its price. The individual who is taxed in that way, and who cannot pay the tax flies to a substitute, and then you tax the substitute, and the one person who does not count in it all is the consumer. If we had tariffs debated here in any sort of decent economic philosophy, we would be told what is the amount of employment given; what is the increased purchasing power that is going to be scattered through the community, through the employment of workers in the manufacture of these goods, so that we could see what is the lift of the burden from the shoulders of the community, in return for the burden that is being put upon them by making them buy things at a higher price than they used to pay.
The Deputy surely appreciates that the only change that is being effected by the duty that is now being ratified is to include children's boots.
The Minister has a happy knack of saying that because he thinks something which he has done previously is all right, therefore, something which makes no change in it is equally all right. The Minister has heard the growlings and the wailings of the absent Labour Deputies at the increased cost put upon them by certain things when they adverted rather critically to the fact that a wage fund which was increased by £25,000 in a £4,000,000 tot, is not a very big return for the burden the community is bearing.
Surely Section 22 was the proper place to discuss this.
The discussion has been entered on, and I thought I was going to get as much rope as anybody else.
The Deputy is getting as much rope as anybody else.
We are asked to accept these duties because there is no change and because they were put on before. We are told that Plimsol is going to be manufactured here in October by the Dunlop people, and we were told, just as we were told previously about Dunlops, that they will be under the control of the Prices Commission. I presume that is the only check we have—what the Prices Commission does. I do not know what the number of complaints received by the Prices Commission has been, but the Prices Commission have operated only once— in relation to profiteering by coal hawkers.
That is surely miles away from the schedule.
Do I understand the Minister to say that this means an increased tax on boots? I think I did.
No.
No tariff means a tax!
The Deputy can buy children's Irish-made boots.
It strikes me at any rate that we have a new tax here on rubber boots and to a certain extent on other boots. While we are making these boots here, I am not sure that we are making the finer quality boots to any extent and these will be dearer for many people. At the moment we are paying duty on uppers made of leather or skin to the extent of 30 per cent. of the value of the article. At the same time we are sending skins out of the country for nothing and paying a bounty to get them out. Possibly the fact is that we are paying a duty on these skins when we get them back in the shape of uppers for boots. That is a policy, of which those of us engaged in the agricultural industry are rather suspicious because the raw material for some of these boots is being exported——
Clearly that is not relevant in discussing this Schedule.
This Schedule adds an additional duty to imported boots. We want to be sure that that duty is not being put on the raw material that originated in this country. Even though the Minister said that the additional cost of these rubber boots will be small, no matter what amount it is, those who are engaged in agriculture will certainly object to it and vote against it. I do not care if it is only a penny per boot. Our capacity to buy any kind of boots has been limited tremendously and this is not the time to add to the cost of boots or shoes. I hope the Deputies will vote against this Schedule. I am not prepared to stand for an increase of even a penny or twopence on boots, not to mention 6d. per boot.
That means that the Deputy will be glad to know that the price has gone down since 1931.
This is not going to make them cheaper. This is going to mean an increased duty of 30 per cent.
We decided about the imposition of the tariff on Section 22.
With all respect Section 22 does not decide it. Section 22 is merely declaratory. The Schedule might be rejected or amended.
I am not opposing an amendment of this Schedule; in fact I am determined to vote against it. The Minister can amend it as far as I am concerned.
Is it not possible to discuss an amendment of the Schedule, even though we have not certain amendments down to it? Can we not suggest certain amendments which the Minister might make between this and the Report Stage? We could not have done it on Section 22. The only place at which we could make a suggestion of that kind is on this Schedule. We surely are at liberty to make suggestions to the Minister to change the schedule between now and the Report Stage. I have heard again and again, on the Committee Stage of various Bills, suggestions made to make certain changes in the Schedule. I suggest that is in order now.
The Minister has made what is to my mind a bit of a startling admission in perhaps one of his unguarded moments. What I gathered from the Minister was this: there has been a fall in world prices. The producer in this country, especially the agricultural producer, feels the effect of the fall in world prices as far as it affects the products which he himself is selling, but when it comes to a question of buying manufactured articles the Minister says: "Oh you have no right to complain; it is true that the price of what you are selling is falling but I shall take right good care that you do not get any advantage that comes from a falling market in the things you are going to buy." That seems to me to be a most unjust way of looking at the matter. The Minister takes one particular year, any year he likes, and he is going to keep the price that prevailed in that year in his mind for all his period of office. The result will be that he will maintain by tariffs a price which has become artificial, and he will say: "In the year 1932 you were paying just as much for it. It is true that if you went out of this country you could buy it 50 per cent. less, but you are not going to buy boots or any other article in this country cheaper than they were in 1932." I am glad that the Minister has made that perfectly plain to us. I am glad that the people may know that while they may suffer from falling markets, in anything they may have to sell, the unfortunate producers will not be able to get any advantage from that falling market in the commodities that they have to purchase.
Another remark which the Minister made also struck me as rather strange. So far as I understood the Minister, speaking previously on the production of boots generally, I understood him to say that there was one part of the trade in which the boot producers of this country were able to meet their rivals on equal terms and that was the manufacture of heavy boots, especially farm boots. Unless I have misunderstood many speeches made by the Minister that was his point of view, but to-day he tells us that the home market for strong boots has become too high priced for the agricultural community to continue to buy leather-soled boots.
They are buying more than ever they bought.
If so, what does the Minister mean by telling us that the rubber soled boots have driven the leather boots out of the market. That is what I understood the Minister to say. I cannot understand the Minister's present position. If heavy boots are being driven out of the market, why are more of them being sold than ever before? It is very difficult to reconcile two completely opposite points of view, and it seems to me that is what the Minister is asking the House to do. Without coming to our assistance, he is setting us an extraordinary task, namely, to make two absolutely irreconcilable things reconcilable. If his earlier statement, as distinguished from his later statement, is to be taken as correct, and if heavy boots are being driven out of the market by rubber soled boots, then that must be due, if I am to accept anything that he has said as being accurate, to the fact that the purchasing power of the farming community has fallen to such an extent that they are unable to buy the better class article. Everyone knows that for the farming community the leather soled boot is ever so much a better article than the rubber soled boot. Anyone who has ever walked through a grass field, or who has played golf, knows well the advantage of the leather soled boot compared to the other. We all know how difficult it is to walk in the streets of Dublin on a muddy day in a crepe soled shoe. Of what use would a rubber soled boot be to a ploughman or a man digging with a spade? Of course, he would not wear such a boot if it was possible for him at all to get a leather soled boot. I would like very much if the Minister would enlighten my ignorance. I am always anxious to hear the words of wisdom and of illumination that fall from him. Will he tell the House why the very best article that the Irish boot manufacturer can produce is being driven out of the market by a second rate article?
I invite the Deputies opposite to vote against the Schedule, and I will be very disappointed if they do not. I notice that they forget it very quickly whenever they take action of that kind, because, whenever there is an official opening of a boot factory, they are all there on the band wagon leading the procession, indicating their joy at the new development. When the two new boot factories are opened in Kerry, I am certain that Deputy O'Sullivan will be there just as Deputy Cosgrave will be at the opening of the new factory in Cork. They will be all there on the band wagon beating the drum.
The Minister, I think, did indicate that the real alteration in this tax relates entirely to children's boots and shoes. On that basis I ask the House to reject the Schedule. Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney talked about heavy farmer's boots, heavy Government Front Benchers' boots, shoes for playing golf and all the rest. The point that I want to emphasise is that this tax will punish most those who have to dress their children in canvas shoes and rubber boots which can be cheaply got at present. These are the people who are being taxed, and not the man behind the plough or the spade, or the gentleman playing golf. At present, as I have said, these canvas shoes and rubber boots can be got cheaply. The Minister tells us that they will not be produced in this country until October and even then, he says, he cannot guarantee that they will be available at a price equal to that at which they can be obtained at present. It is the poor who are being hit by this tax, and particularly the poor who live in the towns and cities. Even country children will not suffer so much as these city children, because the country children develop hard skins—like Ministers—on their feet.
This effects no change in the present position in respect to boots. There has been no change in the past two years.
It affects the price of these articles. The Minister said that it would not change the price beyond what it was in 1932.
It does not change the duty on them.
I did not say that it did, but why should a duty be on them? Five years ago I raised this question of a duty on canvas shoes.
The Deputy could not have done that, because there was no duty on them five years ago.
I raised the matter of sizes. There was such a duty, and it was then extended to include boots and shoes for children. First of all there was a duty on sizes—sizes 5 and 6—and later that duty was extended down to the smaller sizes.
The duty is being extended to the smaller sizes by this resolution.
What this means is that the children who want boots and shoes most are being taxed. It is really an extension of what Deputy Mulcahy said this evening.
That should have been discussed on the section.
May I not raise the question as to whether the House should accept the Schedule?
I am pointing out to the Deputy that the matter he is dealing with should have been raised on the section.
I submit that I am advancing reasons as to why the House should not accept the Schedule.
Or else vote on the Schedule without discussion.
The Deputy knows that the section gives power to impose certain tariffs on certain classes of boots and shoes as mentioned in the Schedule. The House is now discussing the Schedule, but what the Deputy is discussing has already been decided on the section.
If that is so, then, may I say it with respect, the putting of the Schedule is either an insult to the House or an insult to the Chair.
It is not an insult either to the House or to the Chair. Section 22 gave certain power with reference to the imposition of a tariff on boots, shoes, etc., and that was passed by the House. To re-open that matter on the Schedule is not regular or in order. I have allowed several Deputies to go a good distance, but to go into the merits of what has already been decided is not in order.
I bow to your ruling, but may I ask why is the Schedule being put?
May we not say then that you do not want the Schedule passed?
Apparently not.
The Deputy is raising what has already been decided on the section. Deputy McGilligan knows that as well as I do, and so does Deputy O'Sullivan.
May I put to the House a single argument as to why that Schedule should not be passed? If I may, why is that allowed? Why should I be able to do that when the Leas-Cheann Comhairle tells me that the whole thing is ruled by the section to which the Schedule has reference?
Surely it is.
Therefore, we cannot discuss it.
I submit that the Dáil has clearly decided that the Sixth Schedule to this Bill shall operate.
My point is that, according to the procedure we have adopted up to now, the House votes whether this Schedule is to be a part of the Bill or not. Is not that so?
Quite so.
Therefore, the matter is not decided until that vote is taken.
The section sets out certain things which may be done in respect of certain items mentioned in the Schedule. Obviously, we cannot reopen what we decided on the section.
As there is no amendment, may the Schedule be discussed?
Amendments could be discussed.
As there is no amendment, may the Schedule be discussed in any part?
It is not for the Chair to say what can be discussed. It is for the Chair to intervene when the rules of order are being contravened.
I am sorry if I broke any rule of order. I feel that I have not done so. I am simply putting to the House a reason why it should not accept the Schedule.
That is to say that a matter decided by Section 22 should be reopened and the decision of this House reviewed.
Does not that mean that we cannot discuss the Schedule?
If the Schedule has already been passed, as I understood the Minister to contend, what is the sense of having a vote upon it?
The Deputy could have moved an amendment to it.
If this House votes and rejects the section, is not that reopening it?
It is not part of the function of the Chair to answer that question.
My point is that we cannot possibly be asked to vote upon anything in the Bill which we are precluded from discussing. If the rules of order preclude us from discussing the Schedule, the same rules of order are bound to preclude us from voting on the Schedule.
Deputy Gearóid O'Sullivan was traversing what has already been decided—the principle as to whether there should be a tariff on a certain type of boot or shoe or not. A decision had already been taken on that matter by the House.
I was not going to discuss the question whether there should be a tax on a certain type of shoe or not. But surely if I object to a tax of 6d. per shoe, for example, I am entitled to show cause why this House should not accept the Schedule even in the absence of an amendment?
If we cannot discuss the Schedule as a whole, we cannot discuss an amendment to it. If the Schedule has been already passed, we cannot amend it. We cannot amend a thing which has been passed, and I understood you to say that we could.
The Chair must not be misrepresented in that fashion. The Chair did not say that the Schedule had been passed.
I submit that the passing of Section 22 has no reference whatever to the Schedule. Quite a number of these taxes in the Schedules come under one of two, or both of two, headings. A tariff is either intended to help in the manufacture of goods here or as a means of getting in revenue. It was stated here to-day—I was not here at the time—that in one case it was partly one and partly the other. That is reminiscent of a question put in the police courts on one occasion by the magistrate: "Was the man drunk?" The answer was: "Partly, your worship.""What part of him?" asked the magistrate. In this case, we have elicited from the Minister that these goods are to be manufactured in this country. I am prepared to accept that. I am prepared further to say that, from my experience of the firm mentioned, the goods will be well made. They are in a position to compete with any firm in England. What I am not satisfied about is that, during the period that will elapse between now and the time of manufacture in this country, the people should be saddled with a price beyond the needs of the moment. A tax of 2/- per boot is not required in this case. The Minister's own statement is that what would be required would be the difference of cost in manufacturing for 45,000,000 people and manufacturing for 3,000,000 people. That is not 2/- per boot. This is an unreasonable tax because it falls more heavily on the section of the community less able to bear it than on the other section of the community.
The Minister was rather unfortunate in his remarks about attending the opening of factories. I do not know if anybody has attended these functions as often as the Minister. During our period of office, the expansion of industrial employment was probably 20 times what it has been in the Minister's period and he has probably attended 20 times as many functions as I attended. If he wants figures as to that matter, he will find them in the statistical return. That continuous employment, which was particularly noticeable from 1927 to 1931 or 1932, was possible by reason of the care taken in the imposition of tariffs. This particular imposition is unreasonable. It is more than a tariff; it is a tax. While the Dáil may have committed itself to accepting some proposals in respect of this matter, the Dáil has not committed itself yet to this imposition of 2/- per boot. It is a sum beyond the need and beyond what is necessary to give the factory its opportunity. I know more about the factory and its history than the Minister does. I was using their products before the Minister was born and I found them satisfactory. There has been an improvement in quality during the past few years far beyond anything the users ever contemplated. Their tyres run two or three times the length of time they used to run a few years ago. That is not a character they require from me. Their goods provide it in their quality. If that factory undertakes the work this tariff is unnecessary. If it is imposed before they undertake manufacture here, it will place an undue burden on the people and, therefore, I oppose it.
A tax was imposed long before the idea of a factory was first mooted.
We cannot escape one fact, that we are asking the House to put on a tax that was not there already. I do not want to go back to Section 22, which deals with the principle of the amendment concerning the duty on boots and shoes. I would like the Minister to state if he is satisfied his Party will support him in taxing the boots and shoes of the children of the poorest people, when they know that it will increase the cost. I do not know whether the Minister says yes or no to that.
No, definitely not.
I take it that the Minister says this is an extension of the tariff on boots and shoes.
Only an extension of the tariff on children's shoes of leather.
Those who want most shoes. We are told by the Minister that prices will not be increased.
They are being produced here exactly at the same price as in Great Britain.
Prices in Great Britain vary.
Yes.
Give us an average. We would like to test that.
There is a whole range of prices.
Before you get the average?
This deals with infants' shoes.
Take the largest size, what is the average price?
I could not say that. There are various qualities. Quality for quality, the price here is not higher than in Great Britain.
And the Minister says that he hopes that we will have an export trade.
I hope so.
Did I understand the Minister to say that 2/- a boot is not being charged?
Imports of rubber boots are being completely prohibited. None are being imported.
On the question whether the House ought to accept this Schedule or not, the Minister has given one sufficient reason against it. I want the Minister the next time he goes on the band wagon to one of these factories and makes a speech, to say. "I will not congratulate you on the magnificent work you have done." Here is the test. There was a time when the people wore an agricultural boot for which they were charged certain prices. The people are drifting away from the heavy soled leather boot to the unsuitable article with a rubber sole.
It was not a rubber sole; it was all rubber.
That is much more unsuitable for digging with a spade, and is very unhealthy. The Minister ought to state, the next time he is on the band wagon—and it is the greatest criterion of the work of these factories —that there was a period in which the people went away from the agricultural boot to which they were accustomed, which the factories here produced and in which there ought to be a good trade, because it was the heavy end of the trade. There was then no question of wearing boots with finer uppers. The Minister could say: "That is the criterion on which I award the palm but, in some way, you drove the people away from using an agricultural boot to the unhealthy rubber boot."
Not more than in Great Britain.
Possibly not. That is the situation here, with protection, machinery, equipment, and with the tradition of the boot factories that developed mainly with the agricultural boot. All the Minister can say is that they broke away from that. I suggest that the question of very much cheaper rubber boots would not be weighed in the balance if the people got the old type of leather agricultural boot at the old price.
They were getting them much cheaper.
That is what the Minister says, that in fact agriculturists have been offered these boots cheaper than ever. They were accustomed to those boots and valued them, yet they went to rubber boots and we have to put 2/- a boot on them to keep them out. I would not like to be the manufacturer who would have that said to me in an after lunch oration by the Minister. I would not like to have to listen to that type of phrase. At any rate, the Minister has shown the standard price in certain years. Arising out of boots and shoes, can the Minister take this as a test? The next time there are industrial exhibits in the Industrial Hall he might ask people who make a display there to put above their boots the tariffs they are now enjoying, the number of workers employed before the tariffs went on, and the number now employed, with the increased purchasing power. Say that wages came to £25,000 or £3,000,000 or £4,000,000, that would give the populace something by which they could judge whether the tariff is good or not. They could look on the prices they are being charged and they could see the wages paid now, with the tariff, to let them get a grip of the industry. Until you get that you do not know any proper standard. The increased wages would be a criterion. This ought to be voted against, from the angle of the introduction of the duty, especially as it is no answer to critics to say that the tax has been on already. Most of these taxes were rushed as emergency imposition duties.
Imposed by the Finance Act.
They were put through the way this is being put through. Can anyone say that this Finance Act has been discussed properly?
No one can say that it was rushed.
I think it has been rushed. You can associate a different rate of speed with a light, fast-starting car to the heavy, lumbering sort of vehicle. No one can say that this and the attached clauses have been discussed, or that information was given about the taxes that are being put on, that is required, for their proper discussion.
Tá
- Aiken, Frank.
- Bartley, Gerald.
- Beegan, Patrick.
- Boland, Gerald.
- Bourke, Daniel.
- Breen, Daniel.
- Cleary, Mícheál.
- Concannon, Helena.
- Corbett, Edmond.
- Crowley, Timothy.
- Daly, Denis.
- Derrig, Thomas.
- De Valera, Eamon.
- Doherty, Hugh.
- Fogarty, Andrew.
- Gibbons, Seán.
- Goulding, John.
- Harris, Thomas.
- Keely, Séamus P.
- Killilea, Mark.
- Lemass, Seán F.
- Little, Patrick John.
- MacEntee, Seán.
- Moane, Edward.
- Moore, Séamus.
- Murphy, Patrick Stephen.
- O Briain, Donnchadh.
- O'Dowd, Patrick.
- O'Grady, Seán.
- O'Reilly, Matthew.
- Pearse, Margaret Mary.
- Ruttledge, Patrick Joseph.
- Ryan, James.
- Ryan, Martin.
- Ryan, Robert.
- Sheridan, Michael.
- Smith, Patrick.
- Traynor, Oscar.
- Walsh, Richard.
Níl
- Belton, Patrick.
- Bennett, George Cecil.
- Burke, James Michael.
- Burke, Patrick.
- Fitzgerald, Desmond.
- Fitzgerald-Kenney, James.
- Lynch, Finian.
- McFadden, Michael Og.
- McGilligan, Patrick.
- McMenamin, Daniel.
- Mulcahy, Richard.
- O'Leary, Daniel.
- Cosgrave, William T.
- Costello, John Aloysius.
- Dockrell, Henry Morgan.
- Doyle, Peadar S.
- O'Neill, Eamonn.
- O'Sullivan, Gearóid.
- O'Sullivan, John Marcus.
- Redmond, Bridget Mary.
- Reidy, James.
- Rice, Vincent.
- Wall, Nicholas.
Can the Minister say what does this Schedule do?
It takes off a number of duties.
Why are they being taken off?
Because we had already put them on at a higher rate—except one. We are taking the duty off certain studs and cuff-links.
Taking them entirely off?
Yes.
It is interesting to know that a duty is being taken off even here.
Are the duties being taken off gold or silver links?
They were never on. Only gunmetal and brass links were liable to the duty.
I move amendment No. 47, standing in Deputy Mulcahy's name:—
In Part I, to delete reference No. 1, including relevant references in columns 2, 3 and 4.
As far as I understand this, from the explanatory statement, the effect of it is that a duty had previously been imposed at the rate of 20 per cent. ad valorem, which, in October, 1932. was raised to 37½ per cent., with a preferential rate of 25 per cent., and that the present provision is to increase the rate of duty on harness leather to 40 per cent.—a flat rate. The situation, apparently, is that the preference rating was the rating that ruled, which was 25 per cent., and that that has been increased to 40 per cent. Of course, anything before that was at 37½ per cent., and we have not been given any reason why this duty on harness should be increased. I do not know whether any explanation is going to be given, but I move the amendment in the hope of a reason being given.
The main reason of the duty is for administrative convenience. All the leather duties are being arranged on the basis of a flat rate of 40 per cent., for the purpose of convenience in the administration of these duties. There is, in fact, practically no importation of harness at the present time, and there are sufficient firms in this country to meet all our requirements. They are, in fact, meeting all our requirements at the moment. Since there was a question of a varying duty on straps and so on, it was thought better, for the sake of administrative convenience, to have a flat rate.
I do not follow the Minister's argument. He seems to be striving after symmetry in this matter, chiefly. No doubt, symmetry is a good thing to have, but I do not think it is the one thing to look to. I think that the Minister should aim rather at efficiency than at symmetry. The Minister now tells us that the reason for this is not because there is any need of it, but merely that it looks more symmetrical and more in keeping with all the other taxes on leather. His argument seems to be that, since there is a tax of 40 per cent. on a leather strap used in harness, therefore there ought to be a tax of 40 per cent. on a collar. Now I must frankly confess that that is an argument I did not follow at all.
That was not the argument I used.
It was what I understood. I am afraid that the gift of lucidity of expression which used to be characteristic of the Minister for Industry and Commerce is suddenly beginning to desert him, because it appeared to me that he was speaking very lucidly and very clearly when I understood him to say that as there was a duty of 40 per cent. on straps it would be very improper if there was not a nice levelling up of that; because there is a duty of 40 per cent. on straps, there is to be a duty of 40 per cent on everything else.
There is a duty of 40 per cent. on straps other than straps forming part of a harness, and it is desirable, in order to prevent evasion, to have 40 per cent. on the rest.
The Minister did not say that before.
I did my best to enable the Deputies to understand.
The Minister did not say that before. What is the use of quibbling and being nonsensical?
As a matter of fact the Minister is not doing himself justice. He can really make himself quite intelligent when he wants to, but I still do not quite understand his argument. A strap that goes round a portmanteau bears 40 per cent.; a strap on harness bears 40 per cent., and, therefore, because a strap on harness bears 40 per cent., a straddle or collar must bear 40 per cent. That is a thing I do not understand. Of course, the harness trade is naturally a decaying trade. As far as I know, the number of harness makers in this country is very reduced. There used to be harness shops in every town, and now there is possibly one harness maker in some old back lane, just to make the few odd collars that are required. That is the position in regard to harness-making, certainly as far as the West of Ireland is concerned.
What about the increased tillage?
Of course, the two things do not necessarily go together, because you can get imported harness quite cheaply for use in connection with your increased tillage.
This is another of the little incidentals; I might say it is one of the mosquitoes that are going to make the swarm. The Minister says he is only levelling-up matters—that straps other than straps on harness are taxed already. If the Minister is so anxious to level things, I will help him to do it. Why not bring them all down to the same level instead of levelling them up? Instead of levelling up the 35 per cent., or whatever the figure is, I would suggest that we bring them all down to 35 per cent., and change this Schedule a bit. As I say, this is another of the little mosquito tricks, and they all add to the burden. The whole matter of this Finance Bill has been most illuminating to some of us. In fact I myself did not completely realise the iniquity of it until we came to discuss it in Committee. The discussion has been somewhat limited inasmuch as the Government side did not partake in it. It has been left to us to try to drag out whatever elucidation could be dragged out of the Bill without the assistance of the Minister. In that way, perhaps, the discussion has not been as useful as it might have been with the proper intervention of the Government Front Bench to explain matters. I dare say that the discussion might even have been shorter if the Government had been more helpful in explaining matters to us. We would not have had to get up one after another, and try to drag out some information on the particular points that affected us all. This particular tariff in the Schedule here is raising the duty on harness, and for much the same reason as I objected to very many of the duties here I am objecting to this one. This is not the time to put up the price of harness. Perhaps the people in the towns and cities will not be so much affected as the people in the country will be by the increase in the cost of a set of harness, or a set of tackling as it is commonly called in the country. Even a very small addition to the price is going to affect us. I do not care whether it is going to mean 6d. or 1/- or 5/-, I certainly object to it. For my own part I object to this Eighth Schedule on that particular point.
Notice taken that 20 Deputies were not present; House counted, and 20 Deputies being present—
I gather that the particular recommendation which the Minister put forward for this tax is that it is no use—that it does not do anything.
It simplifies Customs administration.
But really so far as we are concerned, it does nothing, because there is no harness being imported. I gather that is the contention.
There is some.
Either this is an effective tax or it is not. I gathered from the Minister that it is not. I think it is objectionable—I will not use a stronger word than that— to put on those tariffs which are of no use whatsoever. The principal advantage that it has in the Minister's mind is not anything affecting industry, not anything affecting the country, and not anything affecting farming; he says it will do them no damage because no harness is being imported at present. It will not increase the amount of harness made in this country because no harness is being imported at present. The only reason he has, therefore, for putting up the price to a higher level, with all that may come afterwards—which, of course, the Minister leaves out of account in all those taxes—is that it will facilitate the Customs, and enable them to make up their minds as to whether a strap belongs to a set of harness or tackling or whether it belongs to a portmanteau. Again we are approaching the same question which we had last night—the inability of the Customs people to make up their minds. Last night they could not distinguish between thread and yarn. I have never known the Customs officials—and I think the Minister bore me out on this last night—to err on the side of the consumer or of the person who was to pay the tax. I could give plenty of amazing examples of the way in which they have interpreted those things; they have never erred on the side of the person concerned, so the Minister need have no fear in that regard. Merely for the convenience of administration, as the Minister calls it, and to save the Customs officials from making up their minds as to whether a thing is harness or not, this tariff on harness has been levelled up. There was one aspect of the matter which the Minister left out of account—though at the present moment that will not affect the price of harness, or it should not if there is any substance in the Minister's argument—and that is that when you fix a tariff of that kind I cannot see how the inevitable result will not be a gradual approach to the level which you set.
I wonder when the Minister will approach his job in a business-like way and when will he give intelligent protection of our industries a chance? With the Minister's desire to bring all leather goods of this kind under a common tariff for administrative purposes, I agree. I think it is a sound and proper principle that the Minister should do that. But I part company with him when he start levelling up. I would not part company with him if he said that harnes and leather goods are still being imported. I understood him to say that there is practically no harness being imported now. In such circumstances why does he want to level-up this tariff? Is it not time he started levelling it down until he would come to that point, if he would come to it at all, when he would reach zero and harness started to come in? If the Minister is trying to develop that other arm of the nation he must not amputate the arm that is there.
What is harness used for here? Mainly for agricultural horses. The Minister is giving a margin of profit of 40 per cent. above the British profit to harnessmakers here. But what commodity do these agricultural horses produce that is equal to the British price of an agricultural product? Who is to buy the harness made by the harness makers? In the main, it is the agricultural population. In other words, the Minister is fixing 40 per cent more outlay for agriculture and 40 per cent less for the produce of agriculture. That is a simple economic exercise and if the Minister ponders on it he will realise there can be only one ending. Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney said that harness-making is a dying industry. Of course, it is, because the produce of the purchasers of harness is a dying industry and, therefore, harness-making must inevitably fall into that grade.
I would prefer if the amendment were worded to fix a much smaller percentage than 40 and I would feel more comfortable in voting for it then. In face of the Minister's statement that no harness is coming in here, and in face of a 40 per cent. imposition on agricultural produce, I am prepared to vote for the amendment. I must say as a protectionist the Minister has made an exceptionally bad case for the 40 per cent. It is only 40 per cent. to encourage profiteering, to sell in a market that is getting poorer every day.
I would like to hear the Minister justifying this levelling-up. I remember when all the top straps and all the accessories of harness were imported here a few years ago. Now they have been kept out through a tariff barrier. Only a tariff barrier sufficient to keep them out is justifiable, and no more. The Minister, having kept them out on a low barrier, wants to increase it. For what purpose? Profiteering. That is quite unjustifiable. That is the policy that is going to kill protection in this country. Every producer here should be made produce on the bare margin, on the border line. He should be protected to that border line and he should be made justify any increase in the tariff.
The policy of the Government, once a certain productive capacity has been attained, should be a policy more or less in line with that of the Revenue Commissioners—impose taxation until the taxpayer jibs. The policy of the Government should also be to lower the barrier when we have destroyed imports of certain commodities that we can make here until the manufacturer jibs and then he should be made sit the other side of a table before an expert who knows his job and be made justify to that expert that it is necessary to have that tariff barrier kept at its existing height or, if he wants it, increased. The Minister should not be throwing away the people's money encouraging profiteering. That is what he is doing under this proposal. For that reason I will vote against it.
Administrative convenience is the only argument put up to justify this change. Administrative ease. There are two arguments swaying different ways in that respect. If they want very many articles tariffed in this country, one could say there is not very much necessity to ease the duties of the Revenue Commissioners or those employed under them. Of course, we know that they are overburdened. On the other hand, if we felt that the Revenue Commissioners were going to be perturbed in a decision as to what was harness and as to leather of particular types in harness, there might be a little difficulty there. But we know very well the Revenue Commissioners and their staffs decided distinctly in one way. We have this particular measure littered with phrases such as "things which, in the opinion of the Revenue Commissioners, are suitable for use as wall-paper,""things which, in the opinion of the Revenue Commissioners, are suitable for household ornaments," or "things which, in the opinion of the Revenue Commissioners, are primarily suitable for laboratory use." We have the judgment of the Revenue Commissioners often put in as a standard and it could easily be done here if there were any necessity. But I do not consider that a desirable way out of this at all. Look at the further mess we are getting into. Harness and harness leather had a 20 per cent. ad valorem duty which was increased to 37½, with a preferential rate of 25. We now want to increase the rate on harness to 40 per cent. and we are leaving the duty on harness leather as it was.
All the leather duties were altered.
When was that done in the case of harness leather?
It was altered at the same time as the duty on sole and insole leather.
This seems to indicate that the harness leather duty still remains at 37½ with a 25 per cent. preferential rate. I suggest that is only going to make confusion worse. Supposing we say we are disposed to leave this to the judgment of the Revenue Commissioners and supposing we agree that administrative ease is a thing to be regarded, then that can be discussed. What is the minimum duty of a protective type that is required for leather straps? If it is 35 per cent. I suggest the better scheme would be to reduce all to the 35 per cent. If we are going to have the rate raised in order to make it equal to something else we should be able to discuss what is the proper protection for these other articles and what is the proper rate at which these duties should be fixed. It is a matter of some importance to regard this question of price. There is not the slightest doubt in the world that when you put a tariff at a certain point the price increase approximates as closely as possible to that particular aid, that particular protection. The community sacrifice is really measured by something a little bit lower than the particular amount at which the tariff is put. Now, if 35 per cent. will do, there is no reason under the sun why we should give harness makers in the country an extra 5 per cent.
If 35 per cent. is sufficient, there is no reason at all for giving them 40 per cent., and it is as inevitable as day follows night that the prices will creep up when this is raised; they will creep up just that little bit extra that is put on, particularly when these people read and understand the arguments; when they find that the House regards it as of no consequence whether the real rate was 25 per cent. or 40 per cent. Surely, the natural deduction they will draw from that is that the House does not care whether their price has a relation to the 40 per cent. instead of to the 25 per cent. That is one view that can be taken of tariffs— that the price follows on the wide stride of the tariff. The Minister said that prices can look after themselves, that we will put on the tariffs and the consumers pay. That is practically what it amounts to. He told the House there is no protective addition necessary. If the House is to consider the thing on any basis at all they should consider what is the protection required. I suggest that this item should be held over for equation to enable the whole thing to be reconsidered and put at 25 per cent.
Tá
- Aiken, Frank.
- Bartley, Gerald.
- Beegan, Patrick.
- Boland, Gerald.
- Bourke, Daniel.
- Daly, Denis.
- Derrig, Thomas.
- De Valera, Eamon.
- Doherty, Hugh.
- Fogarty, Andrew.
- Gibbons, Seán.
- Goulding, John.
- Harris, Thomas.
- Keely, Séamus P.
- Killilea, Mark.
- Lemass, Seán F.
- Little, Patrick John.
- MacEntee, Seán.
- Moane, Edward.
- Moore, Séamus.
- Breen, Daniel.
- Cleary, Mícheál.
- Concannon, Helena.
- Corbett, Edmond.
- Crowley, Timothy.
- Murphy, Patrick Stephen.
- O Briain, Donnchadh.
- O'Dowd, Patrick.
- O'Grady, Seán.
- O'Reilly, Matthew.
- Pearse, Margaret Mary.
- Ruttledge, Patrick Joseph.
- Ryan, James.
- Ryan, Martin.
- Ryan, Robert.
- Sheridan, Michael.
- Smith Patrick.
- Traynor, Oscar.
- Walsh, Richard.
Níl
- Belton, Patrick.
- Bennett, George Cecil.
- Burke, James Michael.
- Burke, Patrick.
- Cosgrave, William T.
- Costello, John Aloysius.
- Dockrell, Henry Morgan.
- Doyle, Peadar S.
- Fitzgerald, Desmond.
- Fitzgerald-Kenney, James.
- Lynch, Finian.
- McFadden, Michael Og
- McGilligan, Patrick.
- McMenamin, Daniel.
- Morrissey, Daniel.
- Mulcahy, Richard.
- O'Leary, Daniel.
- O'Neill, Eamonn.
- O'Sullivan, Gearóid.
- O'Sullivan, John Marcus.
- Redmond, Bridget Mary.
- Reidy, James.
- Rice, Vincent.
- Rowlette, Robert James.
- Wall, Nicholas.
I move amendment No. 48:—
In Part II, to delete reference No. 4, including relevant references in columns 2, 3 and 4.
I understand this is the twenty-first tax on house-production and is about the seventh of these taxes uncovered by a budgetary joke of the Minister for Finance. Reference No. 4 proposes to increase what was an effective tax of 20 per cent. on putty, paints and distemper to 50 per cent. So that if a person, going into one of the new houses built by a local authority, finds a notice on the wall that he must pay a tax before he puts wall-paper on the walls, and turns aside to see whether he will not, in the circumstances, colour the walls with some distemper, he finds himself faced with another notice on the new white walls that he must pay a tax before he can put any distemper on them. The rent has already been raised somewhat by the increased tax on paint and putty, and he must now put his hand in his pocket and pay a tax before he can colour the walls. The tax on putty in respect of the house-builder or the person renting the house is also in the same class as the tax on rice-pudding for the occupier.
I should like to ask what is the position with regard to the putty manufacturer at present. Does he import his whiting free of duty? I should also like to know what is the position with regard to linseed oil.
I am afraid I cannot give Deputy Dockrell the information he requires. The arrangement some time ago was that 50 per cent. of the whiting was imported.
Free of duty?
Yes, and 50 per cent. of the whiting came from Ennis. But the intention was gradually to increase the percentage of Ennis whiting in the putty. I could not say what exactly is the position at present. So far as the increase in duty is concerned, the position is that paints, putty and distempers, to the value of £93,000 were imported last year, or about 40 per cent. of the requirements of the country. There was no reason why that paint should have been imported. There are a number of very excellent firms engaged in the production of these goods here which are quite capable of supplying all the requirements of the country. They are, in fact, supplying 60 per cent. of the requirements at present. They have expanded their production very rapidly. In the course of last year alone the employment in the industry was increased by 100 people. The increase in duty is for the purpose of stopping that import. We are satisfied that there is very keen competition between the existing firms and that competition will be effective in keeping the price position right.
I suggest to the Minister—I do not know whether he will agree with me or not—that there are certain lines of paint which are not covered by the existing paint manufacturers here, and that is the reason for their coming in. After all, there must be some reason why they are coming in. The Minister has not answered my question about linseed oil.
I said I could not tell the Deputy. I do not know what precisely is the position, but I can inquire for the Deputy if he so desires.
It seems to me that again the Minister is busy destroying his own case. The Minister seems badly off form to-day. In the other two or three debates in which I listened very attentively to the Minister he was very careful to point out that he had no case. But I do not think that in any one of them he pointed it out quite so plainly as in the very short speech which he has just delivered. He told us that the Irish paint industry is going on in splendid style, that it is driving its rivals out of the market, and that it gave employment to 100 more men last year. If it is driving its rivals out of the market, what is the necessity for putting on an extra tariff? I could understand a tariff being put on to aid a struggling industry. That is the justification for a tariff. It is the only justification that a tariff has got. In a great number of instances it is a complete and entire justification for the imposition of a tariff, because you have in other countries a well-established industry which has got its connections, and a new industry starting in another country is badly handicapped and is not starting on equal terms. In order that it may be on equal terms, it is bound to get some of the assistance which a tariff gives to it. But when you have a manufacturer or a number of manufacturers who are going ahead, without any further increase in the existing tariff, and when, according to the Minister's statement, the existing tariff is ample and adequate and the industry is increasing and employing 100 more men and is going on increasing and driving its rivals out of the market, surely the only result of a tariff will be that that industry is able to rise indefinitely up to the very limit of the tariff the price of its paint and putty. It does not want a tariff otherwise. Again and again, in the course of this debate, the extraordinary ingenuity with which the Minister for Industry and Commerce and the Minister for Finance have found articles of domestic necessity for the purpose of taxing has been referred to.
The effect of this tariff will be to reduce the revenue considerably.
It does not matter, even assuming that the tariff reduces the revenue. The Minister is absolutely impregnated with this idea that there is a State and that the State is everything. The Minister has completely and entirely forgotten that there are individuals who compose the State and that there are people who have got their rights. The Minister must consider that whether his revenue goes up or down is not a matter of primary importance to the persons who are bound to pay the extra and higher prices which the imposition of these tariffs brings about. Indeed, any particular individual who has to buy paints at an enhanced price, owing to the existence of this tariff, would, in all human probability, say: "Let that go into the Exchequer" rather than say: "Let it swell the profits of firms that are already making adequate profits and making profits so adequate that they are able to extend their business." They would very much prefer as a whole that the extra cost they are put to should be a gain to the State than that it should be a gain to manufacturers who are already adequately recompensed for the labour and capital they have put into their work. I do not, therefore, understand the meaning of the Minister's interjection. As I say, the Minister is terribly off form to-day.
To get back to the point on which I was when the Minister interrupted me, these taxes are taxes which are being put upon persons who are unable to bear them. They are increasing the cost of living and increasing the cost of repairing a house to persons who are not in a position to bear that, and this tax has to be taken in conjunction with all the Minister's other taxes.
That may be so, but the Deputy must take this particular item by itself. It is simply an increase of duty on certain specific articles, and those alone may be dealt with.
I do not propose to go into any of the other things. I say simply, and I say nothing further —and I submit the sentence is in order, as I do not propose to develop it any further—that you ought to have present to your mind when discussing this all the circumstances in which this tax has been imposed——
The Deputy will see that that would apply to every tax in this Budget and that it might be said about every one of them.
And might be true.
It might be true but not relevant.
I am not discussing it. I am asking that, when you come to discuss this, you should keep in your mind, silent to yourself, the surrounding circumstances. Do not draw vocally the attention of other people to it. That, I agree, would be against the rules, if I may respectfully say so. But surely I am in order in asking members considering this tax to consider the surrounding circumstances —not to discuss them but to consider and bear in mind the circumstances surrounding its imposition.
Let us have two minutes' silence for the purpose.
Your Deputies have got a lot of it to-day by going out of the House.
The Minister can think in a certain atmosphere. He can talk, and at the same time he can remember that he is sitting in the Dáil, and even the Minister will not require two minutes' silence to remember that he is in the Dáil. In the same way, we need not have two minutes' silence to remember the other taxes which are imposed, when talking of this. Again, I am afraid the Minister is off his shot to-day. He is foozling badly.
What about putty?
And distempers?
If I might come back to the point which the Minister has been strenuously endeavouring to prevent me from making—and I do not mind it; I like his interruptions—the Minister and the Minister for Finance have been going around in the most careful way to see if there is anything which is of real use to the community upon which they can slap down a tax which would increase the price to the consumer. They have found out: "There is putty, and you cannot put in a window without putty; you must have windows in your houses, so we will see to it that the putting in of your windows is a little more expensive than it used to be, and we will slap a tariff on putty." I think it was Alexander Pope who drew a distinction between man and a fly, because, he said, the fly had a microscopic eye and man had not, but, if Alexander Pope had been listening to this discussion, he would have classified the Minister for Industry and Commerce and the Minister for Finance as a very fine brace of flies, with the most magnificent microscopic eyes, because the number of things which they have been able to discover which they can put up in price to the unfortunate individual who they consider has no rights, the ordinary citizen of this State, is wonderful. There has been no justification at all for the tax proposed here, and I certainly will oppose it.
It was most appropriate that the Minister should be dealing with putty and paint because if there is one bogey which a man who is getting a job done, and has to pay for it, has to watch, it is the putty and the paint. That is what covers up bad work. The Minister is more illogical in this proposition than in any he has put before us. We are told that there is 20 per cent. of an effective tariff. I take it that is right—a 20 per cent. effective tariff. The Minister said, in reference to that tariff, that we have developed our putty and paint industry rapidly. If "rapidly" means anything, it means that we are getting quickly to that point at which we can produce our own requirements. I do not see what more rapidly the Minister wants to travel than that. I do not see what case he can make for more rapid travelling when it is going to cost more and to put up the price more.
The Minister said that last year £90,000 worth of putty and paint was imported. Then he asks: "Why should we not produce that putty and paint here, and why should we not have the employment that the production of that will give?" With that I agree, if we were stagnant, but we are not stagnant. We are reaching the point of self-sufficiency, in the Minister's own words, rapidly. In response to an interjection or a statement by Deputy Dockrell he said that the competition among the many firms would keep down prices. I wonder has the Minister taken leave of his senses. Where is the competition? We have a market of 100 per cent. but £90,000 worth, 40 per cent. of our requirements, is imported. We have a market of 100 per cent. and we are only supplying 60 per cent. We have a margin of 40 per cent. that we are not filling. We are rapidly increasing our production and the Minister says, soberly and deliberately, that even though we are 40 per cent. behind the production of our requirements, there is sufficient competition between the firms which are producing that 60 per cent. Was there anything ever more ridiculous than that? If these firms said: "Well, now we are getting a 20 per cent. effective tariff; we will fix a price 19 per cent. above the price of the imported article," that would leave a margin of one per cent. which would be effective to keep the market for home producers. But we are still only filling 60 per cent of the market we have. Where is the competition? The thing is absurd. I should like to be producing for such a market. I would not mind how many were competing with me, for no matter how many were competing with me and cutting prices, even if they cut prices down to the level at which paint could be imported here I could say: "Let them do it. I can charge 19 per cent. above the import price, less the tariff."
I said that the firms were quite capable of supplying all the requirements of the country.
Why do they not?
We are going to help them to do it.
At whose expense? If the firms are capable of supplying all our requirements, why do they not do it? Are they working short time, or what is the reason they cannot do it? Where is the competition? That whole fabric of the Minister's argument falls to the ground. A child would not put it up. Deputy Dockrell asked whether there was any difference in the volume of our products as between the dearer and the cheaper paints. Are we producing the best paints here?
I should like to say the best in the world, but I know the Deputy would not believe me.
If I heard that in my young days, when I thought everything Irish was the best in the world, I might believe it, but when I went out into the world my eyes were opened. If the Minister had any experience of the world his eyes would be opened too. The sooner we equate ourselves to other peoples in the world, the sooner we shall know ourselves. If this paint is the best in the world and that we are capable of producing all our requirements, why is it that we are still importing £90,000 worth? The thing does not wash. The Minister throws in the usual stuff by stating that it will give so many more people employment. I agree it would, if we could go on the level that we have been going up to the present, but the Minister proposes to double the effective tariff and have a double increase in the price. Has the Minister taken into account how much that increase in the price of these materials will affect employment among painters and painters' helpers? The Minister is going the right road to diminish employment in another line. A little boy or a little girl can stir the paint in mixing it, but it takes a tradesman to put on the paint, and the tradesman's employment will be curtailed because of the increase in the price of the commodity. People are not going to decorate their houses in future because of the increase in the cost of the materials and the decrease in economic standards, until they are driven to do it. Consequently the Minister's policy will lead to more unemployment in that way.
I should like to hear the Minister again explain to the House where the effective competition comes in when only 60 per cent. of the home market is now being produced at home. How can he explain that there is effective competition amongst the firms producing that 60 per cent. or that there is a sufficient assurance to the public that prices will not soar, if an increase of 20 per cent. is added? I think he actually said that prices would go down. In the name of heaven, what is the use of putting up the tariff if prices will come down? Why do they not come down?
The Minister, in reply to Deputy Dockrell, made a certain statement in reference to whiting, and I gathered from him that at the present moment 50 per cent. of it is untaxed.
It is all untaxed.
The Minister was not able to tell us that before.
Deputy Dockrell asked what percentage was there of Irish whiting.
And the rest comes in free of tax.
That clears up that point.
I could clear up all your points if they were as simple as that.
There is quite a number of things about which the Minister was not sure. He mentioned that there were 100 people employed last year.
One hundred extra employed last year.
What class of workers—men?
A lot of them.
What proportion?
A very high proportion. I think girls are employed only for the packing and decorating of tins. In the manufacture of paint men are employed very largely but for packing and decoration of tins girls are employed.
And in mixing putty?
Yes.
I wonder whether there is any good in trying to convince the Minister that he is doing these industries no service by the particular line he has taken on this matter and on many of the other industries with which we have dealt to-day for which a high tariff has been asked and imposed by this Bill. The case made by the Minister in defence of the tariff was, strange to say, the extraordinary strides made already in this industry. There you have an industry with the existing tariff showing, according to the Minister, every signs of health, and producing an excellent article. I think he said the best in the world. At any rate the article is good and the advance in the industry is rapid. What, therefore, is the excuse for this increase? According to the Minister, the industry is in a healthy condition. In putting this increase on is he not running the risk of bringing it into an unhealthy condition? He may make more profits for the particular industry. The increase in it may become more rapid, but what I fear is that in order to get that this healthy industry may be largely damaged. On his own showing there is no reason why he should have been dissatisfied with the present rate of increase. On the contrary, he should have been well satisfied, but by his present action he is running the risk of damaging an industry that is in a healthy condition by his unreasonable desire to go altogether too quickly.
I think the whole idea is unsound, and that there is no justification for the line that he is taking up. Deputy Belton's argument struck me as being perfectly sound. With 40 per cent. of the market still to be collared, I do not see where the necessity arises for this. There is a 20 per cent. tariff on already and with it the industry is in a healthy condition. Those in it, even on the existing tariff, can charge at least another 15 per cent., so that according to the Minister's argument prices will operate as far as competition is concerned. With 50 per cent. of the market still to be captured by these firms it is possible that competition will be done away with. Is not that the inevitable result? It is now proposed to increase the tariff by 40 per cent. without any justification, and this in the case of an industry that is rapidly increasing. I suppose it is not necessary to mention the fact that this is interfering with other industries. There are other articles tariffed in this Schedule. Grapes is one. In Schedule II, duties have been put on fruits of various kinds and vegetables, all of which require greenhouses. This tariff will make greenhouses more costly. The Minister will say it will make them cheaper.
And better.
Cheaper and better, of course. I have no doubt that with the Minister's putty tomatoes will be grown more cheaply and better. That is as good as any argument that the Minister used to-day. I do not see any justification whatever for this particular increase.
The Minister stated that something like 40 per cent. of the paint used here is imported. Can he give the House any information regarding the exports of paints from this country? They are considerable, I suggest. We all know what happens when tariffs are put on by one country against another. So far as this industry is concerned, it was gradually making progress here. It was well able to hold its own. It was doing that so well that a firm in another country came over here and joined a successful and well-managed firm here with a trade not only in Great Britain but on the Continent, where chemistry had been elevated almost to one of the fine arts. Is this tariff likely to interfere with that export trade? Even if we were to get the whole of the home trade and were to lose the foreign trade, we might lose on balance. There has been a gradual encroachment on the paints imported here. If, on the other hand, there are people with a disposition to buy paint, and that it simply means increased cost to them, that will have its effect on employment in other directions. The Minister has had experience of getting painting done in his own house. Speaking from experience, I should say that with the good quality paints produced in this country the results are very satisfactory for anybody who gets his house painted with Irish materials. The Irish paints last longer and retain their sheen much better. Even after a couple of years a house painted with Irish paint looks as if it had been painted only last year. With that position, and with the export trade increasing and the possibility of ultimately getting, let us say, 90 per cent. of the home trade, is it a wise proceeding on the Minister's part to interrupt that? Where there is an export trade there is always the possibility of expansion. The people in the trade here are highly specialised. They have been in it for generations and have made a success of it. They have made such a success of their business that, as I have said, a firm in another country was induced to come over here and join them. It surely is a dangerous thing to interfere with an industry such as that. It would be useful, I think, for the Minister to give us some information as to the volume of the export trade. When something of this kind was attempted in other directions we lost practically all our export trade.
The exports are in special classes of paints.
But expansion may result there. There may be a disposition on the part of people outside to purchase more and more of these special classes of paints. I venture to suggest that there is still a great chance for an expansion in that direction. If, by reason of increasing this tariff, people are induced to impose tariffs against our goods, then the loss will be ours.
The real position with regard to the imposition of this tariff is still obscure. The enormous burden that is being put on the general building trade is also obscure. The Minister told us that about 40 per cent. of the paint used here is imported. Taking that figure, it means that something more than £200,000 worth of paint is used here every year. At present, the Minister is getting about £20,000 in revenue from imported paint. If he is getting that on the import of paint, there is the equivalent cost of something nearly approaching 20 per cent. falling on the people buying Irish paint. I propose to increase it to 50 per cent. If the present import of paint continues as it is and if it takes the Irish houses a little while to expand their production, the Minister is going to raise £50,000 in 12 months instead of £20,000 and there is going to be a corresponding rise in the price of Irish paint here. I submit that the Minister's proposal will have the effect of imposing an additional cost on the users of paint of anything up to £80,000 or £90,000 per year. I should like the Minister to address himself to that aspect of the question and to say if the housebuilding industry can bear that impost.
The existing concerns are quite capable of meeting all requirements.
By increasing the price to something close on the 50 per cent. margin? I submit that the housebuilding industry is not capable of bearing that impost. There is sufficient falling-off, due to the financial condition of the people, in work of that kind without adding to it in this way.
Tá
- Aiken, Frank.
- Bartley, Gerald.
- Beegan, Patrick.
- Boland, Gerald.
- Bourke, Daniel.
- Breen, Daniel.
- Cleary, Mícheál.
- Concannon, Helena.
- Corbett, Edmond.
- Crowley, Timothy.
- Daly, Denis.
- Derrig, Thomas.
- MacEntee, Seán.
- Moane, Edward.
- Moore, Séamus.
- Murphy, Patrick Stephen.
- O'Briain, Donnchadh.
- O'Dowd, Patrick.
- O'Grady, Seán
- O'Reilly, Matthew.
- Pearse, Margaret Mary.
- De Valera, Eamon.
- Doherty, Hugh.
- Fogarty, Andrew.
- Gibbons, Seán.
- Goulding, John.
- Harris, Thomas.
- Hogan, Patrick (Clare).
- Houlihan, Patrick.
- Keely, Séamus P.
- Killilea, Mark.
- Lemass, Seán F.
- Little, Patrick John.
- Ruttledge, Patrick Joseph.
- Ryan, James.
- Ryan, Martin.
- Ryan, Robert.
- Sheridan, Michael.
- Smith, Patrick.
- Traynor, Oscar.
- Walsh, Richard.
Níl
- Belton, Patrick.
- Bennett, George Cecil.
- Burke, James Michael.
- Burke, Patrick.
- Cosgrave, William T.
- Costello, John Aloysius.
- Dockrell, Henry Morgan.
- Doyle, Peadar S.
- Fitzgerald-Kenney, James
- Lynch, Finian.
- McFadden, Michael Og.
- McMenamin, Daniel.
- Morrissey, Daniel.
- Mulcahy, Richard.
- O'Leary, Daniel.
- O'Neill, Eamonn.
- O'Sullivan, Gearóid.
- O'Sullivan, John Marcus.
- Redmond, Bridget Mary.
- Reidy, James.
- Rice, Vincent.
- Rowlette, Robert James.
- Wall, Nicholas.
I move amendment No. 49:—
In Part II, to delete reference No. 5, including relevant references in columns 2, 3 and 4.
Reference No. 5 proposes to clear away a tax of 15/- and a preference of 10 per cent. on presses for racquets used in any of the games of tennis, lawn tennis, badminton, racquets or any similar game. The Minister proposes to clear the ground in order, subsequently, to put on a tariff of 50 per cent. on these articles. He proposes to extract a revenue tax from persons who take part in sport and who wish to keep their sporting instruments in a sound and proper condition. This is an attack on real economy, or, you might say, an attack on the character of the people. Persons who keep their sporting implements in a sound condition are the type of people who build up the country in the right way and who do its work in the right way. The Minister proposes to single that class of persons out and to take a revenue tax from them by imposing a tax on the care and solicitude that they have for their equipment. If that is not so, I should like to hear what the intention of the Minister is.
The Deputy can be assured that the people who play tennis and badminton will be able to keep their racquets in much better condition by using Irish-made presses.
Will the Minister say why an extra 50 per cent. should be charged?
To encourage them to obtain better racquet presses.
Will the Minister tell the House if Irish racquet presses are being made and, if so, the class of material from which they are made. If presses of this kind are available, will the Minister tell us why there should be an extra charge, and why the effective tariff of 10 per cent. is to be raised to 50 per cent.?
They are only beginning to be made now.
How can the Minister assure the House that these presses will be superior to, or just as good as, those made elsewhere?
Because they are made here.
Can the Minister say if racquets are made here?
Not yet.
These racquets are expensive and this represents money going out of the country. I never bought a racquet, but I am told that the price of a good one is about £3, and that it lasts, perhaps, a season. I am sure that £2 10s. or 3 guineas leaves the country for a racquet and, that being so, it is advisable to ensure that more than that amount will not leave. I understand these presses are essential to keep the racquets in good condition. Can the Minister give any information as to the quantity of racquets imported? I understand that specialised knowledge is required in order to keep them up to the standard for people who are proficient in the game. I have no idea what presses cost. I presume about 5/- each.
About that.
A duty of 50 per cent. means 7/6.
They will be made here.
Will racquets of a specified quality be made here? If we save 2/6 and lose £2 10s., it is bad business.
They will be made here by a firm with an established reputation in woodwork for many years and that has maintained a satisfactory export trade on the quality of their work.
If that is so, why is the tariff being increased? Are these things imported with the presses?
They are usually sold with the racquets, and it is necessary to impose a large tariff to discourage that.
The racquets come in without these presses. I am told the racquet is sensitive to climatic conditions. I understand there is catgut in it. I am sure the Minister understands something about that and that he played the violin or the banjo.
The melodeon.
The mouth organ.
That is what is wrong with the Minister and why there is an absence of harmony. I am sure that, if he wanted to annoy his neighbours. he practised on the melodeon. The Minister knows that these things are liable to suffer from climatic conditions. If racquets come in, is he aware that they will be liable to injury unless they are protected by presses? Is it fair to the people to have articles coming in unless arrangements are made that they can be detached from presses at the port of entry?
I am quite confident that, in due course, good racquets will be made here.
Will some arrangements be made so that the racquets will not be injured in transit? I take it that the Minister has not consulted any tennis players about this. Tennis players would not like to have the racquets sent here from another country unless they were in presses. Will arrangements be made that they will come in containers that will not be subject to duty, so that the cost will not be increased or that the racquets will be put into presses immediately on importation?
I understand that racquets are being strung here now and that only handles and the framework come in.
If the Minister does not agree, will he look into the matter to see if something can be done to ensure that if people play this game the racquets will not be injured?
The Minister says that racquets are now being imported with the protection of the presses and that racquets are not being made here. People who buy tennis racquets have to pay a duty of 50 per cent. on the cost of these articles. The Minister says they come in with the racquet presses.
Not one press to each racquet.
The Minister tells us that these racquet presses come in with the racquets and he wants to stop that.
I did not say that. I said that the tendency when selling a racquet made by a particular firm was to sell a press of the same brand.
And the Minister objects to that.
It is in order to discourage that, and to secure the use of Irish presses, that the tariff is being put on.
The fact is that tennis racquets coming in now will pay 50 per cent. They are usually bought with a racquet press in order to preserve the property and so that the racquet will last longer. Now the pressure of the present financial situation is such that they decide to make these things subject to a tax of 50 per cent.
I am not touching racquets at all. What 50 per cent.?
There is a 50 per cent. tariff on tennis racquets coming into the country.
No.
Well, the Minister ought to look at his Customs and Excise list. He will see, on page 46 of his Customs and Excise List, under reference No. 188, that on racquets, golf clubs and parts, which are, in the opinion of the Revenue Commissioners, designed, constructed and intended for use in games of tennis, lawn tennis, badminton, racquets or similar games, and so on, there is a 50 per cent. tax ad valorem, and that the preferential rate is 50 per cent. also.
I have explained that the racquet frames are not liable to duty, and that the frames are strung here.
I am talking of racquets. I doubt if we have come to the position that all the racquets sold here are now Irish-strung.
Yes, I think they are all Irish-strung.
The Minister is very glib with what he thinks, but when he asks for an increase of a tax from 10 per cent. to 50 per cent., he ought to be clearer in his explanations as to what exactly the situation is. We see no reason for such a jump in connection with this particular class of goods. In the absence of more explanation from the Minister, I have nothing more to say.
It is a case of "love all."
Tá
- Aiken, Frank.
- Bartley, Gerald.
- Beegan, Patrick.
- Boland, Gerald.
- Bourke, Daniel.
- Breen, Daniel.
- Concannon, Helena.
- Corbett, Edmond.
- Crowley, Timothy.
- Daly, Denis.
- Derrig, Thomas.
- De Valera, Eamon.
- Doherty, Hugh.
- Fogarty, Andrew.
- Gibbons, Seán.
- Goulding, John.
- Harris, Thomas.
- Houlihan, Patrick.
- Keely, Séamus P.
- Killilea, Mark.
- Lemass, Seán F.
- Little, Patrick John.
- MacEntee, Seán.
- Moane, Edward
- Moore, Séamus.
- Murphy, Patrick Stephen.
- O'Briain, Donnchadh.
- O'Dowd, Patrick.
- O'Grady, Seán.
- Pearse, Margaret Mary.
- Ruttledge, Patrick Joseph.
- Ryan, James.
- Ryan, Martin.
- Ryan, Robert.
- Sheridan, Michael.
- Smith, Patrick.
- Traynor, Oscar.
- Walsh, Richard.
Níl
- Belton, Patrick.
- Bennett, George Cecil.
- Cosgrave, William T.
- Costello, John Aloysius.
- Doyle, Peadar S.
- Fitzgerald, Desmond
- Fitzgerald-Kenney, James.
- Lynch, Finian.
- McFadden, Michael Og.
- McGilligan, Patrick.
- McMenamin, Daniel.
- Morrissey, Daniel.
- Mulcahy, Richard.
- O'Leary, Daniel.
- O'Neill, Eamonn.
- O'Sullivan, Gearóid.
- O'Sullivan, John Marcus.
- Redmond, Bridget Mary.
- Reidy, James.
- Rice, Vincent.
- Rowlette, Robert James.
- Wall, Nicholas.
I move amendment No. 50:—
In Part III, to delete reference No. 8, including relevant references in columns 2, 3 and 4.
It is proposed here to impose a duty of 50 per cent. on presses for tennis racquets, etc. The Minister says those things are going to be made here. I should like to hear any argument that the Minister can bring forward as to why a tariff of 50 per cent. is necessary in order to get presses for tennis racquets and badminton racquets made here.
I explained that.
What was the explanation?
I am sorry if the Deputy was not here. Perhaps Deputy Mulcahy will tell him.
The Minister gave no explanation as to why a duty as high as 50 per cent. was necessary in order to get those made here.
I gave a very good explanation. It satisfied the House.
I should like to hear the explanation, because if it satisfied anybody it must have been very cogent. This reference number says "presses for racquets used in any of the games of tennis, lawn-tennis, badminton, racquets, or any similar game." To start off with, there is no tennis played here. There is no such thing as tennis played here. There is not a tennis court in all Ireland. The game does not exist here.
Then what is the row about?
Does the Minister know that the game does not exist here? Where did he copy this from? There is nobody in this country who plays tennis, and I do not suppose the game has ever been played in this country; well, I do believe there was one private court in a house which still exists. I think the outline of the court is still there, but it has been turned into either a veranda or a flower show. I do not suppose there is anybody in the country who has a racquet for that game. As far as lawn tennis is concerned, it is played; badminton slightly; racquets progressively. Then we got "or any similar game." I wonder what that is supposed to catch. You do not put a ping-pong racquet in a press.
It is not recommended.
What?
To put a ping-pong racquet in a press.
Not recommended? I would nearly give the Minister 10/- if he could get a press in which you could put a ping-pong racquet. What else is there to be caught? What is "other similar game?" I do not suppose he wants a press for fishing nets? What is the requirement for 50 per cent.? There used to be a rather ugly and—being ugly and having more board—a somewhat dearer type of press for a lawn tennis racquet. It was much heavier and more expensive than what is now used. With regard to the old type of frame I suppose the ordinary carpenter could turn it out with great ease, once he got the boards for it. It was a 3-ply board. Of course, the only thing that is required in the press is to keep the racquet from warping. It has a natural tendency to warp, particularly with the strength of the gut tending to make it curl up at the side. The board had to be fortified and strengthened. It was more than 3-ply; the wood was fortified in different ways. Given the bits of board, an ordinary carpenter could do the dove-tailing of one into another. The ordinary rectangular type of frame which used to be made was a simple thing. After the boards were cut all that was required was the addition of four holes bored in a particular way, and the adjustment of the screws. The cost of sending the presses across to this country, particularly the old type of press, must have been fairly expensive. They are heavy articles and, secondly, they make an awkward parcel when sent in big lots. The person who was getting in the boards and making the presses here must certainly have the advantage of a fairly heavy freight. You can get the boards in decent lengths, and have them cut. Of course, the type that is coming in now is much lighter. The price has gone down. The wood is much more strengthened and fortified than it used to be. The type of frame is now a criss-cross diagonal thing, with one screw only. Instead of four screws there is only one. I think for the badminton racquet there is a very light press indeed. We are told there is a requirement of 50 per cent. instead of whatever it is that we are removing.
That is removed.
What is the amount it used to be?
Fifteen per cent.
Has anybody indicated to the Minister that they cannot make those presses under the protection of 15 per cent. plus freight, and that they are going to make them under the protection of 50 per cent? Has anybody indicated that 15 per cent. was not sufficient? I should be surprised to find it was not. That is the argument I want to hear. There is nothing very subtle or expert about the construction of those presses, and it should be possible to make them here once the boards are fitted together in a particular way. I should like to hear the argument which the Minister says satisfied the House that 15 per cent. is not enough, and that 50 per cent. is required. As I have not heard the argument I have to go on some of the possible reasons that might have been alleged. The main one would be that 15 per cent. is not enough, and that 50 per cent. is the proper figure to induce the manufacture here, whereas the lower figure would have failed. I should like to hear why that 35 per cent. additional has got to be made. Can the Minister even tell us what is the average cost of the roughest type of board press for, say, a lawn tennis racquet? We will then know what this 50 per cent. additional means. Would the Minister tell us where those are likely to be manufactured? Is it at the ordinary sports outfitters' establishments or is it going to be an addition to some timber place?
In some of the woodworking establishments.
Unless they are definitely connected with the sports outfitting places, remember there can be a danger, because if the press is not made in a sufficiently expert way it will have the same tendency to curl up in damp weather that the racquet has. If that is slipped on to the frame of a good racquet it will give it an additional tendency to curl. I would have thought that some of the good sports shops in the city might have taken it on and engaged some of their employees in their spare moments in the winter time making these things. I wonder if the Minister could give us an indication of the number required, so that we may get an idea of the extent of employment.
About 60 gross per annum.
Would I be right if I said there is a press for every racquet sold?
What I have mentioned is an estimate, entirely an estimate.
Does the Minister suggest that each new racquet requires a new press?
No.
It would certainly be ludicrous if there was any estimate based on that assumption; it would be sheer folly.
I did not say that.
A press will certainly outlast many racquets; it ought to be good for at least five or six years. In these days, perhaps, a press might be let drop or might be pitched around the court, but if it is kept in the ordinary way there is no reason why a press should not outlive several racquets. A person who buys a racquet in a particular season does not require to buy a press at the same time, if he has one already in his possession. Some people are inclined to assume that each racquet brings with it its own press, but I do not suppose there would be any necessity to get a press each time one purchases a racquet. There are, in fact, quite a number of people who never put a press around a lawn tennis racquet at all. You will find people who think that the best way to keep a lawn tennis racquet through the winter is to prop up a window with it, to use it in order to let in the air. Of course that is bad for the racquet.
It might slip and, in view of the Government's attack on window glass, you would want to be more careful of the window glass in future.
I merely meant that when the clothes brush is not handy they put in a tennis racquet or a shoe. That is not good for the window or for the racquet. It is only the experienced club player who gets down to the point of using a press at any time, and not even that type of person gets a press every time that he purchases a racquet. As I indicated before, a press will outlive any racquet and, in the circumstances, I see no reason for this 50 per cent.
I think it is a very bad principle to tax anything in connection with sport in any form. The Government have gone as far as they could in the way of taxing the necessaries of life and now we find them taxing the type of amusement which is beneficial to the health of the young people. With regard to racquet presses, the number of them coming into the country annually must be very small. There seems to be an idea that every racquet comes in with a press, but that is not so at all. I have used a press for the last 15 or 16 years, and it is still in quite a good condition. Only a couple of shillings would be involved in the purchase of a very efficient press. The amount of protection that will be required in connection with this matter is really not worth all the trouble. I think the tariff of 50 per cent. proposed by the Government is an extraordinary amount to put on. I am perfectly sure that whatever presses are made here they will be well able to compete with the foreign article without any protection whatsoever. I have seen some Irish-manufactured presses and they are very good, and they can make them very cheaply.
I really do not see the object of putting on this tax. It is not going to bring in any appreciable revenue. There would not be more than a couple of hundred of these presses imported in the year; they certainly would not reach the thousand mark. The cost will be only a couple of shillings, possibly 5/- each, and the whole amount will not be much more than £50 or £60. I do not think any industry could benefit very much with a tax like this. It is wrong, at any rate, to tax any form of sport, because it means an indirect tax on the health of our people. There was a time when tennis was not so popular as it is to-day. It is now very popular amongst our young people, amongst the younger generation working in offices and other places. I do not think the Minister should put anything in the way of the advancement of tennis, which has now become a thoroughly democratic game in this country, a game within the reach of all our boys and girls and a game that induces very healthy exercise.
I would very much like to know where the Minister gets his facts from. He tells us very glibly certain things and he gives us certain estimates. Who makes the estimates for him? If I understood the Minister correctly he said 60 gross of presses come into the country in the year. Sixty gross would mean 8,600 presses, and the Minister mentions that that number comes into the country in the year. To be accurate, 8,640 presses are brought into this country, according to the Minister.
Slightly more, as a matter of fact.
I wonder how many tennis racquets are sold in the country each year? If we allow three or four years' life to a press, that would be a fair estimate. I should certainly say there is about one press for every four or five racquets in the country. According to the Minister's estimate that would mean a sale of something like 40,000 tennis racquets in the year.
I wonder if the Minister instead of simply telling us straight away: "I will make an estimate" would tell us how his estimate is arrived at and who made it; because it seems to me to be a grotesquely impossible estimate. On the general question, apart from the accuracy of the Minister's figures, I think it is a great mistake in taxation all around to put on little taxes which really do no good to the revenue and do no good as far as giving employment is concerned. Nothing substantial of any kind in the way of employment is gained and yet it is very annoying to the ordinary person in the street. These little pin-prick taxes are annoying to the taxpayer and they do not tend or conduce to making the taxpayer pay up those other taxes which ordinarily he is quite ready to pay.
Are those figures just an estimate of the number of racquets sold in the country?
No.
I think 60 gross is the figure, that is 8,640 racquet presses sold. I think the Minister would find on a calculation that there is not one in four used in the country as a press. Perhaps it might be put at one in five or one in six. People buy racquets for their children and they would not buy very expensive racquets. They go in for something cheap, just as people do in the case of cheap motor cars, something that would last during the season. They are used after that for holding up a window or something like that, and it is only about one in six would be kept in a press. Let us say there were 43,000 tennis racquets sold in a year. It is only the people who take a keen interest in the game and people who play in club competitions who would probably buy a new racquet each year. The ordinary club player will certainly make a racquet do, on an average, for three years. That would mean that there are about 120,000 lawn tennis players or about 120,000 between lawn tennis players and badminton players in the country. This figure is certainly the most fantastic figure we got to-night, a shocking figure.
Tá
- Aiken, Frank.
- Bartley, Gerald.
- Beegan, Patrick.
- Boland, Gerald.
- Bourke, Daniel.
- Breen, Daniel.
- Concannon, Helena.
- Corbett, Edmond.
- Harris, Thomas.
- Houlihan, Patrick.
- Keely, Séamus P.
- Killilea, Mark.
- Lemass, Seán F.
- Little, Patrick John.
- MacEntee, Seán.
- Moane, Edward.
- Moore, Séamus.
- Murphy, Patrick Stephen.
- O'Briain, Donnchadh.
- O'Dowd, Patrick.
- Crowley, Timothy.
- Daly, Denis.
- Derrig, Thomas.
- De Valera, Eamon.
- Doherty, Hugh.
- Fogarty, Andrew.
- Gibbons, Seán.
- Goulding, John.
- O'Grady, Seán.
- O'Reilly, Matthew.
- Pearse, Margaret Mary.
- Ruttledge, Patrick Joseph.
- Ryan, James.
- Ryan, Martin.
- Ryan, Robert.
- Sheridan, Michael.
- Smith, Patrick.
- Traynor, Oscar.
- Walsh, Richard.
Níl
- Belton, Patrick
- Bennett, George Cecil.
- Cosgrave, William T.
- Costello, John Aloysius.
- Doyle, Peadar S.
- Fitzgerald-Kenney, James.
- Lynch, Finian.
- McFadden, Michael Og.
- McGilligan, Patrick.
- McMenamin, Daniel.
- Morrissey, Daniel.
- Mulcahy, Richard.
- O'Leary, Daniel.
- O'Neill, Eamonn.
- O'Sullivan, Gearóid.
- O'Sullivan, John Marcus.
- Redmond, Bridget Mary.
- Reidy, James.
- Rice, Vincent.
- Rowlette, Robert James
- Wall, Nicholas.
I move amendment No. 51:—
In Part IV, to delete reference No. 10, including relevant references in columns 2, 3 and 4.
Reference 5 of Schedule 1 of the Finance Act, 1933, imposed a duty of 37½ per cent., with a preference duty of 25 per cent. on footballs, the covers of which are made wholly or mainly of leather, and also on football covers made wholly or mainly of leather imported separately. We have seen in the discussion of this measure how the agent of the Minister for Finance searched every hole and corner of a workman's house to see what he could take there; searched every bit of material that goes into the making of a workman's house, to see what he could take; and put the tax-gatherer outside the house of entertainment that the workmen could go to. We have seen various other taxes put on sports materials. We have had an effective tariff of 25 per cent. on footballs, which is now raised to 40 per cent. So that, following carefully the report of the various ways in which workers can be taxed, the Minister follows the workman to the football field. He will not allow him into the field until he has paid a substantial increase on his football. I should like to hear from the Minister for Industry and Commerce whether there is a side to that proposal other than the side the Minister for Finance has been giving us here in his interjections—that he is looking for revenue.
This tariff will not produce any revenue.
It will only increase the cost of footballs.
No.
Why put it up then?
To encourage the use of Irish-made footballs.
25 per cent. has not done it?
It has not been sufficient.
Twenty-five per cent. will not do it?
Twenty-five per cent. has not done it.
What number of footballs have been imported?
I have no separate figures.
The Minister believes the 25 per cent. will not do it. How did he come to that conclusion without knowing the number imported?
There is still a number being imported, but I cannot give the exact number.
Could the Minister give the amount?
They are not listed separately in the import list.
How do you know then?
From information obtained from a number of sources.
What sources?
Importers, manufacturers, agents, etc.
Is not this part of the levelling up to the 40 per cent. on leather?
It has that effect.
The Minister evaded that in the other answers supplied to me with regard to harness. He chose the other explanation for harness. It did not go quite well, so we have this explanation this time. I should like to know if a big business is being done in the manufacture of footballs here.
There are a number of firms making them.
Does that apply to the rounded cover of the football used in Gaelic and Association football, and would it apply also to the Rugby football?
All kinds of footballs.
They have been made here, and the 25 per cent. is not sufficient—we have to make it 40 per cent. Will the Minister tell us whether he has any certain information of the same assured type with reference to prices?
There is a sufficient number of firms in the business to ensure that there will be effective competition.
There is no possibility of firms having an arrangement with each other to get the extra 15 per cent. rake off?
It is most unlikely.
That is the way tariffs should be discussed. We have now information in a certain way. The Minister knows exactly and can tell us how many footballs are booted round to extinction; how many have to be brought in for replacement and renewal purposes in a year. He can tell us accurately how many are made at home and how many imported; the number of workers employed and the wages these workers get. He can tell us the resulting price to people who indulge in this pastime and what he is going to get under the increased percentage. As a matter of fact, there is an extremely able case being made for this tariff on all the information the Minister has given.
Thanks. It is only painting the lily.
About as complete as any other.
Are they machine-made or hand-made?
Both.
The cat is out of the bag now. When discussing harness leather, the Minister told us that the increased tariff was necessary—it was only for levelling up matters. As Deputy McGilligan suggests he thought of another answer since. But whether he thought of it since, or whether it is the correct answer, the fact remains that the present tariff of 25 per cent. is not sufficient; 40 per cent. is necessary and the possibility is that the price will go up. The Minister says that is most unlikely, but he did not say it was not possible. I suggest that it is extremely possible and that when it is possible the manufacturers will take care that it will be probable, and in fact almost certain. The price of footballs is going to go up as well as other articles of necessity, of sport, and of luxury. In fact, one does not know in what way we can escape from tariffs in any direction. As we are discussing sporting matters I suggest that the Minister should blow the whistle now and cry halt to this game of increasing tariffs. Let the country rest on its laurels for a while with what we have achieved, and give the industries started a chance to prove their worth in competition with other countries. Do not surround them with artificial boundaries or, as Deputy Belton put it, put them in a nursery altogether. There ought to be some limitation to this almost continuous increase in tariffs. I do not see any necessity for the increase in this tariff and we will have to oppose it, as we have opposed most of the extra charges in this Schedule, and I hope Deputy Mulcahy will insist on pressing it to a division.
Like Deputy McGilligan, I am very uneasy about the statement of the Minister in the matter of footballs. It is a levelling up apparently. The making of a football certainly does not require more technical skill than the making of harness. We were told that there was no harness imported. Now the Minister says that there was a considerable number of footballs imported and that led him to the conclusion that the 25 per cent. was not adequate. We are not fit for anything if we cannot make footballs with a 25 per cent. margin and the sooner we recognise it the better and stop this "codology" about the industrialisation of the country. I was only a nipper when I made a football.
The area of compression of the wind resulted in the hard skin he has still.
If I had a skin like the Minister's I would cut it off annually and sell it for making footballs. They could not compete with such a hide.
There would be no wind left then.
It does not need tanning either.
It is ready for use the moment you take it off. There is no technique required here. The Minister said that some are machined and some are hand-sewn. What is the hand-sewing of a football? An awl and a piece of wax-end. That is the whole technique of a football. We have a 25 per cent. tariff and we are not able to compete with the foreigner, according to the Minister, in the making of these footballs. Is it not time we shut up shop? The man who would vote for an advantage for the making of footballs in this country would be the greatest enemy of Irish industry. It is time we learned to work; it is time we started to do a day's work and stopped talking about it.
The Minister talks about employment in this matter. Frankly, I do not believe the Minister when he said that 25 per cent. was not sufficient, and I do not believe he has any information on it. He cannot be correct in both statements—that we have cut them out in the harness competition but that they have beaten us in the football competition. I suppose the Minister is aware that they are both leather goods. The discussion like this up to midnight is really a waste of time. You would not find lads in toss-pits at the cross-roads wasting their time talking stuff of this kind, and not one will believe the Minister when he says that we are not able to make a football with a 25 per cent. advantage against the people of any other country. That is not the dope the Minister puts out when he goes down to the cross-roads, but it is gradually getting to the cross-roads, and the Minister will be known better and better every time he goes there in future.
I move to Report progress.
What does that mean?
To report progress.
And we go home?
Until when?
The Chair has also received another motion:
That the Dáil do now adjourn until 10.30 a.m. on Saturday, July 6th, 1935, and that the Order for the adjournment on that date be taken not later than 12 o'clock midnight.
I submit, with all respect, that that is out of order. The Dáil has already decided to adjourn until Tuesday and we were so informed by the Minister for Industry and Commerce, I think, on the announcement made here this morning. That decision was taken and that decision remains and stands.
The order on the adjournment is made before the adjournment. A statement was, as usual, made in the morning but no order. That is the position. The statement was that the motion for the adjournment would be until such a date.
I submit that the House was left under the impression that that was the order that was come to and that this is out of order. It is without precedent to accept a motion now that the House do adjourn until any particular time. The Standing Orders of the House provide certain dates for meeting. Those Standing Orders govern the proceedings of the House and they arrange for meetings on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. I submit that unless a motion were made at the hour of sitting, on any of those days, which would cover the proceedings here, it is irregular to adjourn to any other date. I submit that, having regard to the Standing Orders, it is irregular to permit of a motion being made now, without notice, without any information and when Deputies are scattered throughout various parts of the country and unable to be made aware of this meeting.
First, I want to speak on the Progress Motion.
I have accepted the Motion. If it is challenged, it can be put to a division.
I want to speak on it first.
The Chair has accepted the motion.
The motion that we should report progress?
That progress be reported.
It has accepted the motion, but the motion has not been put.
I am putting the question that progress be now reported.
On the motion that progress be now reported, I desire to speak. To-day, we were told that it would be necessary to get this Finance Bill through, with the Conditions of Employment Bill, the Cereals Bill and the Widows' and Orphans' Pension Bill, and whatever reasons were given for that seemed sufficient to certain people who were then present, including the Labour Party, who are now entirely absent, to ask them to sit until 12 o'clock to-night to finish this business. During the course of the debate that followed, nobody took any exception to the debate that took place on the Conditions of Employment Bill. If anything is to be said about that, it is that the discussion was, to a great extent, shortened and, to some extent, burked by the fact that the Minister decided to indicate that he would bring in amendments on another Stage in order to allow other points to be debated. It was presented as an urgent Bill. It was certainly a Bill which had lain long enough. It was incubating for a long time, and there had been what some of us regarded as insufficient time given for the setting down of amendments between the time at which the Second Reading was taken and the date the Committee Stage was fixed for.
The Committee Stage was not taken on the day arranged, but that was not the fault of the House. Any amendments that had been put in were in in good time. I do not think that the green paper which came out contained any more amendments than there were in the white paper that came out in time. There cannot be any suggestion that the Bill was held up. That debate lasted until 2 o'clock to-day, and we then took up the Finance Bill— probably the most cumbrous and unwieldy Finance Bill with which this Dáil has ever had to deal—and the tactics adopted by the Ministry in regard to that were that, first of all, they were too afraid of criticism to make any comment themselves, and they effectively boycotted into silence any of their own members who had the temerity to make any comment on that Bill. The only occasion on which Deputies on that side arose in the debate was when the Minister for Finance said, with regard to one tax that was being imposed, that it was a revenue tax and he was interrupted by three people——
Dr. Ryan
Might I propose that the question on this motion be now put?
I accept that motion.
On the motion, may I speak?
There can be no discussion on the motion.
It is a complete outrage on the Standing Orders.
May I say this——
There can be no discussion.
I am not going to discuss that.
Discussion ends once that motion has been accepted.
Sir, this is a scandal, a positive scandal, and I say that to you.
It is an outrage on the Standing Orders.
And you are scandalised by it, Sir.
The question is that, on the motion to report progress, the question be now put.
Tá
- Aiken, Frank.
- Bartley, Gerald.
- Beegan, Patrick.
- Boland, Gerald.
- Bourke, Daniel.
- Breen, Daniel.
- Concannon, Helena.
- Corbett, Edmond.
- Crowley, Timothy.
- Daly, Denis.
- Derrig, Thomas.
- De Valera, Eamon.
- Doherty, Hugh.
- Fogarty, Andrew.
- Gibbons, Seán.
- Goulding, John.
- Harris, Thomas.
- Houlihan, Patrick
- Keely, Séamus P.
- Killilea, Mark.
- Lemass, Seán F.
- Little, Patrick John.
- MacEntee, Seán.
- Moane, Edward.
- Moore, Séamus.
- Murphy, Patrick Stephen.
- O'Briain, Donnchadh.
- O'Dowd, Patrick.
- O'Grady, Seán.
- O'Reilly, Matthew.
- Pearse, Margaret Mary.
- Ruttledge, Patrick Joseph.
- Ryan, James.
- Ryan, Martin.
- Ryan, Robert.
- Sheridan, Michael.
- Smith, Patrick.
- Traynor, Oscar.
- Walsh, Richard.
Níl
- Belton, Patrick.
- Bennett, George Cecil
- Burke, Patrick.
- Cosgrave, William T.
- Costello, John Aloysius.
- Doyle, Peadar S.
- Fitzgerald-Kenney, James.
- O'Sullivan, Gearóid.
- Redmond, Bridget Mary.
- Reidy, James.
- Lynch, Finian.
- McFadden, Michael Og.
- McGilligan, Patrick.
- McMenamin, Daniel.
- Morrissey, Daniel.
- O'Leary, Daniel.
- O'Neill, Eamonn.
- Rice, Vincent.
- Rowlette, Robert James.
- Wall, Nicholas.
Tá
- Aiken, Frank.
- Bartley, Gerald.
- Beegan, Patrick.
- Boland, Gerald.
- Bourke, Daniel.
- Breen, Daniel.
- Concannon, Helena.
- Corbett, Edmond.
- Crowley, Timothy.
- Daly, Denis.
- Derrig, Thomas.
- De Valera, Eamon.
- Doherty, Hugh.
- Fogarty, Andrew.
- Gibbons, Séan.
- Goulding, John.
- Harris, Thomas.
- Hogan, Patrick (Clare).
- Houlihan, Patrick.
- Keely, Séamus P.
- Killilea, Mark.
- Lemass, Seán F.
- Little, Patrick John.
- MacEntee, Seán.
- Moane, Edward.
- Moore, Séamus.
- Murphy, Patrick Stephen.
- O'Briain, Donnchadh.
- O'Dowd, Patrick.
- O'Grady, Seán.
- O'Reilly, Matthew.
- Pearse, Margaret Mary.
- Ruttledge, Patrick Joseph.
- Ryan, James.
- Ryan, Martin.
- Ryan, Robert.
- Sheridan, Michael.
- Smith, Patrick.
- Traynor, Oscar.
- Walsh, Richard.
Níl
- Belton, Patrick.
- Bennett, George Cecil.
- Burke, Patrick.
- Cosgrave, William T.
- Costello, John Aloysius.
- Doyle, Peadar S.
- Fitzgerald-Kenney, James.
- Lynch, Finian.
- McFadden, Michael Og.
- McGilligan, Patrick.
- McMenamin, Daniel.
- Morrissey, Daniel.
- Mulcahy, Richard.
- O'Leary, Daniel.
- O'Neill, Eamonn.
- O'Sullivan, Gearóid.
- O'Sullivan, John Marcus.
- Redmond, Bridget Mary
- Reidy, James.
- Rice, Vincent.
- Rowlette, Robert James.
- Wall, Nicholas.
As regards the motion that the Dáil do now adjourn till 10.30 a.m. to-morrow, July 6th, that motion was handed to the Chair as a matter of urgency, as certain Bills have to get through this House within a week. I consider that it would be rather an impertinence for the Chair to decide that the majority in this House in a matter of urgency cannot come to a decision as to whether or not it would sit to-morrow.
That is a gas reason, Sir.
Comments on the Chair may be made by one method, by express resolution.
I propose to take that method. It is the only way in which proper comment on your conduct can be made.
Very well.
Am I to understand that you are taking this motion without notice to the House? This is a motion different from any motion of which any notice has been given and to which objection is taken by a certain number of Deputies in this House. The reason, I understand, is urgency, but the Bill can be still got through in the course of next week without any necessity for sitting to-morrow. I will ask your reconsideration of your decision on the grounds that any such urgency is due to incompetence and delay on the part of the Government and the majority Party in this House in the way in which they have conducted their business. There is plenty of time for the Finance Bill in the course of the next week—Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday—to get through this House. Therefore, I suggest to you, Sir, for your consideration that there is no such matter of urgency in this particular matter. We have been treated with the grossest impertinence by the Minister for Finance. He has taken up the attitude, so to speak, of not recognising the court. The Opposition has discussed this measure. His attitude is one of contempt for the House, and I suggest that the majority Party on the motion it is taking at present is treating the House with the same contempt.
So far as this motion is concerned and the reason for it, there is no doubt whatever but that the Finance Bill can pass through this House by Wednesday and that there will then be 21 days in which it can go to the Seanad, and be passed before the first of August. In these circumstances and having regard to the precedent that has been established and observed here since this House started, I submit that the taking of this motion now is certainly unfair to the Parliament. It must be remembered that if there is a majority here there is also a minority and that the minority has a right to express its view. They have been elected as well as the majority and it is their bounden duty to take part in the parliamentary proceedings. They have done that with all the ability at their command, as was their duty.
The House this morning was informed that the intention was to adjourn until Tuesday at 3 o'clock. Outside of the majority everybody in this House believed that that was the programme. They believed in all good faith that once that announcement was made no attempt could be made or would be allowed to be made to interrupt the business by moving that the House would meet to-morrow. I put it on another ground. We have been sitting here since Tuesday at 3 o'clock. We have been sitting from 10.30 a.m. to-day and it is now near midnight. I put it in all reason that members of this House are not likely to bring to the consideration of business that application which is demanded of us in the Parliament of the nation. If you are accepting the motion that the House adjourn until to-morrow morning at half past ten o'clock I submit that it is an outrage on the proceedings and precedents that have been established in this House. If you are going to accept that motion I will have to move an amendment.
Dr. Ryan
I move: "That the question be now put."
I am accepting the motion that the question be now put.
I think it is an outrage and the Chair does not deserve the respect of the House.
Will you accept an amendment from me: That the House adjourns until 3 o'clock on Tuesday?
I have accepted the motion that the question be now put. The Deputy understands this matter must be decided before 12 o'clock.
Is there no chance of a discussion of this new precedent?
Not under Standing Orders.
Why not move that the House adjourn until 12.15 a.m. on Saturday.
Do you think it is fair to gag discussion?
Tá
- Aiken, Frank.
- Bartley, Gerald.
- Beegan, Patrick.
- Boland, Gerald.
- Bourke, Daniel.
- Breen, Daniel.
- Concannon, Helena.
- Corbett, Edmond.
- Crowley, Timothy.
- Daly, Denis.
- Derrig, Thomas.
- De Valera, Eamon.
- Doherty, Hugh.
- Fogarty, Andrew.
- Gibbons, Seán
- Goulding, John.
- Harris, Thomas.
- Keely, Séamus P.
- Killilea, Mark.
- Lemass, Seán F.
- Little, Patrick John.
- MacEntee, Seán.
- Moane, Edward.
- Moore, Séamus.
- Murphy, Patrick Stephen.
- O'Briain, Donnchadh.
- O'Dowd, Patrick.
- O'Grady, Seán.
- O'Reilly, Matthew.
- Pearse, Margaret Marry.
- Ruttledge, Patrick Joseph.
- Ryan, James.
- Ryan, Martin.
- Ryan, Robert
- Sheridan, Michael.
- Smith, Patrick.
- Traynor, Oscar.
- Walsh, Richard.
Níl
- Belton, Patrick.
- Bennett, George Cecil.
- Burke, Patrick.
- Cosgrave, William T.
- Costello, John Aloysius.
- Doyle, Peadar S.
- Fitzgerald-Kenney, James.
- Lynch, Finian.
- McFadden, Michael Og.
- McGilligan, Patrick.
- McMenamin, Daniel.
- Morrissey, Daniel.
- Mulcahy, Richard.
- O'Leary, Daniel.
- O'Neill, Eamonn
- O'Sullivan, Gearóid.
- O'Sullivan, John Marcus.
- Redmond, Bridget Mary.
- Reidy, James.
- Rice, Vincent.
- Rowlette, Robert James.
- Wall, Nicholas.
Tá
- Aiken, Frank.
- Bartley, Gerald.
- Beegan, Patrick.
- Boland, Gerald.
- Bourke, Daniel.
- Breen, Daniel.
- Concannon, Helena.
- Corbett, Edmond.
- Crowley, Timothy.
- Daly, Denis.
- Derrig, Thomas.
- De Valera, Eamon
- Doherty, Hugh.
- Fogarty, Andrew.
- Gibbons, Seán.
- Goulding, John.
- Harris, Thomas.
- Hogan, Patrick (Clare).
- Houlihan, Patrick.
- Keely, Séamus P.
- Killilea, Mark.
- Lemass, Seán F.
- Little, Patrick John.
- MacEntee, Seán.
- Moane, Edward.
- Moore, Séamus.
- Murphy, Patrick Stephen.
- O'Briain, Donnchadh.
- O'Dowd, Patrick.
- O'Grady, Seán.
- O'Reilly, Matthew
- Pearse, Margaret Mary.
- Ruttledge, Patrick Joseph.
- Ryan, James.
- Ryan, Martin.
- Ryan, Robert.
- Sheridan, Michael.
- Smith, Patrick.
- Traynor, Oscar.
- Walsh, Richard.
Níl
- Belton, Patrick.
- Bennett, George Cecil.
- Burke, Patrick.
- Cosgrave, William T.
- Costello, John Aloysius.
- Doyle, Peadar S.
- Fitzgerald-Kenney, James.
- Lynch, Finian.
- McFadden, Michael Og.
- McGilligan, Patrick.
- McMenamin, Daniel.
- Morrissey, Daniel.
- Mulcahy, Richard.
- O'Leary, Daniel.
- O'Neill, Eamonn.
- O'Sullivan, Gearóid.
- O'Sullivan, John Marcus.
- Redmond, Bridget Mary.
- Reidy, James.
- Rice, Vincent.
- Rowlette, Robert James.
- Wall, Nicholas.