The Minister is going to hear about it and the Minister is going to explain about it and to tell us why, when he is remitting the amount of tax paid on coal to, at any rate, people who held coal stocks in their hands in the country, he is remitting the 5/- tax only off the coal importers. I have had a number of cases brought to my mind with regard to coal merchants throughout the country. Take the case of a man in Limerick who had 260 tons of coal in stock on the 24th January this year. He is not going to get the 5/- tax back, but a coal importer, who, say, imports his coal through the port of Cork, and who has subsidiary stores in Limerick, is going to get the 5/- back, not only in respect of his remaining stocks in Cork, but in respect of the coal in his subsidiary stores in Cork and in Limerick.
Now, this has to be borne in mind: that, when the Minister refunds this money—whatever amount it is—this money has to be found from the backs of other people. Therefore, if people are providing money to do some justice in this coal business, we want to know to whom that justice is being done and why exactly it is being done to this particular class of people. The coal importers who paid 5/- on every ton of coal that they had in stock on the 24th January are entitled to get that 5/- a ton back, but other people are more entitled to get it back, I hold. These are some of the points I want to put before the Minister so that he may have an opportunity of dealing with them before the Committee Stage, unless it is the Government's attitude that they are going to prevent any other people from dealing effectively with them.
I consider that the Bill should be amended by the Government so that those people, who are coal merchants throughout the country and who are an essential and necessary part of the distributive machinery for distributing coal throughout the country, should get the same consideration in this matter of refund as the coal importers are getting. I also raise the question as to why the coal importers are getting this remission of taxation at the expense of the general taxpayer when the coal importers themselves are, in my opinion, reaping an enormous extra profit arising out of the prices they are charging for coal at the present time—a position that would not have existed if the policy of the Government had not been to quota and to license the importation of coal into the country and to put on a 5/- tax.
Now, let us deal first with the people who retail coal. I have a statement here, signed by four coal retailers in the town of Castleblayney, and, on Friday, 24th January, they say that they have received and signed the Government's circular presented to them by the manager of the Labour Exchange there to reduce all coals by 5/- a ton, which they say they complied with in the belief that it was compulsory. The manager of the labour exchange in Castleblayney approached four of the merchants there and presented them with a document about which we have no information and about which we should like to get some information, and got them to sign some kind of a document about which we have no information except that it was an agreement to reduce the price of coal by 5/-. When, however, having done that, they assessed their stocks on 24th January and sent a statement to the Minister for Industry and Commerce asking for the refund, the Minister for Industry and Commerce replied that he was only dealing with importers and that the persons who had coal for retail purposes throughout the country were not going to be refunded their money in any way. I do not know how much coal they had in stock, but the Minister for Industry and Commerce knows. I have had communications from other parts of the country—one where a person had bought 50 tons of coal two days before the remission of tax and who was left, on the 24th January, with 64 tons of coal on hand. He paid his 5/- duty on that to the importer. He is now informed by the Minister for Industry and Commerce that he is not going to get any refund.
There is another case of a man in County Limerick who has probably a number of stores throughout the country, who had 210 tons of coal. He paid his 5/- duty on that but he is told by the Minister that he is not going to get any refund in respect of the 5/- duty which he paid through the importers. The importers have subsidiary stores in that town and other towns throughout the counties of Limerick and Cork, as they have in other parts of the country, in competition with the ordinary coal merchants in retailing coal. The person who is an importer-retailer is going to get his money back. I submit to the Minister that the other classes of retailers must be catered for. They are quite as essential throughout the country as the importer and they are put in the position by the policy unnecessarily pursued by the Government that they cannot be importers of coal. That brings me to the statement made in some of the letters, that there is in Cork and Limerick a ring which is artificially keeping up the price of coal. At present it is 6/- more than it was 12 months ago although the prices 12 months ago included the 5/- tax. Therefore they are retailing it at a net increase of 11/- on the price at which it should be sold, though nothing in the nature of quotas or licences has arisen during the last 12 months. The retail merchants see that a refund of 5/- is being paid to other merchants who, they complain, are making an unnecessary profit of 11/- per ton to-day. These retail merchants, as I say, cannot import coal.
That brings us to a remarkable feature of the present situation that we are driven to contemplate by the circumstances that now exist. Before the coal-cattle pact was agreed to—I am not going to put you in an awkward position, a Chinn Comhairle —in the beginning of last year there was a tax of 5/- on all British coal coming into this country, but there was free trade in coal generally for anybody who wanted to engage in the importation business. The Government then decided upon the policy that during the six months beginning the 1st February last, they would allow in only 1,000 tons of non-British coal. But instead of allowing freedom of trade to persons in this country in British coal and putting quota restrictions and licences only in operation in regard to 1,000 tons of foreign coal, the Government took the whole of the coal trade in hands and, through the machinery of licences and quotas, they formed a definite and solid ring of coal importers in the country. There is not a single person to-day—I think the Minister for Industry and Commerce will bear me out or will correct me if I am wrong —who is not a registered coal importer who can embark in the coal importing business during the next 12 months.