The reference is Dáil Debates, Volume 118, No. 5, column 581. If there was one thing that the Minister did not do it was to state precisely from where the measurements were to be taken. Deputy Coburn pressed him on the matter. At column 1247 of the Dáil Debates of 23rd June, Deputy Coburn said:—
"I suggest to the Minister that the three-mile limit should be similar to that which obtains in the case of the licensing laws. It should be from the centre of the town and not from the boundary."
Deputy de Valera put this question, at column 1248:—
"The three-mile limit from what? That is the first question that arises. I take it it is from the boundary of such town."
The Minister then had an opportunity of stating precisely that it was from the boundary of certain towns and from the principal post office in others but what did he say?—
"If the Deputy wants a reply to that I shall give it to him now. The three-mile limit is to be taken from the principal post office."
There is added to that statement in this report an addendum which is in good civil servicese; I do not remember the Minister saying it in the House:—
"From the principal post office in respect of the conditions mentioned in (d)."
The conditions mentioned in (d) of the clause which was then under discussion were these:—
"That the duty not be chargeable in a place not situated in or within three miles of any of the following."
Then follow lists (a), (b), (c) and (d). Clause (d) says:—
"A town:
"(i) which is designated as such in the census of population which is for the time being the latest such census, and
"(ii) has, according to such census, a population exceeding 500."
The town of Dundalk, to which Deputy Coburn referred, is listed in the statistics of population as one of these towns. Deputy Coburn, having heard the Minister say that the point of measurement was to be from the principal post office, was fairly satisfied that the halls more than three miles from the central post office in Dundalk would be exempt from this new imposition of the Minister's on dances. However, he found, to his cost I am sure, that the Minister was simply stringing him along to get him to agree to the Finance Bill and, when the law comes to be applied, the Revenue Commissioners are attempting to collect the tax on halls that are four and a half, and some of them four and threequarter, miles from the post office in Dundalk.
I know several of these halls that are coming under the hammer of the Minister. They are rural halls, built by rural people, some of them my political opponents, some of them my political friends. They are completely self-centred local communities. They look for their entertainment in their own village, in their own hall, rather than in Dundalk. They hold their dances, céilidhthe, plays, bazaars and raffles in this local village centre. Some of them are four and threequarter miles from the post office, but they are, as the Minister said, within three miles of the boundary of the town of Dundalk, so that the Revenue Commissioners are coming down upon them. It is a complete breach of the understanding between the Minister and the House, between the Minister and the Opposition and between the Minister and the members of his own Party who were thoroughly dissatisfied by this reimposition of the tax on dances which had been abolished a couple of years previously.
In the debate on 23rd June, Deputy Major de Valera asked if the measurement was to be from the principal post office and pointed to the difficulty that the post office, as he said in column 1248, would probably be in the middle of the street and that measured from that particular point, the house might be inside the three mile limit, and he went on to point out that there might be confusion as a result of it. Deputy Sweetman then intervened and said that these cases did not cause so much trouble in regard to the liquor laws and the Minister chipped in with the remark: "They do not cause any trouble." He did not say that there would not be trouble in cases where the measurement was to be taken from the town boundary and he still left us under the impression that it was to be taken from the principal post office of towns listed in the census. A number of other Deputies raised the matter and Deputy Major de Valera came back to it several times in an effort to discover precisely where this measurement was to be taken from. In column 1257, the Minister said:
"With regard to the area, we are leaving that with some elasticity in it. If there is going to be any modification of it, it will be modified for the benefit of the exemption and not against it."
The allegation is, and I think there is some substance in it, that the elasticity which the Minister said he would leave is not being used for the benefit of the exemption but against those owning halls, clubs and others. It is alleged that, in the case of two of these halls, the tape which measured the distance between the boundary of the Town of Dundalk and these halls must have been elastic and must have been well stretched to bring these halls within the three mile limit.
I challenged the Minister on the 9th of this month to refer me to the column in which he stated precisely that the measurement in the case of certain towns would be from the boundary and not from the principal post office. I want to challenge him again to-night. In answering supplementary questions, the Minister had not had much time to look at the documents, but he has had time since, and I ask him now to refer me to the column in which he stated precisely that the measurement would be taken from the nearest point of the boundary in the case of county boroughs and urban districts. I have read and reread the columns to which the Minister referred me to find his precise definition and I cannot find it. I cannot find it even by reference. There is nothing he said, even taking a legal interpretation of it and not the obvious meaning to the ordinary person, which would indicate that this imposition on rural dances was going to affect halls which were further than three miles from the principal post office in the town.
I can sympathise with the Minister in his effort to collect all the taxes he is budgeting for. It was difficult enough for Fianna Fáil to collect the £65,000,000 we spent in our last year and I know it must be even more difficult for the Minister to raise now the sum of close on £73,000,000 which he proposes to spend this year, but there is a limit to what the Minister should do in the matter of raising these moneys. He should at least keep his undertakings to the Dáil—if not his undertakings to the Opposition, at least his undertakings to the members of his own Party and the Parties supporting him. They were all against the reimposition of the tax on dances, particularly in rural areas, and I thought, as they thought, that we had dragged an assurance from the Minister that the clause in the Act which reimposed the tax would be beneficially interpreted. Instead of that, it has been most drastically interpreted in a few cases I know of against the owners of these dance halls. I think it is bad for the country that the Minister should act in that way and I ask him to give a guarantee to the House that, pending a clarification of the position, if it is necessary to clear it up from a legal point of view, he will ask the Revenue Commissioners not to behave in this manner and not to impose this tax on dances in respect of halls which are more than three miles from the principal post office in the local towns and which are rural in character, serving the social needs of a rural community.
One of the benefits which I thought would accrue from the abolition of the tax on dances some years ago was that it would help local communities to do things for themselves rather than to rely upon the Government for everything. Instead of having collections for laudable parochial and village purposes, a committee gets together and holds a dance in one of these halls. The people who buy the tickets enjoy themselves and the committee gets the money and spends it for some useful local purpose. The Minister is killing that practice in certain areas I know of which are rural in character. As I said at the beginning, these people are looking to their own halls for their amusements rather than running into Dundalk and other towns for them. I hope the Minister will give the guarantee I ask, that he will live up to what he said at the time of the passing of the Finance Act and interpret this provision beneficially, that he will allow a little elasticity and will allow that elasticity to be used for the benefit of rural communities.
