Apparently the method which is being adopted by the Minister for Finance to brighten the lives of people who are in rural areas, to afford them the same sort of facilities as they might enjoy if they were living in some of the larger centres of population, is to make it more difficult for them to have any sort of evening enjoyment or Sunday enjoyment at all. It is all very well to try to equate the position in rural areas with the position in Dublin and other larger centres. In the larger centres, as we know, dances are taxed very heavily and, as many people thought when the new rates were imposed, taxed exorbitantly but, if they are, at least there is this to be said for them, that the proprietors of dance halls, those who invest money in dance halls, whether as a private enterprise or as a communal enterprise, as a committee of an organisation, in Dublin and larger centres, can have their halls occupied every night, can make a profit every night and, therefore, their charges can be lower and they can pay a rate of tax which is commensurately lower also. But, in the rural areas, as everybody knows, the only night of the week upon which a dance can be held is a Sunday night, which means that the overhead charges upon the halls, the cost of lighting, the rates, and so on, are proportionately very much greater per patron than they would be in the City of Dublin. Therefore, it is probably true that, in order that the dances can be fittingly conducted, in order that they may be comfortable and enjoyable, a great deal larger margin of profit must be available to those who promote them.
In these circumstances, it is quite clear that to give to the rural resident anything like similar facilities to those that an urban resident could enjoy in a matter of this sort, the charges must be higher. Bearing in mind that the charges, even in the City of Dublin, for a short dance, a dance running, say, from eight until midnight, run in the neighbourhood of 3/6 or 3/9, even if we were prepared to concede that there is any justification for imposing a tax at all, we all would agree that the exemption figure which the Minister has chosen is, by comparison with the rate prevailing in the City of Dublin, much too low and that, in fact, if a dance hall could be run profitably with a charge of 3/6 for admission in a large urban centre, in the case of a dance hall in a rural area which is to provide the same amenities, the economic price of admission would have to be correspondingly higher. I am told that in rural areas, where there would be no question of abuse at all, where parish dances are run, for a dance on a Sunday evening, conducted with a certain amount of regard for the amenities, conducted so that every person would enjoy himself and that there will not be overcrowding and there will not be the inconvenience of not having proper cloakroom accommodation and so on and where, perhaps, some light refreshment is provided, the common charge is 5/- per head. If that is the case, what justification can there possibly be for making the exemption limit, as the Minister has suggested, 3/9?
First of all, the Minister is very ill-advised to reimpose the tax upon these dance halls at all. If he is going to do it, the figure he has chosen as the exemption limit, 3/9, is much too low. I hope those Deputies who represent rural constituents will at least have the courage to get up and say whether they agree with me or not. If what I have been saying does not appeal to their common sense, if they think that I have been painting the picture in too doleful terms from the point of view of the persons who attend these dances, I hope they will get up and say so. On the other hand, if they think there is something in what I have said, I hope they will get up and say it also and that they will not sit here, mute of malice, neglectful of the interests of their constituents in regard to this matter.