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Dáil Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 2 May 1951

Vol. 125 No. 13

Financial Resolution No. 3—Customs and Excise. - Resolution No. 4—Entertainments Duty.

I move:—

(1) That in this Resolution "entertainments duty" means the excise duty referred to by that name in and chargeable under Section 1 of the Finance (New Duties) Act, 1916, as amended by subsequent enactments.

(2) That as on and from the 15th day of August, 1951, Section 13 of the Finance Act, 1949 (No. 13 of 1949), as amended by any provision of the Act giving effect to this Resolution, shall not apply to a ball or dance in relation to which, disregarding that section, as so amended, the entertainments duty chargeable in accordance with Section 12 of the Finance Act, 1949, on payments for admission would be at a rate higher than the rate of 9d. for a payment for admission.

One of the first things we did when the exceptional expenditure in connection with the war was over, was to abolish the duty on dances. The Minister is now extending the duty which he imposed on dances a couple of years ago. I think it is a bad thing for the rural areas that a tax on dances should be reimposed. If any local club or parish organisation wants to raise a few pounds, the normal way for them to do it is to get a committee together to run a dance. This extension of the duty on dances will put a stop to that and make the raising of money much more difficult; it will be more difficult for such organisations to raise money in a voluntary way in the future. I do not know how it can be justified.

The Minister is not only imposing the dance tax on dances held within a three-mile limit of ordinary towns throughout the country; in its operation, we find that this tax is being applied to halls which are more than four miles from the normal centres of towns. Take the town of Dundalk. The dance tax is being applied to halls that are four and a half miles from the post office. The existing tax is hitting these halls and this extension of the tax will operate severely on halls that are 20 miles from any sizable town. When we think that the Government, notwithstanding the whisperings of the Labour Party——

You are worried about them, are you not?

——did not reimpose the excess corporation profits tax, can afford not to reimpose it, and can depend on the Labour Party being as must as mice——

The corporation profits tax is not in this resolution.

We must not forget that the Labour Party promised that if they came back as a group it would be imposed, no matter what Government was in office.

Even though the Chair says it is not here, the Deputy persists in introducing it.

I am merely emphasising what the Chair said.

The Deputy is a human gramophone.

We object to this tax and anybody interested in the rural community should also object to it.

Is the Deputy not getting a bit long in the tooth to be worrying about dances?

Perhaps that is what is worrying the Minister.

One of the hardworking people for whom this tax is devised is the young farmer. It is rather extraordinary that we have here a Coalition Government which is supposed to be supported by the representatives of farmers, and the Minister for Finance in that Government is imposing this tax upon a rural amusement. The Minister undoubtedly tried to make the best case he could for it. He said he was trying to prevent an abuse, and his method of preventing an abuse is to make it impossible for any person to run or organise a dance in comfortable surroundings in rural districts. You will note that the Resolution proposes to charge entertainments tax upon dances the charge for admission to which exceeds 9d.

It is 3/9.

You are wrong, are you not?

The proposal is 9d. on 3/9.

Very well, 9d. on 3/9.

I do not suppose you were ever at a 9d. dance, were you? Would you know what they are like?

Where I come from or where I go to, I do not think is of any relevance to this discussion.

It would be very awkward, perhaps, because you might not know.

It might be a highclass dance, even though it is only 9d.

It is obvious the Government do not take their own financial resolutions seriously.

We do not take your speeches seriously.

I shall try to be as brief as I can on this. The position, in any event, is that apparently farmers in Ireland are now so prosperous, despite the dissatisfaction about the price of milk and the price of eggs——

Which, of course, are in this Resolution?

No, Sir, I am merely referring to the taxable capacity of the community upon whom this tax will be imposed, as evidenced by the ruling prices for agricultural produce which, I gather, have secured for the Minister for Agriculture the united support of the farmers of Ireland. However, it should be very gratifying to the farmers to know that if they do not get 1/6 a gallon for their milk and 3/- per dozen for their eggs, at least they will have the privilege of paying a tax when they go into any dance, the price of admission to which is more than 3/9. I am sure that will be highly gratifying to them and to those who believe that, after all, something should be done to brighten rural life in Ireland. That was the aim which the then Minister for Finance, my colleague, Deputy Aiken, had when he remitted the tax upon dances in rural centres altogether.

Impose it on cinemas.

If I were permitted to make a speech I should be more lucid and more coherent and I might even impress the obtuse intellect of Deputy O'Higgins.

He is getting excited now.

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.

The remission that was given here was given in answer to pleas that were made from pretty nearly every part of the House that there should be something done to aid the amenities of rural areas and rural areas were defined as areas that were under 500 population or places within three miles of a place of 500 population and it was agreed—it was a bit of an experiment—that it might be reviewed as the years went on. Deputy MacEntee, of course, is only talking for the sake of talking, to try to do a bit of destruction. To pretend that there are 5/- dances in the countryside is nonsense. There are not 5/- dances. I am referring to dances attended by members of the rural community. The people living in these areas do not pay 5/-. If the Deputy had any touch with the countryside he would know that they do not pay 3/9. The 3/9 dance is the dance that has become rather common recently in the countryside, in some of these tax-free areas, where people saw a possibility of commercialising dances and ran dances in country hotels and halls that they erected.

By charging high prices they got people to come from neighbouring towns or towns within a considerable radius. That was the representation made to me. They even went so far as to run 2/6 dances, which could be regarded as the normal dance, for those in the rural areas. Certainly it has been impressed upon us that the dances of the 3/9 type are not frequented by members of the rural community in the neighbourhood. They are of no value to them. They see a lot of strangers being brought in and money being made, money that legitimately belongs to the owners of dance halls in places two or three miles away, places, that is, of over 500 population. We are making this change in order to give better backing to the view that the people in the rural areas ought to be benefited by having the exemption from this tax. We are not hurting rural people at all because they do not attend these dances. That is the line and I think it is a good line.

Mr. de Valera

I know nothing about it but I have asked a number of rural Deputies what is the normal charge in these cases and I was told that in many cases it went over 5/-.

Of course it does. Would the Deputy inquire amongst his colleagues what is the normal price for a rural dance?

Mr. de Valera

I asked specifically about rural dances.

I mean the normal price for a rural dance which is not attended by the people who come in motor cars and buses from other areas. How many of the 5/- dances are attended by the people in the rural areas? They are not attended.

They are attended by people who come long distances in cars.

Mr. de Valera

My question was, what is the price normally for the rural community? They said it would come to 5/-.

They are being run in the rural area but they are not attended by rural dwellers. People come from outside.

Resolution put.
The Committee divided: Tá, 70; Níl, 65.

  • Beirne, John.
  • Belton, John.
  • Blowick, Joseph.
  • Brennan, Joseph P.
  • Browne, Patrick.
  • Byrne, Alfred.
  • Byrne, Alfred Patrick.
  • Coburn, James.
  • Cogan, Patrick.
  • Collins, Seán.
  • Commons, Bernard.
  • Connolly, Roderick J.
  • Corish, Brendan.
  • Cosgrave, Liam.
  • Costello, John A.
  • Crotty, Patrick J.
  • Davin, William.
  • Desmond, Daniel.
  • Dillon, James M.
  • Dockrell, Maurice E.
  • Donnellan, Michael.
  • Doyle, Peadar S.
  • Dunne, Seán.
  • Everett, James.
  • Fagan, Charles.
  • Fitzpatrick, Michael.
  • Flanagan, Oliver J.
  • Flynn, John.
  • Giles, Patrick.
  • Halliden, Patrick J.
  • Hickey, James.
  • Hogan, Patrick.
  • Hughes, Joseph.
  • Keyes, Michael.
  • Kinane, Patrick.
  • Kyne, Thomas A.
  • Larkin, James.
  • Lehane, Con.
  • McAuliffe, Patrick.
  • MacBride, Seán.
  • MacEoin, Seán.
  • McFadden, Michael Og.
  • McGilligan, Patrick.
  • McMenamin, Daniel.
  • Madden, David J.
  • Morrissey, Daniel.
  • Mulcahy, Richard.
  • Murphy, William J.
  • Norton, William.
  • O'Donnell, Patrick.
  • O'Gorman, Patrick J.
  • O'Higgins, Michael J.
  • O'Higgins, Thomas F.
  • O'Higgins, Thomas F. (Jun.).
  • O'Leary, John.
  • O'Reilly, Patrick.
  • O'Sullivan, Martin.
  • Palmer, Patrick W.
  • Pattison, James P.
  • Redmond, Bridget M.
  • Reidy, James.
  • Reynolds, Mary.
  • Roddy, Joseph.
  • Rooney, Eamonn.
  • Sheehan, Michael.
  • Sheldon, William A.W.
  • Spring, Daniel.
  • Sweetman, Gerard.
  • Timoney, John J.
  • Tully, John.

Níl

  • Aiken, Frank.
  • Allen, Denis.
  • Bartley, Gerald.
  • Beegan, Patrick.
  • Blaney, Neal T.
  • Boland, Gerald.
  • Bourke, Dan.
  • Brady, Seán.
  • Breathnach, Cormac.
  • Breen, Daniel.
  • Brennan, Thomas.
  • Breslin, Cormac.
  • Briscoe, Robert.
  • Buckley, Seán.
  • Burke, Patrick.
  • Butler, Bernard.
  • Childers, Erskine H.
  • Colley, Harry.
  • Collins, James J.
  • Corry, Martin J.
  • Cowan, Peadar.
  • Crowley, Honor Mary.
  • Davern, Michael J.
  • Maguire, Patrick J.!Ruttledge, Patrick J.
  • Moran, Michael.
  • Moylan, Seán.
  • Ó Briain, Donnchadh.
  • O'Grady, Seán.
  • O'Reilly, Matthew.
  • Ormonde, John.
  • O'Rourke, Daniel.
  • O'Sullivan, Ted.
  • Rice, Bridget M.
  • Derrig, Thomas.
  • De Valera, Eamon.
  • De Valera, Vivion.
  • Flynn, Stephen.
  • Friel, John.
  • Gilbride, Eugene.
  • Gorry, Patrick J.
  • Harris, Thomas.
  • Hilliard, Michael.
  • Kennedy, Michael J.
  • Killilea, Mark.
  • Kilroy, James.
  • Kissane, Eamon.
  • Kitt, Michael F.
  • Lahiffe, Robert.
  • Lemass, Seán F.
  • Little, Patrick J.
  • Lydon, Michael F.
  • Lynch, John.
  • McCann, John.
  • McEllistrim, Thomas.
  • MacEntee, Seán.
  • McGrath, Patrick.
  • Ruttledge, Patrick J.
  • Ryan, James.
  • Ryan, Mary B.
  • Ryan, Robert.
  • Sheridan, Michael.
  • Smith, Patrick.
  • Traynor, Oscar.
  • Walsh, Richard.
  • Walsh, Thomas.
Tellers:—Tá: Deputies P.S. Doyle and Spring; Níl: Deputies Kissane and Kennedy.
Resolution declared carried.
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