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Dáil Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 27 Jun 1951

Vol. 126 No. 4

Committee on Finance. - Finance Bill, 1951—Second Stage.

I move: That the Bill be now read a Second Time. In view of the fact that the Resolutions upon which this Bill is mainly based have so recently been before the House, I hope the House will permit me to confine my remarks on this Stage of the Bill to those provisions of it which are novel and, perhaps, a little complicated. On this assumption, I may pass over, without comment, Sections 1 to 5 of the Bill, which are straightforward and self-explanatory. I shall, of course, be glad to deal with any points which Deputies may care to raise on the sections when they are taken seriatim on Committee Stage.

Section 6 is a section in relation to which a Financial Resolution was not before the House. It is essentially a relieving section and is linked up with the Government Loans Conversion Act of this year. It relates to the tax position which will obtain when a Government stock is converted. As I explained on the Bill in relation to the conversion operation, a cash bonus obtained on conversion is not chargeable to tax so long as it is in the hands of an ordinary investor, but this cash bonus would be brought into account for tax purposes if it were received by a concern, such as a bank, carrying on a trade which consists wholly or partly in dealing in securities; that is, it would be brought into account as if the conversion were a realisation. I have said that the section is a relieving section and the relief it grants is that, if a concern such as I have mentioned desires, it may secure that the conversion will not be at once treated for tax purposes as a realisation and the cash bonus, therefore, will not feature in the computation of the tax liability of the concern until such time as the new stock is actually realised.

What will happen if the new stock depreciates in the meantime?

When it is realised, the depreciation will be taken into account and set off against the cash bonus. I think I may also omit any detailed reference to Sections 7 and 11. They are based mainly on the Financial Resolutions which the House has adopted.

Surely there was no Financial Resolution in connection with Section 11.

I am sorry; there was not. That section is brought in for the purpose of amending the Spirits Act, 1880, so as to provide for the warehousing on drawback of duty of home-made liqueurs intended for home consumption; secondly, to remove the restriction on the warehousing on drawback of compounded spirits of a strength exceeding 11 degrees over proof; and, thirdly, to provide for the warehousing on drawback in bottle of certain types of compounded spirits which would otherwise be warehoused only in casks. I am sorry if I thought that that section was not of sufficient importance to dwell on.

Section 12 corresponds to Financial Resolution No. 5 and is introduced to confirm the established practice under which the exemption to which it relates operates by reference to the person in whose beneficial ownership the security was immediately before death and not by reference to the person owning it beneficially afterwards. Section 13 and the First Schedule provide for the new scale of rates of estate duty to correspond with Financial Resolution No. 4 which was passed last week. Section 14 incorporates a somewhat complicated set of provisions, but the main alteration effected in the Acts is the raising of the existing exemption level for legacy and succession duties from £1,000 to £2,000. The only other matters included are some consequential reliefs and certain provisions designed to protect or preserve the rights of taxpayers under the law as it stands. If by any chance any Deputy wishes for further information about any of these highly technical sub-sections, I trust he will put his difficulty to me during the debate and I shall endeavour to reply to him at a later stage.

Sections 15 and 16 provide for the avoidance of double taxation on income derived from sea and air transport and are self-explanatory. Section 17 reduces the rate of stamp duty on conveyances and transfers of houses and land from 5 per cent. to 3 per cent. Section 18 does the same in respect of leases. Section 19 reduces the stamp duty from 2 per cent. to 1 per cent. on conveyances and transfers of stocks or securities of Irish companies, or of external companies where the shares are transferred on branch registers maintained here by the companies concerned. Sections 17, 18 and 19 will come into force on 1st August or on the passing of the Finance Bill whichever may be the later date. Section 20 will transfer £300,000 from the Road Fund to the Exchequer.

Section 21 has a two-fold purpose: first, to adjust, by reference to the actual expenditure on voted capital services in 1950-51, the annuity fixed by Section 22 of the Finance Act, 1950, in respect of the provision for such services made in the Estimates; and secondly, to fix a second annuity in respect of this year's estimated figure of £12,079,705 for capital services. The adjustment at sub-section (1) involves a corresponding adjustment in the interest element of the annuity which is effected by sub-section (3). For administrative convenience, power is being taken to pay the annuity into the account during the year whenever and in such amounts as the Minister may determine, and not, as under the 1950 Act, in half-yearly instalments. Section 22, together with the Second Schedule, provides for the repeal of certain provisions in the death duties code for which new provisions are being substituted by Section 14. The main reasons for these changes is the raising of the exemption level for legacy and succession duty from £1,000 to £2,000. Section 23 is the customary care and management section and Section 24 is the other customary provision to cover the short title, construction and commencement of the Bill.

This is a piece of legislation which we should all welcome. I certainly give it a great welcome at this moment, and all the more so because I have a foreboding that we are not likely to see such as it again so long as the present Minister is in control. For three years, four Finance Bills altogether, we have been accustomed to having reliefs given in financial legislation—which is quite out of the ordinary for the type of legislation the present Minister was accustomed to bring in in his day. In fact, I commend this legislation to the House as something Deputies might take home and keep for a memory of the good days that are temporarily over, in which reliefs have been the customary thing instead of exactions.

Before going on to speak of what is in the Bill, I want to speak of the things which might have been announced as having been carried by certain decisions taken by the previous Administration, and which could appropriately have been mentioned here. The first point is in regard to certain charges made upon solicitors. It is a matter of great concern to them over a number of years, and I in my time received several deputations on the point. They complain of three charges which weigh upon them, they say, with some oppression. One is the fee which a young man pays when he becomes apprenticed to the solicitor's profession. In one go, that amounts to a sum of £80.

Secondly, when that apprentice, having served his period and passed the usual tests, qualifies for admission to the profession, he has to pay on admission another stamp duty, an amount of £25. The solicitors requested that these two should either be abolished or be paid into a particular fund under the auspices of the Incorporated Law Society to enable them to get text-books prepared and get their educational system better provided for. It had been agreed that that would be done. The only difficulty was as to the particular time at which the remission could be allowed. There is a solicitors' Bill which has been on the stocks for many years. The arrangement was that if that legislation was coming to a head in the near future that would, of course, be the appropriate point at which to have this remission granted. If that legislation were not coming to a head in this particular financial year, the agreement was that the matter would have been carried by the finance legislation of this year or by some appropriate motion of early date.

The third point the solicitors complain of is that they have to pay stamp duties each year, £9 in Dublin and £6 throughout the rest of the country. They also request that that should be removed. In England and Northern Ireland it has been virtually removed for some reason I do not just remember, it has not been completely removed, but where it was £9 it is 9/- and where it was £6 it is 6/-.

In addition to that, there has been a matter of long-time standing in the Department of Finance which has been causing much trouble over the years that affects people who, at the moment, are regarded as unestablished civil servants but who are kept on in their class of work for many years to such a point that the phrase "temporary civil servants" can no longer be appropriately applied to them. The agitation for many years has been to have the service of such people counted for pension and gratuity purposes as if they were established. In my time we had taken the decision that what is called the half-service rule should be established, namely, that half the unestablished service should reckon towards pension in the case of people classified in this way.

Another matter which affects a small number of the Civil Service and to which a great deal of attention has been given is this. In 1950 there was introduced here a piece of legislation called Finance (Increase) Bill, that enlarged the pensions of certain people by certain percentage additions. A ceiling was put, however, upon the folk who were affected by this so that nobody who was in a pension of more than £450 could get any increase, or such increase as was given would not be allowed to bring an existing pension higher than the sum of £450. The ceiling was objected to when the legislation was produced and at a very early stage I made a marking on a file that I disliked the ceiling or at least had great regrets for having introduced it and would remove it at the earliest opportunity, and I had intended to remove it. It does not affect very many people.

Would provisions relating to the superannuation of those people be proper to a Finance Bill?

Probably not, but proper to be announced in a finance speech and one which I certainly would have announced myself.

Why did the Deputy not announce it in the Budget?

It is not a matter for the Budget. The whole thing would not cost £6,000 or £7,000 in a whole year. It would not amount to three times the sum of £6,000. There is one other thing I would refer to and bring into the context, that is, the phrase used by the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs in regard to certain post office charges. He announced one as being an increase in surcharge on telephones from 5 to 25 per cent. and said with regard to it that it was merely to give effect to a decision taken before the change of Government. I know of no decision of the Government effecting an increase from 5 to 25 per cent. in the surcharge on telephones. I know that in a minute I found myself dead against such an increase. If what the Minister meant to say was that there was a general decision that post office charges should be increased so that the deficit in the post office position could be overcome, then he is right in that; but to say that there was a Government decision to increase the surcharge in telephones from 5 to 25 per cent. is, to my mind, a misstatement and I would like to have it corrected at the earliest possible opportunity.

With regard to what is in this piece of legislation, while welcoming it with whatever plusses there are as well as minuses, from the point of view of the taxpayer. I would like to make one or two points. First of all, those who would accept this legislation must remember they are accepting not merely the increase in the personal allowances for married men in Section 2 and the increase in the deductions in respect of children in Section 3 and the allowances in respect of total incomes of persons aged 65 and over in Section 4, but they are also accepting the increase on petrol and other types of oil by 2d. a gallon. The present Minister criticised that when I introduced it in the Budget on the 2nd May and said this was a tax going to bear most heavily on supporters of the Labour Party—he was addressing them —as an increase not only in bus fares but in the cost of transport of goods produced by farmers and by manufacturers and everything the workers consumed.

The present Minister for External Affairs, Deputy Aiken, brought in, somewhat irrelevantly, on this particular petrol tax, this phrase:

"The Minister for Agriculture thought £1,000,000 was a great thing to give 400,000 farmers..."

—in regard to an effort of his to increase the price of milk—

"...but of course he could afford to give £1,800,000 to a few thousand civil servants."

In the context in which that phrase was used, the context of this increased 2d. a gallon on petrol, Deputies are now accepting that, and I understand it is going to be accepted unanimously in this House to-night. The other matter that has been accepted in this piece of legislation is, of course, the remission of estate duties on estates of certain values and the reduction of the tax levied on certain estates of other values and increases on certain higher estates. With regard to that, the present Minister for Finance thought that people were capitalists if they left an estate of £2,000, and held me as far as he could up to public odium and scorn for having agreed to exempt the estates of such capitalists. He held that the people in Crumlin and Kimmage would have to pay increased moneys in bus fares, the cost of transport and taxes imposed on them for the commodities they would consume.

I notice that the Minister has slipped over so easily that he made a mistake in the form of a section which should be obnoxious not only to himself but to those who support him, Section 20. Section 20 is a section which gives effect to the thought of transferring from the Road Fund £300,000 to the Exchequer. That was vigorously contested on every piece of financial legislation in the last three years and Deputies of Fianna Fáil were hoarse with complaint about this raid upon the Road Fund. They complained that the local authorities should get the extra moneys which were being got in by reason of the duty on petrol and the increase in the tax itself. They said that the local authorities were being deprived of what was legitimately theirs because of this raid of £300,000 from the Road Fund. It is remarkable to see how easily the change over can be made. Deputies who used to get hysterical with annoyance over this £300,000 now accept it with equanimity as a proper raid and something which should be taken from the Road Fund to the ease of the Exchequer.

This legislation, however, is remarkable more for what is not in it than for what is. The last time we met the Minister for Finance gave us the present Government's agreement to the arbitration award made with regard to civil servants. He pointed out that the decision had been taken by the previous Administration and they were accepting the award in full even to the date from which it ran, the 15th of January. These increased charges now running have been accepted as running from the 15th January of this year and there was a Government decision that equivalent increases should be given to the Army and to the Guards. That decision had a footnote that a particular decision was not required with regard to teachers because teachers of all grades had arbitration machinery of their own; that arbitration machinery had been set in motion and one of these days would produce an award with regard to these people. I think, however, that the Minister gave us a sum of almost £2,500,000 as being the sum that would fall for payment in this financial year. It will, of course, be increased somewhat, as the award goes back two and a half months before the begining of this financial year. Without counting the teachers, 2.4 or 2.5 million pounds is the sum that will have to be found and which should be found by taxation if the charges falling for payment this year are to be met from revenue derived in the year itself.

In addition, there will be further increases promised by the present Administration. During the last election they made the point that the nation was not being properly looked to, that the defences of the nation were not being accepted in the way they should be. The present Taoiseach said that the civil Defence Forces would have to be enlarged so as to enable them to cope with whatever emergency there might be and the Taoiseach, in his first Press conference, said that the present Government proposed to do the things that the previous Government had not been doing. To bring that down to a concrete figure it was suggested that the Army should be recruited up to 12,000 men, an addition of about 5,000 to the present Army strength. Five thousand additional personnel in the Army strength would certainly run the country into an extra bill of something over £1,000,000, leaving out the increase in pay which the last Civil Service award drags with it as a natural consequence.

There is also the matter of the Guards. For the three years during which I was in the Government I used to hear that we were reducing the strength of the Guards far below what was proper in order to safeguard the community. It was pointed out to me that criminality was still at a high point and that it was very unfair to the people of the community to deprive them of the services of the Guards which the high statistics with regard to crime seemed to make necessary. I assume that that is another thing that will be taken in hand right away and that Guards will be recruited to the proper strength required to deal with crime. If in addition certain Guards are segregated to give police protection to some people who voted for the Government, who because they voted for the Government need police protection, and others are required to give supervision to certain people huddled around the Government extra charges will be required for both that protection and that supervision.

Teachers are an unknown quantity but they should know exactly where they stand with the present Minister, because very frequently during the past three years he bewailed the fact that what was called the Roe Report had not been fully carried out. Undoubtedly they look to him to give full effect to that award as well perhaps as some increase in it necessitated by the increase in the cost of living which the present Minister for Finance many times asserted had taken place. Anyway 2.4 million is enough to go on with regarding these people but by the time the present Minister has made even a shambling effort to fulfil his promises the present 2.4 million should have swollen to 3,500,000.

We are presented with what is called the Social Security Bill, a piece of legislation to give effect to what the recent Tánaiste, Deputy Norton, promised with regard to old age pensioners. The amount of money concerned is about £1,250,000 in the year, and if it is to be brought into effect with any great speed some part of that sum must be found and distributed in this present year. It is one of these indicators of what may happen to a Party when they are three years in Opposition that the present Government find it possible to bring in this piece of legislation at the present time seeing that in October, 1947, when they introduced legislation imposing new taxes to bring in £11,000,000 in a full year they said that they could not find £500,000 to effect some modification in the means test and give some increases to old age pensioners.

In addition to that, of course there are two or three rather important matters. During the election a great deal of play was made with what was called the Government system of black marketing or grey marketing in certain commodities. I have a quotation from one of the speeches, where it was alleged against me that off-ration unsubsidised tea, sugar and butter together with white bread and flour, were being sold at luxury prices in such a way that an advantage was given to well-off citizens over poorer citizens. It was said, of course, that that would be done away with almost immediately, and we no longer would have any of these dual prices, that either the ration would be increased at the fully subsidised rate, or in some way or another whatever quantities we have of bread, flour, tea and sugar would be distributed to the common people at the subsidised rate. A fairly considerable sum in millions will be involved in that. Yet it is hard to believe that, coming fresh from election platforms, the present Government would not press forward with the greatest speed on a matter like that, which requires only a little adjustment, and see that either a new ration will be given or a new subsidy will be provided.

The greatest complaint made during the election, however, was with regard to the system of financing adopted by the last Government in the last couple of years. The Book of Estimates for the present year has on the cover the sum of £83,000,000 odd, but that is divided as to £70.9 millions for other services and £12,000,000 for capital services. I have been told that this £12,000,000 was a misnomer and that these services, if provided at all, should be provided out of the proceeds of taxation. This was alleged to be increasing the national debt at an extraordinary pace and to be of an extraordinary and bankrupting type. I assume that the present Government will be most alert and speedy about bringing that state of affairs to an end. What they propose to do I am anxious to hear. Whether it is proposed to drop what are called the capital services costing £12,000,000 or to tax the unfortunate taxpayers to get the £12,000,000 in order to avoid borrowing for that purpose I do not know. As between these things, there is a fairly considerable number of millions that will have to be found before this time next year and, instead of asking Deputies to allow all stages of this legislation to go through to-night, we should at least have such a delay as will enable the Minister to collect his forces and let us know what he proposes to do with regard to these bills which he is marking up for himself in the near future.

I will leave over for the moment, because it has not approached the region of a concrete proposal, the whole question of social security. In my time we had introduced legislation called a Social Welfare Insurance Bill. I understand that the best indication we have as to the future legislation is that the word "insurance" is to be dropped and that the Social Welfare Bill, whatever it may be or whatever money it will involve, is to be, if promises count for anything, along these lines: that there will be no increase in the cost of contributions either from the employer or the employee; that whatever has to be found for the new benefits will be taken from the taxpayer; and, in addition, of course the taxpayer will have to find the full cost of administration. Deputy Norton stated that the present Minister for Social Welfare, when making a calculation while in opposition, made a slight error of between £3,500,000 and £4,000,000. Listening to the Minister the other night, I understood that he rather accepted that he had made a considerable mistake, one of some millions, if not exactly £3,500,000 or £4,000,000. What he proposes to do about finding the money is a point which I await some explanation of with a considerable amount of interest.

The present Government will find themselves in a somewhat different position from that in which they were before. It was easy before to stop people getting increases in emoluments. There was always the remedy of the standstill Order and, as we know from what is supposed to be a wastepaper basket find, there was a piece of legislation projected in the autumn of 1947 to have a new wages freeze. The trade unions were consulted, but the general election of 1948 came on and the matter was left in abeyance until after the election. The mood that wanted wage freezes is still there. Similarly, I think the mood that wanted compulsory tillage is still there. You do not get rid of the old Adam by sending some weakling who is appointed Minister for the time being down to a county committee of agriculture to say that, no matter what he said in this House this year, compulsory tillage was now off. Neither will you get rid of the old Adam by announcing that wage control was abandoned. The mood that projected these things is still there. I have no doubt that if finances get tight these will be matters to which there will be resort. We have still as a member of the Government as Minister for Justice the Deputy who said, when complaining about the cost of increases to the Civil Service, the Army, the Guards and the teachers, that that was a situation which Fianna Fáil was determined to prevent and would have prevented if only they got a majority. They have the majority now. The question is, are they still determined to prevent these things? Will they prevent them by the mere passage of the legislation which no doubt they can carry with their followers and their camp followers in the present grouping?

One matter that makes me insist upon a clarification of some of these things is that we were criticised for our expenditure, as it was called. We had reduced taxation, but still we were getting a greater return from revenue because of the policy we had adopted. Particularly, we were criticised because of what was called the enlargement of the national debt. It was said that a very high point had been reached in a very short space of time. It has to be remembered with regard to that that the last Government floated three national loans. They floated each after they had presented them to the country with a clear-cut financial statement and a piece of financial legislation which, if carried out, would give effect to whatever was contained in the financial statement, and each time they got their return.

The present Government will need money soon. Are they going to be as frank with the public as we were? Will they say what is the bill that has to be met? What is going to be the cost eventually of the increase in pay to all types of public servants? What is the cost of either the new rations or the new subsidies or the increased rationing? What are they going to take off capital services and meet out of taxation and what will that amount to in the way of taxation? What are they going to do under the various headings I have mentioned, small and large? It is said that they will have to take £300,000 from the Road Fund, because that is part of the arrangement for this year. If, next year, they do not take £300,000 from the Road Fund, that is £300,000 that will have to be met. If they intend to carry out the promises lavishly made during the election and give an increase to milk producers, will they tell us where the money is to come from? Is it going to be met by allowing the price of butter to rise, with the consequent increase in the cost of living, or will it be found out of subsidies which will have to be met by a contribution from the taxpayers?

Twopence a lb. on butter.

Will they let us know these things, set them out in a Bill, let us know the total and, with that total, will they go to the people in the way that we did and ask them to subscribe to the loan? I have the greatest forebodings for the future which are not lessened by the personality of the man who sits opposite to me now. He first came into significance in this country as Minister for Finance in the year 1932. I suppose the greatest swing upward in the way of taxation occurred in that year. Income-tax was raised by 1/6, as one item, and all sorts of items were raised. I do not know whether history will repeat itself and that we are faced with similar savage increases such as the country was hit with in 1932.

I am also affected by this, that in 1933 the present Minister went before the people of this community looking for the first subscriptions to a national loan under his auspices. He achieved an all low record in the way of subscriptions at that time, getting less than 40 per cent. of what was a small sum for national borrowings in those days—£6,000,000. He got something less than 40 per cent. from the community. That is why I say I am filled with great forebodings when I think (a) of the debt his extravagance has already piled on him, and (b) of his previous record in the matter of taxation and of finding money for what he would call proper borrowings. I think the outlook is black and that is why I ask Deputies who see this Finance Bill to take it home and frame it because so long as the present Minister lasts they will never see its like again.

Deputy McGilligan has covered the field proper to an exMinister for Finance. I want to raise a specific matter on the Finance Bill which nobody appears to desire to touch and which I consider is of very serious moment to this country. It relates to the annual provision made in the Finance Act, the Appropriation Bill, for the remuneration of Ministers of State. I do not want to refer to the remuneration of any particular Minister but to the general scales laid down in the Ministers and Secretaries Act for which this Bill makes annual provision.

When a man is in office it is apparently generally thought inexpedient that he should suggest that his own salary is too low. When a man is in opposition it is thought unfortunate, from the point of view of Party interest, to advocate an increase in the remuneration of a public servant. I am in the happy position of being an Independent, so I commit nobody. I do not think the public are aware of the fantastic situation that at present obtains in this country. Last Wednesday the Deputies who at present constitute the Ministry were in receipt of parliamentary allowances of £600 a year by virtue of the fact that they were Deputies. The allowances are free of income-tax. As a result of the decision of the House, they became Ministers of State. On becoming Ministers they, as all Ministers are, were required to abandon every other occupation of profit or emolument which they enjoyed in their professional or business lives and to abandon the ministerial pensions of £500 a year to which they were entitled by virtue of their previous service as Ministers, and to enter into office. Whereupon there was added to the £600 a year of Deputy's allowance £1,525. There are relatively few responsible civil servants in the Department of any one of them who have not got more by way of salary than the Ministers and every civil servant, properly, is entitled to retire at the end of his period of service with a reasonably liberal pension scale.

Every Minister of this State is liable under the law and the Constitution to dismissal without notice and, so far as I know, he is the only employed person in Ireland who can be dismissed without getting at least a week's pay in lieu of notice. I am well aware that a great many Deputies will say how indelicate it is for someone who finds himself in the position of having been dismissed from office a fortnight ago to refer to any such thing. I do not give a damn. There is nothing in the gift of my people that I want and nothing that I value that they are in a position to take from me. But, whether it makes any difference to the individual or not, it appears to me to be a gross offence against justice and commonsense that the Ministers of the Irish Government should be required to surrender all their private income derived from their professions or their business to accept £1,552 per annum for what must be the heaviest work that any man could undertake in the sphere of administration with the prospect before them that their period of employment may be terminated without notice and that if they have been five years or more in office they are entitled to a pension of £500 a year.

There is this additional feature in it, which applies to members of every Government which has held office since this State was founded, that men have built up a business or professional income for themselves, have then been called upon to accept office in the Government, have wrecked their professional or business interest by protracted sojourn in office, and are then required to go back and try to gather up the threads of their occupation and reconstruct their careers and, as in the case of the present Ministers of the Fianna Fáil Government, having barely re-established themselves in various business walks of life, are called upon to throw the whole thing away again, and it may be for six months or it may be for five years.

It is perfectly natural that our people, as a result of our history, should have grown accustomed to demanding from the political leaders in this country a degree of sacrifice which was traditionally made in the public life of Ireland over the last 150 years. People expected of a man like Thomas Sexton that he should live in a room in a house on the Vauxhall Bridge Road in London because he was working for Ireland, and he cheerfully went and did it because he could not afford to live anywhere else. People expected men like William O'Brien to live in London in what would appear to the modern generation to be sordid poverty, because they were fighting for Ireland, and they did it. It may have been reasonable—I do not think it was—to suggest that in the early stages of the founding of this State people who were called to ministerial office should continue in that atmosphere of self-sacrifice and accept remuneration for their service out of all proportion to its value. I think that has gone on long enough. This is now a sovereign independent Republic, resting on its own oars, and it has no right to demand of any person enrolled in the public service sacrifice on the scale which our people felt themselves entitled to ask of the leaders of our country during the period when the fight for this nation's existence and freedom was being carried on.

I, therefore, want to make a concrete suggestion. I would remind the House that I made this suggestion when the Ministers and Secretaries Bill was before this House. I moved a reasoned amendment to that Bill but could not get a single Deputy to second it, although, I believe, more than 90 per cent. of them agreed with it, to this effect that the salary of the Taoiseach should hereafter be determined by whatever salary is payable to the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court as charged upon the Central Fund, that the salary of every Minister of State should be a sum corresponding to that which was payable for the time being to a judge of the Supreme Court as charged from time to time on the Central Fund, and that the salaries of Parliamentary Secretaries should be analogous to those of Circuit Court judges. I deliberately seek to suggest to the House that ministerial salaries should be related to those of the Judiciary because, politics being politics, it is possible to get a deliberative Assembly in this country to consider the appropriate remuneration for judges, but it is impossible to get any deliberative Assembly in this country calmly to determine what is the appropriate remuneration for a Minister. But, if you link the remuneration of the Taoiseach to that of the Chief Justice and of Ministers to that of Supreme Court judges, it is a fairly reasonable arrangement, and it enables the House, if any adjustment thereafter be necessary, to effect it in the atmosphere of a relatively detached discussion on the appropriate remuneration for judges of the Supreme Court and High Court.

This is a matter, in dealing with which, any Deputy leaves himself open to derisive attacks. Let me say with respect that I do not give a damn. Every Deputy in this House knows that what I am saying is true. It may gratify some ignorant bosthoons in the country to protest loudly that this is a most extravagant and absurd proposal.

On a point of order. Is it in order to call Deputies bosthoons?

I never referred to any Deputy. I said some ignorant bosthoons in the country. I made no reference to Deputies.

My reason for raising this is that when I was speaking about a quarter of an hour ago I alluded to some Deputies as idiots, and I was immediately called to order. I would like to know, for future reference, what is and what is not in order.

If a reference were made to any particular person the Chair would not allow it. There was a reference to ignorant bosthoons, but the Deputy did not refer to any particular person inside or outside this House.

All right.

Deputy Corry is uneasy.

I know where I am now.

The Chair is doubtful as to the relevancy of this whole matter.

I know of no other occasion on which it may be referred to.

I think we could afford the Deputy an occasion.

I believed myself to be in order in embarking on this topic, and, perhaps, having got so far, I may be allowed to finish what I have to say. I know it is a subject on which there could be a great deal of emotional talk. I am raising it because I consider it constitutes a real danger to the State if men are raising families and cannot afford to become Ministers in this State on the present basis of remuneration.

I do not believe that Ministers, or ex-Ministers, have shown any evidence of culpable extravagance in their mode of life. I know that some of us, and I speak for both sides of the House, who have accepted ministerial responsibility have gone into debt in doing so. That cannot go on, and the only result of trying to continue that system is that we will exclude from the public service men who might be willing to undertake it and who simply will not be able to afford to do so. Because of that, we will multiply the probability of the State having to depend for Cabinet material on a lower and lower common denominator of mediocrity. The fantastic thing about it is that the necessary adaptation of ministerial salaries could not cost £25,000 a year. I venture to prophesy that there will be more difficulty, more excogitation and more reluctance to undertake what is the right thing to do in regard to this matter than there would be in appropriating £1,000,000 to pour down a bog hole.

I do not think it is necessary further to elaborate the case I am submitting to the House. I believe that everyone qualified with experience in this country knows the force of what I am saying. I want to make it specifically clear that I am speaking on behalf of no other Party and of no other Deputy than myself. Nobody else has responsibility for the representations which I am now making. I am saying what I believe to be true, and I do not profess to represent to the House anybody else's belief or knowledge in this matter. I do urge on the present Minister for Finance—I am in a position to do it with greater emphasis than his own colleagues and with greater emphasis than if I were addressing Deputy McGilligan as Minister for Finance—that he should be ready to face this problem and deal with it in the knowledge that it could make very little difference to the taxpayer, but that it may make a very fundamental difference to the public life of this country and to the services which our people are likely to get for the next two or three generations.

There is a lot to be said for what Deputy Dillon has just said. I was wondering during the last hour, as I was going over Deputy Dillon's sins, whether I can always understand a discontented man. It would be better for one not to have a man at all than to have a man who considered that he was underpaid. That apparently was what was wrong with Deputy Dillon when he was Minister for Agriculture. He considered that he was underpaid. Therefore, he did not bother very much. A man who feels that he is not getting enough just scotches his work. That, to my mind, was the reason why we had the condition of affairs which I was dealing with on the Estimate. But, that is no reason why the unfortunate farmers of this country should have been put in Purgatory during the last three years just because Deputy Dillon thought that he was not getting enough.

However, I am concerned that this whole matter should be gone over, and I am wondering whether a mistake was made in legislation already introduced and passed through this House. One sees a condition of affairs here in which Deputies who became Ministers for two or three years can now walk off with a pension for life while others who have practically spent 20 or 30 years here as Deputies get nothing. Ex-Ministers can draw a pension for life and their salaries as Deputies as well.

Is not that what you voted for?

I think it is wrong.

Is not that what you voted for?

One has often heard of an amended Bill. We all know that after a bit of experience nearly every Bill requires amendment. I suggest this is now in need of amendment.

Do you want to get yourself included?

No. I think the present situation is wrong. I think the whole thing is unjust. I am speaking now impartially as one who can take an independent view of the matter. From our experience of it, I think the Act is unjust particularly when I see the manner in which it has worked out.

I suppose the Deputy will run away out of the House again when he has finished this speech.

No Minister ever yet introduced a Bill that did not require amendment after a period of trial. Every Bill has to be amended. I suggest we have had our trial period in this matter and the Act now needs amendment. A Minister knows that if he succeeds in holding together the Government to which he belongs for three years he will receive a pension for life at the end of that period. I am afraid that is one of the matters Deputy Dillon did not take into consideration during the time we heard so many complaints from him about his inadequate salary. I think that the matter should now be reconsidered.

The Finance Bill which is before the House this evening contains certain provisions relating to the nature and burden of taxation for the coming year. I understand, too, that it provides Deputies with an opportunity of discussing the broader aspects of financial policy. In view of the heavy financial commitments upon which the State is entering this year, commitments which will very likely increase as time goes on, this debate on the Second Reading of this Bill should be the most important debate in the House.

In recent years the Governments of this country have been taking on duties which would not have been considered a quarter of a century ago to come properly within the sphere of purely State activity. I think it has become recognised now that it has become the duty of Governments to ensure that many of the economic ills from which a country suffers are, so far as lies within the ability and competence of Government, mitigated and remedied. These new duties and these new responsibilities impose upon Governments annually greater financial commitments than would have been thought necessary or advisable even ten years ago.

The economic ills from which this country is suffering are known to every Deputy. It is recognised by all that our particular economic problems are chiefly unemployment, emigration, the unchristian level of poverty which obtains in the country, bad housing, lack of hospitalisation, coupled with the fact that our national resources have never been either properly or adequately developed. The last Government courageously endeavoured to face these problems, and to my mind it made a great deal of progress. By means of a financial policy, which was termed a capital investment programme and which was something completely new and revolutionary in the ordering of the finances of our State, the Government of the day tried to ensure that by their efforts in investing borrowed money in works of a capital nature, employment would be provided for our people and emigration would thereby be arrested. Secondly, it was hoped to ensure that productivity, particularly the productivity of our land by means of land reclamation, would be increased; and, thirdly, it was hoped that capital goods of a social character, namely, housing and hospitalisation, would be provided for our people. These were the aims and ends which it was hoped would be achieved by means of the capital investment programme which was introduced for the first time last year on a major scale.

It is interesting to note that in 1939 a sum of £1.5 million was spent on works of a capital nature. Neither out of taxation nor out of borrowing did the Government of that day think fit to spend more than that paltry sum on works of a social nature, such as housing and hospitalisation, or on works of a productive nature, such as land reclamation, by the investment of capital in the actual soil of our country. In 1946-47 £2,000,000 was spent on works of a capital nature. In 1947-48 £5,000,000 was spent. In 1948-49 £9,000,000 was spent. In 1949-50 £16,000,000 was spent, and last year a sum of £24.61 million was spent in capital investment. In view of certain statements made by speakers of the Fianna Fáil Party, it is interesting to examine into the manner in which that sum of £24.61 millions was made up. The largest item in that sum was a sum of £11.06 millions spent on housing. Over £3,000,000 was spent on agricultural development, and over £4,000,000 on electricity development.

In the present financial year Deputy McGilligan, then Minister for Finance, stated in his Budget statement that he proposed to spend £29.43 million on capital investment in the coming year. Again, it is of interest to see the principal items on which that money would be spent—£11.73 million on housing, over £5,000,000 on agricultural development, £4.75 million on electricity development, over £1,000,000 on turf development and £2,000,000 on the telephone system. Deputies are entitled to know and, I think, the country is entitled to know what the intentions of the present Government are in relation to the capital investment programme which it was proposed would be carried out by the inter-Party Government had it remained in power in the coming year.

It must be recalled that last year throughout the City of Dublin a large amount of money was spent by the Fianna Fáil Party in taking up space on the advertisers' hoardings in order to deride the financial programme of the Government by placing the pawnbroker's signs in a prominent position and telling the country, by means of these advertisements and by speeches, that the inter-Party Government were putting the country in pawn.

We are, as I have said, entitled to know whether it is the Government's intention to continue with the capital investment programme and to continue financing it in the same manner as it has been financed in the past—by borrowing. If they do not intend to do so, then it is quite clear that we can give lie to those political commentators who have claimed that there is no change between the present Government and the inter-Party Government, that there is no difference in their proposals. We can see that there is as much difference between the Fianna Fáil Government to-day and the inter-Party Government as there was between the Coolidge and the Roosevelt administrations in America. Last year's capital investment programme was financed mainly by borrowing, by an issue of 3½ per cent. Exchequer Bonds, by drawings on new deposits in the Post Office Savings Bank and also by drawing £7.5 million from the American Loan Counterpart Fund. If the Government intends to go ahead with the capital investment programme this year, it is quite apparent that a large sum of money will have to be borrowed.

I think I can say that if the Minister intends to go ahead with the programme and intends to raise the money by means of a public subscription to a national loan he will get the support, and the active support, of this side of the House. I would suggest that if he is going to raise such a national loan he should do so on the basis that it is to be raised for the purpose of rehabilitating the resources of this country. He should see that it is properly advertised and he should endeavour to obtain, and I think he would obtain, co-operation from all Parties in the House in seeing that such a financial loan would be subscribed to by the public. If he intends to broadcast an appeal for funds for such a loan I would suggest that he would ask the principal speakers of the four major Parties to broadcast also; it would thus be plain to the people that such a loan is in the interests of the country, and its success could be assured thereby.

It is quite clear that this large-scale investment programme which the last Government proposed to carry out necessarily involves certain risks. No courageous or bold action by any Government can be said to be riskless. If the remedies which we think are applicable to the ills which obtain in the country at present are of such a nature as to necessitate the running of risks, these risks are worth taking. If proper steps are taken the risks can be minimised.

One of the principal risks which such a programme of capital investment involves is the risk of inflation. In an endeavour to mitigate this risk, Deputy McGilligan, in his Budget statement, announced that the Government had plans for a large-scale savings campaign, again on a nationwide basis. He announced that he was happy to bring in the forces of educational establishments and various private institutions in order to help make a success of the savings campaign. Again, I would like to say I think that if the Minister embarked on such a large-scale savings campaign, he could rely on the support of this side of the House. I would suggest that the line indicated by Deputy McGilligan was the correct one and that to avoid the dangers of inflation which a large-scale investment programme of the nature he proposed necessitates, the Minister should embark on a savings campaign. It should be on an all-Party basis, and I feel sure the Minister would get co-operation from the four major Parties.

Apart from the danger of inflation, there is also a danger of a deficit in the balance of payments resulting from the large-scale imports which a programme of capital investment involves. If there is such a deficit in the balance of payments, there need not, in present circumstances, be any cause for alarm, provided it can be shown that the excess of imports over exports was due to the fact that the major items on the import list were goods of a capital nature. The realisation of our sterling assets is a policy which should be pursued at the present time. In England the official description of present Government policy is that of "controlled inflation", a policy which is designed to finance their armaments programme. In view of this policy being allowed by the British Government, we are facing a situation in which our sterling holdings are depreciating in value.

Any system by which these sterling holdings, or part of them, can be repatriated and invested in Ireland must be welcomed. The Government must endeavour to ensure that these sterling holdings are realised and repatriated and not dissipated. It is the duty of the Government to see that such imports as are brought into the country are, where possible, comprised principally of goods of a capital nature rather than consumer goods. The fact that last year such a large amount of money was spent on imports of consumer goods is an indication of the rise in the standard of living of our people. We cannot avoid, if the capital investment programme is to be a success, a large proportion of our imports being in the form of consumer goods but the Government must try to ensure, where possible, that imports are mainly of goods of a capital nature so that the sterling holdings which we have, and which are necessary to maintain our standard of living, are not dissipated or wasted on imports of mere consumer goods. It is clear, however, that the only effective manner in which the deficit in the balance of payments can be remedied is by increased exports. We are fast reaching the position in which Great Britain found herself after the war and in which she still is, namely, that our standard of living depends on our exports. The Government will have to ensure that our export drive is quickened in order that we may be in a position to pay our way and in order that we may be able to maintain the standard of living which a large-scale capital investment programme can bring about.

In this regard, it is clear that the key industry is agriculture. Recently Deputy Dillon has stated that a doubling of our agricultural production will mean increasing our agricultural exports by over 400 per cent. It is in the hands of the Minister for Agriculture more than in those of any other one Minister, to see that these exports, which we shall require in order that our standard of living may be maintained, can be increased. The risks of inflation and of a deficit in our balance of payments are, I think, risks worth taking. They are risks which I think can be minimised if proper financial policies are followed by the Government. If the Government sees that the money spent on goods of a capital nature is invested in such works as will yield the most revenue, if it sees that the money which is spent on capital goods of a social nature, is spent on those capital goods which are of primary social importance, such as housing and hospitals, and if it institutes a proper savings campaign which will be effective in mopping up any loose money in the State, if it succeeds in the export drive, I think any dangers which may exist in a capital investment programme will be minimised so that these risks should not deter the Minister in his decision to continue that programme.

The Government should remember the dictum of the late Lord Keynes that what is physically possible is financially possible. I think this should be the dictum which any Minister for Finance should keep in mind in deciding the manner in which the finances of the State should be ordered. The Government has the duty of securing full employment for our people. It has the duty to see that emigration is stopped. It has the responsibility to see that proper housing accommodation is provided for our people and proper hospital accommodation provided for our sick. It has also the duty to see that, where private initiative has failed, the national resources of the State are fully developed. If it carries out that duty by means of sane financial policies, these economic ills can be greatly eased. The Government must realise that, if we are saved from world booms and slumps and if we can enjoy a period of peace, there is no reason why these economic ills should not be remedied within a period of years. As we have our destinies in our own hands, if we fail to remedy these ills we shall have nobody to blame but ourselves.

As one who had the honour to be a member of this House for some years before the last speaker was born, I should like to offer my congratulations to him on the best maiden speech that I have heard delivered in this House in my 29 years' membership of it. The speech delivered by the youngest member of the House was a model of relevancy that might be copied, or at least attempted to be copied, by many of us on both sides of the House, a speech which was clear, courageous and constructive. I think that none of us need have any fear for the future of this national Assembly whilst the people of this country car send in here men of the calibre and the standard of Deputy Declan Costello. The highest tribute that I can pay him is that he is a worthy son of his distinguished father. It was a broad speech, a speech delivered not in a Party spirit, but in the national spirit, a speech freely offering, and, if I might be allowed to say so, properly offering, to the Minister for Finance of the day the assistance of all sides of the House in making a success of any national loan which it may be necessary to float to carry on the necessary capital and other works of this country. That speech was perhaps particularly welcome to some of us, coming as it did immediately after a speech delivered by the greatest humbug that ever annoyed this House—Deputy Corry. I do not know whether Deputy Corry sprung to his feet urged on with the same sentiments that are usually responsible for his outbursts or whether he was prompted by the Minister for Finance to get up and take the line he did. I should be sorry, indeed, to think that any prompting came to him from the Minister for Finance on that line. Deputy Corry, of course, is the sewer pipe of the Fianna Fáil Party.

Is that expression in order?

I think the Deputy might withdraw it.

Very well, if you think, Sir, it is not in order. I should hate to remind the Chair of some of the things that Deputy MacEntee, the present Minister, has said, at various times. Deputy Corry, as I told him when he was speaking, being the poltroon that he is, runs out of the House the moment he concludes his speech. The Deputy has never yet, having delivered that typical type of Billingsgate which we get from him, had the courage to wait and take his medicine.

There is nothing about that in the Bill which is before the House.

With respect, I am dealing with a speech made by Deputy Corry. I can assure you that nothing is so distasteful than having to deal with Deputy Corry. Deputy Corry was concerned with ministerial pensions. Deputy Corry belongs to the Party which introduced the Bill providing pensions for Ministers and Deputy Corry voted for that Bill and has always supported it. Indeed, it is particularly well known that Deputy Corry hoped, up to last week, that he himself was going to get an opportunity of qualifying for a ministerial pension. That is really what is wrong with him. After all his long years of service, to which he referred a moment ago in his speech—after all his faithful service in being ready always to get up and say the things which the members of the Front Bench did not want to say—he was not offered even a Parliamentary Secretaryship.

God forbid.

If Deputy Corry has a grievance against the Taoiseach or against the Front Bench of his own Party, he ought to deal with his own Party.

Acting-Chairman

What has all this to do with the Bill?

I respectfully suggest that I am entitled to deal with the matters which Deputy Corry has just spoken of.

Acting-Chairman

But not with Deputy Corry.

With his remarks.

I suppose that I should have more sense than to waste time in mentioning Deputy Corry's name. It was the contrast between the two speeches that was responsible for my taking that line and also the fact that I know that Deputy Corry is used to making statements which other members of the Fianna Fáil Party are not prepared to make in this House. I know that balls are made and handed to Deputy Corry to be fired.

I do not envy the Minister for Finance the task which is before him. He has a difficult job. He is facing into heavy weather and he will require all the assistance that will be forthcoming, not merely from the people who sit on the benches behind him but also from the members of the Opposition, if he is to weather the storm. Whether that assistance will be forthcoming and will be a help to the extent that we would desire to be helpful will depend very largely, if not entirely, on the particular course the Minister proposes to pursue.

I know that the Minister will have to forget many of the statements he made and which were made by his colleagues, not merely in the past three and a half years but even in the past six weeks. I know that it would be utterly impossible for the Minister and his colleagues to give effect to many of the things they said they would give effect to if and when they were returned as a Government. The Minister is getting the country in a good condition. He is getting the country with fewer unemployed than ever we have had before, probably, in our history. More people are now not merely in employment but in well-paid employment than ever before. The Minister is getting into his hands now a State in which the standard of life is higher than perhaps it has ever been in our history.

I venture to say that the Minister will find it difficult to maintain the present standard, not to talk of improving on it.

I know also, as the Minister knew during the past three and a half years, that he will be beset by many difficulties over which he will have no control whatsoever and that many of the factors which will enter into the economic and financial problems which he will have to face and deal with will arise from circumstances over which he will have no more control than the man in the moon, probably infinitely less. We desire to be helpful. We will be critical, and severely critical, if we think that the Minister and his colleagues are pursuing a course which is not, in our opinion, in the national interest. Where, however, a policy is pursued which is in the national interest then, so far as we are concerned—and it will be nothing new to us—the national interest will, if necessary, take precedence over the Party interest.

I am sorry that Deputy Declan Costello has left the House. I listened with very great interest and a great deal of admiration to his speech—not for the matter in it but for the manner of it. I regret to say that I am afraid that Deputy Declan Costello still believes in fairy tales. Quite obviously he has been a most assiduous student of the type of misleading propaganda to which the country has been treated during the three years of the late Coalition Government. It is amazing how misleading words can be. When Deputy Declan Costello was talking about the capital investment policy of the Government, it was quite obvious that he seemed to be under the impression that these items which the last Government segregated and classified under the heading "capital investment" were new and novel. The only thing new about them was not their magnitude nor their nature but the manner in which they had been financed. It was the proud boast of the Fianna Fáil Government during the whole period that it was in office from 1932 to 1948 that it paid its way. Whatever it bought, whatever it built it paid for it.

And they did not leave the burden to be shouldered and to be discharged by its successors. When we left office in 1948 and the Coalition took our place, they found there planned or, in fact, begun every single capital development that they pursued over their three years, even if they adopted some of them and brought them to fruition. They also found many other proposals, highly practicable, highly productive which they scrapped and sabotaged.

They found ready, for instance, for initiation the proposed transatlantic air service upon which the Government had spent £1,500,000. This development, if it had been allowed to continue, would have become in the year 1950 one of the greatest sources of dollar income for us, and by that, it would have helped us very considerably to narrow the grave and serious gap which to-day exists in our balance of payments. Not only would it have provided us with much needed dollars but it would have given considerable employment to our people. It would have made the maintenance of Shannon airport and its future existence secure but it would have been a means of establishing in the County of Clare a first-class maintenance and repair depot for the planes that now fly from America to Europe and the Far East. All that was abandoned. Those planes were sold and the aviators we had trained were discharged from their jobs and sent to earn their livelihood to the far ends of the earth. Some of them died elsewhere trying to do for other people what we had trained them to do for us. When these planes were sold, they were not sold at a loss. They were sold at a substantial profit which enabled our successors to secure for themselves and their budgetary purposes the moneys that we had provided.

Take, again, the case of the chassis factory which was to be provided under the auspices of Córas Iompair Éireann. That involved a capital expenditure, I think, of £250,000. It was going to be the basis and the foundation of a new heavy industry in this country—in this part of the country I should say—one of the things which the Twenty-Six Counties of Ireland lacked then and continue to lack to-day. Machines which Córas Iompair Éireann had bought under our guarantee were there. They were not even taken out of the packing cases. Again, they were sold and their proceeds were used, to some extent, I think, because I am not speaking from actual departmental knowledge on this point, either to defray or to reduce the commitments of the company to the Government.

The bus station in Store Street which would have stood as a monument to the foresight and vision of the then Minister for Industry and Commerce, the present Minister for Industry and Commerce too, was treated as something which a rag and junk man might pick up on the street. It was designed as a bus station. It solved, according to those who were specialists in these matters, one of the most difficult functional architectural problems. Few people had conceived the idea——

——of a bus station.

——and had been able to give practical realisation to the concept of a bus station which would provide bus passengers with the same sort of facilities as had been provided for railway passengers by the development of railway transport.

Is this relevant, Sir? I was held very much to the Bill.

I am dealing with this question of capital development which was raised by Deputy Declan Costello. I am proceeding to follow that. As I have said, not merely was every project, which our immediate predecessors carried out planned and initiated by us but, in addition, many projects which we planned were sabotaged by the Coalition Government.

Is not the blooming bus station there still?

It is there and it is going now to be put to its proper use. It is going to be used for the purpose for which it was planned and for which it is being constructed. People are wondering of course why it was that the bus station was abandoned. I heard an explanation given, I think, in Deputy Dillon's own constituency as to why that bus station was abandoned. I heard a gentleman saying on a platform that one of the reasons was that Deputy Norton, when he became Minister for Social Welfare and Tánaiste, was so swelled in his own self-esteem that the Government had to provide him with a set of offices with a door big enough to take a bus.

Now I know why I topped the poll in Monaghan.

Whether the ex-Minister topped the poll or not, the fact remains that there are two Deputies from County Monaghan supporting this Party and this Government. Deputy Dillon sits in solitary state, the lone Independent whom no man will touch. I do not want to be diverted from my theme by these interruptions. As I was saying, the bus station, which our predecessors attempted to sabotage and destroy, is now going to be converted to the purpose for which it was intended, a bus station. As Deputy Norton has no longer any need for an over-expanded doorway, I assume that, in due course, instead of Deputy Norton walking in and out of the bus terminal station, we shall see buses carrying people from the country to Dublin and from Dublin to the country, people who are enabled to embark and disembark with the comfort and in the shelter to which they are accustomed when they take a train or embark on a boat. However, these things are more or less by the way.

I should like, however, to point out that, again in relation to the housing problem, if Deputy Declan Costello will turn to Section 21 of this Bill, he will see a rather curious section entitled "Capital Services Repayment Account." The total amount which was provided in the 1950 Budget for the repayment of certain borrowings which the Government had undertaken was £655,000, an annuity which will have to be paid for 30 years and which during that period will carry interest at 3½ per cent. The extraordinary thing about this sum of £655,000, which is the sole contribution our predecessors proposed to make in that year in their Budget towards the repayment of all the money which they were borrowing and spending, if my recollection is correct, is that it is less than the sum provided out of taxation by the Fianna Fáil Government in 1939 for the single purpose of subsidising the housing programme in that year.

There is something wrong with your recollection.

There is nothing wrong with my recollection. In subsequent years, the amount of money we provided for that service amounted in one year, I think, to about £1,100,000. These were moneys which we provided year after year and which left no burden on posterity. Deputies opposite came in here and spent recklessly. They borrowed improvidently and have left their successors in office and the people who will come after us to pay. There is nothing honest, nothing sound, nothing productive in that sort of financial policy. On the contrary, it is the policy of the rake, which leads, ultimately, to the bankruptcy of the person who pursues it.

Deputy Declan Costello talks about the deficit in our balance of payments. In this year, that deficit amounts to £30,000,000. Not one-fifth of that sum has been spent on capital goods or has been spent in a way which would enable the £30,000,000 ultimately to be repaid. On the contrary, four-fifths of it have been spent entirely on consumers' goods which will give us no return, except to preserve an artificial standard of living which could only be maintained if production in this country were to be considerably increased. However, I do not want on this Bill to expose fully——

The hair shirt—let us have a look at it.

——the financial position of this country. An opportunity will come later when it can be presented perhaps in a more balanced way and in more exact detail than is possible in an extempore debating speech.

The Minister is just showing the fringe of the hair shirt.

I prefer to come to Deputy McGilligan's speech. There was something rather revolting in the masochistic exhibition of the ex-Minister, because his speech was a criticism of his own Budget and an unveiling to nakedness of the hollowness of the financial picture which he presented to this House on May 2nd last. It was, in fact, a nauseating spectacle. It reminded one of the fact that, in certain low music halls, the customary stage type of performance is one which is designed to pander to the lowest instincts of the audience. That act, I think, is known as a striptease.

Of which the Minister gave an exhibition during the election campaign.

Deputy McGilligan stripped his own Budget to its naked bones, but that divestment exposed nobody but himself. This Bill is his child, which the immediate exigencies of our financial procedure compel this Government to submit to the House. The Deputy reminded the House that the increased remuneration which must be provided if the terms of the Civil Service arbitration award are to be honoured, together with the commensurate increases which will, in due course, have to be made in the pay of the Guards and the Army, will involve us in an additional expenditure of about £2,400,000 this year. He told us that the teachers had made a claim for an increase in their salary scales, and that this claim was under consideration by the conciliation machinery which our predecessors set up. He told us also that there would be additional expenditure arising out of the social welfare provisions, and he said that he had himself come to certain decisions regarding superannuation of former lower-paid civil servants. Each and every one of these things was present to the former Minister's mind when he was framing his Budget.

The then Government knew that the civil servants had availed of the arbitration machinery set up. They knew that the teachers had made claims for increases in their remuneration. The then Government had taken certain decisions in relation to the Guards and the Army, which we propose to honour. They knew that they had made no provision for the Social Welfare Bill, which the then Minister had introduced to the House, and they knew they had made no provision to meet, in a full year, even the proposed increases in old age pensions and blind pensions.

Every one of these things was not merely present to the mind of the Minister but was before every member of the Government before the Budget of May 2nd was introduced. These will mean, as Deputy McGilligan himself disclosed to the House, many millions of pounds. Towards this vast sum—and it is a vast sum—what contingent allocation did the then Minister for Finance make in the Budget he introduced on 2nd May last? Here it is: "I have, therefore, decided that I should add at least £1,500,000 to the Estimates of expenditure, not indeed to be on the safe side but as a minimum precaution." The reference is column 1887, Volume 125. £1,500,000 is the contingent provision which the then Minister for Finance made in order to meet an expenditure which he told the House this evening will run into many millions. If there is no proper provision in this Budget for the increase in Civil Service remuneration, for the increase which is undoubtedly coming in teachers' remuneration, for the increase in the scales of pay and allowances of the Guards and the Army, if there is no proper provision in this Budget for social welfare the responsibility for that does not rest on me. It rests squarely and firmly on the shoulders of Deputy McGilligan, who was Minister for Finance at the time when the Budget which this Finance Bill proposes to give effect to was introduced in this House, with the approval of every member who sits on the Front Bench opposite—and of Deputy Dillon who sits behind them.

You are in a bad way, my poor fellow, seeking excuses.

I would say there is more than me in a bad way. I say that the country has been left in a bad way.

Let us see will the Minister leave it as well off.

When Deputy McGilligan asked Deputies to cherish this Budget in their memory, I re-echo his words. I, too, hope that this Budget and this Finance Bill will be framed in history as marking an end to a very sorry chapter in the dishonest mismanagement of the public finances.

Question put and agreed to.

When is it proposed to take the Committee Stage?

I understand there is objection to taking it to-night. Could we have it to-morrow?

Committee Stage ordered for Thursday, 28th June, 1951.
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