Committee on Finance. - Financial Resolution No. 2. Excise Duties on Mechanically Propelled Vehicles. – Dáil Éireann (14th Dáil) – Wednesday, 29 Oct 1952

Committee on Finance. - Financial Resolution No. 2. Excise Duties on Mechanically Propelled Vehicles.

Debate resumed on the following amendment (No. 1) :—

In paragraph (a) to delete the figures "1953" and substitute the figures "1955".

Mr. Sweetman

The Minister, when he came in with these proposals the other day—I think he was followed by Deputy Allen rather on the same lines —intimated that these proposals were only going to be a drop in the ocean. My most serious complaint with the manner in which the Minister has brought these motions to the House is that they are no solution for the problem at all. They are only trying to adopt the lazy way out. We are never going to get over the difficulties that may exist in regard to roads and bridges throughout the country by the method that is adopted here. The effect of the second resolution which the Minister has introduced is merely going to be that it will take something out of the pockets of the people enumerated in it and continue with that system that is bad in itself. The time will come fairly shortly when the Minister will again come to the House with similar proposals, and it is because the Minister has not tackled the job in the radical way that it deserves to be tackled and that it requires to be tackled that I want emphatically to say a few words against the proposals.

The fundamental thing that is wrong with roads here is, of course, that, by and large, the vast majority of them were not built for the type of traffic they have been asked to bear. The fundamental thing that is wrong with the Minister's proposals is that by these proposals he is merely going to continue the similar methods of building roads which are entirely inadequate for the type of traffic that these roads have to bear. We must get down to a new system as regards roads. We must get down to a system by virtue of which there is a proper co-ordinated plan for our roads. We must take advantage and proper advantage of the modern machinery and the modern methods that are available throughout the world. It is quite nonsensical as regards our main roads that we should operate as we do at present, that in driving from Dublin to Cork through the territory of maybe seven or eight different local authorities, we should find that the roads belonging to each of those local authorities are built in a different way, maintained in a different way and to a different standard. So long as we continue to adopt the system which has been there for so long and in respect of which the Minister is making no constructive effort now we are not going to get any real progress in connection with roads.

A directive which the Minister can easily obtain in his Department, was issued by the last Government to set about the inquiries that were necessary for the build-up of a new road-making plan. We must accept the position that the making of roads capable of sustaining and carrying modern traffic is a task that requires very special machinery and is a task that requires very great skill by the people operating in it. The only way in which there will be any real progress in catching up the neglect of generations in regard to our roads and the increased amount of traffic they have to bear is to make sure that there is a proper organisation set up to deal with roads of that nature, an organisation that will recognise in the first place that modern machinery is required to an extent not hitherto dreamed of and that skill in regard to the work is required, so that the people we employ in it will be employed on the basis of skilled operatives rather than that they should be employed as they are at present on what one might almost term a semi-relief basis.

There is plenty of unskilled work that requires to be done in this country if only there was a Government in office capable of mobilising the effort towards it. We were arriving at a situation before Fianna Fáil took over in which we were getting nearer and nearer the picture of full employment. I can understand the people employed on the roads feeling that by moving in more machinery to do the work there is a danger in regard to their employment, but we must realise that there are two different problems before us, one is the problem of building our roads and the second is the problem of ensuring that there will be adequate employment for all our people. The two problems cannot be mingled together. If you are going to utilise your labour pool as, so to speak, relief employment on roads, then you are not going to get the roads that the country wants and the roads that the country needs.

Unless and until the Minister takes some radical step towards carrying out the inquiries which the last Government initiated for the purpose of evolving a proper road-making plan, there will never be any relief for the local authorities and perhaps in a few years' time the Minister will be coming again to the House with a similar proposal for increased taxation. The present Minister will not be coming because long before then his Government will have ceased to be in office.

Deputy Allen tried to suggest that these increases were for the purpose of ensuring an alleviation of rates at the expense of the person who uses a big car and who could well afford to pay. The extraordinary and striking thing about the detailed proposals that the Minister has put before us is that the man with the big car is not asked to contribute more than the man with the small or small-medium car. Both are asked to pay an extra £2 only in regard to taxation. The person who drives around in a high-powered car should be asked to contribute more than the small man who can ill afford the taxation. A consideration of the additional tax that has been put on private cars, large and small, makes it fundamentally clear that there is no basis whatsoever for the suggestion that was made that this is a method of relieving rates.

We all know that the increases in taxation on vehicles that are carrying goods will have one of two effects: either the vehicle will cease to travel on the roads or the increase will be passed on to the ordinary consumer. The Minister has said that he does not expect that any of the vehicles concerned will cease to use the roads as a result of this taxation. I do not agree with him. Some of them will, and there will be some disemployment in that regard. In respect of the vast majority who will continue on the roads, the additional cost in the distribution of the goods carried will be passed on to the consumer, whereas an increase in respect of larger cars would not, perhaps, be passed on to the consumer in the same way but might have the effect that a smaller type of car would be operated, which might be better and more healthy for the country as a whole.

Apart from general problems, I would like the Minister to give me a little assistance in a couple of details. I do not know whether or not the Minister has yet been able to produce the information for which Deputy Costello asked as to why he chose the figure in the Resolution and White Paper in calculating the capacity in respect of the square engine. It bears the impression that it was fixed, not by reason of justice, but because it would bring certain well-known cars just over the margin and into a higher taxation level. If it was fixed from that angle, that is a very bad way to make laws for the particular case.

Mr. Smith

I can say right off the reel that it was not.

Mr. Sweetman

Very good. I will certainly give way to the Minister if he will tell us how it was fixed. Will he tell us? One thing that is very noticeable about the Minister for Local Government is the way in which you have to draw information out of him, almost as if one were extracting a tooth. It seems to be as painful for him to give information to the House as it would be for a person to have a tooth extracted. The only way that you can ever get him to give us information is to say something that will rile him and then he will usually blurt it out. At least we have got from him, by way of that interjection, that there was some reason for the manner in which the capacity was fixed. If there was a reason underlying the fixation of that capacity, the Minister, if he were frank with the House, would have given to the House the information to which it is entitled in order that it may consider these Resolutions in a calm and deliberate way. The Minister has spoken in introducing the Resolutions and also on the second day, last week, when these Resolutions were being discussed.

Will the Minister also give us information in regard to lorries used for agricultural purposes? Deputy Rooney has tabled an amendment in respect of them. I am not quite sure as to the exact position under this Resolution. I am open to correction if I am wrong but, as I read it, a farmer who has a lorry, say, of the five-ton class and who uses that lorry on an average once a week or three times a fortnight, will have to pay in respect of that lorry exactly the same tax as the person who operates a lorry on the roads six days of the week. Obviously, the person who operates a lorry for trading purposes in the ordinary way would do more damage to the roads. If that is the basis of the Minister's calculation, it does not seem a fair basis. So far as I can understand the Resolution, it means that in future every lorry, regardless of the frequency of user, will bear the same rate of tax. That was not the case heretofore in regard to the type of trailer that was used for agricultural work.

I would also like the Minister to give us some information on the subject of trailers. Does the provision in the Financial Resolution as regards the tax on a trailer include tax on the small trailer that one very often sees being towed by a Ford 10. that a person, perhaps, keeps for the purpose of taking luggage when going away with his family to the seaside for a holiday in the summer? One sees small trailers of that type being towed by private cars or station wagons. Does the new trailer tax include that type of trailer? Does it include horse-boxes, for example?

These are matters that should have been amplified and set out more clearly in the White Paper so that the people concerned might have an opportunity of considering whether they would be affected by the new provisions or not.

No matter how these details may be discussed, we are inevitably driven to the conclusion that we want, not a finicky policy in regard to roads, a policy of taking money under these Resolutions for what might be described as semi-relief purposes, but a real and constructive policy whereby roads will be built on a proper basis and proper skill and machinery will be employed in building them so that vehicles using the roads will have ease of progress and so that there will not be the depreciation to which Deputy Allen referred. This Financial Resolution will not provide that. It merely provides for a further impost without compensatory benefit. It is because of that that we on these benches oppose the Resolution adamantly.

Mr. O. Flanagan

I consider that the taxes which will be imposed as a result of this legislation will increase in no small measure the volume of unemployment. Everybody knows that since the advent of the present Government, every step taken by that Government month after month resulted in imposing further taxes on the community. I believe that when these new taxes on hackney cars, lorries and other vehicles are put into effect they will add considerably to the very large numbers already unemployed. I think, as most taxpayers do, that the Minister and the Fianna Fáil Party are endeavouring to hoodwink the people by saying that they are taxing only the users of the roads, in order that more money may be provided for the improvement of the roads. That is not so. It has been pointed out from this side of the House that persons who have no direct connection whatever with lorries, motor-cars, taxis, trucks or any motor vehicle whatever—the ordinary labouring man, the cottage tenant, the room dweller in the towns and the businessman—are all equally concerned and will equally pay their share with the persons who own motor vehicles, whether of small horse-power or high horse-power, simply because this House must provide money for Bord na Móna, for Córas Iompair Éireann and for the Electricity Supply Board.

Mr. Carter

Do you object to Bord na Móna?

Mr. O. Flanagan

This House must provide money for these concerns and when the Ministers responsible for these various concerns come before this House at some future date with their Estimates, these Estimates are bound to be increased because of the fact that the Electricity Supply Board, Córas Iompair Éireann, Bord na Móna and the Board of Works, who have so many high-powered motor vehicles on the road, will have to foot the bill for this increased taxation. Therefore, the ordinary taxpayer will be in no small way affected as a result of this legislation.

I have not heard one word from the Fianna Fáil Party in regard to the plight of the unfortunate ex-Army men who served their country well and faithfully during the years of the emergency and who, when they received their gratuities on their discharge, immediately proceeded to purchase lorries. In my constituency, and in a number of other constituencies in which turf production is carried on on a large scale, most of these ex-Army men purchased lorries for the purpose of hauling turf. Many of them are bound by agreements with hire purchase concerns. They are now faced with the prospect that they will have to dispose of these lorries because it would not pay them to keep them under the new rates of taxation.

We had a statement from Deputy Allen in this House last week that too many frauds had hackney cars. I wonder was he referring to the ex-Army men who were able to take out licences for hackney cars because of their good record in the Army? I think anyone who says there are too many frauds in the hackney car business to-day is making a statement that cannot be justified. Most of these men got licences as a result of the certificates which they could produce to the Garda testifying to their service and good conduct in the Army. These men will now be seriously affected as a result of these new taxes.

Last week we all saw a reference in the daily papers to the fact that more patrol cars were about to be introduced by the Garda, especially in the areas of Wicklow, Naas, Kilcock, Navan and Drogheda. Whatever Department is responsible for putting these cars on the road—it will be the Department of Justice, I presume— will have to pay these increased rates of taxation which, of course, must again be levied on the taxpayers of the country. An article which recently appeared in the Garda Review dealing with road accidents stated that “the question of licensing bicycles and registering them in some way whereby cyclists may be identified cannot be ignored as a genuine approach to the problem”. I submit that the steps which the Government are now taking is the first move with a view to levying a tax on bicycles. Probably we shall next find ourselves taxed for walking over bridges or for using the roads as pedestrians, and eventually we shall see the people taxed for walking on the public paths. I think it is about time that the people of the country generally cried halt to the taxation imposed on the people in this way.

Quite recently Córas Iompair Éireann dispensed with the services of a number of men in my constituency. The reason given for dispensing with their services and for closing down the Banagher-Clara branch of the railway was the financial state of the company. Yet we are told by the Minister that a sum of from £70,000 to £90,000 per year will have to be found by Córas Iompair Éireann to foot the bill which they will be called upon to meet as a result of these increased taxes. These moneys can only be found by dispensing with the services of additional employees. Branch lines are being shut down, services are being curtailed and hundreds of men in Limerick, Inchicore, and even in rural districts, are being added to the list of the unemployed. If Córas Iompair Éireann could not maintain their staffs up to the present because of heavy overhead charges, surely if an additional £90,000 has to be found it can only be found by closing down further branch lines and dispensing with further batches of employees.

We are strongly opposed to this legislation which will eventually bring about a great increase in unemployment. Deputy Sweetman has already referred to the tax on tractors. A person who at present has to pay a tax of £6 on a tractor will, if these proposals go through have to pay £8. I think that is very poor encouragement to the farmers at the present time when all Parties are appealing to them to take off their coats and produce more. Appeals have been made to them to acquire tractors so that they can get along more speedily with agricultural work but as I say, this additional taxation is very poor encouragement to them to do so, particularly having regard to the fact that since the Government came into office they have had to pay an increase of £5 per ton for manure, increased prices for seeds and increased wages. Costs of production have risen steeply for them. Farmers who have tractors at present are also called upon to pay increased prices for spare parts, petrol and oil. I think it most unfair that farmers should now be obliged to pay an increased tax of £2 per year for tractors. We have been told time and again by the Government that the ploughs and the mowing machines which farmers were using before they acquired tractors, were too slow. We now find that the Government, by imposing this additional taxation on them, is anxious to deprive them of their tractors and to put them back to the use of the horse-drawn plough and mowing machine.

The Minister very brazenly said that all the money which was likely to be collected as a result of these taxes is to go to the roads because, he said, the roads had been neglected for years and years. Every speaker from the Fianna Fáil Party said that the roads had been neglected for years and years. Is it not rather late in the day for them to start talking about the roads? They were in office for 16 years prior to 1947, and during all that time we heard very little of the banshee wailing from them about the condition of the roads of this country. We never heard a word from them about the roads from the day they took office until they went out. Therefore, what they are saying is all codology. I submit that this is another way of pulling more taxes out of the people. The people are now told that this money will go to the improvement of the roads. Therefore, the people who live on the lanes and in the boreens and in the mountains will, I suppose, fall for that. If the Government were really concerned about the roads they would give more consideration to the ordinary by-roads which are used principally by the people who live in rural Ireland.

In many parts of the country the taxpayers and the ratepayers make very little use of the main roads. The reason is that there are thousands and thousands of homesteads situate long distances from the main roads. While we know that portion of this money is supposed to be spent on the county roads, I must say that the Government displayed poor consideration for the county roads and for every other road when, as we know, they provided less money than formerly under the Local Authorities (Works) Act. Far less money than formerly is to be provided in my constituency under that Act. The result is that, in the County of Offaly, we have between 100 and 200 fewer workers on the roads while in Laois we have between 350 and 400 fewer road workers than we had when we were in office. If the Government were really anxious about the roads they would not be cutting down the money provided under schemes for the repair of ordinary by-roads, as they have been doing, or less money for rural improvement schemes. I believe that the suggestion that out of these taxes more money is going to be provided for the roads is codology. The Government are not in any way concerned with the roads.

There is a lot to be said, I think, for Deputy McQuillan's suggestion of having a flat rate of tax for those who are interested in motoring, and that they would pay the tax on their petrol. I think consideration should be given to that suggestion. Deputy Allen said that motoring was cheaper now than it was 30 years ago. If he is to be regarded as one of the principal spokesmen of the Fianna Fáil Party, well they are welcome to that sort of an opinion. I suppose the Minister will stand up and say the same sort of thing.

Mr. Kenneally

Is the Deputy aware that in 1923 petrol was 4/9 a gallon?

Mr. O. Flanagan

Deputy Kenneally certainly has an axe to grind because those who use the buses and motor on the roads of Waterford will now have to pay more for their transport. Motoring is becoming more and more expensive in this country every day. People have to pay more for spare parts, for batteries and for tyres. The charges made in the garages, when a car is put in for repair, have also gone up.

An Ceann Comhairle

The Deputy is now travelling very far from the Resolution.

Mr. O. Flanagan

I am replying to Deputy Allen who said that the cost of motoring was cheaper now than ever. Those taxes are going to have a very serious effect in my constituency. Quite recently a number of firms in my constituency made very strong representations to the Deputies who represent it in connection with the restriction in the use of lorries. That does not arise on the Resolution, but I maintain that the use of lorries has already been restricted as a result of this Resolution. I had a letter from the firm of Messrs. D. E. Williams, Ltd., Tullamore. It is one of the principal firms there and gives a very large amount of employment in the town of Tullamore. They say:

"Since writing the above the Government's proposals for new lorry and car taxation have appeared. It seems to us that these very high taxes are calculated to drive private transport off the roads, and we hope that when the time comes to discuss these proposals every effort will be made to protect free enterprise. In view of the past history of the Road Fund, there is little reason to believe that the enormous additional sum to be taken from industry and the private motorist, will, in fact, ever be applied to the betterment of the roads."

It is quite evident that firms like D. E. Williams, P. & H. Egan, Tullamore, the Donoughmore Co-Operative Society in Laois, the firm of Salts (Ireland) Ltd., Tullamore, and firms in Daingean, Clara, Portarlington and other areas are going to be faced with a very serious position as a result of these additional taxes. It will mean that they will not be able to keep all their lorries on the roads, and that will mean unemployment for drivers and helpers and for others engaged in industry in the midlands.

The building industry is also going to be seriously affected as a result of these taxes, because most contractors at the moment have their own lorries to provide transport for the removal of material from their yards and stores on to the site for a building. They also use their lorries for the transport of workers. I believe that these taxes will mean a very serious blow to the building industry. The Minister may say that contractors who require transport for the transport of cement, timber and steel can use Córas Iompair Éireann transport. It has been the experience of those people in the past that Córas Iompair Éireann transport is too slow, and that it is not competent to give the service which they can provide for themselves by having their own road transport.

I would impress on the Government that they should give special consideration to hackney owners. It is unfair to impose these taxes on them. They are not well-off people and they are already burdened with very heavy taxes. Of course, I realise that there is very little use in asking the Government to do that. It is quite evident that they will not do it.

In conclusion, I want to say that these taxes are going to mean a very serious blow to the building industry and to the motor trade in general. They will mean less employment in the garages. The fact is that we are going to be faced with further unemployment. I am satisfied that the Government are approaching this problem from the wrong angle because I know the very serious effect which the imposition of these taxes is going to have in my constituency.

Mr. M. O'Reilly

I do not propose to detain the House very long on this matter. I do, however, want to make a short statement upon it.

There has been no revision in motor taxation for quite a long time, and I think there are few Deputies here who have not considered the matter in the same way as I have. We have had practically no change in motor taxation since 1926. We have heard numerous complaints from the agricultural community as well as from the commercial interests in many of our towns and villages in connection with the rapid increase in local taxation. A good deal of that taxation is made up of the tax on motor-cars plus whatever sum is put to it by local rate collectors for the maintenance of our roads.

Most of us remember when motor-cars first started using our roads. Tar was unknown. There were clouds of dust raised by every car. One would imagine that it was a steam-engine that had passed rather than a motor-car. Some effort had to be made to keep down the dust. Then motor-cars gradually became more highly mechanised. Speeds increased to an enormous extent. In recent years I have heard many complaints levelled against these American luxury cars. In fact, the Labour Party has held forth on many occasions in connection with those robust gentlemen driving high-powered luxury cars, occupying space in our streets and tearing up our roads, and so on. I agree that they do tear up our roads and I think it is fairly obvious that something must be done as far as taxation on these larger cars is concerned.

The time has arrived when some drastic steps must be taken to relieve local ratepayers of the burden they have had to carry in most counties. Quite a number of these unfortunate ratepayers live up at the end of long lanes. All they ever do is to hear the motor-cars. More recently still they have had the additional experience of being almost run over coming from Mass on Sundays. That is the only knowledge and experience they have of motor-cars. Nevertheless they must contribute towards the maintenance of the roads and they very seldom get anything in return for their contribution.

The Government has initiated schemes for the improvement of these lanes. Some of them have been repaired. Many of them have not been repaired. I think it is only natural that the Government should now insist that those who make use of the roads and who have a monopoly of them should contribute to their upkeep and maintenance. Horse-drawn traffic has almost disappeared because the roads are now too dangerous for horses. Deputy O. Flanagan spoke about taxing the pedestrians. The pedestrian has not much chance on our roads nowadays. The cyclist finds the roads almost impossible because motor traffic has increased so much.

I think that Deputy Sweetman is quite correct in his view. This method will not give a complete result. If we had the money available to overhaul all the roads we would have the ideal solution. It was not anticipated when these roads were first constructed that they would be utilised for heavy motor transport. The position in Meath is not quite so desperate as it is in other counties because in Meath there is a firm subsoil and the cost of road maintenance is not too high. When the roads are repaired they remain firm for a long time. That is not the case, however, in other counties.

We find now that we have some 7,000 or 8,000 miles of road that have never been touched at all. We heard the Minister for Industry and Commerce speak here about the tourist traffic. Every Deputy is in favour of encouraging tourist traffic. The first thing the tourist wants is good roads apart from those tourists who merely spend a short time in Dublin and go away again. Most of the tourists coming here bring their own cars, and if we do not do something to improve the roads we will be giving with one hand and taking away with the other.

This increased taxation is not before its time. I think the last increase took place as far back as 1926. There have, of course, been increases in the tax on oil and petrol, but the value of money to-day is less than it was in 1926 and some steps must be taken to increase motor taxation. That is obvious. It is something that cannot be avoided. Deputy O. Flanagan complained about the number of unemployed. He said the roads demanded repair. Repair cannot be carried out without money. The Minister has said that he will devote all this money to the repair of the roads. That will give a considerable amount of employment. For that reason I cannot see why the Labour Party should be opposed to it.

Some of the American loan might have been applied to the repair of our roads. If it had been employed for that purpose it might have given better results than the Local Authorities (Works) Act. That was not done at the time. The reconstruction of our roads will take an enormous sum of money. As things are at the moment, it looks as if we will have to be satisfied with half a loaf. I believe the objection to this increase is purely political. The farmers have maintained the roads to a very large extent up to the present. The Government does not intend to ask them to do as much again. It intends to ask the people who use the roads and enjoy the roads to pay for their maintenance and upkeep.

Mr. Kyne

Deputy O'Reilly is anxious to know why we hold a certain view in this matter. May I be permitted to give him some idea of what actuates a Labour man in relation to these proposals? I see very little in these proposals to commend them. In the White Paper issued by the Department of Local Government it is stated that with the exception of private cars, no revision of tax has taken place since 1926. That point was repeated by the last speaker to-day. Is it not true that the price of petrol has increased during the past year as a result of increased taxation by the Minister for Finance? Is it not true that replacements and parts are contributing more to the Exchequer by way of increased taxation this year?

There is a further point made in the White Paper that the number of motor vehicles has increased from 1939 to 1951 by approximately double. It is implied in that statement that the cost of maintaining the roads will likewise need to be doubled. But, if the number of motor vehicles has doubled between 1939 and 1951. then receipts from the tax on that increased number must also have doubled, so that we are not in a worse position, but in a better position owing to the increase in the number of motor vehicles on the roads.

I feel that the roads and, especially, the bridges of this country were not made to stand up to the heavy lorries now being used on them. I could understand a case being made for limiting the weight of the vehicles on the roads, but I cannot understand why we should increase, in some cases by doubling it, the tax on heavy vehicles with a view to putting them off the roads completely. I can see very good reasons for doing that, but if we intend to force lorries of an unladen weight of four tons or over off the roads completely because of the wear and tear on the roads, then it should not be done by increasing taxation. It should be done by an Order giving warning that on a future date all such lorries will be forbidden the use of the roads. That could be justified as it would divert the heavy traffic to the railways and the four-ton unladen weight lorries or those of a lesser weight could be used as a link to bring traffic to the railways. The four-ton unladen weight lorry and those of lesser weight are the normal lorries used in these areas. These are the vehicles which agriculturists and merchants in the small towns and villages require. But, by putting increased taxation on the heavier lorries, we are increasing the price of essential commodities and foodstuffs to the consumer on to whom the increase will be passed. I would support an increase of taxation on the heavy lorries if it were on the understanding that at some future date all such heavy lorries will be put off the roads completely. The Minister should remember that the improvements in our roads are not due to the fact that the roads are being used by lorries. As Deputy O'Reilly stated, a good deal of the improvements are due to the fact that we are catering for the tourist trade. If the tourist trade is worth money to this country, it is only to be expected that the Exchequer should contribute to this means of inducing tourists to come to this country in the same way as the railways are being subsidised to keep them going.

The Labour Party suggests that the tax on hackneys, taxis and buses should not be increased because these are used as a means of travelling by the ordinary people and if the tax is increased it will simply be passed on to the ordinary person who has to use these methods of transport. We also suggest that there should be no increased taxation on lorries up to four tons unladen weight. We suggest that the Minister should fix a limit in some future Bill so that vehicles over and above four tons unladen weight will not be permitted on our roads. We can go that far with the Minister but we believe that an increased tax on hackneys, taxis and buses will not only be passed on to the ordinary person using these vehicles but will also cause considerable unemployment. We could not support such a scheme as has been put forward. We suggest that the Minister should re-examine the proposals, having heard our views on them. We would support him in any action that would give us better roads and place taxation on the shoulders of those best able to bear it.

Mr. Dillon

As the Deputy who has just sat down has said, I was always reared to believe that those charged with the responsibility of raising taxation had a very special duty to levy taxation by laying it on the shoulders of those best able to bear it, and only when you had required those who are relatively well-off to bear their share was it right or proper to go beyond them to a wider section of the community who are less able to bear taxation and ask them to bear a share as well. In so far as the increased tax on motor-cars is concerned, its incidence on the well-to-do is negligible, because so far as I can find out the increase on the 24-h.p. Chrysler car is no more than the increase on the 8-h.p. car. Proportionately, on a percentage ratio the increase on the 10-h.p. car and the low horse-power cars is very much higher than the percentage increase on the large limousine used by the relatively well-to-do.

The increase on the small cars hits two categories of persons who are very ill able to bear the additional burden. One is the dispensary doctor and the other is the commercial traveller. Neither of these is able to do his work unless he uses a small car. It must also hit civil servants of the type of county instructors or travelling inspectors of the Department of Agriculture. They cannot get their work done if they do not do it in a small car. It must also hit, and hit hard, the taximan and the rural hackneyman. It has to be borne in mind that these men are already bearing the additional charges which have fallen on petrol and the staggering increase in the price of tyres. Anyone who has any experience of the equipping of a hackney car, or indeed any car which is in constant use, with tyres knows that the increased charges constitute very nearly as heavy a burden as the increase in the cost of petrol itself.

I do not believe that the increase in the tax on cars will make very much difference to anybody except the taximan and the hackneyman and possibly the doctor and the commercial traveller with a family who is put to the pin of his collar to make ends meet. The House, however, ought to wake up now to what the taxation on motor lorries will involve. There the increases are significant and are of a character which will constitute a very substantial burden on an individual who operates a motor lorry.

Who are the individuals who operate motor lorries? There is Córas Iompair Éireann. They will pass it on to the fare-paying passengers. Think for a moment what the House proposes to do. We are alleged to be looking around for revenue to meet inescapable charges. I am going to submit to the House in a moment that the charges are not inescapable but that is the case that has been made. To whom do we look for payment?—to those elements in the community who cannot afford to keep a car but who perennially travel on a bus, because Córas Iompair Éireann must get back the revenue that it is required to contribute under this proposal, for the Minister for Industry and Commerce has told us that they have notified Córas Iompair Éireann that they have got to keep within a certain deficit and if that involves dismissing men and throwing them into unemployment, dismissed they must be. They have dismissed men in order to keep within the fixed limit of deficit which the Minister for Finance will allow. Now they must meet the additional charges here envisaged and they must keep within the fixed deficit. To whom must they go? From whom must they collect these additional charges? The Deputies in this House who keep a car do not travel by bus. They travel in their own cars. The only people who travel habitually in buses in this country are the people who cannot afford to keep cars. They are the people who are going to be made pay the additional charge which will be laid upon Córas Iompair Éireann in respect of the large vehicle tax, and it is no small charge.

The next category of persons who will be called upon to pay this tax are the individuals from the country who have invested whatever little savings they have in a lorry, and ply for hire As we who live in the country know, most of those men are already appropriating too little of their earnings to a reserve fund with which to replace their lorry when it becomes worn out. They are, in fact, living at the very pin of their collar. This additional charge that they are now called upon to meet must either put them off the road and add them to the list of unemployed or potential emigrants or they must recover it. From whom? From the people for whom they carry, and that is the farmers of this country. There is no other place from which they can get it. They certainly have no surplus profit fund on foot of their operation from which to finance the increasing cost of a replacement lorry —because we all know lorries are getting dearer every day—and meet this charge, meet the increased cost of petrol and the increased cost of tyres. These charges must go on their customers and the lorry men who survive the impact of these additional charges will impose it on their customers for they have nowhere else to get it, and their customers are the small farmers of this country.

The next body of persons on whom this charge will fall heavily are the co-operative creameries. I know, because when I was Minister for Agriculture I deliberately multiplied the number of travelling creameries in Clare, Kerry and West Cork and in all those areas it was just the barest even break as to whether you could make a travelling creamery an economic proposition or not. In every case where we put one on the road and examined the circumstances in which it would be called upon to operate, it was only by stretching our most optimistic hope that we could justify charging the funds of the Dairy Disposal Board with the additional charge, trusting to God that, as we went along, milk supplies would so increase as to meet the cost of the travelling creamery. Has anyone examined these proposals to determine what the additional charge would be in respect of every travelling creamery on the roads of this country? I tell this House quite deliberately that if this charge falls to be paid by a travelling creamery every single travelling creamery operating in Kerry and Clare will become uneconomic. The Minister for Agriculture will have to find the money to reimburse the Dairy Disposal Board if these creameries are to be kept on the road. Remember, that refers not only to Kerry and Clare but to South Galway as well. Deputies will remember there was a good deal of confusion about South Galway in this House 18 months ago and about the milk situation in that area, and even Deputies of Fianna Fáil were constrained to con cede that the Dairy Disposals Board had met that difficulty and had catered for all the requirements of milk suppliers in North Clare and South Galway who heretofore had turned their milk into farmers' butter, the sale of which constitutes a perennial problem. If every one of them is to be swept off the roads, or a penny a gallon is to be taken for milk in those areas to meet the extra charge, who is going to bear the cost? Is it not the small farmers of this country? Certain it is the money must come from somewhere. I assure the House—and I challenge contradiction from any source—there is not a single travelling creamery on the roads in this country at present that could bear £1 per annum additional charges without becoming an uneconomic burden around the neck of the Dairy Disposal Company.

But that is not all. For the past five years we have built up a very considerable trade in chocolate crumb. Does the House bear in mind how that trade operates? The farmers bring their milk to the creameries. The milk is there assembled and transferred thence in large road tankers from the several co-operating creameries to the central chocolate crumb factory. Where is the money going to be found to meet the charge that will come in course of payment on each of these tankers? Where can it come from? From the price of milk. Deputies from County Limerick will know that the whole of the Lansdowne Condensed Milk Factory depends for its existence on the transfer of milk in bulk in road tankers from outlying creameries over very considerable distances to the factory at Lansdowne. Where will the charge that will come in course of payment under these proposals come except out of the price of milk?

In many areas the practice has grown up and it is a good practice, whereby instead of every farmer driving a separate donkey cart or horse and cart into the creamery one neighbour's son has bought a lorry and carries the milk for 30 or 40 neighbours every day to the creamery and collects a charge of a farthing or a halfpenny a gallon for every gallon carried. All the farmers are thus in a position to attend to their day's work at home and the milk is carried in for them in the morning and the skimmed milk is carried back for them in the evening. Where is the fellow who operates the lorry, who does that work for his neighbours to obtain the money to pay this charge? I see none of those fellows growing rich at this business and I am perfectly certain if this charge has to be borne by them in the future either of two things is going to happen; from 30 to 40 neighbours will be obliged every morning to come to the creameries themselves and drive this fellow who does the work for them off the roads or else, instead of paying a halfpenny a gallon, they will have to pay a penny a gallon on their milk.

I wonder would this House wake up to this simple fact: In the last analysis every charge of this kind finds its way back to the agricultural industry. There is no other source from which wealth can be found to meet charges of this kind. The lorries plying in this country are, in the vast majority, carrying feeding-stuffs and fertilisers, directly or indirectly, from the port or the factory to the farmer and they are carrying grain, live stock or live-stock products from the farmer to the port or the centre of distribution. Take off the road lorries which are handling the product of the agricultural industry and the raw materials of the agricultural industry and how many lorries will be left? On every one of the lorries carrying the raw materials of the agricultural industry or its finished product this tax is to be levied, and it will filter back either in increased cost on feeding-stuffs or fertilisers or in the form of a diminished return to the farmer for his live stock or live-stock product.

I beg this House to bear this in mind: Every trade agreement we have made has been made in the open markets of the world, where our farmers have to compete with farmers from all over the world. The profit of the farmer in this country is the difference between the price that we have been able to negotiate for him in foreign markets and what it costs to produce the product which he wants to sell in that foreign market. We cannot control prices in the foreign markets; all we can do is to get the best price we can.

There is a net, crucial matter in that connection which arises now and in a most acute form. After Herculean struggles, we got an agreement in respect of bacon and pork. When we got that agreement there was no fat in it for the farmers of this country. Under this proposal every lorry carrying a pig from a pig fair to a factory is going to carry a heavier tax. Every lorry carrying bacon or pork from a factory to a port will carry this tax. Every hundredweight of meal that is carried from a mill to a shop and from a shop in rural Ireland out to the country house, will carry this tax. If you raise the price of the essential raw materials of the pig industry in this country and levy a tax on what the pig feeder will receive for his pork, I warn this House that it will take a very slight adjustment to make the production of pigs in this country uneconomic and, if that happens a second time and the people begin to get out of pigs and the pig population begins to decline again, all the king's horses and all the king's men will not get our people to take up the pig-feeding business again. Should that transpire, consider where the consequences of that will lead. I do not propose to pursue this matter in detail. Make the pig industry in this country uneconomic and there is not an acre of barley or an acre of grain grown in this country or an acre of potatoes that will not feel the repercussions of it.

If this House does not make up its mind that you cannot afford to keep piling up on the agricultural industry ever-increasing costs without putting the whole economic life of this country in peril, Deputies will walk into something one of these days which will stagger them.

One of the most disturbing features of these proposals is the legislative cynicism which they reveal. I used to be taught that if a public service was costing more than the revenue appropriated for it, your first duty was to see if there was any waste or any improvidence in the administration of the service that could be eliminated so as to bring down the cost of the service to the level of the resources that were available to finance it. That conception seems to have vanished out of this House. In a queer, reckless cynicism that has come upon us, the first instinct now is to sock on taxation and, if you can possibly say that you are levying it on the rich and the well-to-do, to rejoice in it. The whole basis of this folly is to say to the country that we are taxing the fellow who is floating about in a big limousine in order to relieve the burden on the ratepayers. Ninty-six per cent. of this tax will find its way back inevitably to the small farmer and to the citizen who cannot afford to keep a car, large or small.

Breanndán Mac Fheórais

96 per cent?

Mr. Dillon

Why does Deputy Mac Fheórais demur?

Breanndán Mac Fheórais

96 per cent. will fall on the small farmer?

Mr. Dillon

Will find its way back.

Breanndán Mac Fheórais

To the small farmer?

Mr. Dillon

And to those who cannot afford to keep a car at all.

Breanndán Mac Fheórais

It will take a long time to come that far.

Mr. Dillon

If the Deputy had been listening he would have seen how it would come to pass. The trouble is that it is not easy to prove that to people who are not familiar with the everyday transactions of trade and commerce in rural Ireland. I would invite Deputy Corish to ask himself this question, where will it come from ultimately; who will pay the increased cost on the lorry?

Breanndán Mac Fheórais

I think it is the wage-earner and the salary-earner who will pay most of it.

Mr. Dillon

The salary earner has to buy food but the trouble is that the price of agricultural produce in this country will ultimately be governed by the prices available in the export market. I believe that in the category of persons who cannot afford to keep a car of their own and therefore use a bus will come a very large section of the wage-earning people. That is the way they will pay their share. But the citizen of Dublin depends far less for his food supply and his raw material on motor transport than does the citizen of rural Ireland and it is on them will fall the burden of the increased costs of raw materials being carried down the country in the lorries and of their finished product being brought back to the point of export, again in lorries.

All that might have to be faced if it were a last resort but the fact is that no attempt has been made to reduce the burden of cost involved in the maintenance and construction of roads. Do Deputies realise that substantially we are employing the same methods of roadmaking in this country that obtained in the days of Macadam 70 years ago? There are more unskilled men working on the roads of this country than in any country in the world outside the Balkans. We are asking them to go on working at rates of wages appropriate to unskilled workers. Surely this House has reached the stage when we might, with propriety, envisage grappling with this question of the cost of the roads to the local authorities, by devising a plan whereby the road workers of this country could be lifted from the standard of unskilled labourers into that of skilled tradesmen, equipped with modern machinery and paid a rate of wages appropriate to skilled employment?

Mr. Davin

And keep the same number in employment?

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

This is a matter which could be raised more appropriately on the Estimates than on the Resolution before the House.

Mr. Dillon

Respectfully, I think we are bound to offer the Minister an alternative method of grappling with the dilemma in which he finds himself. He finds a deficiency between the resources of the Road Fund and the demands on local authorities for the construction and maintenance of roads. There is no use in our saying to him that he must not supplement the Road Fund, unless we propose a method whereby he can bring the expenditure on roads within the present resources of the Road Fund.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Resolution before the House deals with the imposition of certain taxes and I cannot see how the Deputy can initiate a discussion on road making in this country on the debate on that Resolution.

Mr. Dillon

Is the Road Fund not for the purpose of providing funds to make roads, and did the Minister not tell us that hereafter there would be no raid on the Road Fund for any other purpose?

Mr. Smith

I am going to make a start if I can.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Road Fund was certainly mentioned but I still do not see how we can have a discussion on the making of roads in connection with these Resolutions.

Mr. Dillon

I am making the case that this taxation would not be necessary if the making of roads were brought within the resources of the existing Road Fund. Surely Dáil Éireann is not constrained to pass this legislation without envisaging the possibility of a road programme being introduced which would make this taxation unnecessary? I am submitting to the House that we are about to place serious burdens on the people which will represent considerable hardship and put our economic life in danger when there is no necessity to do so. The dilemma can be resolved without recourse to these means.

Breanndán Mac Fheórais

You want more machinery and fewer men.

Mr. Dillon

No, I do not.

Mr. Carter

He attacked the road workers; he said that they were not skilled.

Mr. Dillon

They are not and they should be. They are well capable of being skilled, given the opportunity, and they should be put in the position to earn the wages of skilled operatives. It is quite possible to do that. We were devising plans and methods whereby we would do that.

Breanndán Mac Fheórais

The county councils would not pay them at all.

Mr. Dillon

Under the inter-Party Government we were devising plans— and the scheme as far as I know is still under examination in the Department of Local Government—whereby instead of putting on each individual local authority the obligation of maintaining roads in its administrative area in isolation the local authorities would be grouped into groups of three or five, whichever was the most convenient administratively and geographically, and would be charged with the responsibility jointly of maintaining a satisfactory road system throughout their area, employing the most modern equipment and securing for the road workmen permanent employment at appropriate rates of wages. I want to submit that, if the Minister for Local Government will proceed with the scheme which his Department is at present considering, the effort to raise new revenue along the lines contained in these Resolutions will be made unnecessary. Ultimately I am going to submit, whether he persists in these proposals or not, he will be forced to that course, because I am as certain as I am standing here that one of the results of the proposed taxes on motor lorries will be that he will put a very large percentage of the existing lorries off the road, with consequent loss to the Road Fund and very serious consequential loss to the Exchequer as a result of the low petrol consumption.

I have mentioned the fact that individual proprietors of lorries will either become unemployed or become potential emigrants. Why does the Minister want to do this? He cannot himself doubt that a considerable number of lorries will be put off the roads by these proposals. If that be true, it will be the most vulnerable ones that will go first. These are the lorries operated by individual licensed carriers in rural Ireland. Surely we must at some stage reject the philosophy, that is all too frequently preached in this House, that you cannot have omelettes without breaking eggs? That is a very nice philosophy provided that you are not the egg. It is an intolerable thing that just because the Legislature is too lazy to face the real problem that cries out for solution here, we are simply going to wipe out a considerable number of simple people who are guilty of no greater crime than that they are earning their own living without being under a compliment to anyone. If the House would only face the fact that a reorganisation of the road building and maintenance system of this country would render these proposals wholly unnecessary, we could get that much desired co-operation from all sides of the House on a wholly non-controversial issue. That is, how best to reduce the burden of the cost of road maintenance on the local authorities of this country.

Do Deputies on any side in this House seriously doubt that if a half-dozen of them sat down with the competent professional advice available to them, they are not capable of producing a method of materially reducing the costs of building and maintaining roads in Ireland? Does anyone on any side of the House consider it a desirable thing to maintain large numbers of men in unskilled employment at rates of wages appropriate to unskilled employment, and on very broken time, dependent on the whim of gangers, when we can offer the roadmen of the country skilled employment at rates of wages appropriate to skilled employment on a permanent basis? Surely in this country we have passed the day when we are afraid to see the number of unskilled men working at unskilled rates on the roads of this country reduced?

When the inter-Party Government went out of office I think it is true to say—and I can quote Deputy Davin as my authority—that there was, substantially, full employment in rural Ireland and nobody was out of a job. We had reached the stage when it was becoming a problem to get workers in rural Ireland. Everyone was working. Would it not be something infinitely better to aim at, that we should have a body of skilled men equipped with most modern equipment building roads better than we now have, in the most economic possible way and sure of constant jobs at decent rates of wages in the knowledge that the expanding activity in rural Ireland would absorb the best effort of anybody available, as happened 18 months or two years ago?

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

That would be more relevant on the Estimate than on the Resolution or on any of the amendments before the House.

Mr. Dillon

I take it that we are debating the Resolution and the amendments together. Therefore, the duty is not going to get revenue in the long run, but it is going to lay a tax ultimately on the consumers of goods in the country, on the small farmers whose produce and raw materials are carried by road and on the traveller who cannot afford to keep a car of his own. It is going to create a considerable number of unemployed men who have hitherto been self-supporting and who were earning their living beholden to nobody. I do not know as much about the conditions of taximen and hackney drivers as I believe myself to know about other matters, but, if report be true, a great many decent taxi drivers in this city are going to find themselves out of a job. The commercial traveller and the dispensary doctor are going to experience the same increase in their road tax as the man who drives a 24 horse-power Chrysler.

Surely, this concatenation of facts violates every principle of decent taxation. Surely, the House must sooner or later wake up to the consequences of piling on costs on the agricultural industry. Have we all become so blind that we do not realise that every service and every economic activity in this country ultimately rests on the foundation of agriculture, and that if, by piling on costs, we actually tear the stones out of that foundation and use them to build crazy structures on a foundation which we ourselves are in the process of destroying, the whole thing will come crashing down? If the only way to build the kind of roads that this taxation is designed to build is to pile on these costs on agriculture, then you are mad to bespeak this kind of road because you will be building these roads at a cost which will make agriculture uneconomic. The people will leave the land.

These proposals are not the right method of getting for this country an adequate road system superior to anything we have at the present time and not designed to condemn our people permanently to forbear from the best methods of transport, whatever they may be. All that, we can have, by intelligently reorganising our road-making and road maintenance services on the basis of grouping counties in geographic and economic groupings for that purpose. An instruction to examine the question of making recommendations in that regard is in the Department of Local Government since before we went out of office.

I say these proposals should be put aside and forgotten until such time as proposals along the line I now suggest are examined and laid before the House. I am quite prepared to abide the judgement of this House if the Department of Local Government's best proposal on the basis of the regrouping of counties for the purpose of road construction is brought to this House and laid side by side with these taxation proposals as two alternative methods of bringing our annual road expenditure into relation with the annual resources of the Road Fund. If that is done, I will bind myself in advance to accept, without further demand, the judgement of this House in a free vote on the merits as between two such proposals, and I am certain that the proposal to reduce our charges will carry the day against the proposal to increase our taxes.

Let the House remember that if we once increase our taxes a number of irretrievable events will ensue. Dozens of men will lose their jobs and they will never get them back. They will either go from the country or become chronically unemployed because, for the most part, they are not young men. Many creameries in South Galway, Clare and Kerry will be forced into bankruptcy as a result of travelling creameries becoming ludicrously uneconomic with this burden laid on them. Lastly, the revenue which it is hoped to raise will not eventuate because a great many lorries will be driven off the roads. You will, therefore, lose the road tax as well as the tax on petrol which is paid on the annual consumption of these lorries. These events will be substantially irretrievable. Surely, before we embark upon them we should have before us the alternative.

I cannot measure, at this stage, the impact of these proposals on the actual cost to the agricultural industry. I would, however, ask Deputies to read the minority report of a transport commission of which Dr. Henry Kennedy was a member about 15 years ago. He submitted a minority report showing what it would cost the agricultural industry if restrictions were laid on motor transport which resulted in increased charges. That minority report would be a revelation to some Deputies. Let us remember that we are very near the critical point of determining whether the pig industry is to be a permanent feature of our rural economy or whether it will be just tipped over into the position of an uneconomic activity. That will be another irretrievable consequence of these proposals.

Mr. Davin

What would happen if you had no petrol?

Mr. Dillon

If our pigs are made uneconomic and the people go out of them they will never get back. There are bacon factories and barley growers and a lot of other people in this country who are dependent on that industry at the moment. Deputy Davin asks what would happen if we had no petrol. What would happen if we had no tyres? What would happen if we had no wheels? What would happen is that we would all walk about in pampooties, dressed in sheepskins. Robinson Crusoe did that. He was one of the few men who ever succeeded in reducing himself voluntarily to the position of being compelled to live on his own resources, without imports of petrol, without imports of rubber, without imports of tea or anything else. In fact he very nearly got back to the stage of living on light beer and brown bread.

Mr. Davin

Robinson Crusoe will not be here for the next world war.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Robinson Crusoe is not under consideration.

Mr. Allen

It is his "Man Friday" who is holding the floor to-night.

Mr. Dillon

I had hoped that Robinson Crusoe was not under consideration but Deputy Davin's interjection was such as to envisage a situation in which we got along without petrol and without oil, and that, on reflection, will suggest to him a Robinson Crusoe mentality. Those are the facts. The House ought to consider them before persisting in these proposals.

There is a venerable saying that "those whom the gods wish to destroy they first make mad." I think Fianna Fáil has got it into its head that taxation, without regard to its merits, is popular and that it is making them respectable. I beg of them to wake up to the fact that they are all getting middle-aged. They would not have had such a passion for respectability 20 years ago. They would not have rejoiced so much in the benedictions of the Irish Times 20 years ago. They would not have gloried in going around the country swathed in the blankets of orthodoxy which they now gather about their persons as they load one burden after another on to the shoulders of the poor. I never admired their appearance very much in their salad days or, indeed, at any time, but in their senile respectability they are utterly revolting.

Mr. Moran

This matter is one which will be pursued with interest by members of local authorities since they are very much concerned not alone with maintaining our existing roads but with endeavouring to plan in order to comply with the ever-increasing demand for improved roads and better roads from both the motoring public and the general public.

I listened entranced to Deputy Dillon enunciating his loop-the-loop speech between dispensary doctors, civil servants and commercial travellers. Having listened to him and having watched him shed crocodile tears on behalf of these sections of the community I ask him does he now expect anybody to swallow his statement that the farming community will be called upon to pay the increased taxation envisaged in this proposal? If it is the dispensary doctor, the civil servant and the commercial traveller who will pay, then it is not the farmer who will pay. In the next sentence Deputy Dillon tried to maintain that these people will shove the increased taxation over on to the farmer. If that is so, then he is wasting his time crying about the dispensary doctor, the civil servant and the commercial traveller. The people running motor-cars will pay this increased taxation. Deputy Dillon cannot have it both ways. He cannot maintain that it is the farmer who will be called upon to pay.

Deputy Dillon suggests that Fianna Fáil is mad in its old age. I have never seen such evidence of schizophrenia in any individual during any speech in this House than I have seen in the two extremes suggested this evening by Deputy Dillon. I do not believe anybody will swallow his speech.

The problem of road maintenance and road repair is an ever-increasing burden. The demand for improved services is increasing year by year. It has been suggested that roads should be maintained out of the Central Fund. If we are to have proper roads the first people we must call upon to pay for those roads are the people who are using them. I think that is fair. Deputy Dillon says we have a number of unskilled men working on the roads, the suggestion being evidently that they are wasting their time and public money in the work they are doing. If the Deputy had his way he would eliminate the road workers altogether because he obviously is not prepared to provide the taxation necessary for the maintenance of our roads. We all know that the number of vehicles is increasing. I believe the carriage of goods by rail is doomed. The time is coming when the carriage of goods by rail will be an uneconomic proposition in competition with the carriage of goods by road. That is the experience, the tendency and the trend not only here, but all over the world, even in the United States.

Mr. Davin

The Deputy means fair competition, of course.

Mr. Moran

Let it be fair or unfair. There may be unfair competition. I will deal with that later. I am painting the picture as I see it. The problem is not confined to this country. It is world wide. We can see the results of road competition. The roads will have to be maintained. Many of them are altogether unsuitable for the traffic they are carrying at the present time. They were never intended for that traffic.

Breanndán Mac Fheórais

It is not just many of them, practically all of them are unsuitable.

Mr. Moran

If we intend to provide proper roads and give employment we must have a road fund. The first people to make a contribution to that fund are the people who are running motor-cars and lorries. It would be interesting to hear suggestions as to how this fund should be built up. Is it suggested there should be no increased taxation on motor-cars or lorries? Is it suggested the cost should be met by way of general taxation? I do not believe any reasonable Deputy will adopt that view.

The question is one of placing the burden fairly. One section with whom I have a good deal of sympathy in this matter is the hackney car drivers. I do not know very much about the taximen in the cities, I have inquired very carefully into the position of the hackneymen in my own constituency in an effort to find out how the position of these men could be met. When I asked for a definition of a hackney car driver there was great difficulty in giving me a classification that would work from the point of view of providing special legislation or special exemption. The hackney car men are all agreed that a large number of people are operating as hackney car drivers who should not be described as hackney car drivers at all.

Hackney men agree that their living is being undetermined very largely by people who should never have hackney plates. Different suggestions have been made to me in regard to this. One is that hackney cars should not be licensed except in respect of men who were, say, in the business before the war or some years ago. That would not work, because it is obvious that we would be up against the question of restrictive trade practices. I tried to get suggestions from these people to try and classify the genuine hackneyman so that there would be some special protection for or concession given to him, and I must say that no matter from what angle I considered it I still found it very difficult to get a way out.

There is one suggestion which I will ask the Minister seriously to consider in the short time before the new licences will be granted. One way of protecting the hackneyman would be to lay down certain rules or regulations that the hackneyman or his car must comply with. That could be done under existing legislation by way of rules without the delay which would be entailed in passing legislation. One protection would be that hackney cars in the country should be painted a distinctive colour or two distinctive colours, such as a white on top and black in the bottom. In addition to that, the word "hackney" should be painted in letters a foot high, if you like, on each side of the car. It has also been suggested to me by the men concerned that there should be seating capacity for four or five passengers before a hackney licence is issued.

These genuine hackneymen assure me that the greatest menace to them is the fact that small cars have been able to get hackney plates; that many people like mental hospital workers, factories workers, school teachers and people like that have got hackney plates for small cars such as baby Fords and Prefects. These are the people who are taking their living from the genuine hackneymen and doing most harm to them. If before this taxation comes into force the Minister prescribes such rules as I am suggesting he will very soon ascertain who are the genuine hackneymen in the country and he will be able to make some special provision for the hackneymen whose livelihood is solely derived from running hackney cars.

These men assure me that they are prepared to bear their share of the additional taxation; that if they got the protection they are seeking they would welcome proposals for a flat rate of tax of £20 or £25. If a standard rate of that type were prescribed for genuine hackneymen, the Minister would get more money under it than under the present proposals. These men do not complain so much about the increased tax; they are more concerned with the fact that their living is not left to them. I suggest to the Minister, therefore, that between this and the 1st January he should investigate the possibilities open to him under the Road Traffic Act and the rules and regulations which could be made under it and under the Roads Transport Act. He will find that he can prescribe rules to enable him to find out who are the genuine hackneymen. I certainly have no hesitation in recommending that there should be some concession for the genuine hackneymen, that there should be a special flat rate for them, as their livelihood is dependent on their hackney cars.

Mr. Byrne

Will you vote for the amendment to that effect?

Mr. Moran

I know whom I would vote for in the Dublin by-election. I am putting the case of the genuine hackneymen. I am not looking for some soft votes in the City of Dublin. There is another matter on which I think the Minister will need to consult the Minister for Industry and Commerce. It occurs to me that under certain existing road transport licences there is a certain limit-I do not know whether it is two tons or two tons five cwt.- in regard to these licences. The matter was not very serious up to the present, but the practice has been to ascertain the unladen weight of the vehicles by stripping them down to the very minimum, taking off the cribs and the spare wheels and everything that could be taken off. Under the new proposals, as far as the tax on lorries is concerned, there will be different rates for two tons five cwt., two tons ten cwt., three tons, etc. The result will be that much more careful weighing will take place because there is a question of revenue involved that was formerly insisted on. With the new type of lorries which are being turned out by the factories I very much fear that when the full regulations are complied with the weight will exceed the weight specified in their haulage licence. I do not know whether any amendment of the Transport Acts will be necessary from that point of view, but I foresee some hardship arising in regard to this matter. It is a matter which will have to be considered between the Minister's Department and the Department of Industry and Commerce.

I want the Minister to consider the case of the genuine rural hackneymen. I can assure him that if he takes steps to cut out the man who is not a hackneyman at all and who is taking away these men's livelihood these men will be reasonable and will be prepared to meet him. He should consider my suggestion of a standard rate for these men when he has ascertained who the genuine hackneymen are. He should provide safeguards against people who are not genuine hackneymen taking advantage of the lower hackney taxation. If he can see his way to do that, he will have the co-operation of the real hackney owners. I have nothing to say with regard to the taximen in Dublin because I know nothing about them.

Mr. Cogan rose.

Breanndán Mac Fheórais

Is not Deputy Cogan Fianna Fáil?

Dáil Éireann debate - Wednesday, 29 Oct 1952