Dáil Éireann debate -
Tuesday, 15 Jun 1954

Vol. 149 No. 1

Committee on Finance. - Collection of Taxes (Confirmation) Bill, 1954—Financial Resolution.

Minister for Finance (Mr. Sweetman)

I move:—

That it is expedient that legislation be enacted to give statutory effect to certain Financial Resolutions passed on the 21st day of April, 1954, by Dáil Eireann in Committee on Finance, to make provision for other matters relating to or connected with the said Financial Resolutions and to provide for the cesser of the Emergency Imposition of Duties (No. 326) (Beer) Order, 1954, and the Emergency Imposition of Duties (No. 327) (Matches) Order, 1954.

The House will recollect that there were four Financial Resolutions which were dealt with on the last day of the last Dáil. These Resolutions, under the Provisional Collection of Taxes Act, 1927, have certain statutory effect when passed by the Dáil but that statutory effect is lost as soon as dissolution takes place. The effect of the Resolution I have now moved and which is now before the House is to again revive them and to form the basis on foot of which the Bill, which is No. 1 on the Order Paper, will later be dealt with.

The precedent being followed is exactly the same precedent as was followed after the general elections of 1938, 1945 and 1951. The effect of this Resolution, therefore, is to form the basis of the Bill which will follow and revive the status quo as it was on the 21st April.

Mr. Aiken

It seems strange that the first act of the Coalition Government should be to confirm the taxation which was proposed by the former Government. It is very strange, indeed, in view of everything they said about the Budget all round the country for the nine weeks prior to the date of the election. Let us take the Leader of Fine Gael who is now Minister for Education. He asserted at Carrick-on-Suir on the 27th of April that the first task of the new Administration would be to lighten the burden of taxation now crushing the people. Instead, the very first task of the new Administration was to confirm the taxation proposed by Fianna Fáil. Deputy Mulcahy, the Minister for Education, may smile at that, but there was quite a number of people who believed him.

Mr. Morrissey

All of them believed you, apparently.

Mr. Aiken

I just want to recall the basis upon which the Coalition group got votes. I think it is a salutary thing that the people who believed them all round the country should now see that the first act of the new Administration was not to lighten the burden of taxation now crushing the people but to confirm the Resolutions which had become null and void, owing to the dissolution of the Government, and reimpose the taxation that Fianna Fáil proposed.

I must say that I sympathise with the Minister for Finance. I think he was very wise in saying nothing when introducing this Resolution. He did not say about the tax Bill he is now proposing what Deputy Norton, the present Tánaiste, said about it—that it was a bucket-shop Budget, a faked Budget, but the Minister for Finance now calmly proposes in the fewest possible words to ask the Dáil to accept what was called a bucket-shop Budget and a faked Budget and all the other expressions which they used about it.

Mr. J. Brennan

They fooled them once.

Mr. Aiken

I do not want to rub it into the Minister for Finance. I think I will be almost as brief as he was.

Mr. Sweetman

The Deputy is not rubbing it in at all. He is only showing that he does not understand the position.

Mr. Aiken

I understand a little bit about it. I understand the Minister's difficulties and I congratulate him on his brevity.

Mr. Sweetman

I thought Deputy Aiken, as a former Minister for Finance, would have appreciated the position. The Resolution deals only with a purely limited point until the Finance Bill is brought into operation and the Deputy's remarks would have been far more proper at another time if they were proper at all. This Resolution deals only with a purely limited point until the Finance Bill comes before the House in the ordinary way.

Resolution agreed to.

Resolution reported and agreed to.