Vol. 154 No. 6
I move amendment No. 1:—
In sub-section (1), line 13, to delete "years" and substitute "months."
The amendments which I have tabled appear on the Paper in the order in which they do because the rules of the House so require. I have to move them in that order. With regard to this first amendment, it seems to me on reading the Bill that it provides——
Could I convenience the Deputy by agreeing to take certain amendments together?
No. As I read the Bill, it appears that, if mining operations were carried on at any mine at any time during the three years prior to 5th April next, that mine can never become a qualifying mine as defined in this section, even if the mine is not now being worked commercially.
If, at any time during the period of this Bill, a company is formed to work minerals which are not being worked now, but which were worked at any time during the past three years, that company can never get the benefit of the tax relief for which this Bill provides. I presume that was done for some deliberate purpose but I must say I find it very difficult to guess what that purpose is.
I examined the report of what the Minister said when introducing the Bill. He said at column 76, Volume 154:—
"In fixing that period of three years, I deliberately had regard to the fact that during the emergency it was perhaps necessary first to produce minerals on what I might term an emergency rather than a commercial scale."
That does not make sense to me. The relevancy or even the meaning of the observation is not very clear. Surely the proper description of a new mining operation — to use the term in the Bill — should be an operation to produce minerals that are not being produced now? Why should a company starting a new mining venture be deprived of the benefit of this Bill, the relief which this Bill affords, merely because somebody else during the past three years tried to make a commercial success of these minerals, and failed to do so and abandoned the operation? The presumption is that an even greater incentive would be required to get operations restarted in such a case than to get people to work minerals which are now newly discovered and were never worked before. Is not the Minister's view — I take it it must be—that if somebody tried to make a commercial success of some deposit and failed, it should be written off for all time?
I would consider that that was a very wrong approach to the purpose of developing interest in Irish mineral resources, such as they may be, and everybody who has examined the position knows that the prospect of attracting interest in the development of Irish mineral resources at the present time arises not because of anything the Government has done, not because of this Bill, but because of the prevailing price of copper. The price of copper recorded in the past few days is the highest ever known in the world's history. It has been going up steadily for many weeks past; it is now around £408 per ton. There are perhaps mineral ores in this country containing copper which could not have been worked successfully a couple of years ago, but which are capable of yielding quite substantial profits, if worked now. During the period when I was Minister for Industry and Commerce, arrangements were made to investigate the commercial prospects of a number of our mineral deposits. People of international repute were engaged to carry out preliminary surveys of a number of mineralised areas and we got from the Dáil the necessary authority to spend money on the further exploration of three of the best prospects selected by these international experts. These experts examined most of the districts in which minerals were known to exist and gave adverse reports on some of them. These adverse reports indicated that, at the prices then prevailing, the cost of extracting the minerals would not be economic.
In view of the fact that prices have now gone up so very steeply since then and appear likely to stay up, each of these prospects is worth re-examining. Certainly, we should try to get a commercial enterprise interested in their re-examination. If that is so, there is no sense in this provision in the Bill. The Bill appears to be so drawn that, in practice, nobody can get any profit out of it, except the one company with which the Government has been in negotiation. I shall move later an amendment, the purpose of which will be to bring all mining undertakings on to the same footing, so far as taxation is concerned. If the Minister is going to accept that amendment, this one which I am moving now is not one which we would press very hard, but if he is not going to accept that amendment, this could be very important.
There are some minerals listed in the Schedule to the Bill which were worked during the past three years and which are not being worked now. I do not know what the prospects of getting commercial working of these minerals restored again may be, but I see no sense in putting in this Bill a clause which will make it practically impossible for anyone who comes in to work them in future.
Coming to this Bill so far as it provides for relief of taxation, I do not know whom the Minister is trying to exclude——
Would the Deputy mind mentioning the minerals to which he refers that were worked?
Was not Mayo soapstone worked? The soapstone deposits in Mayo were worked, to my knowledge, during the past three years. I cannot say that they are working now. I do not think they are, but it would be one instance where the phraseology used in this section would operate to deter people from going into that work by depriving them of the tax incentive which this Bill gives. Unless the Minister has in mind definitely to exclude somebody——
My information is that the Deputy's information is incorrect.
I am speaking entirely from recollection. Certainly when I was Minister for Industry and Commerce, those soapstone deposits were worked. It may have been just outside the three-year period, but I do not think so.
I think I can shorten the Deputy's discussion on this amendment very simply, so far as the period of three years is concerned in this Bill as it is now framed. There is no intention or desire to exclude any particular mineral; on the contrary, so far as I am concerned, what I was anxious to do was to ensure there could not be an in-and-out operation in relation to mining, that a person could not close down, perhaps even since the announcement was made last autumn, for the purpose of merely getting the relief.
I fixed the period of three years frankly because I wanted to be quite sure that I was excluding from the operation of this section the type of mining work that was done during the emergency which, as I said on the Second Stage, is not the same type of commercial mining as one might visualise in ordinary times. During the emergency, the anxiety was to get the mineral, regardless of the cost; it was a question of supply, not a question of economical working. I fixed a period of three years so as to make quite certain that I would get outside that period. As far as I am concerned, I am not the least bit tied to that period of three years. I believe from the information available to me that it does not affect anyone concerned, that it gives a fair average picture and certainly no representations have been made to me or to the Department of Industry and Commerce that it does, in fact, exclude any such working as the Deputy suggests.
I am quite insistent that the period must be one to make it quite certain that the shut-down was due to what might be described as permanent failure, rather than temporary causes, and to make it quite certain, in particular, that it could not operate in any way as a shut-down by reason of the announcement I made last September and for the purpose merely of getting the benefits of this Bill. That, as the Deputy will agree, would be undesirable. The Deputy's period of three months would render that possible. I do not think it has been done, but it would render it possible.
I think Deputy Lemass is also wrong in one other respect. We are agreed that the present high price of minerals is one of the operative causes in getting development, but it is not, as we discussed the other day, only the price at the present moment but the price at the time the minerals are extracted and going to be sold commercially that really matters to any concern. Unfortunately, our minerals are somewhat lower in grade and percentage than in any other country. Therefore, we would not get the development, unless we made up for that difference by having some form of differentiation as there is in this Bill.
I will certainly not accept the Deputy's suggestion of three months as it would be open to possible abuse. From the time the announcement was made, it certainly was not my intention to exclude any such work. In fact, I am told since that the working the Deputy referred to was prospective, but not working on a commercial basis which is specifically defined here.
Some soapstone has been produced for commercial purposes.
The Deputy will agree that I must accept the advice tendered to me. That is a matter of fact and it is quite easily checked in the circumstances. I will not accept three months. Has the Deputy any other cases in mind?
No. There may be and the fact that we do not know is the argument for my amendment. If, indeed, the position is that nobody knows of anybody who would be affected by the change, that would be an argument in favour of the change. There is no need to keep that provision in unless we intend to exclude somebody. If the Minister wishes to stand on the date, the 15th September last, he can make it six months, but it would still be an assurance that we would not be excluding the possibility of bringing some mine into development.
Suppose that for any reason there was a shut-down. That would affect the issue. Suppose an existing firm wished to put in new machinery of some description and to shut down during the period in which the new machinery was being installed, the effect would be to change from one to the other, so far as the operators were concerned. They are quite satisfied with the provisions.
The question is the definition of existing mining operation. You will treat existing mining operators in a manner which, I think, is quite unfair anyway.
We will deal with that matter in a minute. I do not agree with the Deputy at all on the basis he is taking now.
Surely the Minister will agree that if there is any kind of minerals which were not worked at any time during the past six months, the working of these minerals is a new mining venture? I think that is common sense.
It depends on the reason for shutting down, whether it is temporary or permanent. If it were a permanent shut-down, I would agree.
Would the Minister agree that if neither of us can indicate any particular case which would be affected by this provision in the Bill, that is an argument in favour of the shorter period than the longer? By keeping the longer period, we will undertake the risk of excluding somebody from the benefit of the Bill.
If the Deputy likes, I will strike a bargain with him and make it a year.
All right. It is better than three years.
If there is any doubt about soapstone——
It certainly was produced commercially. I believe I have in my house a storage heater in which it is used.
Soapstone was used during the post-war period, but not recently.
I do not think we would have allowed storage heaters during the war.
I move amendment No. 2:—
In sub-section (1), line 33 to delete "occurring in non-bedded deposits of such minerals".
Amendment No. 3 is consequential on amendment No. 2.
The purpose of these two amendments is to bring up this question of bedded minerals. I made it clear that my interest in this regard is mainly in connection with the effect of the Bill on the development of Irish coal deposits. The Minister's case for the Bill as a tax measure was that it was necessary in our circumstances to get business people interested in what he described as the somewhat chancy business of seeking and working com mercially minerals here; that the exploration of minerals requires very heavy expenditure; and that capital must be committed to the enterprise involving a greater risk of failure than would be associated with a normal commercial enterprise.
If the case for giving tax incentives for the working of non-bedded minerals is that, precisely the same case can be made for giving tax incentives for the working of what are called bedded minerals. I would admit that there is the possibility of argument that the working of gypsum deposits in the Monaghan-Cavan-Meath area is in a different position from the working of coal deposits in other areas.
The Government of this State during my time spent a great deal of money on the exploration of gypsum deposits in that district and as a result that exploration revealed the existence of valuable and extensive deposits for a number of commercial firms engaged in the mining and processing of that gypsum. Having regard to the amount of State money already spent upon exploration work there, having regard to the competition which existed between commercial firms for leases of the minerals and to the nature of the working itself, the depth of the seams, their closeness to the surface, the methods of working which can be employed, I would be inclined to accept the contention that there is a difference between the working of gypsum deposits and the working of coal measures which might justify some difference in the tax arrangements applying to them. I do not agree at all that there is not as strong a case for giving tax incentives for the working of coal —indeed, I could contend that it is stronger than the case the Minister made for the giving of tax incentives for the working of non-bedded minerals.
If incentives are needed to get people to show a greater interest in developing our non-bedded mineral deposits then incentives are also needed to get people to show a greater interest in our coal deposits. Exploration and development expenditure on Irish coal-mines is necessarily very heavy. The main difficulty in developing Irish coal-mines is the very high proportion of non-productive expenditure which has to be undertaken because of the relative narrowness of the coal seams. The risk of failure is considerably greater than in normal commercial enterprise, as indeed the records of the Department of Industry and Commerce will show.
The Minister's argument against extending the relief given by this Bill to coal-mining was that the contents of these non-bedded deposits are capable of being more readily assessed than in the case of non-bedded ores and that their extraction is much more akin to normal commercial operation. He represented me as pretending that there is no distinction between bedded and non-bedded deposits or in the difficulties involved in their mining and said that operators did not have to invest the same heavy type of capital in the working of bedded minerals as is necessary for non-bedded ores. I do not think a single one of these statements will stand the test of examination so far as Irish conditions are concerned.
It is not true — in this country, at any rate, whatever conditions may be elsewhere — that the contents of our coal measures can be more readily assessed than the contents of our non-bedded ores. I have personally held the view for a long time that exploration activity in this country could be more usefully directed to the areas which are known to contain coal than to any other known deposits. I had intended that Mianraí Teoranta, when they had finished their work at Avoca, should be asked to undertake the detailed examination by diamond drilling of the whole of the Leinster coalfield area. As Minister for Industry and Commerce, I tried to get that done by a commercial company, but unsuccessfully. There are workings going on at various points in the Leinster coalfield area, but I believe it has never been thoroughly explored to a proper depth. While my hopes may prove to be groundless, I think there is a far better prospect of exploration work there producing results than in almost any other part of the country.
During my time as Minister, considerable inducement was given to private firms to get working in that area and, indeed, a number of new workings began. Grants were also given on a fairly liberal scale to persons undertaking mineral exploration work—grants for the construction of roads and for the removal of overburden—which proved abortive in the sense that the work did not disclose the existence of minerals which, in the conditions of the time, are capable of profitable commercial development. However, a number of workings were begun and in each case are capable of further development.
What can be done by efficient direction in the development of Irish coal measures has been demonstrated during the past couple of years at Slieveardagh. Indeed, the main impediment which exists at the present time to the further development of the coal measures there is the inability of the firm working them to attract a sufficient number of miners. The difficulty in doing so is very largely a problem of housing. One of the main incentives which might be given to the development of mining operations here would be some provision for the building of houses in the vicinity of mines-houses that could be reserved for those working in them—most of which are located in isolated districts away from towns and cannot attract workers into them unless there is a certainty of suitable housing accommodation in their vicinities. Local authorities are always co-operative but local authorities are bound by the Housing Acts and cannot undertake to build houses exclusively for the employees of an individual concern or even to allocate them in a preferential way to the employees of an individual concern.
However, that is a side issue to this Bill.
My point is that the development of our coal measures is as urgent a task as any other type of mineral development in this country. It has not been done very largely because of the reasons the Minister gave for this Bill in relation to the non-bedded ores. The initial investment of capital in exploration and development is very heavy, with a substantial risk that it may be completely lost. I have argued here, on the Second Reading, that there is a far more urgent need for this country to give incentives to the exploration and development of its coal measures than any other mineral deposits we may have because we need the coal and we are likely to need it much more urgently in the years ahead. All the indications are that we will have very considerable difficulty in meeting our requirements of solid fuel by imports. The day is in sight when British coal will not be available.
The British coal authorities are already forecasting a day when they will not be able to meet British internal needs with their own coal production. If the coal exists, we need it and it can be consumed in its final form in this country. Indeed, in so far as we might produce a certain type of coal such as anthracite in excess of our own requirements, there is no difficulty in finding an export market for it. At various times in past years, some of our coal producers have been able to dispose of part of their production by export.
The mining difficulties in Irish coal mines are far greater than the difficulties in non-bedded ores. I speak with some experience. I have been down the mine in Avoca and I have been down some of our coal-mines also. In Avoca, it was possible to walk upright. There was no problem of ventilation which could not easily be solved by the mining engineers. There was a great deal of water, which made the work in the mines somewhat unpleasant. The depth of the rock which is being worked permits of upright work. I was down the mine at Silvermines, too, and had the same experience there. Our coal-mines are all working narrow seams. A 24-inch seam is big for an Irish coal-mine; some of the seams worked are less. The men working there cannot stand up. They have to work lying on their sides; and they have to remove a great deal of material, which is just waste.
As I said, a great deal of the expenditure in production is non-productive expenditure. It may be true that, in other countries, working on bedded deposits of coal is an easier operation than working on non-bedded ores. That is certainly not true under Irish conditions. Neither is it true that the capital expenditure which has to be undertaken for the working on non-bedded ores is greater than the expenditure necessary for working on bedded ores. If one estimates output on a tonnage basis there is no foundation for that statement at all. Indeed, I think that most of our coal-mines could be greatly improved with a substantial amount of expenditure upon more extensive and up-to-date plant, and that includes plant on the surface as well as plant underground.
The main advantage which the Slieveardagh working has over other coal-mines is that they have a washing plant installed, which other coal-mines have not got and which represents a very considerable investment of capital. I think there is no case to be made for the withholding of these incentives and reliefs from coal-mining which does not apply equally to any other type of mining operation. If the Government has accepted the principle that tax incentives should be given to encourage the kind of development which is regarded as most important, then every argument that can be used in favour of giving these incentives for the working of non-bedded ores can be applied just as forcibly to the working of bedded ores.
I do not know if the Minister has any hope that, having apparently accepted the principle of tax incentives to encourage desirable types of development, he will not be urged to extend its application in a variety of directions. Indeed, if there is a principle, if this Bill is the product of some decision that it is desirable that tax incentives should be given to get suitable economic activities going, then it is even more important than I think it is. I think it is the result of a particular bargain with an individual group and that there is nothing more behind it than the desire to fulfil that bargain. I suspect that the Bill was drawn in a way which will, as I have said, make it almost certain that nobody will be able to get any relief under it except the one group.
If there is a principle, and if the principle is that tax incentives should be given to encourage desirable developments, then I urge most strongly that that principle should be used to justify the extension of these incentives and these reliefs to coal-mining. In that connection the Minister used in his concluding speech the other day the words "ex parte”. I do not know quite what he meant, but, in case he meant what I think he meant, I want to make it quite clear that I have no financial interest of any kind whatever in any coal-mine undertaking.
By the words "ex parte” I meant an unsupported statement — a statement without any evidence to support it. I think that is the normal meaning of the phrase.
I am not making this case for coal only. I would point out that in British practice — and under British tax law considerable reliefs are given to mining operations — the term "mining ventures" is understood to cover oil bearing strata, potash and sulphur bearing deposits, china clay, gravel, sand, clay, chalk and slate as well as beds of minerals in the ordinary sense. While I am making this case for the extension of the Bill to other types of minerals mainly in relation to coal, I think that, in our circumstances, there may be justification for extending it also to such material as slate. Certainly, as an illustration of the type of risk which those who undertake any mining operation incur, I would advise the Minister to examine the record of the effort to develop the slate quarries at Carrick-on-Suir. There a private company embarked upon the development, spent a great deal of money and got a great deal of Government money as well, but, very shortly after commercial operations had started, it was discovered there was a flaw in the slate which made it practically unsaleable, a flaw which could not have been discovered by any process in advance of the opening up of the quarry.
While it is true that the use of slate as a roofing material is not as extensive now as it was some years ago, nevertheless there is a market for slate and there was at one time quite a considerable export of Irish slates to centres in Britain. I do not know if that possibility exists there now; but if we are to frame our laws on the basis of an equitable arrangement and if we are to have concessions for mining operations, then these concessions should apply to all mining operations in which the risks are similar and, on that basis, I would urge that this Bill be reframed so as to cover all mining concerns in the country no matter what type of minerals they are working.
I do not think the effect on the revenue would be considerable. If the Bill is confined, as it is now confined in effect, to new ventures, the number of new ventures in these additional fields is not likely to be very considerable. If it is extended, as I hope it will be extended, to give the same tax concessions to all mining undertakings, whether they are new or old, the cost to the Exchequer is also likely to be small, because I doubt if any of them are making very substantial profits, but they are all giving a very useful type of employment in districts where adult male employment is not easily procurable.
As, for the first time, the principle of modifying the tax arrangements as an incentive to economic development has been enshrined in legislation, then it should be extended on some logical basis. It is no secret that the Minister's predecessor, Deputy MacEntee, strongly resisted the idea of using tax modifications as economic incentives because he believed that, once the integrity of the income-tax was breached, there would be no power in the Department of Finance to resist the ever-widening of that breach. A proposition similar to that which the Minister has accepted in relation to Avoca, was made to me when I was Minister for Industry and Commerce before the war by a Canadian group, as far as my recollection goes, in relation to the copper mines at Bonmahon in County Waterford and when this proposition was discussed with the Minister for Finance — at that time Deputy MacEntee — his approach was not that he would not give a tax concession but that he would give a direct grant equivalent to the amount of tax payable; in other words, he felt that even though the financial result to the Exchequer would be the same it was better to do it in one way rather than in the other in order to maintain what he called the integrity of the tax system. I did not altogether agree with him but, so long as I got the result I was aiming at, I was quite satisfied and I think the people concerned would have been satisfied too. But unfortunately at that time the copper market slumped instead of booming, as it is booming at present, and the enterprise never went ahead.
I have said already in my Second Reading speech that I am personally in favour of the idea of using tax modifications as an incentive to economic development. I am supporting the principle of the Bill in that way, but I think the tax incentives should be based on some logical scheme which must be equitable in its operation as between private individuals. On its present basis it is not logically framed and will operate unfairly as against some citizens.
Deputy Lemass, in the remarks which he has just made, made several ex parte statements. He made a series of assertions without any foundation for these assertions or without giving the House any proof that the assertions were founded on fact. I thought, when he started off, that he was saying that I was incorrect when I told the House on the Second Reading that there was a difference in expenditure between bedded and non-bedded minerals and towards the end of his statement he repeated the statement that the difficulties were similar.
The fact is that there is a substantial difference between the principles that affect the mining of bedded minerals on the one hand and non-bedded minerals on the other. The differences are differences in exploration, in assessment of the proposition as a commercial venture, in relation to the expense of the plant and so forth.
First of all let us be quite clear on this matter. In regard to bedded minerals exploration it is comparatively — and I use the word "comparatively" quite deliberately — comparatively simple, compared to the exploration of non-bedded minerals. I do not want to make it appear, or to suggest in any way, that dealing with Irish bedded deposits is a simple proposition, but when you compare the two, bedded and non-bedded, there is a vast difference. In relation to bedded minerals, it is possible to ascertain the extent of the vein by a very limited series of interpolation drilling and some exterpolation work. It is not possible to do that at all in regard to non-bedded minerals. It is quite impossible to do it.
To ascertain the quality of minerals by diamond drilling?
It is not possible to ascertain the extent of non-bedded minerals by a series of interpolation drilling and some exterpolation work, which can be used for bedded minerals. The amount of work that has to be done in the exploration of bedded and non-bedded minerals is not comparable at all. The Deputy knows that that is correct, although he is not prepared to admit it. It is also abundantly clear, and it is borne out in the records of the geological office, that so far as the veins of bedded minerals and of non-bedded minerals are concerned, the estimation that can be made out of the one is as different from that which can be made out of the other as it is possible for it to be.
Deputy Lemass also suggested that this is a method unusual in other countries. The British report, to which he referred, was dealing with matters dealt with under the 1946 Act rather than the type of incentive in this Bill. I made it quite clear on the Second Reading what the incentives given in other countries were. In all those countries the incentives were for non-bedded minerals because of the known difficulty there is in foreseeing the extent and value of non-bedded deposits and the fact that the result must be deferred for longer in the case of non-bedded deposits and also because of the machinery expenditure. Take, for example, coal, to which the Deputy referred. There is nothing comparable in coal to the erection of a concentrator.
Comparable machinery has to be installed. The coal has to be graded and washed on the surface.
The machinery necessary is not in any way comparable in cost and the Deputy knows that it could not be. You have an entirely different type of organisation necessary in relation to non-bedded minerals to what you have in relation to bedded minerals.
I never had any doubt, when I was introducing this Bill, that there would be pressure put upon me to extend the scope of the Bill to other types of minerals in addition to those for which I felt that this is the appropriate type of incentive. I think that the basis which we are taking here is the correct basis, having regard to the difficulties in ascertaining the extent of the deposits, the difficulty in regard to the delay in the production of the mineral, compared to that in relation to the bedded deposit, and the very much larger expenditure that is necessary for machinery for non-bedded minerals such as the type we have named in this Schedule.
There was, as Deputy Lemass has correctly said, a possibility of dealing with the matter by way of subsidy or grant. I knew there was that method of dealing with it. I knew that such a method was suggested by some people to the Canadian groups. I prefer this way. I think it is a better way than the other way that was open to us. The method here is designed for the purpose of getting people to sink the large amount of initial expenditure that is necessary, so as to get that expenditure put there on the basis that will mean that the mines will operate. There is a very great difference between coal and a mineral that requires a concentrate. The expense is in the erection of the concentrator. When that is erected, your main expense on machinery is dealt with, but it is not so in relation to bedded deposits. In that case there is a smaller initial capital expenditure. In this instance I want to get the initial capital expenditure laid out. Then, when that is laid out, I think there will be a reasonable prospect of the minerals being worked in order that the money that has been so laid out will be recouped.
That is the type of incentive which I think is desirable for this type of minerals. I am not going to argue with the Deputy to-day about it, because it seems to me an entirely different type of proposition. There are other amendments he has down that deal with the question of industry generally. I think coal-mining is far more akin to them than are non-bedded minerals. As I have said on other occasions, so far as industry generally is concerned, I am not going to consider the question at all, until such time as the Industrial Taxation Committee's report is available to me. But no matter what that committee may report in relation to industry in general, non-bedded minerals are in a separate class. That has been accepted in every other country where it is desired to induce this type of mining. Non-bedded minerals are apart and it is for that reason that I must resist the Deputy's amendment.
The fact that other countries have not found it necessary to do this is not an argument.
It was the Deputy who reported on the other countries, not I.
In Canada, local coal-mines produce about 40 per cent. of their total production of coal. We are not producing 10 per cent. and we are in this position that we need to encourage the maximum output in our coal-mines, and we are likely to find that need a very acute one in the years ahead. I am not arguing with the Minister on the issue of the size of the investment required for the working of non-bedded ores. I will admit at once that the successful working of any non-bedded ores in this country must be on a fairly large scale, that they are not suitable for the smaller scale type of development which Irish coal measures will respond to. My argument was that the capital investment required is relatively no greater in one case than in the other. The Canadians are proposing to invest £2,000,000 in Avoca. They are hoping to get, and are planning to get, 1,000,000 tons of rock from it, that is to say, each £2 invested will yield one ton per year. I doubt if there is any coal-mine in this country that could hope to get a ton of coal out for £2 investment. I should say that for coal the investment is relatively heavier.
The Deputy is getting a little mixed up in his figures. He is likening the coal that comes out with the mixed rock that comes out, out of which the mineral has to be extracted.
Let me be clear on this. Let us think of what is required to get a saleable product. So far as Avoca is concerned, they will not be producing a mineral; copper, lead or zinc. They will be producing a concentrate of the rock mined, a saleable product from which they will get their profit. So far as the coal-miner is concerned, he is also producing a saleable product and to put a ton of saleable product on the market involves relatively a heavier capital outlay in Irish coal-mines than is involved in Avoca.
The Deputy is assuming that the rock which is brought out of Avoca is saleable as it is before concentration.
My argument is that, relatively, the investment required in Irish coal-mines is heavier. It does not make any difference if that statement is strictly accurate or not.
It is grossly inaccurate.
It is still true that those who go into coal-mining in this country have to risk a great deal of capital in an enterprise that can fold up overnight. They risk that capital in circumstances where they cannot have any certainty as to the size and reliability of the coal deposits they are working. I am not claiming to be a mining expert, but, from my experience as Minister for Industry and Commerce, I do not think it is true to say that the difficulty of exploring the extent of a non-bedded deposit is greater than in the case of these bedded ores like coal.
Before the war, the Government of which I was a Minister employed a firm of French mining experts at what was then a very considerable sum of money to carry out complete exploration, both by magnetic survey and diamond drilling, of the Leitrim coal area. That investigation of the Leitrim area was directed both to determining the size of the coal measures there and also in the hope of locating a workable deposit of iron ore—iron had been worked in Leitrim previously. It continued over a number of years and when the report came, I remember being rather dissatisfied with the inconclusive nature of the evidence upon which the French firm based its conclusions that there were not workable deposits of iron ore in the area, and that the coal measures were broken up and scattered and could never be the basis of any large-scale operation. They had carried out a number of drilling operations. They had put down their bore holes over a number of areas and found that they could not get a satisfactory core, wherever they contacted coal, because the coal in Arigna is very soft and friable, and the dust that was produced by the drilling operations was washed out in the process. Their report was very largely based upon the assumption that, wherever there was nothing in the core, that meant there was coal underground.
I know that in the drilling of rock such as the rock in Avoca, the engineers were able to take out cores which were capable of being analysed and tested in every detail, and which enabled them to say with considerable exactitude what was under the ground in the places where the drilling was done. In the case of the drilling of the coal measures, that was far less certain because of the friable nature of the material they were drilling and the difficulty of getting measurable cores. I know most mining people will not embark upon an operation merely on the results of diamond drilling, that they will insist on going down below the ground and exposing the ore to be worked by tunnelling. That was why we explored Avoca by tunnelling operations, rather than confining ourselves to diamond drilling.
The same is true of coal-mining and there are a number of instances of coal-mines which were started on what appeared to be a good prospect, working a seam of reasonable thickness producing good quality coal, but quite suddenly it petered out because of some fault in the ground which involved the closing down of operations and the loss of the capital put into it. Again, of course, the position in relation to coal as it existed in the past was not dissimilar to that which existed in relation to copper. The price of coal was low and the profit to be drawn from coal-mining operations was not very considerable. Now coal prices are going up. They have not reached the all-time historical record such as copper prices have reached, but they are still going up, and operations are now being carried out in areas where they could not have been profitably conducted before the war.
But let us get back to fundamentals. The Government has decided to give incentives to mining, these incentives taking the form of tax reliefs for a limited number of years. What is the case for confining these incentives to one type of mining and refusing them to others? Surely, on any rational analysis of our needs, there is as strong, or a stronger, case for giving these incentives for coal-mining as there is for giving them in the case of non-bedded ores. The employment is just as urgently needed. The product is one that we need ourselves and that will be used in its final processed form by consumers in this country. In the other case, there will be employment, undoubtedly, but what will be produced is a raw material for further processing abroad, something we cannot use at home because we have not got the facilities for processing it. If there is any logical reason for giving tax relief incentives to the working of non-bedded ores that reason applies with, certainly, equal force to bedded ores.
As I have said, I will admit that an exception may be made in the case of gypsum, in regard to which we have spent money and where there was competition between the operators for the leases they hold. That is certainly not the case in regard to coal. We have not got our measures in coal. We have never got enough capital behind the development of coal-mines to guarantee their success. There are exceptions to that. There are a couple of mines that are well worked and adequately capitalised. Most of the mines are small. Some of them are losing money. Some of them close down periodically until they raise a few pounds to get going again. Certainly, any tax relief is not likely to cost the Exchequer very much, because I cannot see them making profits on any substantial scale for some years ahead. But it is worth while encouraging people, by giving this type of concession, to go into that business and to get into it on a scale, with sufficient capital, to give them a reasonable chance of succeeding.
The Minister is, I think, closing his mind to this argument because he has produced a Bill here, rather reluctantly, to give effect to one bargain made with one Canadian company interested in Avoca and, while he thought to express that Bill as being of general application, he is determined in his mind that it will not be extended to anybody other than this one group on whose behalf the Bill was produced.
If that is the reason why the Bill is before the House, it would be far more straightforward of the Government to come in with a Bill and to give this company, St. Patrick's Mines, Limited, the benefit of this concession and to give it to nobody else; because that was the bargain that they made to induce them to undertake the operation. Why produce a Bill that appears to be of general application which is not of that kind at all and which is not designed to do the type of job that has to be done in this country if we are to get the development of our mineral resources, such as they are, and as varied as they are, in every part of the country?
Would the Deputy mind answering a question? If there is no difference between coal and non-bedded minerals such as there are in Avoca, what are the amounts he recommended being spent on coal and on Avoca?
How do you mean?
What were the amounts he recommended to be spent on the exploration of one and the exploration of the other?
I do not know what the Minister is leading up to. Before the war, the Government itself undertook a number of mineral exploration activities. The one in Leitrim, to which I referred, and the exploration of gypsum deposits were the two most costly operations. There was a system of grants available for anybody who wanted to develop any kind of mineral, grants which were specifically allocated to the building of roads into the areas, the removal of the overburden and similar non-productive expenditures of that kind. We set up Mianraí Teoranta to carry out mineral exploration, in 1944. In fact, it did not get operating on exploration work until after the war. It had certain duties to produce minerals during the war, to produce them to meet urgent needs—sulphur from Avoca and coal from Slieveardagh. That company was directed to give its main attention to Avoca until the exploration work there was completed, until the practicability of commercial development was demonstrated. In consultation with that company and in conjunction with E.C.A, funds were made available for other mineral exploration work to be carried out by international experts, involving diamond drilling explorations in selected areas, one in Galway where molybdenum was believed to exist, another in Sligo, which resulted in the extension of the workings of the company there, and the third, I think, Glendalough, where the operations were in progress when I left office. Bonmahon in Waterford, Allihies in Cork and other areas were also examined. These experts' activities were designed to give information which would permit of a decision as to what further development work would have to be done before commercial development would become possible.
I have said that I had in mind personally that when Mianraí Teoranta got free of Avoca and when the efforts that were made to get a private company to do exploration work in the Leinster coalfield area failed, exploration there would be the next main activity but, so far as I know, no decision had been made as to what it was likely to cost or what sum should be allocated for it. As far as Avoca is concerned, we decided to allocate a sum of £85,000 for seven years for that purpose but no similar decision had been taken with regard to any coal-mine.
The reason I asked the question is that the relative exploration cost, or amount spent, would be somewhere about ten to one.
I will accept that but I must make a qualification. The intention was to do the exploration in Leitrim by diamond drilling only. In Avoca, the decision to do exploration by tunnelling was based on the realisation that the tunnel, when made, would be a saleable asset. Also, we had in mind the desirability of keeping in Avoca the miners who had got experience in mining there during the war-time operations so as to keep them available as a nucleus of the organisation that would be required when commercial operations began. We could have decided to do it by diamond drilling only.
The Deputy in fact accepts, therefore, that what I said was right, that in regard to that type of exploration the cost is about ten to one.
No. The cost is just as great to go into the ground as in the other case.
The Deputy has given his whole case away. Let me refer to one thing he said. Let me be quite clear when I say, beyond question, that I hope the effect of this Bill will be to induce mining of such non-bedded deposits as there are in the country, not merely in Avoca, but everywhere else they exist throughout the country.
You will have to change a lot of the Bill.
It is entirely unjustified, and typical of the manner in which Deputy Lemass makes ex parte statements, that he should attribute to me any other suggestion. I think that I am in a better position to know what is at the back of my mind than Deputy Lemass is and his statement in that regard is about as accurate as the other statements he has made to-night without any proof. The fact is that non-bedded minerals are different in the extent, different in the type of deposits, different in the cost of exploration, different in the method of exploration and entirely different in the extent of the cost of the installations necessary to deal with them. It is because of these differences that this Bill deals in this way with non-bedded minerals and not with bedded ores.
You can make a coal-mine pay on an output of 25,000 or 30,000 tons a year.
The Deputy can go on repeating what is not true.
It would be a waste of time putting this to a vote.
I move amendment No. 4:—
In sub-section (4) to delete all words from and including "if" in line 3 down to the end of the sub-section and substitute "shall not have effect until approved by Dáil Éireann".
The issue that arises here is a somewhat different one. The Bill gives the Minister power to add minerals to those mentioned in the Schedule to the Bill and then provides that every Order made by the Minister for Finance can be annulled by the Dáil within 21 days. I think there is an issue of principle involved here.
May I correct the Deputy? It gives the Minister power to add non-bedded minerals, not just minerals.
In other words, it gives the Minister power to extend this Bill to operations which are not covered in the Bill as introduced.
But which are non-bedded operations.
I do not care if it gives the Minister power to extend it to feathers. It is a matter of principle as to whether the Government of the day, whoever forms it, should have power to give tax concessions on a discriminatory basis by Order—to give tax concessions on that basis without the positive and prior approval of the Dáil. I am not pretending to be a constitutional lawyer, but I think the constitutionality of that provision could be called in question. The Constitution provides that no appropriation of revenue can be made until it has been recommended to and approved by Dáil Éireann and I consider that discriminatory remission of taxation is a form of revenue appropriation. It is equivalent to the giving of a subsidy.
I feel sure there will be Deputies on both sides of the House who will agree that the Dáil should be particularly vigilant in connection with experiments in discriminatory taxation and that they should refuse to allow to pass out of their hands the powers of control which they normally exercise in such matters. I think that, if we adopt the proposal in this Bill, we shall be establishing a precedent which will be undesirable from every point of view. I have no objection to the idea in the Bill if it is to avoid the necessity for further legislation, if a case should be made for the extension of the measure to other non-bedded minerals; in other words, I have no objection to the Minister dealing with that by Order, but it should be specifically understood and stated in the Bill that that Order would have no effect until the Dáil had approved of it.
This is something more than the normal type of Order which Ministers make to give effect to details of legislation. This is a question of discriminatory taxation, of giving to certain individuals tax advantages which are not available to citizens in general. That may be a good thing, but it should not be capable of being done by ministerial Order without the Dáil giving it specific sanction beforehand. That is why I would urge the Minister to amend this Bill to provide that any Order made by him extending its provisions to other commodities should require the specific authority of the Dáil. It is far better to keep the principle of the control of the Dáil to the appropriation of revenue.
It is not a question about the appropriation of revenue.
It is a discriminatory reduction of taxation.
It is an entirely different question from the appropriation of revenue. Appropriation of revenue is an entirely different thing. I would accept the view of Deputy Lemass if there were any type of wide discretion at all available to me but, in fact, what the section does is to provide that I can add only things that are ejusdem generis, the same as the ones specified. I could quite easily have brought in an enormously long list of all possible geological non-bedded minerals that there were anywhere in the world. If I had done that, the Deputy would have suggested I was giving the impression to our people that there were minerals here that we did not believe existed. It is a much better method to do it like this—to bring in a list of minerals to which we believe there are some prospects of this Bill applying. But in case there might be something that has been overlooked, providing we restrict it to that type, I do not see how there is any objection to this section. If I had not provided the annulling proviso I could see the Deputy's objections, but we all know that there are certain types of things that are dealt with in this way. There are a few dealt with by Order—one is the sugar Order.
The Dáil still has the power to refuse to do it.
The Dáil has ample power in this case to throw out any Order I might make. I should perhaps explain that the power of annulment is restricted here to the Dáil alone and not to the Dáil and Seanad. The Dáil has ample power to throw out any Order made no matter what Government is in power and it has always been understood by the Government and Opposition that any motion of annulment will always be given power of precedence in parliamentary time. That has always been accepted as proper procedure. The Dáil is keeping control in that way. It is only a matter of detail, once the category has been listed and once the main minerals in that category have been specified.
The Minister is not trying to tell the House that what will happen is that he will be lying in bed some morning and that just for fun he will add uranium and platinum to the list. It might then happen that John Smith, an ordinary citizen, would come to the Department with a proposition and for the benefit of that one individual the Minister would make an Order. I am not saying that will happen but the Minister is giving himself power to give a discriminatory remission of taxation. I am not objecting to that power by Order, provided the Minister seeks the approval of the Dáil before it comes into effect.
The power of annulment is very largely illusory. I do not think that one Deputy in ten reads the list of papers published on the Order Paper and not one in ten would go down to the Library to look up those Orders to see whether any of them should be the subject of an annulment motion in the Dáil. It is far more likely that Orders will be made and brought into operation and remain in operation for 21 sitting days of the Dáil before anyone knows about them than that there will be this particular examination of a Government's actions which the Minister assumes. The Seanad has already had to consider the desirability of setting up some special machinery to make sure that these ministerial Orders are brought under notice in some way. This, I agree, should be a matter for the Dáil alone as it is a matter of finance, but the Dáil has no machinery for ensuring that Orders tabled, Orders which the Dáil can annul, if it wishes to do so, will be brought specially to notice.
There is no committee such as the Seanad has for the examination of these Orders. That is why I think we should not rely on that device as a safeguard in this important matter. The question may never arise, but it is a fundamental principle of democratic procedure that the Legislature should hold the ultimate decision in matters concerning the appropriation of revenue and the Minister should not take power to give discriminatory remission of taxation, without the prior consent of the Dáil.
I think it is important that this matter should be raised. I am quite certain, if the Minister was sitting on this side of the House and if this Bill were introduced by another Minister, that he himself would be one of the first to see the desirability of keeping within the power of the Dáil the granting of tax remissions equivalent to subsidies to private individuals. Remember in each case what is involved: it is a concession to a private individual, to John Smith, Pat Murphy, to somebody who will negotiate with the Government, and, as a result of the negotiations, get that discriminatory taxation relief. If he is entitled to it, nobody will resent his getting it, and if benefit is likely to follow generally, nobody will disapprove, but the Minister should come in a formal way before the Dáil and get prior approval before granting the remission.
If I thought there was any democratic principle involved, I would not have any difficulty about Deputy Lemass's amendment at all. As a matter of fact, Deputy Lemass and I, when the positions were reversed, had brushes on what I considered were democratic principles and which Deputy Lemass did not.
As far as whether or not one Deputy in ten in the Dáil will notice the Orders tabled, I think we must accept that the working of Parliament in a democratic way depends to a large extent on the Government and the Ministers, on the one hand, and on the Opposition Front Bench, on the other hand. It depends far more on that than on the individual working of each individual Deputy in the House. I do not know what the Deputy does when in opposition, but I know when we were over there, certain members of the Front Bench had the responsibility of looking at certain executive actions of certain Ministers for the very purpose of spotting Orders of this sort, and considering whether it was desirable, in respect of those Orders, to put down an annulment motion. That was how we dealt with this type of situation and I think, frankly, it is a better way of dealing with it than cluttering the Dáil programme with positive motions of the sort the Deputy suggests. It seems to me that the democratic principle to which Deputy Lemass referred is preserved either way, and preserved without question. When the power of annulment is there the principle is preserved and I think this is the more convenient method. I do not think this is any infraction of the principle at all. If I did think so, I would agree with Deputy Lemass, but I do not think so.
I think it is. I think it is most undesirable.
Are we to take it that the list of minerals in the Schedule are all minerals in respect of which exploitation either on an experimental or commercial scale has taken place, or is it based on some other consideration with a view to making it as comprehensive as possible? For example, one sees that serpentinous marble, quartz rock and soapstone are mentioned as well as ores of copper, gold and manganese. I wonder what is the basis of the selection of minerals in the Schedule?
The main minerals of which we were aware in the country—the main non-bedded minerals of which we were aware—all of them we thought any use, anyway.
There is no magnesium in the country although it is in the list here.
Is it not here? Is not magnesium part of the ore of manganese?
I suppose it is, yes.
I will admit frankly that I am not very good on geological things like that.
I move amendment No. 5:—
To delete all words from and including "(hereinafter" in line 12 down to the end of the section and substitute "after the 6th day of April, 1956."
The tax concessions, the reliefs for which this Bill provides, are, it appears, to be available only to companies starting new mining operations, as defined in Section 1, within the next three years. I may say that it was that provision more than any other which produced in my mind the suspicion that although the Bill is drawn as if intended to be of general application the intention is that only one company will effectively be able to secure relief under it, the company that will be working at Avoca. So far as the Party on this side of the House is concerned we have accepted that there is need for a general revision of our company taxation system.
The commission which was set up to examine that question some time ago has not yet reported, and if the Minister took the line that he was not going to change the tax law until he got their report it would be a logical position, although I may say in passing that the commission is taking somewhat longer to report than I had anticipated. But the Minister is not waiting until he gets the report before changing the law in one respect. This Bill is presented as necessary to give relief to companies engaged in one particular operation. Our existing system of taxing companies engaged in industrial operations might be described as obsolete, and it is clearly in need of revision. What alterations the commission may recommend I do not know, but I think they will have no difficulty in discovering that at least so far as taxation of mining profits is concerned the existing position is inequitable, illogical and unfair. But if there is a case for its revision at all there is a case for its permanent revision. Certainly, there is no justification for giving relief merely for a period of three years and leaving it at that.
I think, indeed, that it would be possible for the Minister now—certainly for his colleague the Minister for Industry and Commerce—to name every company that can possibly get concessions under this Bill. Nobody, so far as my experience goes, could get into the commercial working of minerals on a reasonably substantial scale unless they have already begun the process of exploration and development. Indeed, the Canadians at Avoca, notwithstanding all the work already done at Avoca and notwithstanding the immense financial and technical resources available to them, do not expect to be in commercial production for at least 18 months to come. Any new company undertaking new mining operations as defined in the Bill cannot possibly be in commercial production within three years unless they have already begun the process of exploration and development. Therefore, this Bill is not really an incentive to people to investigate, as the Minister said, the mineral resources of the country and to plan for their commercial development. So long as it is limited in its operation for a three-year period it cannot possibly have that effect. Men experienced in taxation matters will agree that tax incentives of this kind do not even begin to produce results within three years. The experience in most countries has been that it is only gradually that incentives of this character begin to show effect. It may be that it was the intention of the Minister, if not to confine the Bill to one company working at Avoca, to confine it to persons who are already known to be interested in mineral development and have already begun measures to express that interest in the development of particular minerals.
I do not know if the Minister seriously contemplates that at the end of three years we will go back to the system of taxing mining profits and that this incentive will no longer operate. If that is so, it is a vain hope, and the Minister would do far better to recognise that once the idea of tax incentives to commercial development has been introduced they cannot be relinquished again. Certainly if it is in the Minister's mind that this is going to be an incentive to people to invest money in new mining developments he will have to get rid of this three-year limitation, because nobody will gamble upon the prospect that any operation they may plan now will be in commercial production in three years' time and so qualify. It would be only an added risk to the others involved in mining operations. If the Minister thinks that the Dáil should have an opportunity of reviewing the desirability of retaining this legislation at some stage he should leave it at least ten years. I do not think that any lesser period will get the results it is intended that these incentives should produce. Certainly, three years is altogether too short a period.
Deputy Lemass started off on the wrong foot in relation to this whole Bill when he was referring continually to new companies. It is not the owner of the mine that is operative in this case. It is the mining operation itself. I do not think that it matters very much in relation to the rest of the argument, but it is just as well that I should correct him on that, because it is not the ownership that matters, it is the operation, and the fact that the operation may be under different ownerships during the period concerned does not affect the issue. It is important, however, to recognise that fact in relation to the existing mining companies. The fact that an existing mining company carries on an existing mining operation in one place does not, of course, in any way prevent it from carrying out a new mining operation in accordance with the terms of the definition. It is important, therefore, to remember that it is not the ownership but the actual operation which is operative in deciding whether the profits arising come within the terms of the Bill or not.
One of the existing companies at one end of its existing property might very conceivably start a new operation right at the other end which would be a new mining operation within the meaning of the definition in Section 1. There would not be any question whatever that such a concern should not operate within the three years referred to. It has been accepted before, not in relation to tax incentives but in relation, for example, to housing incentives, that it is desirable to restrict the period of operation of the Bill giving the incentive so as to get people to do the job in question within a specified period.
The Deputy and the House are well aware that, for that reason, the Acts allocating housing grants are on a temporary expiration basis. The same thought was in my mind when I fixed this as a period of three years.
I think the essential thing is to provide an inducement to people to get after this type of development work immediately. If we do not so frame our incentives that they will feel it necessary for them to start their exploration work immediately, and to start their commercial development at the soonest possible opportunity, we shall have lost the benefit which I hope will flow from this Bill. I do not agree with the Deputy that the position is that that cannot be done within three years. I never believed at all that, when the three years were up, we would arrive at a position in which we would say incentive was no longer necessary. We might decide, perhaps, in three years' time that this type of incentive could be improved upon in a certain way and I think the three-year period is desirable as a trial period in that respect, if for no other. Its greatest advantage is that it shows—if people wish to rely on this incentive in getting out non-bedded minerals—the urgent necessity of getting ahead with the work. It was with that in mind that I fixed the period of three years.
The Minister has just defeated his objective, if that is his objective. As the Bill stands, a new mining operation must be substantially distinct and separate from, and not merely an extension, of any mining operation. I do not think it is practical to get a new mining operation, so defined, going to the stage at which there is production in reasonable commercial quantities taking place——
The Deputy and I will have to part company there.
The existing mining operations, as we know them in this country, for non-bedded minerals are Silvermines, Abbeytown in Sligo— Benbulben barytes—and, possibly the best, Avoca. Beyond these, the main likelihood of any important mineral development turns upon copper deposits. The likelihood that the price of copper will continue to be high brings into the picture as a possible development certain deposits which were worked before and on which work ceased when the price of copper fell too low to make it an economic proposition.
The Minister and I had an argument as to whether the price of copper will go up or down. One of the benefits which the British Government stated might follow from the recent increase in the bank rate is a reduction in the price of minerals. There was a fall in the price of some minerals, but the price of copper went up and it is at a higher level than ever before. All the expectation is that it will remain high. On the basis of that expectation, we can get commercial firms interested in some of our existing deposits which are known to contain copper. Bonmahon, County Waterford, Allihies, County Cork and Beauparc, County Meath, where the value of the deposits has never been explored——
If Deputy Briscoe were here now, we could remind him that he said that there was nothing there.
The point I want to make is that nobody knows what is there. So far as these are concerned, Bonmahon is the best prospect. At least, there is a far greater prospect that people will be concerned to develop it, because there is a great deal of knowledge about it and it was the subject of interest before the war. In fact, I know there is already interest in the possibility of developing it. The deposits there were thought to be worked out by the old company, but it is now believed that a substantial bed of ore exists lower than the old company worked, just as was the case at Avoca. Avoca was thought to be worked out by the old company until this possibility of a new bed of ore at a lower depth in the ground was discovered.
Allihies mines were worked until some period in 1924 or 1925. I think they are flooded. There is a theory that it is the Atlantic Ocean that is flooding the mines there, in which case they can never be drained. Advice given to me was that the cost of dewatering the mines would be prohibitive and consequently it was not likely that there would ever be development there. Whether that is so, on the basis of present prices, I do not know.
In Beauparc, a great deal of investigation will have to be done by anybody thinking of investing money there. Under the Mining Acts, the prospecting lease given to persons who want to prospect for minerals is for two years. It is assumed that reasonable exploration of any area will take two years. When the prospecting is done, there is the process of the formation of a company, of raising capital, of procuring equipment, and so forth, which has to be completed to get commercial development and production. If you try to interest people on the basis of this Bill, and then tell them that they must be in production in reasonable commercial quantities within three years, this Bill will not be successful. So far as I know, there are mineral deposits which are likely to be of interest to private firms at Bonmahon, Allihies and Beauparc and three years is far too short a period no matter how highly financed they may be, or what technical resources are available to them. I do not think there should be a date at all. I do not see the need for a date, but, if the Minister wants it, it must be much later than three years. Otherwise, I think the Bill is quite useless and will only strengthen my suspicion that the intention of the Bill was that only one company would get benefit out of it.
I would ask the Minister to reconsider this question. I had considerable experience at one time in dealing with questions of plant used by mines. Although the date of delivery has improved since the time when I had some knowledge of this, I know for a fact that, even at the present time, a certain type of machinery might take anything up to 15 months to deliver and certainly, very frequently, six months. That could apply equally to certain types of prospecting machinery. I am quite sure that if the Minister consults even the people who are going to benefit by this Bill immediately, they will tell him that, from the point of view of the delivery and the setting-up of plant, you could quite easily absorb from a half to two-thirds of the entire period he has allowed and it would be more than reasonable, if he insists on having a date, to make the date at the very least five years. If he were to get from his officials a chronological statement in regard to the processing of a mine, I am quite sure he would agree with Deputy Lemass on this problem, quite apart from the general question as to whether or not we should have a date. He simply takes the date upon which the machinery which takes the longest time to deliver is delivered; both in regard to prospecting and in regard to actual production, he will simply have to extend the period, if this Bill is intended as a serious contribution to the exploitation of mines in the future.
I think, perhaps, the Opposition have judged the necessity for this amendment on what would have happened to mineral development many years ago. I can assure Deputy Lemass that, as far as Beauparc is concerned, the company has already been formed.
They say themselves they will not be in production at Avoca for 18 months.
But that is inside the three-year period.
We have been working there already for three years.
I am talking about Beauparc. In Beauparc, the company has been formed and the machinery is on order. While they may not be in production for 18 months, at the same time, they will certainly be within the three-year period laid down here. While Deputy Lemass has referred to copper-mines in general, it is a fact that other mines are about to be worked, particularly lead and zinc in Monaghan, Castleblayney and Derrylenihan. I think the idea behind this particular section is to encourage people to go in for the development of our mineral resources now rather than at a later stage, and that is very commendable. We may find from experience that there may be defects. If, until now, the existing laws were O.K., surely it is a bit thick for the Opposition to suggest that the three-year period embodied in this improved legislation is too short. I know that the Opposition wish to see minerals developed just as much as we do, but, at the same time, I think they should not be too quick to condemn what is now proposed in order to help out the development of our mineral resources.
The whole question is whether this is intended to be a serious incentive to mineral development, or whether it is not.
There is no question but that Deputy Lemass's statement, or suggestion, that there should be no date in this Bill would be utterly senseless.
Why?
Because it would completely remove any question of immediate incentive.
To meet the view expressed, would the Minister consider extending the three years to five years? That would cut out all this question of there not being sufficient time to develop.
Very well.
Five years is better than three. I am glad the Minister is prepared to accept five. Against his argument, may I point out there is no date in the Canadian tax law and the incentive given in that law——
There was a date.
There is no date now.
But there was a date. They put it in originally for the purpose of having a period in which to get incentive at the beginning and see how it worked.
I think the Minister's recollection of Canadian tax law history is different from mine.
I think the Minister's recollection is, like his recollection of the depreciation allowance which Deputy Lemass mentioned on the Second Stage, more accurate than the Deputy's.
The Canadian Federal Government framed the whole income-tax code as a temporary arrangement; and, in Great Britain, income-tax was introduced as a temporary tax too.
It is a temporary tax here, but it is renewed every year.
I move amendment No. 6:—
To add to the section a new sub-section as follows:—
(2) In computing the amount of profits for the purpose of assessment to income-tax of a company working a qualifying mine or an existing mine the following deductions may be made:—
(a) Twenty per cent. of any capital expenditure undertaken by the company during the year of assessment on the exploration and development of mineral deposits whether at the mine or elsewhere within the State including the acquisition of exploration plant.
(b) Twenty per cent. of any capital expenditure during the year of assessment on works, other than buildings, which will be of no value when the mine is worked out.
(c) Ten per cent. of any capital expenditure during the year of assessment on buildings, including buildings for occupation by or for the welfare of mining workers.
(d) An allowance, to be called the depletion allowance, which shall be such proportion of the total capital expenditure of the company on the acquisition, exploration and development of the mine as the output during the year of assessment is to the total of deposits.
I move this amendment for a particular reason. The Minister is probably aware—other Deputies may not be— that this amendment represents an attempt to express in my own words the provisions now existing in British law regarding the taxation of mining profits, or the changes in British law for the taxing of mining profits which were recommended by the recent British commission on income-tax. If this Bill is intended to be a temporary measure only, then these arrangements will probably find no place in it; but, if there is an idea of liberalising our tax code so as to facilitate and encourage mining development, then I think it is necessary to go further than the Bill attempts to go.
The Bill is introduced here, as we know, for the purpose of giving relief to the Canadian company which will work in Avoca. But there are other mining concerns at present operating, some of which will get no benefit whatever under the Bill and all of which need encouragement and assistance to extend their operations. These concerns have gone through difficult times; some of them had to suspend operations for a period and started again only with difficulty. The idea of this amendment is to give to these concerns the same tax provisions as the British Government thinks it wise to give to mining concerns in Great Britain.
We know that British mineral resources are vastly superior to our own. We know that these mineral resources of Britain have never failed to attract the interest of private enterprise and, if the British Government, in those circumstances, having regard to the variety and wealth of its mineral deposits and having regard to the abundance of capital always available for the financing of mining projects there, think it necessary to give the reliefs which I am proposing here, then obviously these reliefs are doubly required in this country where mining ventures are few and far between, where many mining ventures have lost money and failed, to the detriment of those who invested in them, and where all of them are encountering problems of production costs more acute than those arising in Great Britain.
Our system of taxing the profits of mining ventures is completely indefensible. It means that the profits of these companies are calculated for tax purposes on a basis which no intelligent accountant would use. It is more than time that we changed all that. The British tax code, as I understand it, provides for a number of reliefs, reliefs which do not exist here. In the first place, there is the investment allowance of 20 per cent.; if money is spent upon capital development in any year, 20 per cent. of the amount so expended may be deducted from the profits of that year before determining the profit on which tax is to be assessed. That investment allowance, which applied to all British industry and which has, in part, been suspended since last week by the British Government, replaced the initial allowance; and, in Britain, the initial allowance in relation to mining undertakings—that is, the extent to which the cost of new equipment purchased could be written off in the first year out of profits—was as high as 40 per cent.
There is neither investment allowance nor initial allowance here. This allowance was given in Britain apart altogether from the normal allowance for depreciation of plant used in the operation of the mine. Allowances are given there for capital expenditures in exploration and development and the allowance given for exploratory expenditures extend to expenditures undertaken by mining companies in other areas, outside their present area of operation. They cover also the cost of plant purchased for the conduct of exploratory activity.
Allowances are made in the same way for capital expenditure on works which are likely to be of no value when the mining operations have ceased on the working out of the deposits. In addition there is an investment allowance of 10 per cent. for industrial buildings on the same basis as for industrial buildings generally. We have no allowance of any kind in respect of industrial buildings. There is an investment allowance of 10 per cent. and an annual allowance for buildings provided by a mining company for the occupation of, or for the welfare of, mining workers, buildings which are likely to have little value when the mine is no longer working.
The British Royal Commission recommended that there should also be a depletion allowance, an allowance for the cost of acquisition of mineral areas. The whole case for these amendments is that we require to give to our people here at least the same taxation reliefs as the British Government thinks it right to give in Britain. One would think that in our circumstances we would require to give greater reliefs and that, in our circumstances, we should tend to be less restrictive. I do not propose that. I am merely proposing that we inscribe in our law the same allowances and reliefs as the British Government gives in Britain. If British circumstances justify these allowances how much more must our circumstances require them here?
It seemed to me, when I heard Deputy Lemass commence, that I would find him following this amendment further by moving an amendment to delete Section 5 and Section 6. That would have seemed to me to be the logical method of dealing with it. The case Deputy Lemass now makes is that any sort of relief in mining taxation which we give should be at least as favourable as it is in Britain.
For new concerns.
The incentive purpose that is now in mind will be more favourable than under British law. So far as the general position is concerned, as I understand Deputy Lemass, he was advancing, in paragraphs (a), (b) and (c), the general case for industry, which has no particular reference to mining at all. So far as the general industrial case is concerned, I will not come down on one side or the other until I get the report of the committee on industrial taxation. All I have sought to do in this Bill is in so far as I consider that certain mining activities are different from ordinary industrial activities. The suggestions in paragraphs (a), (b) and (c) are not for specific mining requirements but for industrial requirements in general. This Bill does not purport at all to deal with general industrial requirements. There will be another day to discuss those when I have received that report.
So far as paragraph (d) is concerned, the Deputy, when he was taking this paragraph from the British report, changed it somewhat. The British suggestion does not deal with it in quite the same way and our 1946 Act does not deal with it in quite the same way. The new element which the Deputy introduced in paragraph (d) is to deal with circumstances in respect of exploration and development of a mine which is already in our existing law in a form more beneficial to the mine concern and particularly so when it comes under the provisions of Section 11.
If a mining concern is within the eight-year period in which it gets the four full and the four half-year concessions, paragraph (d) would not be in their interests at all. Paragraph (d) provides for what might be called a form of relief for depreciation. The 1946 procedure is that it is spread over the life of the mine and at the end of that time residual values are taken and deducted from capital expenditure and then that is averaged. I might also say that I do not understand how the Deputy's formula would work out in regard to the total of the deposits. How could one estimate, at the beginning of the year, the total of the deposits that are likely to be in the working life of the mine?
You can leave it to the companies themselves to decide that. They would have the same interests as the Minister. If they tended to minimise the deposits there would be a possibility of a day coming when they would be entitled to no relief at all.
That would lead to exactly the same objection which Deputy Lemass had on the Second Reading of the Bill when he said that there was a danger of people coming in and doing certain work and getting out again. That argument would be even more true in relation to the type of relief given here because the type of relief I have provided in Sections 5 and 6 is intended to be a type of relief to cover initial construction, which is relief in respect of construction that would be far more liable to misuse for certain temporary high pressure working followed by collapse. I think the Deputy's main case in relation to this amendment was not related to mining but that be wanted to give the investment allowance, the initial allowance, and so forth, in relation to industry generally a trial gallop. I cannot prevent the Deputy giving it a trial gallop but it is not a trial in which I am going to participate. I intend to await the appropriate race, to wait until the commission's report is available.
When does the Minister hope to get that report?
I have been living in hopes for some time. I understood it would have been available by now.
I must say that as Minister for Industry and Commerce in 1953, I would not have been nearly as happy as I was about the decision of the Government of that day to set up a commission to investigate this matter, instead of taking action in the matter, if I had known the commission was going to take so long in its labours. I do not think it is reasonable that industry should be asked to stand still for three years pending the production of that report. If we had realised that it would take that time or longer to get the report I think we would have preferred to proceed even by trial and error to get the right system of taxation which would encourage the developments we desire here than to wait for the possibility of a perfect system emerging from the deliberations of the commission. But here we have a Bill which is intended to do something which naturally came within the commission's terms of reference.
I am not so sure that I accept what the Deputy says, that the special case of mining was within the terms of reference of the commission. The commission's terms of reference were in respect of general industrial problems rather than any specific problem such as mining.
It is recognised in every country that the calculation of mining profits for the purposes of taxation represents special difficulties and that special provision must be made for them. Apparently our system is that everything that comes in is revenue, everything that goes out is expenditure and the difference is taxable profit, without recognition of the fact that a wasting asset is being worked and that a large part of the expenditure which has been undertaken will not be recovered when the asset finally disappears. If a factory builds a sports hall or houses for its workers it can at least assume that these are saleable assets, that if the factory ceases to operate, the houses and sports hall will be saleable. A mining concern which has to provide these facilities generally in isolated districts knows that all that expenditure will be completely lost if operations cease. That is a case for giving a special allowance against that expenditure which might not be applicable at all in the case of other concerns. I am not going to press the amendment.
I would like to make it quite clear that I have understood the Deputy correctly. Do I understand the Deputy's case for this amendment to rest on the fact that there is no provision in our mining legislation to ensure that there will be an appropriate deduction taken off a wasting asset of the type that he suggested?
Yes.
The Deputy is all wrong.
There is no depreciation of buildings at all.
The Deputy should examine the 1946 Act again, Section 6, and he will find that there is such a provision in respect of mining enterprises.
I asked the Minister a question before I said that, and I got a reply which stated in effect——
The Deputy asked me a question last October and I referred him to the Act.
Yes. He said there was no difference in the system of taxing mining and other concerns.
No. I was referring to the taxation on profit. That is an entirely different thing. Shall I read the reply I gave the Deputy? The reference is column 30, Volume 153, of the Official Debates of the 26th October, 1955:—
"It is presumed that the Deputy has in mind the computation of mining profits for income-tax purposes.
"The profits of mining ventures are computed according to the relevant rules applicable to Schedule D. of the Income-tax Act, 1918, in the same way as the profits of other concerns in the nature of trade, but an allowance may be claimed in respect of certain capital expenditure on mine development subject to the provisions of Section 6 of the Finance Act, 1946."
Does that cover expenditure, say, on a hostel for workers?
Yes, if it is going to be of no use thereafter. The situation is quite clear that you take the capital expenditure that has been incurred on the erection of buildings, everything except acquisition. You estimate the working life of the mine and you estimate the residual value that the buildings, and so forth, will have at the end. The hostel in a desert, so to speak, will not have any residual value. In the circumstances to which Deputy Lemass just referred, there would be no residual value and if the estimate of the working life of a mine is 20 years then one-twentieth of that is deducted each year during the working. The only difference—I want to be perfectly straight on this—in Deputy Lemass's amendment is that he refers to the cost of acquisition. The 1946 Act does not provide for the purchase price. It provides for everything else. I think probably the reason why my predecessor did not put that in was because here we do not deal with minerals by means of purchase prices, we deal with them by means of royalty. I imagine that was the reason my predecessor excluded it.
I will leave it at that but I would like the Department of Finance to face up to the certainty that within five years these provisions will be in our tax code and they may as well reconcile themselves to it.
Deputy Lemass is trying to make an argument about the general tax code on what is a specific mining measure.
I will accept that you cannot provide for investment allowances for mining only without accepting that you will have to extend them to industry generally.
I had views about taxation long before the Deputy expressed his views the other day.
I did not express my views the other day.
The Deputy had the opportunity of putting them into operation and failed to do that. The expression of views when he had the power was not much of an addition.
There must be a file in the Department of Finance containing my views.
There are some files containing the Deputy's views which he might not like read out.
I move amendment No. 7:—
In sub-section (2), paragraph (a), line 37, to delete "commencement day" and substitute "5th day of April, 1956".
There are two amendments to Section 11 and one is an alternative to the other. If the Minister accepts amendment No. 7 I will not press No. 8. The effect of amendment No. 7, would be to put all mining concerns in this country on the same basis of taxation on which it is proposed to put the Canadian company in Avoca. I think it is entirely wrong to provide here an arrangement under which one concern, a foreign-owned concern at that, will be getting exemption from taxation of its profits when another concern, an Irish-owned concern already established in this country, doing precisely similar work, will nevertheless be paying taxes. We know the Canadian company which will work in Avoca will have the advantage of the very considerable State expenditure already undertaken there. It is true that they will repay the total of that expenditure, without interest, out of profits over a period of time but they are getting for their enterprise at Avoca far more considerable help from the community here than any of the existing mining concerns got.
Would Deputy Lemass agree that amendment No. 7 was consequential on amendment No. 5?
No. It is an entirely different point.
They are entirely different points.
I want to make it clear that, for the purpose of this argument, I am not against the giving of the proposed tax concession to the Canadian company that will work in Avoca. If I myself had the task of framing the tax arrangements which would be fair to those who were undertaking that development and most likely to act as an incentive to other persons to undertake mining development in other areas I would have produced a somewhat different Bill from that which the Minister has introduced, but here is the Minister's Bill; it has been accepted by the Dáil on Second Reading. I am letting that position stand. I am not objecting in any way to the giving of the concessions which the Dáil has approved of to the Canadian company, but I do contend strongly that elementary justice requires that similar treatment should be given to the Irish-owned companies in the same business. That is the purpose of this amendment. So far as the Bill is concerned, these companies are being given a theoretical right to tax relief which is completely fictitious and which could only have been put in to irritate them.
As I understand the provisions here, each of these companies is deemed to be entitled to the eight years' relief that the Canadians at Avoca will get, four years free of all tax, four years with only 50 per cent. tax, but these eight years of tax concessions are deemed to have commenced, as far as each of them is concerned, on the day that they commenced operations so that any company that has been eight years in existence gets no relief at all; it is assumed to have already got the relief. A company that has been in existence for seven years will be entitled to one year at a rate of taxation of 50 per cent. A company that has been in operation for four years will be deemed to have already got four years' complete tax remission and to be entitled to four years of 50 per cent. remission.
So far as I know, there is only one company in this country that can qualify for any relief under this Bill, that is the company operating at Abbeytown in Sligo, which is itself entirely foreign-owned, as the House knows. If my recollection is correct— it may not be—the Silvermines Company commenced operations in 1948 and just misses to qualify by a hair's breadth. The Benbulben Barytes Company has been in operation for about ten years. Each of these concerns, therefore, fails to qualify by reason of that provision for any relief under this Bill. If I am wrong in that, if the Minister can indicate to me any Irish-owned mining enterprise that can get any relief from this Bill, I will accept his statement.
I think it is unjust, not merely to deprive them of the same relief as the foreign-owned companies are getting, but, by the provisions of this Bill, to proclaim to them how foolish they were to have gone into the development of Irish mineral resources in the past or not to have had some foreigner associated with them when they were doing it.
The result of the acceptance of my amendment would be to say to them: "We are starting a new arrangement now. For this year and for eight years to come, everybody doing mining in this country will be entitled to tax relief and all will get the same relief." That is a matter of common justice and I think the Government would be most unwise to insist on retaining the Bill unchanged in that respect. I do not know if any of the existing concerns are making a profit. So far as I can gather from their published statements, they are not. If that is so, then the Minister can do justice in this matter at no cost to the Exchequer and that must gladden any Fine Gael heart. He can give the relief without its costing anything. To put the provision in the Bill that these companies, which have been struggling through difficult times, losing money, many of them, occasionally making a profit and then being billed by the Revenue Commissioners, are presumed to have already enjoyed these tax concessions and can never under any circumstances qualify for them in future, is completely wrong and, as an incentive to Irish people to invest in Irish mining or other enterprises, it is completely negative.
No matter what efforts the Government may make to get in foreign capital, it is certain that Irish development in the future, as in the past, will, to the extent of 90 per cent. or more, depend on Irish enterprise and Irish resources. By putting in this Bill a provision which in fact provides for preferential treatment for outsiders is completely wrong. Even if it does cost the Exchequer anything, it is far better to proclaim: "We are prepared to give the same treatment to everybody without discrimination, to Irish-owned as to foreign companies" than that we should, by this elaborate procedure, hold up to these companies the picture of what they might have got but will not get and to make sure that in fact they can never benefit under this Bill.
I was wondering, when Deputy Lemass put down the amendment, how he would speak in support of it. From the somewhat offensive speech he has made, I can only assume that the whole purpose of the offence was to try to cover up his own guilty conscience because—the situation is clear beyond question—if the companies concerned are not getting any relief prior to 5th April, 1956, the reason for it is that Deputy Lemass and his colleagues, when they were in Government, did not see fit to give them this relief in their initial years. Deputy Lemass cannot get over that fact.
All these companies got considerable help in another form.
The only reason for the speech we have just heard is that Deputy Lemass knows that and was trying to cover it up with a flowery type of offence. What are the facts? The facts are that the existing companies in this country who are mining non-bedded deposits came to see me, having first of all sent me a memorandum of what they wanted. All they asked me for were the provisions I have given them here. When they came to me, I told them I would give them these provisions, and now I am giving them all they asked me for.
Obviously you fooled them. Am I not correct in saying that there is no Irish-owned mining company now acting in this country that can qualify for one penny relief under this Bill?
I dare not propose to discuss the tax situation of individual companies——
It is not a question of tax.
It is a question of the tax situation. The Deputy knows perfectly well that it is. The fact is that the companies concerned knew what they were asking for and what they asked for was the operation of the provisions of this Bill in the future, and not with retrospective effect.
They are not getting that.
They are getting it. They are being put exactly in the position in which they asked to be put. They realised presumably that it was not the fault of this Government, but of our predecessors that they were not put in that position earlier when they started.
I did not ask the Minister for any information about the tax position of these companies. I asked about the dates on which they started. I could have got that from the newspapers and from other reports available. There is no secret whatever about that. My recollection is that Silvermines started in 1948. There was a public issue in that year. I know for a fact that Benbulben Barytes started some years before that. If the Minister tells me that these people asked him for an arrangement under which they would get no benefits whatever and that they were satisfied with that he must think I am very naïve.
The practice of this House is that when a Deputy on either side states something within his own personal knowledge, that is accepted. I am telling the Deputy that the companies operating the mining of non-bedded deposits—Abbeytown, Silvermines and Glendalough—came to see me and asked me for the arrangement which I am now providing in this section. I have given them that arrangement.
I presume the Glendalough company would be entitled to some relief under the Bill. That company were operating for a number of years but only on the basis of processing spoil of previous workings. It is only within the past eight years that they have done actual mining operations and so would qualify under this Bill. To what extent they are now doing mining operations I do not know. Abbeytown would qualify for some relief, but they are a completely foreign-owned company. Silvermines started in 1948 and Benbulben Barytes are definitely not qualified under the Bill. Is there any argument against the giving of these facilities on a uniform basis over a uniform period of time to all concerns apart from the fact that the Exchequer may lose money—not much money because the profits are small? It is a wrong situation to allow to develop here that in two or three years' time when the origin of this legislation is forgotten and when the bargain made with the Canadians has receded into the past, on this discriminatory taxation basis, you will have some industrial firms paying the full tax, some paying half and some paying no taxation at all. If that is the situation the Minister is holding out as an incentive this Bill is worse than useless.
Would the Deputy like to have it withdrawn altogether?
I said I am in favour of giving tax incentives to production of this kind, but on an equitable basis.
I think the weight of evidence is clearly against the Deputy when the people concerned accepted this as equitable.
I do not know if they appreciate what they are accepting. I doubt it.
I think they know and that the Deputy well knows also.
I move amendment No. 8:—
In sub-section (2) before paragraph (b) to insert a new paragraph as follows:—
(b) in the event that mining operations ceased, prior to January 1st, 1956, for any period longer than three months, the commencement day shall be the day on which mining operations were resumed after such cessation.
Here we have a different proposition and this amendment I will press to a division, if necessary, but I hope such action will not be necessary. In at least two of the concerns I have mentioned, production ceased for a period. The companies began operations many years ago, lost money and ceased operating. They closed down. Market conditions improved again and they resumed operations. The purpose of this amendment is to provide that the commencement date for the purpose of qualifying for this concession will be the date on which they resumed operations, not the date on which they originally began. Silvermines were closed down for over a year and only got back into normal commercial production again when additional capital resources were made available to them by a trade loan. Benbulben Barytes were closed down for two years and only reopened in 1954 when the prospect of an export market opened up again. It would be wrong to penalise these people for having had to close down.
I do not understand the Deputy's reference to the 1st January, 1956.
That date was mentioned in the amendment in order to prevent any company from stopping now for a period in order to qualify.
Is that the Deputy's point?
I put in the 1st January there because I saw the possibility of mining operations, now active, being stopped and reopened as soon as the Bill was passed, so that they could qualify for these concessions.
My interpretation of what Deputy Lemass had in mind was something entirely different. It seemed to me that the wording of the amendment presupposed something entirely different from the purpose the Deputy has now explained.
I have explained the purpose I meant to serve by the amendment, and, if the Minister undertakes to consider it, I will not press the amendment.
I will have a look at it in the interval, because I did interpret it in a different fashion. But it does seem to me that the case Deputy Lemass has now made is open to the interpretation that one of the things I did not want to get was anything that would in any way urge or give any colour to a mining concern to stop production and resume later.
I would not object at all to the date being changed to January 1st, 1955. I know of my own knowledge that the two concerns I have in mind closed down because of a collapse in the market. It was a disaster for the companies and for their employees, and it was only after a great effort that they were able to resume their operations.
Silvermines only restarted after I had given them the trade loan guarantee.
After I had done all the work on the guarantee.
The Deputy did a great deal of work in lots of things that did not come to light until he left office.
The company knew during my time that they would get the guarantee.
The company did not. The chairman of the company came to me after I was appointed, clearly not knowing. That dog will not bark.
The dogs are in the next Bill.
The Deputy is not going to take the line that, since June, 1954, there was everything nice pigeonholed in his Department that is being trotted out——
Not everything; only the good things.
That is what I said, "the nice things". The plain fact of the matter is that that guarantee was not given, except in the form sanctioned by the Deputy when he was Minister.
I must have dreamt it. Let me tell you that they made their application for a trade loan guarantee about 1952 and that was considered for a considerable period in 1953 and was turned down by the advisory committee——
Exactly.
——and I refused to accept that decision of the advisory committee—at least I accepted it in the sense that on the arguments set out, the company's proposals were not such as would justify the committee in recommending the guarantee, but instead of merely writing to the company and saying they were turned down I put in a good deal of work on getting the proposition knocked into a shape that the advisory committee would accept and I told the company so. If there was any delay in completing the debenture deeds and other documents involved that was because of the slowness of these proceedings. But do not tell me I did not put a lot of work and time into getting that application into a shape that the advisory committee was prepared to recommend, because I did. The record is there.
I am not taking any credit away from the Deputy as regards the amount of work he did; I am telling the Deputy that the decision was not taken until after he had left office.
Or rather, say that the decision was taken again after I had left office. The point is that the company had ceased to operate and it had to be revived. The process of reviving it was a different one and it involved the introduction of new capital by means of State guarantee and I think that for the purposes of this Tax Bill the company should have been deemed to have commenced operations at the time when the process of reviving was completed and the company set up again. Precisely the same thing happened in the case of Benbulben where the resumption after stoppage began in 1954, if my recollection is correct. I again urge that the date of commencement of operation should be the date of resumption of operation. Since the cases I have mentioned are all after the date they are now——
No, they are not and all three I mentioned get some benefit.
Not Benbulben?
I did not mention Benbulben.
Abbeytown is a more recent development.
The three I mentioned come in for some benefit under the Bill.
It was my recollection that Silvermines began in 1948, in which case they would be out. I think the company was formed and there was a public issue of shares in 1948 but they may not have been in production as defined in the Bill for some time afterwards. In justice, apart from the position of individuals—and the trouble with a Bill of this kind is that we know there are only three or four individuals involved in it—I suggest we should have regard to the fact that certain companies went out of production and we should deem the dates of revival as the dates of commencement of operation.
I would also ask the Minister to have another look at that section, because there is quite a lot in what Deputy Lemass says, and I am sure it was never the intention of the Minister to exclude those companies which were temporarily out. If the Minister says they are covered by the present Bill, there is no harm in giving an assurance. If they are not included, or if he is not quite sure that they are included, then I think he should have another look at this section to make it watertight, so that these and any other companies similarly affected will be covered.
If the Minister says he will look into the matter again, I will withdraw the amendment.
I will consider it.
