Dáil Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 27 Apr 1960

Vol. 181 No. 2

Resolution No. 4—Excise. - Entertainments Duty—Cinematographic Exhibitions.

Dr. Ryan

I move:—

(1) That section 17 of the Finance Act, 1958 (No. 25 of 1958), shall be amended, with effect as on and from the 1st day of May, 1960, by the addition thereto of the following subsections:

"(3) Where an entertainment consists of two or more displays which would be displays of the same programme in its entirety but for the fact that one or more of the displays comprises part only of the programme in its entirety, each displays comprises part only of the programme in its entirety, each display shall for the purposes of this section but for no other purpose be deemed to be a separate entertainment provided that each display fulfils, taken by itself, the conditions of paragraph (b) of subsection (2) of section 6 of the Finance Act, 1953.

(4) Nothing in the foregoing subsections of this section applies in respect of any entertainment which consists wholly of moving pictures produced by means of a cinematograph film having a continuous sound track from which is produced speech in a language other than the official languages of the State."

(2) It is hereby declared that it is expedient in the public interest that this Resolution shall have statutory effect under the provisions of the Provisional Collection of Taxes Act, 1927 (No. 7 of 1927).

Mr. Sweetman

Could the Minister explain this?

Dr. Ryan

It is rather involved. First of all, the relief was given for those cinema people who introduce an educational feature in the Irish language or a foreign language. I think it was a half in the case of Irish and one-third in other cases. As explained here in 1958, advantage was taken of that. In some cinemas, where there was only one showing in the evening, they got some old picture in Irish or French and put it one and, therefore, got a relief. It was to stop that that we introduced the rule in 1958 that there must be a two and a half hour showing. It must have the content of education to get relief. That has caused a bit of difficulty for genuine cinema holders because it was so rigid. This is to give them a little bit of room to manoeuvre. It is not important from a revenue point of view.

Resolution put and agreed to.