I do not propose to raise any point in relation to the Resolution itself, but this is a general Resolution for the whole Bill so it is relevant to discuss the size of the bill which we will be asked to consider. The effect is to raise taxation for the purpose of meeting a bill, excluding the Road Fund payments, of £130 million. If one takes in the Road Fund payments as well, the total bill is over £136 million.
I seem to remember Deputies on the other side of the House saying not so very long ago that under no circumstances whatever must the amount that must be expended from public moneys be allowed to increase. Look at the figures. At that time the amount that was being paid out, and which can now be compared with £130 million, was £114½ million. This Bill represents £15½ million more of broken promises that we are now facing. When one considers the size of the bill that the Minister for Finance is introducing here now, it is not surprising that he adverted purely to the last two particular instances of the Money Resolutions rather than to the General Resolution and its purposes. It seems to me that the hope is that if one slides quickly over the amount that is involved people will not understand and will not appreciate how much is being extracted from them.
It does not require very great calculation to work out what £130,000,000 is per head for 3,000,000 people. To put it another way, in 1956-57, the amount that was expended on Central Fund Services was £17,351,000 and on non-capital supply services £97,220,000, which makes a total of £114,571,000. In the current year the Minister after deducting Road Fund payments and the allowance that he has made for arrears of estimation is looking for £130,633,000. That is £16,000,000—I said £15,500,000 but it is actually £16,000,000—more that he is looking for in this year to meet the cost of the various services. The costs of those services have gone up by £16,000,00.
Let me say at once in case the Minister might think that I was playing on any factor about levies and capital purposes that I deliberately did not take receipts; I took expenditure. An expenditure of £16,000,000 more this year for 3,000,000 people is something over £5 a head, man, woman and child, more that the people are having collected out of their pockets for the privilege of having a Fianna Fáil Government in these three years. That is bad enough but when one considers it against the background of the speeches that were made in 1956 and the early part of 1957 and remembers that we have had nothing from any Minister since apologising for the manner in which they misled the people at that time, it makes it far worse.
I should like to know from the Minister today whether the taxpayers can expect any possibility of the total bill doing anything other than rise year after year. It has risen steadily and it has now got to the point where it is at £130,000,00 for a small country of 3,000,000 people. Where is it going to end? When are we going to reach the situation that we will be able to look hopefully? Everybody knows it is not merely the general taxpayer's burden that is increasing year after year here but that local authorities are finding exactly the same thing, that local authority rates are going up. When one is considering the burden of taxation it is appropriate to consider not merely the burden of Central Government taxation but the burden of local government taxation. Local government taxation has gone up by almost £1 per head in the last three years. It means that there is an increase in total taxation of £6 a head in three years. I do not think that is something with which any Minister should be satisfied.
