As the Minister for Finance is indisposed, I am moving the Vote on Account on his behalf. I move:
That a sum not exceeding £55,370,000 be granted on account for or towards defraying the Charges that will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1964, for certain public services namely:—
£ |
|
1 President's Establishment |
4,000 |
2 Houses of the Oireachtas |
123,150 |
3 Department of the Taoiseach |
12,000 |
4 Central Statistics Office |
64,500 |
5 Comptroller and Auditor General |
16,000 |
6 Office of the Minister for Finance |
181,500 |
7 Office of the Revenue Commis- sioners |
934,950 |
8 Office of Public Works |
270,000 |
9 Public Works and Buildings |
2,200,000 |
10 Employment and Emergency Schemes |
278,000 |
11 State Laboratory |
11,100 |
12 Civil Service Commission |
23,600 |
13 An Chomhairle Ealaíon |
10,000 |
14 Superannuation and Retired Allowances |
488,950 |
15 Secret Service |
2,500 |
16 Expenses under the Electoral Act and the Juries Act |
1,500 |
17 Agricultural Grants |
2,210,000 |
18 Law Charges |
62,000 |
19 Miscellaneous Expenses |
7,000 |
20 Stationery Office |
280,000 |
21 Valuation and Ordnance Survey |
87,000 |
22 Rates on Government Property |
25,000 |
23 Office of the Minister for Justice |
57,400 |
24 Garda Síochána |
2,201,700 |
25 Prisons |
105,600 |
26 Courts of Justice |
131,500 |
27 Land Registry and Registry of Deeds |
50,500 |
28 Charitable Donations and Bequests |
2,700 |
29 Local Government |
2,403,000 |
30 Office of the Minister for Education |
300,000 |
31 Primary Education |
4,400,000 |
32 Secondary Education |
875,000 |
33 Vocational Education |
1,000,000 |
34 Reformatory and Industrial Schools |
105,000 |
35 Universities and Colleges and Dublin Institute for Ad- vanced Studies |
1,185,000 |
36 National Gallery |
5,250 |
37 Lands |
1,121,400 |
38 Forestry |
1,027,000 |
39 Fisheries |
152,900 |
40 Roinn na Gaeltachta |
150,000 |
41 Agriculture |
8,000,000 |
42 Industry and Commerce |
1,494,000 |
43 Transport and Power |
1,740,000 |
44 Posts and Telegraphs |
4,921,000 |
45 Defence |
3,169,500 |
46 Army Pensions |
729,100 |
47 External Affairs |
198,000 |
48 International Co-operation |
100,000 |
49 Office of the Minister for Social Welfare |
179,000 |
50 Social Insurance |
2,673,000 |
51 Social Assistance |
6,709,000 |
52 Health |
2,870,000 |
53 Central Mental Hospital |
20,700 |
TOTAL |
£55,370,000 |
'' |
With the Vote on Account, we commence the financial business for the year 1963-64 which will end in the normal course with the enactment of the Appropriation Act in July next following consideration by the Dáil of the individual Supply Services Estimates. Meantime it is necessary to provide funds by way of this Vote on Account for Supply Services expenditure during the first four months of 1963-64. The Vote now required amounts to £55.37 million or approximately one-third of the total figure of £167.04 million shown on the face of the Volume of Estimates.
The total Supply Services expenditure proposed for 1963-64 is £18.67 million greater than the figure of £148.37 million provided for in the Estimates Volume for the current year. Of this increase £16.87 million relates to non-capital and £1.80 million to capital items. If, however, we take into the reckoning Supplementary Estimates passed or introduced this year the increase over the current year is reduced from £18.7 million to £5½ million. In other words, the greater part of the increase shown in the Book of Estimates for next year has already occurred during the year now ending.
Apart from the details given in the Book itself, Deputies have been supplied with a summary of the principal increases and decreases. In the circumstances, I propose to relate my remarks to the main causes of the increase of £18.7 million as compared with the original Estimates for 1962-63.
Almost half of the increase is accounted for by State aid to agriculture the total provision for which is £36.6 million. The increase of £8.1 million over the original provision for 1962-63 is equivalent to the total additional amount provided for agriculture by way of Supplementary Estimates for the current year, the last of which is at present before the House. Among the chief items in these supplementaries were the bacon and dairy produce subsidies and wheat losses. Further heavy outlay on bacon and butter subsidies is expected in 1963-64 because of the continued difficult marketing conditions for these products. The expenditure on disposal of unmillable wheat follows from the Government decision last autumn to assist farmers to cover the losses incurred as a result of the bad wheat harvest of 1962. The bulk of the payments fall to be made this year but about £½ million will have to be paid in 1963-64. Experience shows how difficult it is to estimate accurately the amount required for agricultural subsidies but next year's provision is considered to be adequate, seeing that it is equal to the total of the original and supplementary provisions for 1962-63. Altogether the amount provided for dairy produce and bacon in the coming year over and above the original provision in 1962-63 is £3.8 million.
State expenditure in the agricultural sector is aimed at increasing efficiency, reducing costs, and sustaining production and exports, so as to help in achieving a better balance between the incomes of farmers and other producers. Apart from the subsidies already mentioned there have been increases in State aid in the form of rates relief, fertiliser subsidies, grants towards farm buildings, arterial drainage and improvement schemes. These latter account for more than £3½ million of the increase on the original provision for 1962-63. £2½ million of this is due to the increase in the Agricultural Grant in last year's Budget which necessitated one of the Supplementary Estimates to which I referred earlier.
About £12½ million, or one-third of the total provision for agriculture for next year, relates to capital investment. Some £5½ million of this total represents the net expenditure on the Bovine TB Eradication Scheme. The provision here is much the same as that for 1962-63. The scheme has been virtually completed in 20 counties. Only five counties in Munster and one in Leinster remain to be dealt with but these counties, of course, contain about 40 per cent. of the total cattle population of the country. Compulsory measures are now in operation in these counties and the Government expects that, with the intensification of efforts to clear the disease from the herds there, the Eradication Scheme will be completed within a few years.
Four other items account for £7.1 millions or nearly all of the balance of the increase in the 1963-64 Estimates. The increases in these items are:
£millions |
|
Social Services (including Health) |
3.3 |
Education |
1.6 |
Promotion of Industry |
1.3 |
Public Service Pensions |
0.9 |
The rise in expenditure on the Social Services brings outlay under this heading to £40 million. This figure includes the full-year cost of the increases announced in the Budget last year which, as regards this year, are provided for in the Supplementary Estimates for Social Insurance and Social Assistance circulated to-day.
The rise in outlay on education is partly due to increase in teachers' salaries which will cost about £½ million more in 1963-64. A Supplementary Estimate for £360,000 has been introduced to cover the cost of the secondary teachers' award in the current year. A further constituent of the rise is the improvement in grants to vocational education committees. On the capital side, the erection of the new UCD Science Block at Belfield involves additional expenditure of almost £500,000.
More than £4½ million will be devoted to promotion of industry in 1963-64, an increase of approximately 25 per cent. on the original provision for the current year. I would, however, remind Deputies that most of the expenditure which might be classified as aids to industry is provided by way of advances from the Central Fund and, accordingly, falls outside the scope of the Supply Services Estimates. So far as the Supply Services are concerned, almost £1 million of the increase of £1,300,000 relates to capital items and is attributable entirely to industrial grants. An important new item among these is the £¼ million in respect of re-equipment grants resulting from a recommendation by the Committee on Industrial Organisation. Most of the rise in non-capital expenditure on industry refers to expenses to be incurred in connection with the proposed Irish participation in the New York World's Fair, 1964-65.
In the case of Public Service pensioners, the extra provision in 1963-64 is partly due to the increases announced in the 1962 Budget which came into operation from August last. When the current year's provision is adjusted to take account of the relevant Supplementary Estimate, the total increase in the 1963-64 Estimate is reduced to less than £½ million. This figure reflects the full-year costs of the 1962 increases together with the normal growth in pension costs.
This leaves increases of about £3½ million to be accounted for. These can be traced to a variety of smaller items the most significant of which is a rise of £0.7m. in Defence expenditure of which £¼ million is for clothing and equipment and £273,000 for the purchase of helicopters.
Some £400,000 more will be spent next year on Tourism of which slightly less than half will be capital expenditure devoted to the development of resorts and of holiday accommodation. The service of debt chargeable against the Supply Services is expected to show a rise of £400,000, most of which refers to telephone capital repayments. The growth in the revenue from telephones, however, shows this investment to be financially sound.
The estimated total cost to the Exchequer of the remuneration of State and local authority employees in 1963-64 is expected to be £53½ million. When speaking on the Vote on Account last year, I referred to this subject and said that, if remuneration attributable to current services were extracted as a separate item, it would account for £51½ million. The corresponding figure for the coming year shows, therefore, an increase of £2 million. £800,000 of this is for the Civil Service, including industrial staffs, and is nearly all attributable to miscellaneous pay increases in the "eighth round" category and to additional numbers employed. About £½ million is in respect of the secondary teachers' pay award which I have already mentioned.
As I said last year, the size of the remuneration element alone in the bill for the Supply Services clearly poses a major problem in attempting to check the expansion of public expenditure and furnishes of itself strong ground for not wishing to see incomes rise faster than this can be afforded without price or tax increases.
What I have said will, I hope, serve to indicate the main factors contributing to the expected rise in Supply Services expenditure next year. Deputies will, of course, have an opportunity of discussing individual Estimates in detail when these come before the House during the months ahead.
I may say that, faced with such a large increase in public expenditure, special attention was devoted this year by the Government to the Estimates submitted by the various Departments. They were very rigorously examined and many desirable improvements in the public services had either to be postponed or conceded only in part. In a growing economy, where the State itself is an important generator of development, it may be necessary for public outlay of a productive kind— both direct and indirect—to rise for a time faster than current national output in order that national productive capacity may be raised. This process must, however, be carefully watched to see that the favourable results expected are in fact realised and that economic growth is not hindered more by rising tax rates than it is helped by State expenditure. Not all proposals for additional current expenditure are equally efficient in raising national production and a choice has to be made, the test being all the more severe if current expenditure is already outrunning current revenue. The pruning process this year was, therefore, a harsh one and I doubt if Deputies will be able to suggest any really worthwhile cuts which should still be made. Indeed, at the very least, I hope that there will not be pressure to add to State expenditure on behalf of any particular interest.
It is not appropriate on the Vote on Account to discuss the budgetary outlook—all the necessary data will not be available until Budget Day— but this will obviously be a particularly difficult year. The House may be assured that every effort will be made to reach an equitable solution of the budgetary problem and one which will promote continued national development.
I ask the Dáil to agree to the Vote on Account.